Oil Production

The headline, “OPEC Ministers Have Second Thoughts About Boosting Output,” (June 26) should certainly dispel the myth that the Iran-Iraq war is being fought for the love of Allah. It clearly shows that the war is being fought for the love of money. And the power that goes with it.

While the combatants kill by day, they confer by night, in their joint OPEC meetings to plan the price and production to best hold the West hostage to their “oil weapon.” A weapon so gratuitously given to them by the environmentalists that stopped our domestic oil production to save birds, views and caribous.

Do these environmentalists feel any responsibility for the deaths of the 37 young Americans and the maiming of the 20 others while protecting the Arab oil shipping lanes so vital to the survival of the West? Is death in the seas of Arabia a better environment for our sons than the sight of an oil rig off their coasts?

But we cannot abandon those seas. Not with the Soviets poised to take them over and capture the oil weapon. But we can defuse the weapon by opening up our Outer Continental Shelf, our Alaskan Wilderness area and the rich oil beds surrounding our Alaskan Islands in the Chukchi Sea to oil exploration and production. It will take time because we have delayed so long. But it will be a start in saving our children’s future.

GOLDIE JOSEPH

Newport Beach