On Thu, 29 Nov 2001, Brian D Williams wrote:
> >From: Chris Russo <extropy@russo.org>
> > Then again, our occupation of Saudi Arabia is one of
> >the prime reasons why we just lost over 6,000 people and billions
> >of dollars. [snip]
>
> We lost 6000 people because a religious fanatic has been fighting
> a declared war against us for years and our government stupidly
> ignored it.
Lets not get sloppy with the numbers in what one hopes is an extropic
rational discussion. I believe the body count has been reduced
to under 4000 at this point. A not insignificant difference.
I wish to make a point of notice about Kuwait -- My sources
suggest Sadaam's attack was launched because of the Kuwait's
side-drilling into Iraqi oil fields. (Theft of resources
can easily be viewed as an aggressive act). Our ambassador,
told the Iraqis we wouldn't object if Iraq retook its renegade
provence without apparently checking with Washington (or
did check and the superiors at State didn't check with
anyone at DoD or perhaps the rules may have changed when
the Saudis realized they had an army on their border with
a Hitler-in-training calling the shots and they came running
to us.). IMO, the U.S. "was" on Saudi soil to protect them
from Iraq. Right now we are probably on Saudi soil to do
that as well as protect the interests of the ruling powers.
We are essentially mercenaries for hire. The annoying thing
is that they know we can't leave -- so they get to keep
throwing the Palestinian issue back in our face knowing
we are unlikely to respond by washing our hands of the
situation.
However, there may be hints that the government actually
knows what it is doing. The plans for moving the country
to fuel cell based vehicles are relatively robust as are
the plans for moving our electrical production to a
multi-fuel (coal, gas, alcohol, etc.), multi-technology
systems operating at very high efficiency. It is doing it
in a way that is least disruptive to the economy (plants
being replaced at the end of their normal life cycle) --
so we will not be off of our oil addiction anytime soon.
But if push came to shove I suspect the schedule could
be significantly accelerated.
Also, I happened to catch part of an interview with
the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. -- Prince Bandar bin
Sultan bin Abdul Aziz on a PBS show last night.
A *very* astute politician. I suspect he could
beat most U.S. politicians in an election without
breaking a sweat. He made a *very* interesting point
that the al Saud family had been in power for ~300 years.
This is *not* a "politically" incompetent group.
My 2c worth for today.
Robert
Refs:
http://www.medea.be/en/index330.htm
http://www.saudiroyals.com/
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