US fingerprint & photograph all foreign visitors except those on visa waiver

Sjoerd wrote:

"Binyamin Dissen" schreef in bericht
news

19 is above curfew age.

Is there a curfew in the US? Why?


To keep the trouble - making little buggers off the streets, natcherly...

In some localities it's 16.

--
Best
Greg

Vareck Bostrom wrote:
Then the agreement seems to be that fundamentalists or extremists are
the problem, and they view any strong representitive of the mainstream
demos as an enemy?

No. democracy has nothing to do with it. That is an excuse used by the US
govermnent (and its loyal terrier Bliar) which has nothing to do with reality.
It is a PR ploy aimed at the ameican masses to make it look like their
cherished democracy is at stake.

Arabs couldn't care less how the USA lives inside its own borders. They care
about the USA imposing its values in the middle east.

Where there is a "not the USA's fault" portion is with
technology/communications. Fundamentalists are aware that the advent of
satellites, television and internet will prevent any isolation and that the
younger crowds will grow up to be more western.

Iran is a good example of this. The 1979 revolution was exactly to return Iran
to a isolated fundamentalist state and isolate it from the western world. But
the ayatolas couldn't prevent this forever and more and more, young Iranians
are getting contacts with the western world. And more and more, the younger
generation are demanding more open government and democracy. And the process
is moving ever so slowly, but it is happening from within. (and yes, with some
help from CIA, but it is more subtle).

What happens is that some of the fundamentalists who do not accept this
"evolution" want to revolt against this natural evolution towards a global village.

The leaders are from the old generation, and they use PR to recruit young ones
ready to kill themselves for a "good" cause.

The only way to fix this properly is simply to cut off the supply of young
people and let the older fundamentalists die off peacefully. Yes, this takes
time, and during that time, you need to be patient.

What the USA is doing is fueling anger and motivating younger ones to replace
the older ones and spearhead the war against the USA.

It's not as if the USA doesn't have nations telling it what to do as
well, through international structures and systems. The US wanted to
protect steel lately through tarrifs, yet this was brought down because
other nations (through the body of the WTO) told the US what to do.

Works both ways. It wasn't the other nations who told the USA that steel
tarrifs were illegal, it was the USA who helped setup the WTO in order to
prevent protectionism. Works both ways. If the USA wants other countries to
lift tarrifs so the USA can export more goods, then the USA must do as it says.

I don't have any argument with that at all, that's completely fine by
me. Other countries should accept that the US has it's own values and
priorities and also accept that if the US decides not to do business
with a country that has values it doesn't like (through means such as
trade sanctions) that other country should except our own values on the
subject.

Correct. But the USA has no business telling other countries not to deal with
country X because the USA doesn't like the leader of X. (Helms Burton comes to mind).

Not at all, at least, that's not how I see it. I see the current
administration agressivly pursuing US interests through *completely
legal* means

Wait till Gantnamo kidnapping camp goes to the USA supreme court. And the UN
NEVER sanctioned the unprovoked invasion of Iraq, so that invasion was
illegal. The USA invasion of Iraq had as much legal standing as Iraq's
invasion of Kuwait. Both were unprovoked.

And find me the text in any UN resolution that gave any one country the right
to decide if Iraq was in breach or not, and find me the text that says that
invasion of the country was to be the sanction should Iraq be found in breach.
You won't find this text.

Iraq was cooperating and the UN had made significant progress in getting its
inspectors total and free access to all of Iraq and the inspectors were
reporting significant progress. But the USA didn't want this to happen because
they had wanted the inspectors to be blocked by Hussein so that the USa could
then push a resolution to invade. When when Hussein cooperated, the USA
realised that the UN would never authorize the invasion, thus the USA acted
illegally, outside of UN mandate.

No, it just seems that senior US officials have finally done a little
research on North Korean negoation tactics.

Go back and read the 1998 documents at newamericancentury.org web site (the
axis of evil website from Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz). They clearly state that
the Clinton deal with North Korea (supply of oil in exchange for N Korea
stoppping its nuclear development) shoudl be scrapped the minute the
republicans take power. It took a few months, but Rumsfeld did scrap that
agreement even though it was workling and North Kirea was quiet and submitting
itself to UN IAEA inspections.


There is no doubt in my mind at all that the DPRK is a dangerous country
under dangerous leadership, much more so than Iraq or Iran was or is.
They have a very long history of dangerous behaivor throughout the cold
war and on.

Generally dangerous animals don't bite the hand that feed them. But the second
you cut the feeding, they get angry at you. North Korea is a bankrupt country
with limited resources but very high pride and ego. The Bush regime gave Korea
a shot of adrenaline when they cut the oil supply, motivating N Korea to act
like a big bad boy again. They are like a hungry kid who will beg for
attention until it gets fed.

The USA could have simply told China, Japan and South Korea to take care of
their problem child instead of forcing that kid to throw a tamper tantrum,
which played right into the hands of the Bush Regime which needed to show
North Korea as a bad kid in order to be able to use the speeches that had been
prepared in 1998 by the newamericancentury.org people.

Citizens of territories of the US under the US constitution have US
citizenship. The US has not recognized Iraq as a territory,

But international law has recognized the USA as an occupation force in Iraq
and holding the USA responsible for all damages and governance of Iraq. Just
like Iraq was recognized as being responsible for the damages it caused to
Kuwait and forced to pay (although they were pushed back so they were never
recognized as governing authority).

Incidently, who is the chief of state of Canada? If you answered Queen
Elizabeth II can you explain under your logic how Canada is not occupied
by the UK and how Canada does not have its own government?

Canada has its own constitution, government structures and its own head of
state (governor general which is a representative of the queen).

The USA destroyed all government infrastructure of Iraq, including the
parliament buildings, destroyed Iraq's exsiting currency, totally ignored
Iraq's constitution, dismantled its army and police forces and has to rebuild
everything from scratch. The USA had 0 intentions of simply catching Hussein.
They wanted to build a country in the USA's image and use it as a marketing
ploy to show other middle eastern countries how good a USA-controlled Iraq was
with wealth, democracy, no conflicts, clean streets etc etc.

Any UN applied status only has effect under the UN, which is not really
a soverign body. So, who cares?

The security council has powers. It is the general assembly which doesn't have
any binding powers.

"Gregory Morrow" schreef in bericht
link.net...

Sjoerd wrote:

"Binyamin Dissen" schreef in bericht
news

19 is above curfew age.

Is there a curfew in the US? Why?


To keep the trouble - making little buggers off the streets, natcherly...

In some localities it's 16.

Wow. I learn something every day. Last time we had a curfew here was when
the Nazis occupied our country.

Sjoerd

PTRAVEL wrote:
theoretically, here). Second, I'm not sure that there's any constitutional
basis for requiring a US citizen to be fingerprinted before he is allowed
back in the country.

Is a US citizen considered "USA citizen" when in international airside prior
to him having proven his identity/citizenship ? Doesn't a government have
lots of leeway in how it phsycally identifies a person as a USA citizen ?
(after which, his right to enter the USA would be assured).

There is no question in my mind that the USA has a right to strip everyone
down naked at the immigration checkpoint to verify their identity, take
pictures, fingerprints, blood samples, DNA samples, urine samples (for drug
testing) etc. And the USA has a right to refuse entry to anyone it wants.

However, when you start to implement drastic measures, then travellers should,
just like for airside security, have the option to refuse such treatment and
be given a chance to return to their home countrty without submitting to the
USA immigration procedures.

In the current case, it seems that the USA have well defined who must undergo
privacy invasion and identity theft (those needing visas to enter USA).
However, there is no telling how soon those rules will go overboard and
immigration agents will be given total control on who they choose for
indentity theft. I say identity theft because the USA doesn'T have strict
data confidentiality laws and the USA refuses to define who will have access
to all the information it is gathering. With picture, passport information,
fingerprints, that database is a serious risk to one's identity if one is
unsure what happens to that database.

Sjoerd wrote:

"Gregory Morrow" schreef in bericht
link.net...

Sjoerd wrote:

"Binyamin Dissen" schreef in bericht
news
19 is above curfew age.

Is there a curfew in the US? Why?


To keep the trouble - making little buggers off the streets,
natcherly...

In some localities it's 16.

Wow. I learn something every day. Last time we had a curfew here was when
the Nazis occupied our country.


Well here it's one of those "for the children" types of things (I guess).
Didn't you ever see that famous movie _Rebel Without A Cause_ , Sjoerd? :


http://www.ci.chi.il.us/cp/AboutCPD/.../PR000614.html

Police Superintendent Issues Reminder
"Curfew Laws Will be Enforced"

13 June 00

With the regular school year coming to a close, Chicago Police
Superintendent Terry Hillard is issuing a reminder to parents that city
curfew law will be strictly enforced during the summer months.

Officials from the Chicago Police Department, Chicago Public Schools,
Chicago Fire Department and the Chicago Park District will gather at the
Chavez Resource Center, 4946 South Paulina, at 11:30 a.m. on June 13, 2000
to discuss safety and summer recreation and educational programs.

In Superintendent Terry Hillard's absence, Deputy Superintendent Harvey
Radney of the Bureau of Investigative Services and Fire Commissioner Jarnes
Joyce of the Chicago Fire Department will speak on the safety aspect of
curfew law enforcement.

According to Chicago's curfew law, children under the age of 17 must be at
home, or accompanied by a responsible adult, between the hours of 10:30 p.m.
and 6:00 a.m. Sunday through Thursday. On Fridays and Saturdays, the curfew
is between 11:30 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.

While enforcing the curfew law, officers are required to pick up violators
and return them to their homes. At which time, parents must sign a curfew
notification form. An accumulation of three signed notifications within a
12-month period could result in a parent, or legal guardian, being issued a
non-traffic citation that requires a court appearance and a possible fine of
up to $100.00.

"The most precious resource we have is our children. We must ensure their
safety by making a strict commitment to fully enforce the curfew law," said
Deputy Superintendent Harvey Radney."

/

In article , Fly Guy wrote:

Vareck Bostrom wrote:

Because the US is the largest, most powerful democracy.

India is the largest democracy (by population).

India has also had a certain amount of trouble with muslim and
other terrorists.

So? Is Al Queda attacking India? Has OBL mentioned India in his
periodic messages?

The point is that many nations are targeted by terrorists and
specifically muslim terrorists, not just the US.


Once the word fundamentalist comes into play, you can't expect
that faction to be reasonable. Islamic, or any other ...

Exactly. The Christian fundamentalists in the US south, and in the
White House, are also unreasonable as their domestic and foreign
policy agenda shows.

I agree that Christian fundamentalists are just as bad as Islamic ones,
and I personally don't like the feeling that US foreign policy or
domestic policy is being directed with a religious ideal behind it.
However, at the same time, I don't think Christian ideals are the basic
driving force of US foreign policy.



there are going to be extreme elements both within and outside
of the US that feels that the US government or the US as a whole
is an oppressor.

This is the argument that is typically used to explain-away the legit
argument that the arab world has with the US by saying it's only a
small handfull of arabs that are making the noise. And it works
domestically because Americans are incredibly ignorant of how the
average arab lives or what the average arab thinks about various
issues.

The Arab world has no legitimate argument with the US, above arguments
that any nation has with any other nation. Having spent some time in the
mid-east and holding very similar discussions as to the one I'm holding
with you now, I feel that generally the average Arab was quite friendly
and open to conversation, perhaps doesn't like everything about US
policy in the same way that perhaps a french person wouldn't. My
complaint with them come mainly from what seems to me as how they get
information: rumor. Of the few I talked to about the subject, most
thought that the 9/11 attacks were executed by either Israel or the US
itself, and strangely enough the only one of the few I talked to with a
university degree agreed with me and thought that it was indeed Al
Queada that performed the attacks, and in doing so hurt the arab and
muslim world more than they hurt the US.

Though the UAE was not like this at all, Egypt seemed to be a country
completely driven on corruption at all levels. Every thing you'd ever do
there seemed to be accompanied by a bribe. The Emariti that I talked to
agreed with this impression of Egypt as well.

People in the UAE (Dubai at least) seemed much more open and educated,
and I was told that when 9/11 occured the defense minister came on the
radio and announced that this was the worst possible thing that could
happen to the UAE.


The US also has an extremely large economy and US corporations
and citizens can be found in every country in the world and
that makes the US a very obvious target.

Then why didn't the planes on 9-11 fly into IBM, or Microsoft, or
Boeing, an oil refinery, an auto factory? There are extremely large
corporations in Germany, France, Netherlands, Scandinavia, etc. Again
a popular myth that Al Queada has a real problem with how we live in
the west and how our corporations operate. This myth helps build and
maintain popular support in the US that it's their very way of life
that's at stake. Fear combined with ignorance.

Al Queada is not a rational faction. They are extremist and
fundamentalist, their target selection and choice of targets can't be
considered rational.


France has also been the target of external terrorist threat
from the same source as the US in the form of Libya.

I'm not familiar with what specific French actions or policies have
led to specific actions against it by Libya.

The French did nothing wrong, just as the US did nothing wrong.


South Korea and Japan have had citizens kidnapped by the
North Korean government - not just a few either, hundreds
over the years.

An action designed and executed by a gov't and were not designed to
terrorize or harm the general South Korean or Japanese population but
were (stupid or misguided) covert activities with foreign-intelligence
gathering objectives at it's roots. Again, how many Al Queda planes
crashed into buildings in Korea and Japan? How many times has Japan
been the subject of some sort of attack by a foreign group with
radically different ethnic or religeous beliefs?

North Korea has engineered events designed to terrorize, I'm sure you're
aware. From assassination of a South Korean diplomat in a third country
to the destruction of civilian airliners (a boeing 707 enroute from Abu
Dhabi to Bangkok).

So far as I'm aware, Al Queda never attacked Korea or Japan in any way.
That doesn't mean Korea and Japan have not been the victims of terrorist
actions though, which is my point.


In some future time, North Korea may well attack the US
because the US helps repel an armed invasion by the DPRK
into the ROK.

More FUD.

It is uncertainty and doubt, but not fear, just a statement of a
possible future conflict. Every economic or military contingency planned
for by almost any nation on earth is based on "FUD". If there were
certainty in the knoweldge of future events, there'd be no need for
contingency planning.


Much of the US oil comes from Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela
(in that order, roughly, in 2002 at least),

It doesn't matter where it comes from. It matters if the global
supply can comfortably exceed the global demand. If it can't then
world oil prices rise. That's the beauty of a free market,
free-enterprise system. It's also half the reason why the US has
maintained a political or military presence in the middle east.

The US maintains a political or military presence (on invitation) from
many countries around the world. South Koreans, for example, generally
support US soliders being present in Japan, or at least did so in the
1990s.


which are all stable and friendly supplying states

And Canada should impose an export tarrif on it's oil sold to the US
in retaliation for all the trade crap (softwood lumber for one) that
the Bush admin is pulling.

And the US should ban Canadian citizens from studying or working in the
US. We all have our little irrational "shoulds" that we want our
governments to perform. Fortunately, our governments are more rational
and long-term thinking than we are.


Oil is efficient and american industrial processes are geared to
it. If the Americans were to seek out an alternate energy source
we would lower the price of oil until that alternate energy
source was not economically viable.

Look people! I'm having a conversation with Dick Cheney!

It's impossible for you to believe another American besides Dick Cheney
could have this viewpoint? Do you honestly believe that there are no
Americans besides the administration that have some support for this
view? If so, you are far more ignorant about Americans than you accuse
Americans of being ignorant about the Middle East.


Was I looking for a PR speech from the Petroleum Marketing Board?

In a sense it was. It was the viewpoint of the Saudi Oil Minister, which
I had mentioned at the start of the paragraph, which was the point of
the paragraph: the Saudis are doing their best to keep the US dependent
on Oil. That the US has an oil based energy system is not only through
the actions of the US.


You've just admitted that the US is vulnerable to world oil supply and
prices, and by extension that the US has a dire interest in the
stability of various gov'ts in the middle east and in the free flow of
oil from that region, so much that they stationed thousands of troops
in Saudi Arabia to essentially hold the House of Saud hostage to their
oil needs.

The US is vulnerable to the world supply of uranium, tungsten, zinc,
even food. Some of these things the US can supply itself, some for which
internal demand exceeds internal supply - as is the case for some
resource or another by almost every country in the world.


How would the average god-fearing american act if an Islamic foreign
power stationed troops on US soil to insure the stability of an
un-popular regime for the sake of efficient and controlled extraction
of a US natural resource?

I think the average American would dislike it. The US didn't station
troops in Saudi Arabia to support the Sauds against internal threats
though. American troops would not have become involved in a revolution
within Saudi Arabia on either side.


American troops are located in many dozens of countries around
the world

Tell me what other country is doing the same.

Many are, either as part of NATO or UN stabilization forces.


this is hardly "occupation".

Again how would the US public feel or react to having foreign troops
stationed on US soil.

We have foreign soliders stationed on US soil. A Canadian air force
officer is present at NORAD, for example. I imagine though, the feeling
would be very similar to how New Yorkers feel about the obscene amount
of foreign diplomats (with diplomatic immunity) stationed in New York
City. Something worth complaining to the government about, and if the
complaints were legitimate and universal enough, our government would do
something about like ask the UN to leave. But it's not really that bad.


but Saudi Arabia was not occupied.

You've got to be joking. When a puppet gov't allows thousands of
foreign troops to be stationed on it's soil, what is do you call it?

It's no puppet government. Puppet governments do not invoke oil embargos
as happend by the current Saudi government against the US in 1973 when
the US supported Israel after Israel was the subject of a surprise
attack by arab and muslim countries.


Americans for years have been invited to Saudi Arabia

Invited. Did you type that word with a straight face?

It's what the Saudi Government itself said.


to help train their "national guard"

To help keep the House of Saud in power.

Whatever the saudi government wanted to do with their national guard.


The Saudis have asked us to leave and we're going.

It got too hot in the kitchen and now you've realized what a mistake
it was to keep those troops in Saudi Arabia and you're hi-tailing it
outa there. You knew it was coming to this after 9-11 so you cooked
up a crock pot reason to "attack" Iraq so you could set up a puppet
gov't there so you can continue to maintain some control of world oil
prices and supply by putting your hand on Iraq's oil supply (second
only to Saudi Arabia). You think this scheme will be self-financing
because Iraq's petro dollars would flow back to the US as a way to pay
for it's reconstruction because of the billions of dollars worth of
cruise missles you lobbed at them in order to cause the dammage in the
first place.

No one would ever think we could make up the money we have alredy paid
for the Iraqi operation. The Iraqi oil economy can only produce a profit
of a few billion a year, compared to the $160 billion already spent by
the US in the operation. And the US is not, after all, confiscating the
Iraqi economy. The US has lost a tremendous amount of money in Iraq, and
it will never, ever, be recovered.


You attempt to use the term "occpy" to imply "control of" which
was not the case in the least in Saudi Arabia.

Save that drivel for the ignorant US population. Those that pay
attention to world politics and world events knows better. My my, hit
a nerve with Saudi Arabia did we?

Not in the least.


Only (extremely) ignorant, arrogant non-americans believe that
the US has been the only target of external terrorist threats.

Was the Boston Tea party a terrorist act? Was the US revolt against

Yes, in fact, that is a way of looking at it that I won't argue with.

the Brittish that led to the war of independance a terrorist act?
Spin spin spin this all you want. Every terrorist group has a legit
beef somewhere deep down as their root cause and those that they
agress against are desperate to keep those reasons from becoming known
to their citizens.

No, not every terrorist group has a legitimate beef. Terrorist groups by
and large are irrational, their complaints are often imagined wrongs.
Sometimes a terrorist group does have a legitimate complaint, but then
their methods are wrong, in my view.


Hussein did not seem to consider the US a friend, even while
asking for US help during the war with Iran. The US never
considered him a friend the way the US would consider the
UK or even France a friend - he was simply the lesser of
two evils in a very bad situation.

Why are you trying to cloud the issue by going down a side-track of
what a friend is? Rumseld went to Iraq and sealed the deal with
Saddam with a handshake in front of the cameras. The Reagan white
house was such a friend to Saddam that they quashed a motion by the
house and senate to condem Saddam's use of chemical weapons. What
else are friends for?

That's foreign diplomacy. Iraq launched the war all by itself, the US
saw Iraq as a lesser evil than Iran (and by that point had quite a
history with Iran) and decided to support Iraq to a small degree. That's
not friendship, there was nothing altruistic in those actions.

"nobody" wrote in message
...
PTRAVEL wrote:
theoretically, here). Second, I'm not sure that there's any
constitutional
basis for requiring a US citizen to be fingerprinted before he is
allowed
back in the country.

Is a US citizen considered "USA citizen" when in international airside
prior
to him having proven his identity/citizenship ?

Sure. The only time an American citizen is not one is if he renounces his
citizenship or serves the army of a foreign power.

Doesn't a government have
lots of leeway in how it phsycally identifies a person as a USA citizen ?
(after which, his right to enter the USA would be assured).

I don't know about that. I imagine that any identification process would
have to be constitutional per the 4th and 5th Amendments.


There is no question in my mind that the USA has a right to strip everyone
down naked at the immigration checkpoint to verify their identity, take
pictures, fingerprints, blood samples, DNA samples, urine samples (for
drug
testing) etc. And the USA has a right to refuse entry to anyone it wants.

Hmmm. I'm not sure about the former. The latter, yes, but only with
respect to non-citizens. Exile of a citiizen is unconstitutional.


However, when you start to implement drastic measures, then travellers
should,
just like for airside security, have the option to refuse such treatment
and
be given a chance to return to their home countrty without submitting to
the
USA immigration procedures.

I think they do, don't they?


In the current case, it seems that the USA have well defined who must
undergo
privacy invasion and identity theft (those needing visas to enter USA).
However, there is no telling how soon those rules will go overboard and
immigration agents will be given total control on who they choose for
indentity theft. I say identity theft because the USA doesn'T have strict
data confidentiality laws and the USA refuses to define who will have
access
to all the information it is gathering. With picture, passport
information,
fingerprints, that database is a serious risk to one's identity if one is
unsure what happens to that database.

HEY JF! DO YOU THINK YOU COULD PLEASE STICK TO ONE SOCK PUPPET PER
DAY...???

--
Best
Greg


"Fly Guy" wrote in message ...
Vareck Bostrom wrote:

Because the US is the largest, most powerful democracy.

India is the largest democracy (by population).

India has also had a certain amount of trouble with muslim and
other terrorists.

So? Is Al Queda attacking India? Has OBL mentioned India in his
periodic messages?

Once the word fundamentalist comes into play, you can't expect
that faction to be reasonable. Islamic, or any other ...

Exactly. The Christian fundamentalists in the US south, and in the
White House, are also unreasonable as their domestic and foreign
policy agenda shows.

there are going to be extreme elements both within and outside
of the US that feels that the US government or the US as a whole
is an oppressor.

This is the argument that is typically used to explain-away the legit
argument that the arab world has with the US by saying it's only a
small handfull of arabs that are making the noise. And it works
domestically because Americans are incredibly ignorant of how the
average arab lives or what the average arab thinks about various
issues.

The US also has an extremely large economy and US corporations
and citizens can be found in every country in the world and
that makes the US a very obvious target.

Then why didn't the planes on 9-11 fly into IBM, or Microsoft, or
Boeing, an oil refinery, an auto factory? There are extremely large
corporations in Germany, France, Netherlands, Scandinavia, etc. Again
a popular myth that Al Queada has a real problem with how we live in
the west and how our corporations operate. This myth helps build and
maintain popular support in the US that it's their very way of life
that's at stake. Fear combined with ignorance.

France has also been the target of external terrorist threat
from the same source as the US in the form of Libya.

I'm not familiar with what specific French actions or policies have
led to specific actions against it by Libya.

South Korea and Japan have had citizens kidnapped by the
North Korean government - not just a few either, hundreds
over the years.

An action designed and executed by a gov't and were not designed to
terrorize or harm the general South Korean or Japanese population but
were (stupid or misguided) covert activities with foreign-intelligence
gathering objectives at it's roots. Again, how many Al Queda planes
crashed into buildings in Korea and Japan? How many times has Japan
been the subject of some sort of attack by a foreign group with
radically different ethnic or religeous beliefs?

In some future time, North Korea may well attack the US
because the US helps repel an armed invasion by the DPRK
into the ROK.

More FUD.

Much of the US oil comes from Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela
(in that order, roughly, in 2002 at least),

It doesn't matter where it comes from. It matters if the global
supply can comfortably exceed the global demand. If it can't then
world oil prices rise. That's the beauty of a free market,
free-enterprise system. It's also half the reason why the US has
maintained a political or military presence in the middle east.

which are all stable and friendly supplying states

And Canada should impose an export tarrif on it's oil sold to the US
in retaliation for all the trade crap (softwood lumber for one) that
the Bush admin is pulling.

Oil is efficient and american industrial processes are geared to
it. If the Americans were to seek out an alternate energy source
we would lower the price of oil until that alternate energy
source was not economically viable.

Look people! I'm having a conversation with Dick Cheney!

Was I looking for a PR speech from the Petroleum Marketing Board?

You've just admitted that the US is vulnerable to world oil supply and
prices, and by extension that the US has a dire interest in the
stability of various gov'ts in the middle east and in the free flow of
oil from that region, so much that they stationed thousands of troops
in Saudi Arabia to essentially hold the House of Saud hostage to their
oil needs.

How would the average god-fearing american act if an Islamic foreign
power stationed troops on US soil to insure the stability of an
un-popular regime for the sake of efficient and controlled extraction
of a US natural resource?

American troops are located in many dozens of countries around
the world

Tell me what other country is doing the same.

this is hardly "occupation".

Again how would the US public feel or react to having foreign troops
stationed on US soil.

but Saudi Arabia was not occupied.

You've got to be joking. When a puppet gov't allows thousands of
foreign troops to be stationed on it's soil, what is do you call it?

Americans for years have been invited to Saudi Arabia

Invited. Did you type that word with a straight face?

to help train their "national guard"

To help keep the House of Saud in power.

The Saudis have asked us to leave and we're going.

It got too hot in the kitchen and now you've realized what a mistake
it was to keep those troops in Saudi Arabia and you're hi-tailing it
outa there. You knew it was coming to this after 9-11 so you cooked
up a crock pot reason to "attack" Iraq so you could set up a puppet
gov't there so you can continue to maintain some control of world oil
prices and supply by putting your hand on Iraq's oil supply (second
only to Saudi Arabia). You think this scheme will be self-financing
because Iraq's petro dollars would flow back to the US as a way to pay
for it's reconstruction because of the billions of dollars worth of
cruise missles you lobbed at them in order to cause the dammage in the
first place.

You attempt to use the term "occpy" to imply "control of" which
was not the case in the least in Saudi Arabia.

Save that drivel for the ignorant US population. Those that pay
attention to world politics and world events knows better. My my, hit
a nerve with Saudi Arabia did we?

Only (extremely) ignorant, arrogant non-americans believe that
the US has been the only target of external terrorist threats.

Was the Boston Tea party a terrorist act? Was the US revolt against
the Brittish that led to the war of independance a terrorist act?
Spin spin spin this all you want. Every terrorist group has a legit
beef somewhere deep down as their root cause and those that they
agress against are desperate to keep those reasons from becoming known
to their citizens.

Hussein did not seem to consider the US a friend, even while
asking for US help during the war with Iran. The US never
considered him a friend the way the US would consider the
UK or even France a friend - he was simply the lesser of
two evils in a very bad situation.

Why are you trying to cloud the issue by going down a side-track of
what a friend is? Rumseld went to Iraq and sealed the deal with
Saddam with a handshake in front of the cameras. The Reagan white
house was such a friend to Saddam that they quashed a motion by the
house and senate to condem Saddam's use of chemical weapons. What
else are friends for?

On Tue, 06 Jan 2004 23:39:22 GMT, "Gregory Morrow"
wrote:

HEY JF! DO YOU THINK YOU COULD PLEASE STICK TO ONE SOCK PUPPET PER
DAY...???


Geez, moro, give it a break.

JF messages make much more enjoyable reading than your continuous
"EXPOSE MESSAGES".

Do we really need your exposes on JF?

Nobody elected or appointed you to be a moderator of messages in RTA.

john wrote:

On Tue, 06 Jan 2004 23:39:22 GMT, "Gregory Morrow"
wrote:

HEY JF! DO YOU THINK YOU COULD PLEASE STICK TO ONE SOCK PUPPET PER
DAY...???


Geez, moro, give it a break.

JF messages make much more enjoyable reading than your continuous
"EXPOSE MESSAGES".


Not if you've been here for more than a few weeks, chum....


Do we really need your exposes on JF?


For you newbies, sure :-)


Nobody elected or appointed you to be a moderator of messages in RTA.


I'm not...I just feel it's my "public duty" to keep everyone here
"informed"....

--
Best
Greg