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

To: Zeuspaul who wrote (127668)	3/29/2004 2:49:41 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

There are no quick fixes. Wake up, we have been using F16s to try and kill terrorists for a decade and it hasn't worked. The terrorists aren't protesting the oil companies. They are protesting the entire modern geopolitical situation, and the solution they are proposing - totalitarian theocracy - will kill millions of people and make them only worse off. It really, truly, has precious little to do with oil except inasmuch as the curse of oil on their lands keeps their misbegotten rulers funded and in power no matter what a mess they make of their countries. Venezuala also has oil and is also a mess, but I don't notice Venezualan terrorists running around trying to kill thousands of Westerners. It's the ideology, stupid. To coin a phrase. Now, unless you are proposing that the entire globe boycott Mideast oil, you really haven't got a choice. The entire globe IS dependent on Mideast oil, and will have to diversify soon enough just to get enough energy.

To: Zeuspaul who wrote (127668)	3/29/2004 6:16:17 AM
From: Sig	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

<<<What are you saying? If we can't cut oil consumption 50 percent over night then the answer is to move full speed ahead and increase consumption and further our dependence? I hope you understand it is not an unlimited resource. Without action the world will go into depression and most likely a resource war. The time to act is now while our economy is still strong.>>> Thinking long term, the problem is only that we will be running out of cheap energy. There is plenty of hydrocarbon energy left. To quote from an article in Scientific American, it is computed that there is enough natural gas dissolved in brine wells on the Gulf coast to last us 1000 years at the present rate of consumption. Huge reserves of oil in the Athabaska tar sands. And newly discovered frozen methane deposits under the oceans. When energy prices increase, it will become feasible to tap these reserves. Then if things get really critical before we get off the hydrocarbon diet, there is nearly unlimited electrical power from nuclear plants if people will accept the cost and the risk of storing the radioactive by-products. Which power can be used to produce hydrogen to fuel cars. The present problems derive from attempts to maintain the status quo, let GM continue to build the 11 mpg gas guzzlers, Let them continue to pay the lobbyists and provide the soft money which fuel our politicians. Politics interferes with technological change. The big boys, big corporations, have to figure how maintain their power and profits as new technology becomes available or commodity prices change. On the terrorist front the ultimate solution will be the implantable, readable, microchip. Rice grain size.Huge storage capacity for all data deemed needed. The predecessor is in use today, of credit card size. Another is the RFID ( I believe its called) to track goods stored or sold in stores.Walmart being one of the first to use it. My son left his car with me and returned home. Then later called and asked me to remove the credit card size devise pasted on the windshield under the mirror and mail it to him . With it he can drive his new car thru toll booths without stopping to pay. Without an implanted microchip, a person would not be able to open his car door, open his house door, enter a supermarket or a stadium- board a bus, train or airplane or drive a freeway or buy gasoline. Anyone found without one would be subject to arrest. And the database behind the sensors would keep a record of all his travels - for whenever he passed a sensor. If a criminal is released from prison, his record could be printed electronically on the insert. Unless we can trust one another, this will have to occur at some time, but hopefully not tomorrow. And if you got this far reading this lengthy post, thanks for your patience. Sig

To: Zeuspaul who wrote (127668)	3/29/2004 7:45:43 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 281500

Wake up, we have been using F16s to try and kill terrorists for a decade and it hasn't worked. No duh.. just like using them to "contain" Saddam's WMD programs and aggression didn't work either. He still engaged in ethnic and religious genocide, aggression postures against his neighbors, and secret programs in defiance of UNSC binding resolutions. It required "boots on the ground" to get at these terrorist networks ZP. And it will continue to be required, along with aggressive intelligence and police work by numerous countries, to quash it. But most of all, it requires a "new deal" for the middle east. When, as Thomas Friedman cogently points out, Spain's economy is greater than all 22 Arab nations combined, it is imperative that an alternative vision of the future be offered to the Middle East.. Something other than the "cult of death" being proposed by the Islamic militants. And oil will assist in sustaining a measure of economic security, while we assist them in diversifying their economic and political structure. There is nothing wrong with importing oil, so long as the proceeds from such purchases are not funneled into corrupt regimes, or towards international terrorist activities. It's called trade. They sell us oil, and they buy our products. And I'd rather purchase oil from the Iraqis than I would from the Saudis. Hawk