CNN, I shake my fist at you

I just watched a CNN story called "Oil and Terrorism" that pissed me off so much I had to go float in a tank. Apparently, The Terrorists are the sole force behind the skyrocketing prices--by attacking oil pipelines. Cross-cut images of burning oil fields, angry brown men, and ominously upticking gas price meters and you have what passes for a CNN investigative report.

Sure, terrorists attack oil pipelines. But perhaps it's slightly disingenuous to report on this without examining, maybe, I don't know, why terrorists attack pipelines? The piece managed to suggest that terrorists in Nigeria and the Middle East have basically the same reasons for disrupting the flow of oil without asking why it is that oil-rich nations in the Third World have proved such fertile ground for violent guerilla groups. Oh, and note to CNN: it undercuts your credibility to present this kind of studied ignorance ("What could possibly be the connection between oil and terrorism?") when your lead expert analyst is Stephen Leeb, the guy who wrote the book on profiting from oil instability.

Plus, bonus points for working in my two favorite oil memes: "foreign oil" and "our way of life."

Foreign oil as in "when we say the only solution is to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil, that reassures people that the problem lies not in our consumption habits, but rather in our reliance on some other damn country."

And our way of life as in "when we say this threatens our way of life, that will make people think of the Declaration of Independence, the First Amendment, apple pie, and Mom--not of SUV's, conspicuous consumption, NASCAR, and the all-hallowed place of the car in American culture."

Nice job!

The October Protocol is the connection between Oil and Terrorism.