>I can mostly agree with this, MM, but I have absolutely NO sympathy >for your ideas on "where we are getting our fuel and at what price". >The huge price is to the people of the Middle East, and the world, >and there's worse to come, from the same culprits - led, first and >foremost, by the US and its oil corporations, which have been >twisting that whole region out of shape for generations in order to >screw cheap oil out of it. Self-inflicted injury, that's all, and >VERY minor by comparison - not (yet) severe enough to force the >beneficiaries (wilfully blind American consumer energy wastrels) to >look the facts in the face at last.
I certainly look forward to the day when the wilfully blind American consumer can look the facts in the face. >Meanwhile Israel hies itself off to the good old US in search of yet >another $12 billion in "aid", mostly weaponry, much of it no doubt to >be used in terrorist acts against unarmed civilians, business as >usual. Yes. The more-hawkish Israelis claim that if the uprising were to cease, then somehow the Palestinians could live their lives in a reasonable fashion, but is this really true? I think it comes off more as a waiting game. If they can get the uprising to cease, then how many decades would it be before self-governance, as any self-respecting group would want, can really exist? I once heard Mr. Netenyahu suggest that the Palestinians had other choices beyond the uprising, such as the Indian concept of nonviolent resistance. Yes, I thought, but would there honestly be any hegemony for them ever, at the end of the road, in your world? >That just doesn't figure in this cosy little "where we get our >oil from" anti-OPEC equation, now does it? Israelis themselves are >increasingly opposed to this, vehemently so, but you take no notice - >they're wrong, that's that. Or, easier, simply fail to notice it. Opposed to violence against unarmed civilians that can no longer be counted as self-defense, to whatever extend it could have been? I also am opposed to this violence against unarmed civilians. I said as much on my web page prior to 9-11, when all around the world we had the opportunity to see a young Palestinian boy shot to death on International TV as his father begged the shooters to stop. I took this post down, after 9-11, leaving my web page not-pro-Israeli by pretty much devoid of commentary on the matter, outside of my Energy Policy stuff. Cowardly, doubtless, but it had only been a very tentative straying into the general topic, and I did not feel confident enough of myself on the topic to maintain the course. I'd go there again, if I could think of a way to do it that is productive. If I am frustrated with the Saudis, I think perhaps there is a parallel to a frustration I feel with the Israelis. It's in the waiting game. It's been more than five decades since Israel was declared to exist by the U.N., and still there's no recognition of its existence by many of the Arab states. I don't say to what extent the U.N.'s actions were right or wrong, but I think we can all see that the Palestinians, caught in the middle of a lot of this, are going to continue to die if something doesn't change. So, I have often expressed frustration with the richer OPEC states, and a part of the reason that I'm frustrated is that I think they could step up to the plate and help out by compromising on many issues including granting recognition, not for the sake of acknoweldging a shred of rightness in it, but because I think it could be a way to help end the bloodshed, and the complete hopelessness of life for the Palestinians, and that's whom they care about, or say they care about. So, looking decades and centuries into the future, regardless of the rightness of compromising with Israel, if a measure of leadership and honor is acting to help save the lives of innocent individual people, then that's what I think the Saudis and others could do. Likewise, as I think is the opinion of most of the people I speak with outside of the most conservative or zionist, the Israelis need to stop trying to govern people who want to be hegemenous from them and who regard them as land-thieves in the first place. Just my opinion. >Damn, now we've gotten into all this again. Maybe if you'd show a >little pause before you keep on trundling out this severely one-sided >stuff with such blithe assurance? Grumble grumble... I apologize for having raised this issue again, in this idiotic fashion, particularly to anyone in the M.E. (on either side) or elsewhere who may read this list thinking it's a good place to discuss biofuel-related issues, and tired of having to hold their tongue when I raise an issue like this in such a ham-handed fashion. I will try harder to keep my posts more relevant and more considerate of the fact that it is a worldwide list, and not one devoted to politics at that (except as relates to biofuels in some cases). On occassion I think U.S. security issues may come up because of the argument prevalent in the U.S. connecting National Security with Oil-alternatives, but I'll try to think a lot harder before I post, if at all. You may ask, well, why write any thoughts? Because you seem to regard non-response as potentially as much of a provocation than anything, and have several times specifically taken me to task for that which I don't say rather than that which I do, once I've made one of these gaffs. So, I have taken a stab at writing out some thoughts, though pretty much with the thought in mind not of overly-extending the discussion but of attempting to address part of the concerns you state as to my failure to reflect an attempt at a balanced viewpoint. I apologize in advance if you find them either inappropriate to this forum or simply wrong. I ask that if you choose to reply you make it as civil as you are able to find possible. 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