Posted on 06/24/2004 7:11:52 AM PDT by Mark Felton
It's as it always has been....SA is two-faced and we keep talking to both faces as if something is going to get accomplished.....
it would be equally unfair to mention that we give a couple of dollars to egypt and that has not closed the GDP gap with Isreal. I believe and could be wrong but Foreign dollar aid is not factored into GDP.
Thank you for using the word "fundamentalist" instead of the often misused word "extremist" when describing our enemies.
George W. Bush will be reelected by a margin of at least ten per cent
I don't know if it's factored into GDP or not. Regardless, I suspect that were it not for the huge support of the USA government and American Citizens, Israel would not have a strong economy. I'm sure it would be much better than other middle east countries... especially considering that the citizens of such nations do not value hard work or education... which Israel does.
The only thing that will save them is a massive bloodbath of all the Wahabists, like Indonesia 1965. Or maybe Rwanda
I used to think like that too. Believe me, I am not saint, but have gotten closer to Jesus Christ. I could write 20 paragraphs of miracles since that time but let me say that I no longer worry about things that are not under my control.
We have, and with the price where it is now, we'll drill some more. Plus we'll open up some currently non-producing fields that required higher cost methods of extraction.
That's all well and good, but without building new refineries (which are at capacity) it won't help that much.
We need a better long term energy policy!
AQ would simply shut the oil off overnight. This would cause a depression unseen in our country almost instantly.
Bin Laden is already rich and money is not what he is about these days. The day after 911 should have been the wake up cal to build 50 massive synthetic oil plants. The old argument of "but, but, we'll pay $2.50 a gallon!". We are pretty close to that now and the price goes down as volume goes up, like anything else.
Agreed on the oil but I don' think the "flee" strategy is liklely. AQ has declared war on the house of Saud and the Saud's are retaliating. They just woke up to the fact that they are a target and have just started preparing militarily. It doesn't matter where the princes go, they are all now "infadels" just like us (minus the 50-60 princes funding AQ).
Billions buys you a hell of a lot of security people. The general population may have thought Bin Laden was a major hero until the bombing in Riyadh.
I thought the source I posted belied that notion...
But it doesn't really need the money, which totals less than 3% of its GDP. In fact, U.S. aid probably discourages needed economic reforms which could make the Israeli economy more productive.
Cool. In that case, I'm sure you'd agree that we can stop the aid payments and help lower our huge deficit.
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