Do You Know The Way to Sao Tome?
The New Yorker has an amazing story in a recent edition about the tiny West African island nation of Sao Tome & Principe, which sits atop potentially huge oil reserves, and how that nation loves America and is discussing with the United States the possibility of the U.S. establishing some sort of military presence there to protect Sao Tome as it develops its oil industry. The tiny nation could help the United States move a long way toward independence from Middle Eastern oil. Currently, only one of the five top foriegn suppliers of oil to the U.S. is a Middle Eastern country. Canada is the leading supplier, followed by Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Mexico and Nigeria.

Given Saudi Arabia's spreading of Wahabism, the fanatical brand of Islam that breeds terrorist killers, replacing them with oil from Sao Tome could go a long way to de-funding the Islamikazes.

Unfortunately, the New Yorker story is not available online. I recommend you get the dead-tree version at your local bookstore or library - it's the cover story. Well worth reading.

Here's an August 23 Reuters story about Sao Tome that says the United States has been in contact with Sao Tome's president "to discuss military ties with the tiny islands that lie near Africa's increasinly important oil region."

Says Reuters: The U.S. desire for secure energy sources outside the Middle East has been intensified since the Sept. 11 attacks. Nigeria ranks as the fifth biggest crude exporter to the United States and Angola comes not far behind. Both countries have big plans to expand output, while other prospectors are hunting for oil throughout the region.

American money plus African oil may benefit both of us - providing money and jobs the impoverished continent desperately needs while extricating the U.S. from its need to be friendly with intrinsically hostile Arab regimes like the one in Saudi Arabia.