When resource extraction takes placed in developing countries, whose people use little of those resources themselves but instead export their

When resource extraction takes placed in developing countries, whose people use little of those resources themselves but instead export their resources to more developed countries like the United States where the demand for resources is too great to be filled by domestic production, it violates the environmental justice principle of commiserate benefits and burdens. That is to say, those people who benefit from the use of resources (in the case of oil, as cheap motor fuels) should also bear the burdens of resource extraction.

Nigeria is an example of this injustice. Nigeria is an oil rich but economically poor country. Consequently there is little demand for oil in Nigeria, and as recently as 2009 Nigeria was a major oil exporter to the United States, supplying 7 % of US oil imports. However, oil production has quite literally "fueled" conflict there as well, in addition to fueling cars in developed countries like the United States: 

http://www.globalissues.org/article/86/nigeria-and-oil (Links to an external site.)

Links to an external site.

Also read the question and answer session with a Shell Oil official who provides his company's perspective on the situation in Nigeria (the PDF is posted in this week's module). 

As the security situation in Nigeria has deteriorated over the last five years, Nigerian oil exports to the United States have decreased (Nigeria now supplies less than 3% of US oil imports) and the Nigerian government has lost control of large areas of the country which are now effectively controlled by terrorists seeking to impose their view of religion on the country, much like the Taliban in Afghanistan. The terrorists made headlines in May 2014 when they kidnapped 200 girls from a boarding school to prevent them from gaining an education. 

To what extent do you think terrorism is rooted in issues of resource exploitation? Would eliminating U.S. dependence on foreign oil help to win the war on terrorism? Why or why not?