PURE COINCIDENCE, powerful symbolism: The day the Deepwater Horizon plunged into the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. Navy tested an F/A-18 Hornet fighter powered by bio-fuel. What's this? America's armed forces turning into tree-hugging eco-weenies? Not exactly. This flight wasn't about saving the planet. It was about America's national security. Navy secretary Ray Mabus says America relies too much on fossil fuels, and that from the military's standpoint it makes strategic and tactical sense to reduce this dependence. "We would not allow [other] countries to build our ships or our aircraft, yet we are willing to give them a say on whether those ships or aircraft operate because we buy fuel from them," he said last year. He also noted that, for every 24fuel convoys in Afghanistan,"we lose a Marine or a soldier guarding that convoy."
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