Have you noticed that our symbol of patriotism and national unity -- the hero fireman and cop -- has been replaced as by a gas-guzzling SUV covered with American flags? Anyone who spent any time on American highways or in mall parking lots (hey, can you tell how I spent MY Thanksgiving holiday?) knows that the most pervasive image of national pride nowadays is the sport utility vehicle with the stars and strips waving from the antenna. But the heat is on these gas-guzzlers. Suddenly, our nation's dependence on oil from the Islamic nations of the Persian Gulf is increasingly being linked to the anti-American rage that foments terrorism from that region. If it wasn't for oil, would we prop up unstable monarchies and emirates (Saudi Arabia and Kuwait)? Wouldn't we just ignore them the way we ignore non-oil-producing backwaters (Africa)? I spent a few hours the other day talking to SUV drivers about whether they shared this growing concern that their trucks are forcing us to actively engage in an unstable, anti-American region of the world. In short, they don't. "That kind of thing doesn't concern me," said Jerry O'Brien, a Jeep Grand Cherokee driver, whose truck gets only 16 miles a gallon. Ed Ferington, whose guzzler of choice is a Ford Explorer, first made the outlandish claim that his truck gets 20 miles per gallon (which would be quite a trick, considering that Ford lists the mileage as 17) and then tried to tell me that we're "not nearly as dependent on foreign oil as we were in the past." The truth says otherwise. According to the EPA's own statistics, half of all our oil comes from foreign sources, an all-time high, up from 35 percent during the gas "crisis" of the 1970s. Yet at this historic crossroads, a president who has done such a great job rallying the country against a foreign enemy, has ignore our domestic villain. Thanks to SUVs -- which now account for 25 percent of new vehicle sales -- America's energy efficiency is at its worst in 20 years. We have but 5 percent of the world's population -- and only 3 percent of its oil reserves -- yet we consume 25 percent of the world's oil. But the president, an oil man, opposes legislation to raise the auto makers' corporate average fuel efficiency (CAFE) numbers. Raising the CAFE standards just one mile per gallon would save twice the amount of oil that the U.S. Geological Survey believes is under the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that is the centerpiece of the president's energy plan. When President Carter implemented the first CAFE standards, our dependence on Persian Gulf oil dropped by 87 percent. And when President Reagan rolled them back in 1986, our oil imports from the Middle East doubled. "If the United States had continued to conserve oil at the rate it did from 1976 to 1985, it would no longer have needed Persian Gulf oil after 1985," environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said recently. The funny thing is, we already have a national model for frugality in the national interest: New York City. A report issued earlier this month by the Sierra Club showed that New York City produces far less pollution -- and uses far less fuel -- per person than any big city in the country. The reason? We don't drive. So we're saving energy by patriotically cramming into subways and buses while the rest of the country wastes it, thanks to its addiction to SUVs. So never mind that you can't see around them on the road or that they emit far more greenhouse gases, the bottom line is that these behemoths create a dependency for foreign oil that is a threat to national security. In fact, they're UNpatriotic -- no matter how many flags you cover them with. --30-- email: gershny@yahoo.com