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Politics : America Under Siege: The End of Innocence -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lorne who wrote (8967)	10/30/2001 12:25:18 AM
From: MSI	Respond to of 27666

It turns out that failure to pay sovereign debt is the last thing a nation-state wants to do, short of war. Even Russia has continued to pay sovereign debt. In the case of war, we make the debt good by force, since we would win. On your second point, regardless of the dollars they hold, we can withstand $22 trillion in unfunded pension, I imagine we can withstand a few billion in temporarily uncollected Arab debt, whether or not they become belligerent. Besides, our "team", includes Japan and Europe, over 3/4 of the world's economy, so we can force a reconciliation of the monetary system to call them into account. The point that neither side wants to admit, but which stands out as clear as day, is that they need us, and we do not need them. They, and the 5 Arab nations listed by the CIA as sponsoring terrorism have caused us only grief. Their only hold on us, the only pressure to get us to accept Islam and pay them fealty, are (a)terrorism by weapons of mass destruction, and (b)the so-far-unquestioned assumption that we need to pay them royally for their oil. We can combat both assumptions, the first militarily and with domestic watch programs, and the second by the power of the consumer to "just say No" to Middle East oil. However, if the American consumer flexes their muscle, they can bypass Bush, Cheney, the oil companies, Saudi Arabia, Israel, etc., and just refuse to buy from the M.E., forcing retailers to sell non-M.E. oil. The American consumer is the major force on the planet, but whose power goes unused.