[JDGreen123]

Great link! This combined with post #19 in this thread-Oil from Russia- I think foretells the future. The oil barons of the 21st century will be the Russians and former Soviet Asian countries. The Caspian Sea is the hot oil area right now. UNOCAL supposedly wants to build a pipeline from the Caspian to the Indian Ocean by way of----you guessed it, Afghanistan.

This undoubtedly will lead to some future war in which the Chinese will make a push for the Caspian reserves. The United States, Russia, and Western Europe will then have to defend those areas. The beat goes on.

I don't have much hope for any oil replacement anytime soon. The big oil corporations, the Wall Street gang, the automobile manufacturers, and the environmentalists all stand to lose if we change the status quo.

[Fred25]

Ok, so here’s what we do. We, Russia, England, and Pakistan control Afghanistan and make it an “international” cosmopolitan country that has respect for the various reasonable customs of the various different ethnic groups. We turn the different regions into international tourist areas, with Disney and other companies building huge resort hotels. The US, England, and Russia join forces to build the pipeline. The mountain areas to the north are opened to development of super ski resorts. We’ll use Tourist Guy as the spokesman for the new emerging vacation spot of Southwest Asia. This will also help open up the “Stans” for American development and markets for our cars, trucks, and other consumer products. We’ll allow companies to rent dune buggies to tourists for some outstanding cross country off-road trips.