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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (106100)	7/17/2003 5:30:28 PM
From: ILCUL8R	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Message to thread: I am astonished no comments about the stellar speech to the joint houses of congress by Tony Blair have surfaced. I would gladly vote for him as President. He is able to articulate important goals for western nations that have intelligent leadership. At first I thought Clinton was the best ever, then after further listening I realized why they called him "Slick Willie." Then, after further listening I realized that he really does his homework and makes comments to which few have little conflict -- if they are honest. Blair has done the same against his own British electorate and further Blair has done much to bring Europe (France and Germany) back into the European community and he did much the same to help bring the interests of the USA back into agreement with the interests of the larger aspects of the European community. Then, he was able to fix the congress's attention on the really important human and moral values that both the USA and the UK espouse and which we both are trying to bring to fruition in Afghanistan and Iraq. Why would politicos want to challenge these values? I am so grateful for Tony Blair. Sen. Orrin Hatch is rumored to be crafting a piece of legislation that would allow Arnold Schwarzteneger to run for President. Well . . . If money hungry Hatch can do this for Arnold, how about doing the same thing to allow Tony Blair to run for President of the USA? I for sure would vote for him!! Anyway, I thought Tony did a stellar job today. As we watch the debate in the House of Lords, and we realize just how often and up-front Tony Blair has to defend his political positions, we realize how much we allow our elected officials to hide behind a barrage of "spinning" press secretaries. I would like to see GWB survive for 5 minutes in the same verbally confrontational environment in which Tony Blair lives almost every day. Well, just my $0.02.

To: TimF who wrote (106100)	7/17/2003 7:25:05 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<Energy independence sounds nice, but its difficult and expensive and it still wouldn't make oil unimportant because even if the US didn't have to import oil, most of the world would.> If we had developed those technologies, we could lease them to other nations (hefty profits there!), and nobody would need ME oil. Of course its difficult and expensive. But cheaper than garrisoning the ME, at $5B/month. Our military budget is now $400B/year, and much of that is so we can project power into the ME. There are alternatives, which are now cost-effective. The technologies have been steadily refined, and costs have steadily fallen. Add in all the externalized costs (= costs shifted onto the taxpayer) for imported oil (and nuclear), and two technologies are already competitive: wind and Alberta oil sands. Far more secure, too, as it is unlikely any guerrilla army will sabotage windmills in N. Dakota, or pipelines from Alberta. More efficient engines, for everything from cars to refrigerators, are also cost-effective now. The increased up-front cost is made up, in a few years, by the savings in running costs. The reason we don't have Energy Independence, is that we haven't made it a priority, and have preferred military solutions to technological solutions.