The hazards of a gas-guzzling military

Today, the Taliban set 22 NATO fuel tankers ablaze in the southern Pakistani border city of Quetta. That’s a day after a fuel tanker was blown up at Torkham, the border post leading into Afghanistan. On Monday, the Taliban set 20 NATO oil tankers afire in Rawalpindi, outside the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

In all, the Taliban’s oil war has gone on for a week straight. This is a page straight out of the histories of the two world wars, in which access to — and the absence of — oil was the deciding factor in both making and breaking enemies.

Until now, the attacks have been explained as the Taliban capitalizing on a standoff between the United States and Pakistan over Pakistani casualties in drone attacks, to which Pakistan has responded by closing the border at Torkham, and leaving the fuel trucks exposed. But that doesn’t explain today’s attack in Quetta.

In fact, as the U.S. military has clearly documented, long  fuel convoys have been among the main sources of American casualties in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The Taliban are Exhibit No. 1 as to why the military is working to untether itself from fossil fuels.