In a message dated 10/9/2001 7:00:43 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
joedees@addall.com writes:
<< > Not unrelated, last night we dropped 37,000 meals (and no
> medicines) or putting it in perspective, assuming all of those meals
> are delivered to people who need them, we provided meals for one day
> to 1/2% of the people who desperately need them. If we use all of the
> aircraft committed to date, and all of the flight crews, exclusively
> to deliver food during daylight hours, we will be able to feed at most
> 3% of the starving population of Afghanistan - which will probably
> mean that in February the Hajj will open to the news of 6 million plus
> dead Afghans. And it will be portrayed and believed to be largely the
> fault of the US. >>
Another analysis works less on utter catastrophe to American Policy, then a
more focused Al Qeidda meta- goal: The capture of Saudi Arabia and the rest
of the Gulf States. Bin Ladin is a royal son of a royal house (so to speak)
and his family is the chief business organization that involves all major
construction in the Gulf. The Bin Ladins have lived in the Boston area, and
have donated heavilly to Harvard University. They have returned to Saudi
Arabia on September 19th, 2001 because of safety concerns.
So who is Bin Ladin playing to? The answer is the "street" as the term is
used in the Islamic world. I do not see how the US can placate the Street,
which is enamored with what I call political Islam (Government by
anti-Americanism and Sharia), and deliver, what is desired. The US cannot
force a nuclear-armed Israel, to vacate Israel, for example; for what
nation-state would cave into such a demand, whatever the outcome? As Gen.
Sharon stated a few days ago "we are not Czechoslovakia.."
Al Qeidda is however interested in severing Saudi ties to the United States,
and thus bring the US "to its knees" so to speak, via with-holding
petroleum! This may be their primary goal, at least for now.
If one sees this as a primary goal of Bin Ladin's, then Robert J. Bradbury's
up-comming paper on Biomass production of fuels, should be the meta-goal of
this group. Lastly, I am not so pessimistic on what the results will be from
our retaliation can achieve, especially if we do not get bogged-down in
satisfying coalition demands (especially the Saudi govt) in refraining from
destroying our enemy, as we did in Desert Storm.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:12 MDT