Some of the country’s top military brass joined the call to end America’s dangerous dependence on foreign oil. Speaking on Friday in Aspen at the eighth annual American Renewable Energy Day conference, Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn and retired General Wesley Clark joined legendary energy entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens in a luncheon panel at the Hotel Jerome.
All three agreed that America’s multi-billion-dollar addiction to oil from the Middle East is much more than a massive outflow of dollars from our own economy. Those expenditures ultimately end up funding both sides of the War on Terrorism.
“We are paying too high a price — economically and with lives — trying to defend the lifeline to the world economy: foreign oil,” said Vice Admiral McGinn.
General Clark, a West Point graduated who served as the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe from 1997 to 2000, was equally blunt, saying, “In terms of policy, we are writing our own obituary. If we don’t fix it, we are going down.”
Like Pickens Plan founder T. Boone Pickens, both McGinn and Clark decry the lack of leadership on a national level in Washington. Both veterans believe that ending America’s dependence on imported energy is essential to our country’s future.
“My passion is to help America become independent of imports of foreign oil,” said General Wesley Clark.
As Boone Pickens has stated repeatedly since he launched his namesake Pickens Plan in July 2008, no one in Washington has put in place the simple steps required to take action to end this addiction.
“I cannot even believe that in the last 40 years no one has had plan. It is insane. We need a plan,” said Boone Pickens.
Read the entire story from The Aspen Times HERE.