Friday, April 6, 2007

Get your "Terror-free" oil!


Get your "Terror-free" oil!

"Stop financing terrorism, Join Terror-Free Energy coalition" This is the idea that a new American fuel company, Terror-Free Oil, tries to convince the American citizens with. The objective of this company is "to encourage Americans to buy gasoline that originates from countries that do not export or finance terrorism". It does so by stating that the company acquires its crude oil supply from countries outside the Middle East. To add, the company declared that 1 % of its revenues will be donated to a counter-terrorism organization. Actually, when you log into the company's site www.terrorfreeoil.com ,or http://www.terrorfreeoil.blogspot.com, you will analyze the company's hostile attitude towards the Middle East. For example, in the left side of the page you will find certain offensive statements such as "We stand with Israel" "Support Denmark" "Saudi Arabia is not our friends". Also in the home page there is a video interview with Joe Kauffman, Terror-free oil initiator, who is know for his allegiance to Israel and his resistant stand against Arabs and Muslims as he said to the MSNBC channel that his campaign is achieving success between normal Americans who don’t want their money to go the Gulf countries. Many American citizens drive their cars 20 miles in order not to pay their money for oil that comes from Muslim countries, Kauffman added. "We believe that we are financing our own demise by purchasing crude oil from the Middle East," Kaufman said. "We'd like to avert another 9/11 if possible".
Terror-Free company is also trying to introduce a healthy debate concerning alternate methods of fuel production and consumption such as using Ethanol. This issue is directly related to the goal of Bush's visit to Brazil in 8th of this month which is to circulate the production of Ethanol extracted from the agricultural production in order to use it instead of the crude oil. Moreover, Financial Times newspaper proclaimed that the White House seeks to get rid of "relying on the Middle East's oil" especially after the soaring of its price in the recent years. Furthermore, Bush met Louis De Selva, the Brazilian President, to discuss certain aspects about organizing a foundation for the Ethanol-exporting countries such as Brazil, China, and India identical to the "OPEC".


The first "TFO" gas station opened in Nebraska, west Omaha in 12th Feb with signs in its buildings refers to boycotting the Middle East oil. Now, the question is will citizens exert an effort and waste their time to go there? Mary Buscher, American citizen, said the station got her attention, with its bright red, white and blue advertising, but she isn't sure when or if she'll stop there. "I wouldn't go out of my way to go there, probably. No, I wouldn't," she said. Chris Decker, economic professor in the University of Nebraska-Omaha, said the idea may make for good marketing. "From a business perspective, it's kind of a neat way to differentiate yourself from the competition. To me, that sounds an awful lot like what we in environmental economics refer to as eco-labeling. Like, when you purchase a can of tuna with a symbol that there was no harm to dolphins to catch the tuna," Decker said.
Finally, when an article was written in "Al-Arbiya" T.V website about the TFO, a lot of browsers commented by pointing to the idea that if the company succeeded in its objective, we will gain our independence in using our oil and we will rely in ourselves in transforming crude oil into a useful oil; consequently, we will be able to develop our industry.