The Nossiter Net The net that shall enmesh them all Edited, Written, and Published by J.C. Nossiter |
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The Morning Mendacity Friday, October 22nd, 2004 |
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The Nossiter Net is cast to snare some of the riper rascalities of the day. Comments? editor@nossiter.net | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
If the war on terror really is the most important issue in the 2004 election, how strange that the one intelligent proposal for winning it should be largely ignored by the Democrats and ridiculed by the Republicans.
As much as Mr. Bush tries to cloud the matter by pretending that our enemies are everywhere, the fanatics with the means and the will to cause mayhem in the United States come from one region, and most of them come from one country. It was no accident that fifteen of nineteen 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals. They were also bankrolled by Saudi money, Saudi protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. The wife of the Saudi ambassador to Washington, after all, was helping to fund the hijackers’ sojourn on our shores. The 9/11 Commission Report found no evidence that Saudi officials were paying Bin Ladin’s way, but was mute on the subject of private Saudi money for terror. Others have been less reticent. According to the BBC*, the Council on Foreign Relations (crg.org), in a 2002 report, leaves no doubt that Saudi Arabia, through “charities” and private donations, is the principal backer of Al Qaeda. The Treasury Department’s own General Counsel called Saudi Arabia "in many cases the epicenter" of terrorist financing in 2003. Meanwhile, 20% of our oil imports come from the middle east, and most of that is Saudi in origin. So we pay the Saudis, who then, if unofficially, in turn pay… you get the idea. The jihadists out to get us think we are corrupting the Islamic purity of their state by our presence within their borders. Our oil buying also supports the corrupt and hated ruling Al Saud family. For a murderous fanatic, those are two perfectly good reasons to blow up U.S. cities. This vicious merry-go-round becomes more vicious as it turns, since not only do our oil consumption dollars flow back to us in the form of terror, we also get air pollution, groundwater pollution, and all the other ills that accompany the unrestrained consumption of petroleum. There is only one way to halt the merry-go-round, and that takes us back to Mr. Kerry’s ignored or ridiculed plan for alternative fuels. If he’s serious, and the Federal Government embarks on a quasi Manhattan Project to cut our dependence on foreign oil on his watch, we can leave the Chinese to worry about crazed Saudi murderers. Can it be done? Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney both say the notion is absurd, but then again they’re both former oil men and relentless apologists for their Saudi pals. For the non-oily, the real absurdity is entertaining for an instant the idea that the nation that put its citizens on the moon can’t find another fuel for them to drive down the street. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3877755.stm? ©J.C. Nossiter, 2004 |
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The Gift That Keeps On Giving | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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