It's time to tell the House of Saud goodbye.

[Patrick Degan]

My analysis is based entirely on national security; we need oil for a heck of a lot more than just automobiles. Note that I edited my post to extend the line of thought properly.

Your "analysis", such as it is, offers a strategy which is detrimental to national security in the long-term.

Cars were viable before Henry Ford for the wealthy - Remember a certain Rolls Royce which is still in running condition today? Certainly the very first were far more primitive. Also, unreliable - But consider the cost of maintaining a team of horses in comparison.... And I never asked you to make a Cadillac-equivlant cheap.

For every Rolls-Royce which managed to survive, there are a dozen Sinclairs, Humbers, and Wintons which didn't. Furthermore, the Rolls-Royce was contemporary with Ford. It did not predate Ford.

And you don't sustain an industry by providing curiosities only for the rich.

[Patrick Degan]

You're absolutely right... About the Peloponnesian War. But the Muslim world doesn't have the power to resist us; where will an ally the like of Sparta come from? China, Russia, they are both hostile to the Muslim cause. Europe has many Muslims in it, and the EU is a more worthy foe - But those Muslims are far more likely to attempt to subvert those governments, than to influence their foreign policy.

Vietnam didn't "have the power to oppose us" either. They won, we lost. You really imagine we're not going to have a problem subduing a billion Muslims?

Funny, the Soviet Union thought the same way. Look where they ended up.

The Soviet Union was all stick and no carrot, to use a rather old idiom.

You're talking about knocking over governments which don't suit us and imposing new ones by force. I'm afraid that's all stick and no carrot, no matter how you try to slice it. See Iran under the Shah.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Vietnam didn't "have the power to oppose us" either. They won, we lost. You really imagine we're not going to have a problem subduing a billion Muslims?

What is it with you leftists and the Vietnam ideology? God! Give it a break!

1. When the war ended, we had totally defeated the Viet Cong, completely annihilated them. The North Vietnamese Army was shattered. In on-the-ground terms we were Victorious.

2. Even at the peace-conference we obtained terms which involved the independence of South Vietnam. So our victory was not even sacrificed there.

3. Our victory was only sacrificed in Congress, where a bunch of idiot Democrats prevented us from providing aid to South Vietnam; thereby allowing the North to rebuild, and, several years later, roll over the country, where some units valiantly resisted against the Reds until the bitter end. We betrayed our allies in victory because of partisan politics, and that led to a domino effect in Indochina. Ultimately, of course, the seeds for that final defeat were sown far earlier. But until it happened the South was still in play.

4. There are only around 20 million Wahhabis, Salafists, and so on, in the world today - They are our enemies, along with the KSA, and any regimes which choose to side with them. Not the entire Muslim world. In fact, Muslims who do not subscribe to Salafism or a Salafist-variant ideology are for the most part potential allies.

You're talking about knocking over governments which don't suit us and imposing new ones by force. I'm afraid that's all stick and no carrot, no matter how you try to slice it. See Iran under the Shah.

Under certain circumstances. And we propped up the Shah - So what? The Shah had been there as part of a continuous line of monarchs since rather before Christ. New dynasty, no big deal, but you get the idea.

In this case, I'm talking about imposing democracy, under the specific conditions of doing so in nations where it is possible, where the groundwork of secularism has been laid, and doing so in a fashion that gives it the lead time to work before we let it run on its own.

The government that doesn't suit us, I should note, doesn't suit its own people, either.

[Patrick Degan]

But did something else occur to you, Patrick, in all your inestimable wisdom of making this about oil? Did you read my article about Salafism?

Let's imagine for the moment we do what you say, take the hit, leave the Muslim States alone to stew in their own juices. Wahhabism is moderate Salafism; in Salafism you can fight against heretical Muslim rulers, condemn other Sunnis as heretics and so on. OBL is a Salafist, the KSA is Wahhabi and so are their schools. Wahhabis are a branch of Salafism.

Okay, so we've got these people here; they're selling oil to those who will still buy it, trying to monopolize the market and squeeze out what they can. Prices fall, naturally, less demand.

People in the Muslim countries suffer immensely - They turn to religion. Wahhabism spreads even more, the Saudis, seeing the spread of fanaticism in their own country, fund it yet to stave off their own collapse internally.

People, though, as things continue - They see that their regimes are growing more despotic and cruel, hording remaining resources to stay afloat, letting them starve or die of thirst and the like.

They turn to Salafism and revolt.

Welcome to united Islam - A united Salafist Caliphate. Complete with nuclear weapons, too, courtesy of Pakistan.

That would really, really be great. They have one goal, Patrick - World conquest. Everyone either converts or pays the Faith Tax.

The death toll would be worse than even I've predicted at times, and with our economies crippled by going green, I'm not sure who would win. Maybe we'd endure a few millenia of fatwas as a human race before coming out of another dark age.

Do you even realise how nonsensical you sound? You actually believe this ridiculous spew you've generated? Please say you're not serious.

And just how is this United Salafist Caliphate —assuming that it even can succeed in uniting in the first place— going to conquer us without (a)an ocean-going navy to reach North America with, (b)the ability to suppress our ability to retaliate against attack, and (c)lacking the abilty to finance either of the first two necessary instrumentalities to achieve this global conquest?

Furthermore, I really doubt we have much to fear from the Pakastani nuclear arsenal.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Do you even realise how nonsensical you sound? You actually believe this ridiculous spew you've generated? Please say you're not serious.

I am completely serious, in a certain context.

And just how is this United Salafist Caliphate —assuming that it even can succeed in uniting in the first place— going to conquer us without (a)an ocean-going navy to reach North America with, (b)the ability to suppress our ability to retaliate against attack, and (c)lacking the abilty to finance either of the first two necessary instrumentalities to achieve this global conquest?

1. There are Muslims in the USA; read the article. Their interests are controlled entirely by Wahhabis, at this time. If that influence is all-pervasive and our Muslim population continues to grow as projected, they would be an effective Fifth Column.
1b. We would not be able to support remotely as large a navy as an isolationist power; a considerable one, no doubt, but outside threats do become possible. Naval power, however, is inherently based on economic power.

2. That assumes that the war goes nuclear. You are also working with current technology and technology in current hands. We have Pakistani, Iranian, and Iraqi nuclear programmes. Probably also the Libyans and Syrians messing around with them, and Egypt has the electrical power to spare for splitting atoms. Remember, also, that Nike-XENA was strictly 60s technology. That was an anti-missile defence system with nuclear warheads. Works fine if you're willing to replace your TV after you take out the incoming; there aren't very many TVs in the Muslim world.

Obviously, since any Caliphal resurrection would occur some time in the future (That part didn't occur to you? Like, say, a half-century for what I was posulating to run its course?), we would have to assume NMD in the USA, AMB proliferation elsewhere, and the ability to deliver nukes without missiles in various methods with lesser efficiency.

3. Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei offer the economic potentiality of the Caliphate even with the collapse of the oil market.

Furthermore, I really doubt we have much to fear from the Pakastani nuclear arsenal.

Not right now, no.

Please understand I think in long term events; I suspect that, just as the Cold War is appropriately the Fifty Year War, this may be the Eighty, or even another Hundred, Years War.

We are facing a clash of cultures and ideas, and unless it is stamped out very quickly the results could be as catastrophic as I postulate. That's a double If at the most general level; there are a lot more specific Ifs. Obviously it isn't very likely. But the possibility exists, and as more than just some wild speculation.

I've outlined the forces at play, here (as in on the board in general), and their abilities to influence the Islamic world. It doesn't take someone unique to consider the long-term consequences there.

The Economic forces, essentially, simply add fuel to the fire - The fire is already burning. The economic matters are just like tossing gasoline onto it.... A rather apt analogy.

[Patrick Degan]

Vietnam didn't "have the power to oppose us" either. They won, we lost. You really imagine we're not going to have a problem subduing a billion Muslims?

What is it with you leftists and the Vietnam ideology? God! Give it a break!

Gee, I'm sorry if historical truth is inconvenient to your cherished fantasies.

1. When the war ended, we had totally defeated the Viet Cong, completely annihilated them. The North Vietnamese Army was shattered. In on-the-ground terms we were Victorious.

So they switched to guerilla warfare and the use of irregular forces.

2. Even at the peace-conference we obtained terms which involved the independence of South Vietnam. So our victory was not even sacrificed there.

Unfortunately, the only way to have secured that victory was to have remained as an de-facto occupation force, because the government of South Vietnam was not viable or credible enough to sustain itself.

3. Our victory was only sacrificed in Congress, where a bunch of idiot Democrats prevented us from providing aid to South Vietnam; thereby allowing the North to rebuild, and, several years later, roll over the country, where some units valiantly resisted against the Reds until the bitter end. We betrayed our allies in victory because of partisan politics, and that led to a domino effect in Indochina. Ultimately, of course, the seeds for that final defeat were sown far earlier. But until it happened the South was still in play.

Nice fantasy. Pity that the actual reality is a bit messier, but right wingers will entertain the myths that comfort them, won't they? Also ignores the fact that the American public were sick and tired of the Vietnam War and the country was sinking into a serious recession at the time.

As for the "domino effect", the only other two countries to "fall" were Laos, which had been halfway communist even while we were in Vietnam, and Cambodia, which had a weak government also depending utterly on external forces propping it up. Thailand remained stable and did not fall, neither did Burma. They, by contrast, had strong, credible governments able to maintain stability.

4. There are only around 20 million Wahhabis, Salafists, and so on, in the world today - They are our enemies, along with the KSA, and any regimes which choose to side with them. Not the entire Muslim world. In fact, Muslims who do not subscribe to Salafism or a Salafist-variant ideology are for the most part potential allies.

We start knocking over governments and putting in puppet dictatorships and we will end up with the Muslim world as our enemies. Or does it not occur to you that the people there might find domestic Salafist domination preferrable to American rule?

You're talking about knocking over governments which don't suit us and imposing new ones by force. I'm afraid that's all stick and no carrot, no matter how you try to slice it. See Iran under the Shah.

Under certain circumstances. And we propped up the Shah - So what? The Shah had been there as part of a continuous line of monarchs since rather before Christ. New dynasty, no big deal, but you get the idea.

Except the people didn't want him. That's why there was a revolt in Iran in 1957 and we went ahead and knocked over that government to reimpose the Shah's rule. That's sort of why there was a fundamentalist revolution in 1978.

In this case, I'm talking about imposing democracy, under the specific conditions of doing so in nations where it is possible, where the groundwork of secularism has been laid, and doing so in a fashion that gives it the lead time to work before we let it run on its own.

You actually believe your own bullshit? You truly think that is what our object is? Impose democracy? (oxymoron) Hate to have to remind you of this little inconvenient fact, but 60% of the Iraqi population would elect a Sh'ite government if they had the chance to do so.

You really imagine we're going to stand by and see the rise of a Sh'ite Iraq? Or might we opt for the Chile solution instead in that event?

The government that doesn't suit us, I should note, doesn't suit its own people, either.

That may be the case, but they may well prefer the devil they know to foreign occupation.

[Patrick Degan]

1. There are Muslims in the USA; read the article. Their interests are controlled entirely by Wahhabis, at this time. If that influence is all-pervasive and our Muslim population continues to grow as projected, they would be an effective Fifth Column.

My my, this sorta sounds like all that Reds-Under-Every-Bed propaganda of the 50s and Every-Jap-Is-Hirohito's-Spy propaganda of 1941, which also turned out to be complete bullshit. EVERY Muslim in the United States is controlled by Wahhabism?

1b. We would not be able to support remotely as large a navy as an isolationist power; a considerable one, no doubt, but outside threats do become possible. Naval power, however, is inherently based on economic power.

Who said anything about isolationism? And why does the development of a more efficent, oil-free industry imply economic weakness?

2. That assumes that the war goes nuclear. You are also working with current technology and technology in current hands. We have Pakistani, Iranian, and Iraqi nuclear programmes. Probably also the Libyans and Syrians messing around with them, and Egypt has the electrical power to spare for splitting atoms. Remember, also, that Nike-XENA was strictly 60s technology. That was an anti-missile defence system with nuclear warheads. Works fine if you're willing to replace your TV after you take out the incoming; there aren't very many TVs in the Muslim world.

Your entire premise presupposes the rise of this United Salafist Caliphate to begin with. It also presupposes that the nuclear programmes you refer to which rely upon heavy external assistance as it is will continue to receive that assistance after the rising of this theoretical United Salafist Caliphate. It also presupposes that China, India, Israel, and Russia will simply sit back and allow a new nuclear threat to develop on their own borders. It further presupposes that a relatively impoverished United Salafist Caliphate, trying to sustain its own existence with the few resources it has to begin with and trying to sustain a nuclear programme without external assistance can further go forth to develop ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States.

Obviously, since any Caliphal resurrection would occur some time in the future (That part didn't occur to you? Like, say, a half-century for what I was posulating to run its course?), we would have to assume NMD in the USA, AMB proliferation elsewhere, and the ability to deliver nukes without missiles in various methods with lesser efficiency.

Unfortunately, you cannot bring down an entire country with satchel-nukes.

3. Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei offer the economic potentiality of the Caliphate even with the collapse of the oil market.

And why would Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei join this alliance? What advantage does it offer them to do so?

Please understand I think in long term events; I suspect that, just as the Cold War is appropriately the Fifty Year War, this may be the Eighty, or even another Hundred, Years War.

No, you deal in paranoia. Galloping paranoia, from the looks of it. You've strung together so many improbable assumptions which have never worked out in any real world scenario in any period in human history that it frankly defies belief that you can seriously propose such a scenario as plausible.

We are facing a clash of cultures and ideas, and unless it is stamped out very quickly the results could be as catastrophic as I postulate. That's a double If at the most general level; there are a lot more specific Ifs. Obviously it isn't very likely. But the possibility exists, and as more than just some wild speculation.

It's also possible that aliens from Zeta Reticuli might invade. The probability against it however is exceedingly remote. And history does not support the likelihood of the scenario you propose.

I've outlined the forces at play, here (as in on the board in general), and their abilities to influence the Islamic world. It doesn't take someone unique to consider the long-term consequences there.

So long as you ignore the countervaling forces which are precisely those which make such a scenario unlikely.

The Economic forces, essentially, simply add fuel to the fire - The fire is already burning. The economic matters are just like tossing gasoline onto it.... A rather apt analogy.

Unfortunately, any project of world conquest will require lots and lots of money to make it even remotely feasible. If the Middle East's economy is no longer receiving petrodollars, or enough petrodollars to sustain an alliance, then where will that money come from?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Gee, I'm sorry if historical truth is inconvenient to your cherished fantasies.

There are no fantasies here. Obviously the first and most fatal mistake of the war in Indochina was the assasination that JFK ordered. The same thing that you speak out against curiously enough. But it doesn't invalidate the concept - It just reinforces the lesson that such operations must taken into context local prevailing politics and sentiment.

(Mainly because it has worked before, countless times, and not just for the USA.)

So they switched to guerilla warfare and the use of irregular forces.

No, after their guerilla forces had already been annihilated when they'd tried to commit them to the cities; primarily during Tet. The Viet Cong was devastated during Tet and never fully recovered.

Unfortunately, the only way to have secured that victory was to have remained as an de-facto occupation force, because the government of South Vietnam was not viable or credible enough to sustain itself.

You're correct. And that was JFK's fault, or at least that of his administration: They didn't take into account prevailing local conditions.

Nice fantasy. Pity that the actual reality is a bit messier, but right wingers will entertain the myths that comfort them, won't they? Also ignores the fact that the American public were sick and tired of the Vietnam War and the country was sinking into a serious recession at the time.

The majority of the American people still supported the war until nearly the end. The democratic control of Congress was what killed it in the end. The peace movement - the postmodernist movement - was in some cases a direct Communist front. The fact that we were fighting a covert war with the USSR on our home territory does not excuse our defeat, but does explain our low morale.

As for the "domino effect", the only other two countries to "fall" were Laos, which had been halfway communist even while we were in Vietnam, and Cambodia, which had a weak government also depending utterly on external forces propping it up. Thailand remained stable and did not fall, neither did Burma. They, by contrast, had strong, credible governments able to maintain stability.

Thailand remained in constant combat with Communist insurgency for decades - It was stable but hardly secure. And simply because Cambodia depended on external support doesn't mean we should have given up on it. Vietnam was the forefront to the rest of Indochina, in that case - If we'd won in Vietnam we could have preserved them.

We start knocking over governments and putting in puppet dictatorships and we will end up with the Muslim world as our enemies. Or does it not occur to you that the people there might find domestic Salafist domination preferrable to American rule?

Did you even read the bloody article? Moderate muslims are already speaking out in very vigorous terms against Salafism - And the Wahhabi branch is a creation of the KSA, funded by the KSA. How is that domestic to individual Muslim Nation-States? It's the Salafists themselves, mostly, that want to reform the Caliphate as a political entity, for their own aims.

And, I never said anything about dictatorships. In numerous countries in the Muslim world civil society is advanced enough that democracy is possible after a short occupation. In many others it definitely isn't, but.... I don't think we're going to have to clean out the entire Muslim world. I already said that.

Except the people didn't want him. That's why there was a revolt in Iran in 1957 and we went ahead and knocked over that government to reimpose the Shah's rule. That's sort of why there was a fundamentalist revolution in 1978.

In 1951, the National Front movement, headed by Premier Mussadegh, a militant nationalist, forced the parliament to nationalize the oil industry and form the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). Although a British blockade led to the virtual collapse of the oil industry and serious internal economic troubles, Mussadegh continued his nationalization policy. Openly opposed by the shah, Mussadegh was ousted in 1952 but quickly regained power. The shah fled Iran but returned when monarchist elements forced Mussadegh from office in Aug., 1953; covert U.S. activity was largely responsible for Mussadegh's ousting.

The guy was actually appointed to office by the Shah and was basically a fascist. Wow. I'm so impressed.

The monarchist elements were there; the U.S. just provided support so that they could succeed against the central government. Even today the Monarchy remains popular in Iran despite what the ousted Shah did. Certainly not a majority of the populace - not today at any rate - But in the fifties? I don't have the data on hand to quantify that.

You actually believe your own bullshit? You truly think that is what our object is? Impose democracy? (oxymoron)

Yes, I do, though it isn't BS. And, no, it isn't. Uhm.. Impose democracy means to arrive, destroy the existing social order which places people in an unfree condition, and allows those people to be free within a society government by democratic institutions, particularly by providing them with a democratic constitution and insuring that the democratic process is functioning before leaving again.

Hate to have to remind you of this little inconvenient fact, but 60% of the Iraqi population would elect a Sh'ite government if they had the chance to do so.

Where does this fantasy come from? Just because more than 60% of the populace is Shia doesn't mean they're all going to vote straight-line for a Shia religious party. That's the most simplistic political world-view I can comprehend.

Iraq is one of the most heavily secularized of Muslim countries in the world; and though religious groups have some popularity among the Shia and the Kurds, they do not comprise of the whole of their resistance organizations.

Furthermore, with the likely impending, and imminent, collapse of the Islamic Republic of Iran - in favour of a Republic without the "Islamic" in front of it - One things that those Shia resistance groups in Iraq will not have their funding.

I am much less concerned with Shia fundamentalism than Sunni fundamentalism, in the form of the various branches of Salafism, anyway - The Salafists are the main threat. Shia fundamentalism was a big deal in the 19th century and I think the Islamic Republic will be seen as a brief resurgence before its final death in favour of secularism.

You really imagine we're going to stand by and see the rise of a Sh'ite Iraq?

See above.

Or might we opt for the Chile solution instead in that event?

General Augusto Pinochet was a true Chilean patriot and hero of the Cold War, a defender of his people against the evils of Marxism and the cruel designs of Salvadore Allende. The scales of fate were weighed to judge him: When he stepped down voluntarily from his post they adjudged him a just man. He acted when his country needed him, repaired the damage, and set things right.

Don't insult what he did to me. We need those kinds of people - Against the potential tyranny of elected officials gone bad. Remember that military officers swear their oath to the Constitution, to defend it, not to the President. If he breaks the Constitution, their oath requires them to remove him from power if that's what it takes to defend the Constitution.

The Chilean Constitution is modeled on the American Constitution.

That may be the case, but they may well prefer the devil they know to foreign occupation.

When Saddam opened the doors to his prisons, and the people flooded in to look for the relatives still missing - Guards and loved ones alike were chanting "USA!"

They're waiting for us.

[Andrew J.]

On the one hand, the US could probably squash Saudi Atabia and Iraq like bugs.

On the other hand, this would probably result in enormous civilian casualties, and occupying those places is going to be a mother.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

My my, this sorta sounds like all that Reds-Under-Every-Bed propaganda of the 50s and Every-Jap-Is-Hirohito's-Spy propaganda of 1941, which also turned out to be complete bullshit. EVERY Muslim in the United States is controlled by Wahhabism?

Read the article. Not every Muslim - Simply the vast majority of Muslim lobbying, charity, and missionary groups in the USA. Which in the long term could result in the above!!

Who said anything about isolationism? And why does the development of a more efficent, oil-free industry imply economic weakness?

Because it's going to take decades and decades to do - They don't call it the Saudi Oil Bomb for nothing, because it isn't about cars, it is about EVERYTHING, you'd have to retool all of modern industry!, and what are we going to rely on in the meantime? Development of new sources of power, of replacements for petrochemicals - That WILL happen. But it will be a gradualist process over the course of the entire 21st century and we're going to pump the Mid-East dry before we run out of a demand for oil, believe me - while we are working on these programmes, at the maximum rate we feasably can.

Your entire premise presupposes the rise of this United Salafist Caliphate to begin with. It also presupposes that the nuclear programmes you refer to which rely upon heavy external assistance as it is will continue to receive that assistance after the rising of this theoretical United Salafist Caliphate.

Well, not really. Just the entire unified Sunni Islamic world - Which would include places like Kazakhstan, where the Russians tested their first nuclear bomb. Also, I am giving the Pakistanis up to fifty years to perfect a sixties technology, and they're not that bad at researching and stealing stuff.

It also presupposes that China, India, Israel, and Russia will simply sit back and allow a new nuclear threat to develop on their own borders. It further presupposes that a relatively impoverished United Salafist Caliphate, trying to sustain its own existence with the few resources it has to begin with and trying to sustain a nuclear programme without external assistance can further go forth to develop ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States.

It is impoverished but not without resources; it's a massive area of the globe, if disunified. It's every Muslim country on the planet except for Iran and Azerbaijan. The only exceptions to the extreme scenario would be Turkey and Morocco - I can't imagine either one buying into another Caliphate than one of their own, no matter how conservative they got, in ten thousand years.

Furthermore, you've just blown the industrialized world to Hell by turning off the spigot from most of our oil resources, so of course they have a chance to catch up. I'm examining the ramifications of you decision. Oil is vital to the world economy - It makes more than gasoline.

Unfortunately, you cannot bring down an entire country with satchel-nukes.

Satchel nukes wouldn't work anyway. Talking about other forms of attack. nuclear-tipped torpedoes into harbours is one favourite.

And why would Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei join this alliance? What advantage does it offer them to do so?

They're Sunni Islamic majority countries. I'm going to be very patient here.

No, you deal in paranoia. Galloping paranoia, from the looks of it. You've strung together so many improbable assumptions which have never worked out in any real world scenario in any period in human history that it frankly defies belief that you can seriously propose such a scenario as plausible.

It's "possible" - Possible, and somewhat more possible than other possibilities. You're ignoring the ramifications of destroying the world economy by gutting us of our supply of oil, and I'm just trying to demonstrate one possible such ramification - Rending the western world hapless against a rising threat of fanatical Islam.

In that sense it was biased to teach an object lesson you're not interested in learning. You cannot engineer technological developments contrary to economic needs. You'll self-destruct the economy to Greenize us. Why do you think Bush refused to sign Kyoto? Same thing, smaller scale.

In such a power vacuum as that, the Caliphate could come into existence. Still isn't likely, but it could happen.

It's also possible that aliens from Zeta Reticuli might invade. The probability against it however is exceedingly remote. And history does not support the likelihood of the scenario you propose.

Look at the world around you and consider history. Just because we live in an industrial age doesn't mean the barbarians can't be at the gate. That's a very extreme example, but it must be considered alongside the most mild - And the even more extreme - of examples. The more moderate ones I have also proposed in other places over time, considering evidence and theorizing on outcomes.

Certainly your proposal to devastate the western economy gives the barbs a considerable boost, however.

[Mr Bean]

Shall I part the Red Sea whilst I'm at it? Scientific innovation is not that easy.

If thou must, thou must

[Dahak]

@oil: Our current tech depends on oil, esp. plastics and a immense amounts of usages for it. It would be hard to replace it.

@hdyrogen fuel cells: Both BMW and Daimler-Benz have perfectly functioning cars with hydrogen, and they are no golf buggies, but full viable high-endcars.

@cars and production: Daimler was building cars before Ford came and invented the assembly line.

[Admiral Piett]

[quote="The Duchess of Zeon"]

"The majority of the American people still supported the war until nearly the end."

"Nearly" is the keyword.

The democratic control of Congress was what killed it in the end. The peace movement - the postmodernist movement - was in some cases a direct Communist front. The fact that we were fighting a covert war with the USSR on our home territory does not excuse our defeat, but does explain our low morale."

Dissenters were communist traitors by default,of course .Guerrilla is not about winning battles but about wearing down the enemy and especially its morale.This goal was reached.Your little McCarthyst fantasies about the USSR (and please do not come here saying "that microscopic party followed Moscow directives",that does not mean Moscow controlled the peace movement as a whole) controlling the peace movement are just a delusion to convince yourselves that the US are invincible.And a dangerous fantasy for that matter.Of course you could have reduced the country to a smoking crater with loads of nukes.
But I would hardly call it a victory.

" General Augusto Pinochet was a true Chilean patriot and hero of the Cold War, a defender of his people against the evils of Marxism and the cruel designs of Salvadore Allende. The scales of fate were weighed to judge him: When he stepped down voluntarily from his post they adjudged him a just man. He acted when his country needed him, repaired the damage, and set things right."

Geez,you can you really believe that bullshit?
Salvador Allende was democratically elected.He might have carried on stupid policies (many of which were the norm in Europe at the time,nationalizations and such) but he was not Hitler.All that Pinochet deserves is one bullet in his head and I am still generous.But it is a good thing that you have said that,so it will be obvious in the future to everyone here that you claims about "bringing democracy" are nothing more than pure crap.Like North Korea pretending to be a popular democracy,exactly that level of bullshit.
Pinochet is nothing more than the local equivalent of Saddam Hussein.

"We need those kinds of people."

Pinochet? I hope you could end in the hands of his torturers.They would make you change idea.Assuming that you survive the process.

"The Chilean Constitution is modeled on the American Constitution."

So what? the Soviet Union costitution was not bad.Their actual government sucked.Idem for Pinochet.A piece of paper is just that,a piece of paper.

[Admiral Piett]

"nuclear-tipped torpedoes into harbours is one favourite."

Inefficient.The soviets toyed with that at the beginning.But it is not entirely practical.And it is unlikely that a SSK could come into range without being detected.This without mentioning that you need the capability to miniaturize the warhead into a size tha could fit into a 533mm torpedo or to modify a sub to carry a custom torpedo.Both options require considerable skills.Only a country with many years of experience in nuclear weapons would be able to execute the first option.And such a radical refit of a submarine would require considerable experience in that field.

BTW,do you know that joke about the Mk45 torpedo?

[Darth Wong]

Sorry, but you can't have it both ways. You can't introduce a new propulsion technology and expect that it will accomodate the present standard of vehicle design, and you can't tell the House of Saud goodbye without eliminating dependence on oil.

Then that propulsion technology better let me wrap more metal and leather around myself than the current technology, provide better acceleration, and in general be worthwhile replacing the internal combustion engine vehicle I currently have.

I won't accept a sacrifice in vehicle size, acceleration, range, or any other feature over what I currently prefer, simply for something cleaner or "not reliant on the Saudis".

So, better to sacrifice the lives of American soldiers and foreign civilians than for you to sacrifice even the tiniest bit of vehicular luxury?

That attitude, in a nutshell, is why Osama Bin Laden and his ilk can gain new recruits so easily. They simply point to it and say "see?"

[Patrick Degan]

Gee, I'm sorry if historical truth is inconvenient to your cherished fantasies.

There are no fantasies here.

Except for your own, that is.

Obviously the first and most fatal mistake of the war in Indochina was the assasination that JFK ordered. The same thing that you speak out against curiously enough. But it doesn't invalidate the concept - It just reinforces the lesson that such operations must taken into context local prevailing politics and sentiment.

No, the first and most fatal mistake of the war in Indochina was getting involved in it in the first place. We made the mistake of trying to support the French in their continuing fantasy that they were still a world colonial power and that they could hang onto that empire by force. And the prevailing local sentiment was for independence from any foreign colonial power.

(Mainly because it has worked before, countless times, and not just for the USA.)

As you wish.

No, after their guerilla forces had already been annihilated when they'd tried to commit them to the cities; primarily during Tet. The Viet Cong was devastated during Tet and never fully recovered.

No, it was rather the North Vietnamese Army which were defeated in the field. The Viet Cong guerillas certainly suffered casualties, but the plain fact is that we failed to defeat the insurgent movement, and after Tet, Vietnam represented nothing more than a drain on our own treasury. BTW, those guerillas who "never fully recovered" potted an additional 20,000 of our men in six years of fighting.

Unfortunately, the only way to have secured that victory was to have remained as an de-facto occupation force, because the government of South Vietnam was not viable or credible enough to sustain itself.

You're correct. And that was JFK's fault, or at least that of his administration: They didn't take into account prevailing local conditions.

Um, it was Nixon who ordered the pull-out in 1973, after another 20,000 needless deaths in a war which should have been ended in 1968.

Nice fantasy. Pity that the actual reality is a bit messier, but right wingers will entertain the myths that comfort them, won't they? Also ignores the fact that the American public were sick and tired of the Vietnam War and the country was sinking into a serious recession at the time.

The majority of the American people still supported the war until nearly the end. The democratic control of Congress was what killed it in the end. The peace movement - the postmodernist movement - was in some cases a direct Communist front. The fact that we were fighting a covert war with the USSR on our home territory does not excuse our defeat, but does explain our low morale.

As Admiral Piett has pointed out, there did come a point when the majority turned against the war. I'm sorry if that doesn't suit you. As for the rest of your blather about Communist fronts, you are delusional at best. Veterans Against The War was hardly a band of Marxists. And our "low morale" came from our not actually accomplishing the goal of winning the war, no matter how much the generals spouted off about body-counts.

Thailand remained in constant combat with Communist insurgency for decades - It was stable but hardly secure. And simply because Cambodia depended on external support doesn't mean we should have given up on it. Vietnam was the forefront to the rest of Indochina, in that case - If we'd won in Vietnam we could have preserved them.

You cannot sustain a foreign government by force. See Emperor Maximilian of Mexico.

We start knocking over governments and putting in puppet dictatorships and we will end up with the Muslim world as our enemies. Or does it not occur to you that the people there might find domestic Salafist domination preferrable to American rule?

Did you even read the bloody article? Moderate muslims are already speaking out in very vigorous terms against Salafism - And the Wahhabi branch is a creation of the KSA, funded by the KSA. How is that domestic to individual Muslim Nation-States?

You just continue to miss the bloody point, don't you? The more the United States attempts to engineer the political order in the Middle East to our convenience, the more opposition we're going to generate, and opposition tends to fall more easily toward radical extremes when foreign pressure is involved.

And, I never said anything about dictatorships. In numerous countries in the Muslim world civil society is advanced enough that democracy is possible after a short occupation. In many others it definitely isn't, but.... I don't think we're going to have to clean out the entire Muslim world. I already said that.

Belief does not translate into fact, no matter how much you wish for it to do so. The Muslims aren't out to become pseudo-Americans. They do not want us there, period.

In 1951, the National Front movement, headed by Premier Mussadegh, a militant nationalist, forced the parliament to nationalize the oil industry and form the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). Although a British blockade led to the virtual collapse of the oil industry and serious internal economic troubles, Mussadegh continued his nationalization policy. Openly opposed by the shah, Mussadegh was ousted in 1952 but quickly regained power. The shah fled Iran but returned when monarchist elements forced Mussadegh from office in Aug., 1953; covert U.S. activity was largely responsible for Mussadegh's ousting.

Well, except for the exclusion of a few inconvenient facts —such as the adoption of the Oil Nationalisation Bill by the Parliament to secure Iran's control of its own oil industry from the British, the defeat of Britain's lawsuit against Iran at the Hague in 1951, the fact that the British blockade was part of a deliberate MI6/CIA plan to destroy Mossadegh's government, and the fact that the Shah violated the Iran Monarchy Constitution in deposing Mossadegh— you've actually got no argument whatsoever. You concede that the Shah's rule owed directly to U.S. political and covert intervention; a rule that was maintained through corruption and brutal suppression of dissent by Saavak, the Shah's loyalty police.

The guy was actually appointed to office by the Shah and was basically a fascist. Wow. I'm so impressed.

Mossadegh was elected to parliament in 1947, and elected by the parliament as Prime Minister in 1951. The only fascist in this story was Fazlollah Zahedi, the general handpicked by the Shah to replace Mossadegh.

The monarchist elements were there; the U.S. just provided support so that they could succeed against the central government. Even today the Monarchy remains popular in Iran despite what the ousted Shah did. Certainly not a majority of the populace - not today at any rate - But in the fifties? I don't have the data on hand to quantify that.

And what colour is the sky in your world? The monarchy which maintained itself in power with loyalty police and repression remains popular?

Impose democracy means to arrive, destroy the existing social order which places people in an unfree condition, and allows those people to be free within a society government by democratic institutions, particularly by providing them with a democratic constitution and insuring that the democratic process is functioning before leaving again.

And where exactly has this worked without a very long-term U.S. presence? And in which countries which didn't actually have a democratic tradition before the rise of the fascist governments which were later destroyed? Germany is not a valid example —they actually had an elective parliamentary democracy even during the reign of Kaiser Willhelm II and certainly before Hitler. Japan isn't a valid example either —they adopted a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament in the 1880s and had democracy for 40 years before the rise of the Kodo Party to power in the late 1920s. And even the Kodo Party's rule was not absolute unlike the Nazi party in Germany.

Hate to have to remind you of this little inconvenient fact, but 60% of the Iraqi population would elect a Sh'ite government if they had the chance to do so.

Where does this fantasy come from? Just because more than 60% of the populace is Shia doesn't mean they're all going to vote straight-line for a Shia religious party. That's the most simplistic political world-view I can comprehend.

An amusing statement coming from somebody with a political view so simplistic and detatched from reality that it makes Shep's seem rational by comparison.

Iraq is one of the most heavily secularized of Muslim countries in the world; and though religious groups have some popularity among the Shia and the Kurds, they do not comprise of the whole of their resistance organizations.

Iraq is "secularised" by force; Saddam Hussein keeps the religious factions heavily suppressed.

Furthermore, with the likely impending, and imminent, collapse of the Islamic Republic of Iran - in favour of a Republic without the "Islamic" in front of it - One things that those Shia resistance groups in Iraq will not have their funding.

Hate to break this to you, but Iran's Islamic regime is not in any danger of imminent collapse, no matter what nonsense you've heard from other quarters.

I am much less concerned with Shia fundamentalism than Sunni fundamentalism, in the form of the various branches of Salafism, anyway - The Salafists are the main threat. Shia fundamentalism was a big deal in the 19th century and I think the Islamic Republic will be seen as a brief resurgence before its final death in favour of secularism.

See above.

General Augusto Pinochet was a true Chilean patriot and hero of the Cold War, a defender of his people against the evils of Marxism and the cruel designs of Salvadore Allende. The scales of fate were weighed to judge him: When he stepped down voluntarily from his post they adjudged him a just man. He acted when his country needed him, repaired the damage, and set things right.

If it weren't for the tragedy which ensued in Chile at the hands of this "true Chilean patriot", your statement would be quite comical.

Don't insult what he did to me. We need those kinds of people - Against the potential tyranny of elected officials gone bad. Remember that military officers swear their oath to the Constitution, to defend it, not to the President. If he breaks the Constitution, their oath requires them to remove him from power if that's what it takes to defend the Constitution.

A rather unique view of a CIA-backed coup d'etat, I must say.

The Chilean Constitution is modeled on the American Constitution.

Kindly quote the passage in either document which empowers the military to overthrow the elected government, please.

When Saddam opened the doors to his prisons, and the people flooded in to look for the relatives still missing - Guards and loved ones alike were chanting "USA!"

Your proof of this, please? Your evidence, please?

They're waiting for us.

As you wish.

[Patrick Degan]

My my, this sorta sounds like all that Reds-Under-Every-Bed propaganda of the 50s and Every-Jap-Is-Hirohito's-Spy propaganda of 1941, which also turned out to be complete bullshit. EVERY Muslim in the United States is controlled by Wahhabism?

Read the article. Not every Muslim - Simply the vast majority of Muslim lobbying, charity, and missionary groups in the USA. Which in the long term could result in the above!!

I did read the article. It gave no numbers, it gave no solid data. In short, it gave no solid evidence to back your contention. That is what we call "hearsay".

Who said anything about isolationism? And why does the development of a more efficent, oil-free industry imply economic weakness?

Because it's going to take decades and decades to do

A country which put a man on the moon within ten years of declaring its intention to do so is incapable of meeting a technological challenge which Brazil met in the mid-1970s? We can't accomplish what the Brazilians managed to do?

They don't call it the Saudi Oil Bomb for nothing, because it isn't about cars, it is about EVERYTHING, you'd have to retool all of modern industry!, and what are we going to rely on in the meantime?

The factories don't burn oil on-site to power them, and the whole power grid is not reliant upon oil.

Development of new sources of power, of replacements for petrochemicals - That WILL happen. But it will be a gradualist process over the course of the entire 21st century and we're going to pump the Mid-East dry before we run out of a demand for oil, believe me - while we are working on these programmes, at the maximum rate we feasably can.

Japan is already accelerating its programme for energy independence, and electrical generating stations are not all oil-fueled. It is quite feasible to phase out oil-fired plants in favour of nuclear, biodiesel, natural gas, hydro, and tidal power stations.

Your entire premise presupposes the rise of this United Salafist Caliphate to begin with. It also presupposes that the nuclear programmes you refer to which rely upon heavy external assistance as it is will continue to receive that assistance after the rising of this theoretical United Salafist Caliphate.

Well, not really. Just the entire unified Sunni Islamic world - Which would include places like Kazakhstan, where the Russians tested their first nuclear bomb. Also, I am giving the Pakistanis up to fifty years to perfect a sixties technology, and they're not that bad at researching and stealing stuff.

In other words, you're just leaping to whichever conclusions support your paranoid fears of the United Salafist Caliphate and conveniently ignoring the countervailing forces which already stand in its way.

It is impoverished but not without resources; it's a massive area of the globe, if disunified. It's every Muslim country on the planet except for Iran and Azerbaijan. The only exceptions to the extreme scenario would be Turkey and Morocco - I can't imagine either one buying into another Caliphate than one of their own, no matter how conservative they got, in ten thousand years.

You're missing the point —if oil becomed devalued, and petrodollars are no longer flowing into the Middle East as a result, then there's no money to finance any schemes for world domination. Any regime that takes over in that area is going to have to deal with keeping the populations fed and neutralised, and you can't start a war if the homefront is socially unstable to begin with.

Furthermore, you've just blown the industrialized world to Hell by turning off the spigot from most of our oil resources, so of course they have a chance to catch up. I'm examining the ramifications of you decision. Oil is vital to the world economy - It makes more than gasoline.

Again, you miss the point, and in more ways than one. If we're not buying their oil anymore because we've switched to alternatives, there will be no petrodollars flowing in to finance world conquest. And if the Salafists shut off the oil taps on their own, again there are no petrodollars flowing in and again no money to finance world conquest schemes.

And domestic oil supplies, without having to feed energy needs or feed them at markedly reduced levels, can supply the petrochemical industry. As can recyclables.

Satchel nukes wouldn't work anyway. Talking about other forms of attack. nuclear-tipped torpedoes into harbours is one favourite.

Too bad no Middle Eastern country actually has any ocean-going submarines.

And why would Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei join this alliance? What advantage does it offer them to do so?

They're Sunni Islamic majority countries. I'm going to be very patient here.

Alliances are not based upon ideology. They're based upon concrete advantage. They're based upon what the two countries in the alliance have to gain from the agreement. What would Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei have to gain from abandoning the modern world and the global economy in favour of association with a politico-religious conglomerate run by fanatics dedicated to turning the clock back six centuries?

No, you deal in paranoia. Galloping paranoia, from the looks of it. You've strung together so many improbable assumptions which have never worked out in any real world scenario in any period in human history that it frankly defies belief that you can seriously propose such a scenario as plausible.

It's "possible" - Possible, and somewhat more possible than other possibilities. You're ignoring the ramifications of destroying the world economy by gutting us of our supply of oil, and I'm just trying to demonstrate one possible such ramification - Rending the western world hapless against a rising threat of fanatical Islam.

If we're not buying oil for energy, its because we've got something better and more reliable to power our industry and our economy. How does increased energy efficency and independence from foreign oil render us vulnerable to Islamic takeover? Do you even bother to examine your own reasoning at any stage?

In that sense it was biased to teach an object lesson you're not interested in learning.

I'm not interested in learning nonsense, if that's what you mean.

You cannot engineer technological developments contrary to economic needs. You'll self-destruct the economy to Greenize us. Why do you think Bush refused to sign Kyoto? Same thing, smaller scale.

Nonsensical drivel. Green (and I am not arguing for a 100% Green economy) does not automatically equal economic destruction. Both Brazil and Sweeden demonstrate that.

In such a power vacuum as that, the Caliphate could come into existence. Still isn't likely, but it could happen.

And again, aliens from Zeta Reticuli might invade. It's possible, but the probability is extremely remote.

Look at the world around you and consider history. Just because we live in an industrial age doesn't mean the barbarians can't be at the gate. That's a very extreme example, but it must be considered alongside the most mild - And the even more extreme - of examples. The more moderate ones I have also proposed in other places over time, considering evidence and theorizing on outcomes.

I have considered history, which is why much of your reasoning is simply nonsensical on its face.

Certainly your proposal to devastate the western economy gives the barbs a considerable boost, however.

The first time that technological advance and increased efficency has been labeled a proposal to devestate the western economy. You really need to go have a lie-down.

[Slartibartfast]

The only real roadblock in the way is our oil-soaked government slaving this country's entire energy policy to serve the profit interests of Exxon et.al.

Oh and lets forget the inconvient fact that oil is the most wonderfully compact
and portable energy source ever devised. What are you gonna replace
it with? Hydrogen? It costs more energy to make it than you get
from burning it....

Methanol

[MKSheppard]

Methanol

I'm not up to date on alternative energy sources. Barring a tremendous
leap of technology, the internal combustion engine will soldier on well
into it's second century....

[Slartibartfast]

Methanol

I'm not up to date on alternative energy sources. Barring a tremendous
leap of technology, the internal combustion engine will soldier on well
into it's second century....

Sorry I meant Ethanol. There's already at least one country that has made a full switch to Ethanol fuel.

[Admiral Piett]

Oil is going to stay here for quite long.People do not want nuclear energy (without mentioning that a large share of world's uranium deposits are located in troubled areas) and solar panels,windfarms etc cannot satisfy every energetic need of a country like the US.The importance of oil could be reduced however.

[C.S.Strowbridge]

Oil is going to stay here for quite long.People do not want nuclear energy (without mentioning that a large share of world's uranium deposits are located in troubled areas) and solar panels,windfarms etc cannot satisfy every need.The importance of oil could be reduced however.

Yeah, you don't need to eliminate oil use to eliminate the Middle East's political importance. Just producing more wind turbines and solar panels would help. Ever barrel you save is one less barrel you need to buy from people who are trying to kill you.

It would seem to be the smart thing to do.

[MKSheppard]

Yeah, you don't need to eliminate oil use to eliminate the Middle East's political importance. Just producing more wind turbines and solar panels would help. Ever barrel you save is one less barrel you need to buy from people who are trying to kill you.

It would seem to be the smart thing to do.

Jesus, CSS clone shows his stupidity again. Wind farms are worthless,
take up enormous amounts of land in return for negligable MW ratings..

[Admiral Piett]

Jesus, CSS clone shows his stupidity again. Wind farms are worthless,
take up enormous amounts of land in return for negligable MW ratings..

Of course it would not be the wisest use of arable land.But they are economically viable.

[Slartibartfast]

The Economic forces, essentially, simply add fuel to the fire - The fire is already burning.

Ah! But let us toss alternative fuels to the mixture!