Re: Even the treasure they were born on top of (oil) has not been enough to build a sustainable economic model
Warning - late night not really serious rant follows:
It may be that future proceeds from oil sales sourced in the persian gulf will be needed to fund the NATO anti-terrorist program. Too bad for Libya, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, etc. but they just haven't been adequate stewards for that resource.
Seizing the funding stream that is middle eastern oil sales and using that money to keep US, British, French, Russian, and other troops stationed in the theatre (500,000 to 1 million troops - indefinitely) won't eliminate terrorism. But it isn't eliminated now. Such an action would certainly reduce terrorism. A sort of reverse Iron Curtain, to keep the bad guys in.
Let's face it, the nuts who did this are already dead. From our perspective, these people are sick and "punishing" them is pretty much impossible. They claim material things don't matter and they'd rather die than put up with western culture - and some have them have confirmed such words with deeds. I don't think we can intimidate such people with threats of retribution for what we consider to be misdeeds.
What we can do is to keep them isolated from our society, and we can take away the products of Judeo-Christian civilization. Food and water should be made available, and the materials to gain more (horse drawn plows, etc.), but things like printing presses, telephones, motorized vehicles - sorry, but not allowed. Heck, that stuff just distracts from appreciating the Koran, anyway.
A combined Unites States, Russian,Canadian, British, French, German, and Japanese force would be able to go through these areas and remove all advanced technology in a fairly short period of time. Then the region could be subdivided and the pieces sealed off. Then the survivors (I'm sure there'd be quite a bit of resistance when it came time to give up the guns) can do whatever they want - we won't bother them with our decadent TV, etc. and we won't let them bother us. Everybody will be happy.
Stability of the western world will be greatly increased if a few hundred thousand well paid Russian soldiers are sending their paychecks home every month. With that kind of base, the Russian economy should get back to a decent level fairly quickly (which would be a good thing for the whole world).
We'll be using middle eastern oil to pay for it all, but the locals didn't even know that stuff was there until we found it, so they shouldn't worry about it now. Without the distractions of decadent western society, the good mullah fearing middle-easterners can wallow in religious righteousness.
Any residents who prefer a less godly life style, and are willing to go through a series of polygraph examinations while heavily sedated to show they aren't kidding, would be welcome to join us sinners in the western world. But for those who don't like western ways, we won't bother them, and we won't let them bother us. |
