We are dependant on imported hydrocarbon energy sources, as is every industrial society in the world. Saudi Arabia has the largest known oil pools in the world. Bush's energy policies are, IMO, poor. We should fund R&D for alternative energy paradigms, encourage conservation, and encourage increased domestic production of hydrocarbon energy sources.

The Saudis have done their best to corrupt our society. Former ambassadors, state department officials, presidents are all targeted by the Saudis with enormous financial rewards for their support of Saudi Arabia. This is the real retirement plan anticipated by many foreign service employees. Saudi Arabia corrupts our media with money, massive amounts of it used to buy favorable editorial positions. Saudi Arabia corrupts our educational institutions by funding departments of Islamic Studies which are staffed by Jihadists.

I think there's an enormous difference between the pre 9/11 and post 9/11 GW Bush - sort of like Shakespeare's Henry V. The Bush family was certainly up to its ears in Saudi favor before 9/11. I hope Pres. Bush sees them differently now. He is certainly presented with a conundrum, in that the despotic Saudi "royal family" holds itself out as a better alternative than the Wahabi Jihadists who the House of Saud claims are attempting to bring them down.

Sure would be nice if we were able to make a break through in Fusion energy research, quickly move to a hydrogen based economy, but in the meantime, the whole industrial world is competing for Saudi oil in the marketplace. If the US stopped buying Saudi oil, it wouldn't make any difference to Saudi output or revenues - the rest of the industrial world would pick up the difference in consumption.

There are over a billion Muslims in the world. I think you should check out Memri or other sites which report on what the media in these countries put out. The fat part of the bell curve of values normative in these societies is Jihadist Islam.

Do I think there will be peace in post war Iraq? No, I don't. I personally believe that Iraq is an unworkable creature of British/French WWI foreign policy. I'd favor giving the Kurds in the north their own state, the Sunis their own and the Shias their own. I think a Swiss style Canton system would work best. The alternative will necessarily be the emergence of another tyrant to hold that creature together.

I think the idea of a democracy in Iraq is overly optimistic. Where is there an Arab democracy in the entire world? However, the effort is noble, but it will be a target for disruption by all of Iraq's neighbors, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran - none of them want to see the emergence of a democratic society in Iraq. The effort has my best wishes.

Is the world better off without Saddam Hussein? How can anyone say it is not? At least we won't be the target of Iraqi nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. Does the removal of Hussein make us safe from such attacks from Iran? That remains to be seen.

Last edited by 2x6spds; 09/01/04 06:01 PM.
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