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

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (129583)	4/19/2004 1:05:54 PM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<<<Democracy and freedom is good hypocritical cant, but not for the real, pragmatic world of Rummy, Dick, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rove and the gang.>>> I know you didn't ask me, but here is my take on these guys. Rummy is pure Doctor Strangelove. In other words, I don't know where his heads at and what makes him tick. Dick's daughter is probably confused for very good reasons. Daddy is the big mover and shaker on the world scene, but mommy actually runs the show - she does all the thinking. The daughter is not the only one confused. So am I. Dick made off with about US$50M from Haliburton. I am all for that. Haliburton made out during his watch as did shareholders. I was one of them. I made a few thousand dollars. But when he became Vice President, why did he hold on to those options. He has more money than he needs. He doesn't have to leave a lot to his daughter. His place in history is set. He isn't doing things for money. Why is he keeping those options? Why didn't he just give them up or donate them? Wolfowitz I think is probably a pretty sincere guy. He has some very big ideas. Ideas, purely in the abstract is one thing, but trying to implement them in the real world is totally different. You have to have some humility. Things can go wrong - especially when you don't have all the authority to implement your plan exactly the way you need to do it. Also, I think, in his heart, he could have a terrible conflict of interest. What if the interests of Isreal and the interests of the US diverges? As for Perle, he doesn't have the same clout as Wolfowitz. He is mostly an outside consultant. I don't think he is a bad guy. But I may not approve of a lot of people he hangs out with. People who clearly have conflicts of interest in many more ways than one. He has some big ideas - they may have some merit. He should test out his ideas more openly. As for Karl Rove - this is a pure political animal. Right and wrong means very little to political types. Its mostly us versus them. Insider jobs are at stake. It's a power game. Dirty tricks are only what the other guy does. Anything we do is fair game. For what he is, he does his job as good as anybody. I don't think he is very nice person (just my opinion - based on purely the way he looks to me). In a sense, under the right circumstances, this guy could be a tremendous asset for good.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (129583)	4/19/2004 6:04:40 PM
From: quehubo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Maurice, I did not literally mean government controlled rationing, but economic rationing as you point out it is an everyday reality. My point being that without Iraqi oil the lives of many billions of people will be worse off. Real world rationing means they will not be able to afford a moped, car, refrigerator, etc. Real world effects include economic dislocation as businesses shutdown with a shrinking global economic pie. The SUV owners wont own their SUV anymore because when they lose their job or they cannot make a payment the banks will repo the vehicles. Rationing means you buy 1 gallon for $4 instead of 2 and you decide to drive only to work instead of to other non essential trips. What many people cannot fathom is what a fungible commodity is and what it means when 300 million people use 25% of all oil and another 4 billion people want to use maybe 20% of US per capita consumption instead of 2%. I dont know the exact ratio but it is mind boggling. We cannot conserve our way out of dependency on foreign oil. USA's production of natural gas and oil is dropping rapidly as our demand is increasing. China has a similar problem. So we will be in Iraq no matter what happens. We cannot let our enemies limit the increase in supply growth or curtail its export. If Iraq stops producing now the response will be quick in the equity and commodity markets. If any member of OPEC is attacked and faces an export reduction of 2-3 mbpd the impact will be as severe. Remember how long it took Kuwait to restore production? Remember what happened in the 1970's when oil prices doubled? There is no more large oil reserves to fill another Alaska pipeline and the North Sea is dying rather quickly. We survived the 1980's after oil prices doubled, but the new oil frontier is Iraq now not Alaska or the North Sea.