From: Damien Broderick (thespike@earthlink.net)
Date: Sun Feb 23 2003 - 21:48:38 MST
Ron h. replied:
> The truth is that the US gets little oil from the middle
> east. Iraq and the middle east is where our allies France and Germany get
their oil.
Barbara Lamar had already responded in advance:
>It does not matter whether or not the U.S. itself imports
>significant amounts of oil from Iraq. A disruption in any
>segment of the world's oil supply affects the entire global
>market.
But I thought far and away the more important point Barbara made was this
chilling comment:
>it seems that far more damage could be done and ultimately more
>suffering and death inflicted on Iraq's enemies by torching Iraq's oil
>fields than by setting off a dirty bomb or turning loose some anthrax
bacteria
>in a NY subway. The economy of the U.S. is too fragile at the moment to
>easily weather a significant increase in the price of oil.
Think seriously about this. The man is a tribal megalomaniac from a machismo
culture. He spends vast treasure on palaces to glorify himself, his family
and his affines. Suddenly it seems the game really *is* up.
What does he do?
Suppose he wishes to punish the West fearsomely. He has no nuclear weapons
to explode in NYC, and anthrax is an overblown threat even if he has some
and a handy cropduster.
No, he's already got his revenge nicely cooled under the sand. Blow the hell
out of his oilfields, set the whole damned lot on fire, maybe dumping in
some radiological material if any's to hand.
He's dead, sure, but so is the West... As Gully Foyle vowed in THE STARS MY
DESTINATION, that great hysterical narrative of megalomania: `I kill you
filthy, Vorga!'
Might a megalomaniac trapped in a fatal corner think like that? I don't
know. Will his likely successors know that he will think like that and try
to nip any such plan in the bud before he and his village pals get a chance
to put it into effect? Will they be able to?
Game theory might find this kind of quandary rather too complex and
uncertain to model.
Damien Broderick
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