Last month, our world was shaken to its core, when commercial airliners hijacked by suicidal "holy warriors" slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, extinguishing the lives of thousands of human beings, their deaths witnessed live by stunned millions.

The tragedy was unprecedented in many ways; and the emotional shock still reverberates across America, affecting or altering nearly every aspect of civic life and culture. In the wake of the most deadly act of violence within our borders since the Civil War, Americans are faced with the question of why our nation is so hated that determined young men have willingly sacrificed themselves to inflict indiscriminate death and destruction here.

The immediate reaction of most Americans to rally ‘round the flag is understandable, given the epic scale of this act of terrorism, the large numbers of people affected, and the depth of the wound to the national psyche. The targets were highly visible symbols of American commerce and might.

But as this undeclared "war on terrorism" goes forward, there should also be a continuing national dialogue exploring why terrorism is being aimed at American citizens and property. What is the connection to American foreign policy, and to American economic and military strategy?

This is a dialogue to which environmentalists can make a valuable contribution.

With evidence pointing to Islamic fundamentalists as the terrorists of September 11, and the US government fingering the now-familiar Saudi Arabian villain Osama bin Laden as the "mastermind" behind the scenes, we know that, however twisted the motivation of the perpetrators, their action was in their minds retaliation for American policy in the Middle East.

For almost a century, that policy has had as its central aim the protection of a vital strategic resource which also happens to be one of the leading causes of environmental pollution and of global climate change -- oil. As we seek solutions to the political problems that have given rise to terrorism in our "homeland," we cannot overlook industrial society’s appetite for fossil fuel energy as a factor in this geopolitical equation.

The degree to which American foreign policy objectives were deliberately targeted by this attack is remarkable. A 1955 book, "A History of United States Foreign Policy," puts a benign Cold War spin on America’s "three objectives" in the Middle East:

"1) to compose the disputes within the area, notably the dispute between Israel and its neighbors...;

2) to raise standards of living through assistance in developing the region’s unused natural resources;

3) to strengthen the area’s military potential and to secure bases from which the United States and its NATO allies could operate."

A recent article in the New Yorker refers to a "declaration" issued three years ago by bin Laden’s World Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and the Crusaders. The "text fulminated against the United States for its ‘occupation’ of the holy land of Arabia, its ‘aggression’ against Iraq, and its support of ‘the petty state of the Jews.’ " Considering that the troubled US relationship with Iraq is directly related to "developing the region’s unused natural resources," there is an exact one-to-one correspondence between bin Laden’s stated aims and America’s historic policy.

The sharp focus the September 11 attack has brought onto American Middle East policy should raise important questions in the public mind --- particularly in light of the changes in international politics in the post-Cold War period, and of the advancement in scientific knowledge regarding the apocalyptic consequences of fossil fuel use. It is entirely legitimate for citizens to ask at this time whether oil should remain as the centerpiece of American strategy.

However, there is reason to doubt that this question will get a fair hearing. War fever has put a damper on dissent, with journalists already being fired or publicly excoriated for straying too far from the patriotic line. There is also the longer-term systemic problem of television networks having direct financial links to major oil companies: ABC with Texaco/Chevron, NBC with British Petroleum/Shell, and CNN with ExxonMobil. Is it any wonder that an oil-friendly administration was getting kid-glove treatment from the media, even before the cause of national "unity" made criticism of the commander-in-chief a punishable offense?

It is precisely because dissident views are being discouraged at this uncertain time that the environmental agenda becomes such an important contribution, and takes on added dimension. The plain fact is, environmentalists were criticizing the Bush/Cheney energy policy long before September, and the critiques we were making then are even more valid today.

Certainly, the advocates of that policy are using the attacks as an excuse to override earlier objections to various policy components -- notably, to push for oil drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. (At this writing, Senate Republicans are trying to attach the Bush energy plan, including the ANWR provision, to the emergency military spending bill.)

Before September, environmentalists were also drawing connections between the use of petroleum as a major energy source and the hidden costs that kept the price of that energy artificially low. These include government subsidies to the oil, highway and transportation industries; the direct costs of cleaning up after environmental pollution; the cost of health care to treat the widespread sickness that results from pollution; damages to life and property from extreme weather events related to global climate change; and the list goes on.

But certain parts of that long list now take on additional meaning, especially when you factor in the estimated $40 billion and thousands of innocent lives that were lost in what the president rightly termed this "attack on our way of life." The cheap gas that fuels this "way of life" also comes from widespread poverty and suffering among the populations of the Middle East, and from human rights abuses by the autocrats and oligarchs who control these countries under US protection, and from massive American military budgets and Machiavellian realpolitik, and from what is now, in more ways than one, an uncertain planetary future.

Now, more than ever, we have both the right and the responsibility to ask: are we trading blood for oil?