[CIB-173RDABN]

I agree with your implied comment that it is money (we pay them for oil) that has allowed them to support terrorist.

Eliminate the money, and you will go a along way towards limiting terrorist.

Fuel cells may be part of the answer. Opening up oil fields (closed down by enviromentalist) may also be part of the answer. Finding a replacement for oil, may be the best answer (it would not be a first time that an energy source has changed).

Those are long term solutions, the short term may just be to go back in and take the oil fields, and pay the countries a fair price for the oil, but spend the money on schools, roads and other public works, but none for their military.

We can not stop them from hating us, but we can take away their source of financing.

[snopercod]

We can not stop them from hating us, but we can take away their source of financing.

That bears repeating.

[clintonh8r]

When oil prices get high enough the oil patch (Texas and Oklahoma) will begin producing again. Soon we will increase production in Russia and the "'Stans". I would imagine the Saudi royal family is in near panic that soon their oil revenues will be diminishing. The fact is we are beginning to take away their source of financing.

[piasa]

We can not stop them from hating us, but we can take away their source of financing.

Al Qeada's primary financing came from honey, heroin, the stock market, counterfeiting, hostage-taking (the number one source of terrorist funding worldwide, a close match with drug money for top place), charities, the hawala system, and a multitude of schemes carried out by its operatives involving everything from check kiting to forgery.

The PLO, on the other hand, gets a lot of money from oil since the oil producing states would rather have the palestinians in Israel's hair than in theirs.

Oil is a minor part of the problem when it comes to the funding of terrorism- but it is a HUGE part fo the problem in that it twists the way oil-dependent nations deal with countries in the middle east. Instead of acting forcefully when people mess with us, we have to worry about the 'feelings' of those nearby nations which have a say in how much oil the US or its trading partners can buy. We wouldn't have to worry about any country's 'feelings' if our people were not worried about the occasional oil crunch, becuase it is the American politicians' need please the constituency on economics that makes them so sensitive to the oil market- not the oil itself. All politics IS local. Americans think only of their wallets and purses, but are too stupid to realize that the taxes made neccessary by the American desire for economic 'security' and a safety net have a bigger adverse effect on our wallets and national economic success than the price of oil ever could.