posted on May 29, 2002 04:46:12 PM new
Is the war between the U.S. and...whoever sending other countries a message that war is the way to go? Do you know what I mean? Israel and the Palestinians have been fighting forever, but it seems more escalated since 9/11. Now this with India and Pakistan. Do you think this will snowball and turn into another World War?
posted on May 29, 2002 04:52:11 PM new
The immediate problem is that we were relying on Pakistan to help us with the Taliban/Al Qaeda hunt. The India situation shifts Pakistan's attention away from that. WW3 is not yet at hand.
posted on May 29, 2002 05:09:15 PM new
There don't seem to be BIG issues and alliances that will draw in allies one after another until all the world has taken one side or another like in WWI and WWII.
Still a conflict between say the US and most of the Arab nations or the US and China could disrupt world trade and damage the environment without being truely world wide.
posted on May 29, 2002 09:40:14 PM new
Pakistan and India were at this same point back in I believe 1996.
Terrorists are coming out of Pakistan and murdering in India.
Is the fighting escalated since 9-11 ? Perhaps, but not because of actions by the US or Israel. The terrorists have been emboldened by their "successes" in Israel and the US, and by our and Israel's restraint, and Europe's mediocre response.
WW3 coming ? I doubt it. All that would be needed to put a stop to most of this terrorist non-sense is for the West to provide a united front and go after the terrorists and the countries that support them. Terrorism is what is causing the problems between India and Pakistan.
Even if India and Pakistan exchanged nuke strikes, it would lead to little or no military actions by other countries. There would be absolutely no incentive for any other country to threaten attack either Pakistan or India once they cross the brink.
Pakistan would be the hands down loser should an actual war erupt, even if nukes were not used.
A Paki-India war would interupt world trade on a large scale- remember, over 25% of the worlds oil must pass close by Pakistan from the Persian Gulf.
China doesn't have the ability as of yet to deliver nukes into our hemisphere. China's threat has always been to hit Japan, and South Korea, and take Taiwan.
Basically, nuclear equiped nations now go through a blink test war or cold war instead of a real war. They threaten and see who blinks first.
But this may not be the case with countries like Pakistan or India.
If you think it's bad now, just wait until Iraq and Iran have nukes.
Environmental problems ? Not for the US and most of the world. Remember, the US, Russia, France, and Great Britain set of hydrogen bombs and there was little environmental damage and virtually none outside the actual sites.
posted on May 30, 2002 03:32:12 AM new
Have to disagree about the effects of radiation. When they were testing it was mostly the big powers doing air bursts of hydrogen boombs. By that time the fission core was real effeciant and most of the tests were spaced out over time and in the middle of the Pacific.
People are irrational about radiation. There will be no market for fresh dairy products and many other things from the PERCEPTION that there might be risk.
People in Indian and Pakistan will not want to eat local products and the world market for grain will be turned on it's head.
Even a small burp in the delivery of oil - which is a just in time delivery system on purpose to keep the price up will cascade down through the economy and cost us all.
Travel to the whole area will be disrupted and tourism will decline because people will be uncertain of risk in any Asian area.
Trade will also decline because of percieved risk and an inability to get the goods out.
If they shoot off a high altitude burst so the EMP knocks out the other guys electronics the effects are untested and may reach into other countries and even effect sats in orbit.
posted on May 30, 2002 04:26:01 AM new
I hope not, Kraftdinner, but it's an uncertain world we live in.
I agree with Reamond [usually do] that, "Terrorism is what is causing the problems between India and Pakistan".
Reports are saying since our war on Afghanstan the terrorists/Al Qaeda
have moved their operations into Pakistan where they have found a large amount of support.
If India and Pakistan go to war, India is said to have the extreme advantage and Pakistan's might just turn to nuclear weapons feeling there's no other way for them to win.
What concerns me right now is a discussion I heard [on tv] that said the US *might* step into the middle of this to protect the warheads from being used by the terrorist should the current leadership be overturned [by the terrorist within]. Now..that I would not like to see.
posted on May 30, 2002 04:46:17 AM new
Reamond - You said, "A Paki-India war would interupt world trade on a large scale- remember, over 25% of the worlds oil must pass close by Pakistan from the Persian Gulf".
I'd like to ask your opinion on how, should any disruption occur, the US would deal with that problem. Do you think we'd just be more willing to start approving more domestic oil drilling? It would be better to not have any disruption occur but, if it *ever* should, what impact to do see that having on our country?
For me, I wish the US would become less dependent on the world's oil reserves, and more self-reliant. Doing so [IMO] would keep us out, to a large degree, of other countries conflicts.
posted on May 31, 2002 01:29:11 AM new"Do you think this will snowball and turn into another World War?"
Sadly, the tendancy right now in the world is to stop fighting in orde to reallocate resources for the next mix-up. Note that this tendancy on the part of everyone in the world is trying to stop Bush & Oil from encouraging neighbors to start major wars. Why Bush thinks that WWIII would be "just dandy - let's do it!" is a matter best left to radical messageboard posters like yours truely to explain it. War = Murder + Profit, and Satan Loves War, therefore Bush = Satan.
posted on May 31, 2002 09:06:03 AM new
Borillar - You've finally said something I can agree with when you said, "radical messageboard posters like yours truely"...
posted on May 31, 2002 10:28:43 AM new
Linda & Borillar -
When you say it's an uncertain world we live in Linda, that's what I'm feeling too. I never thought that it was THAT bad of a world before 9/11. Now I'm wondering if it was "bad" all along, with this type of activity being so totally supressed for all these years by the gov't. They (the government) say the al qaeda 'network' & sympathizers are all over the U.S., Canada, etc. How long has this been going on? How do they know? How long have they known this?
It's those "weird" countries I'm worried about....Iraq, Iran, Syria, etc. How do we know that they haven't been nuclear equipped for years?
gravid, stusi & REAMOND, what you say makes sense. Thanks.
posted on May 31, 2002 01:09:40 PM new
Linda K- A disruption in supply of oil will cause immediate price increases on the world market.
Higher prices have an operation in markets, when prices rise, it removes some buyers from the market. The higher the price, the more buyers removed. This effect continues towards an equilibrium in supply and demand.
How will the US handle it ? Probably just let the market operate and hope it is short term disruption.
Domestic drilling ? Wouldn't do much good. By the time any fields are proofed and drilled, the whole situation will have changed.
This push for demestic drilling doesn't make any sense. If we allowed drilling on every protected area in the US, the world market would still need a large percentage of middle east oil, and if something happened to disrupt the middle east oil, we have the same result as we would if we got all our oil from the middle east. The oil that controls the market is the oil that we can not control, and the market will always be dependent on a large percentage of that uncontrolled supply. Oil is a world wide fungible commodity, a disruption from any source effects all markets.
Pure economics also work against domestic oil supply. I owned small cap oil company stocks in the early 1980's. They did pretty good with oil at $35 to $40 a barrel. However, once oil dropped below $30 a barrel, they had to shut many wells down because the cost of getting the oil out of the Texas and LA wells was nearly $29 a barrel.
Saudi Arabia can control the oil market quite easily. They can withhold oil from the market and drive prices up- making us invest in the development of other sources, then they can flood the market making those other sources uneconomical to produce. That's what happened in the late 1980s and 1990s. Remember oil hit $9 a barrel and many wells in the US had to be capped.
I heard a figure that Saudi Arabia had a 200 year supply of oil at present world consumption. It is also very cheap to extract oil in Saudi Arabia. A Saudi oil minster actually worried that there may not be a 200 year demand for their oil. I hope he is right.
There are some economists, business leaders, and scientists that can not imagine a dynamic economy without petroleum or nuclear as the main energy source. We can only hope they are wrong.
posted on May 31, 2002 01:53:20 PM new
REAMOND, you're right about the reason why our gas-pump prices continue to be so low. It's in the best interests of the oil producers to make energy options economically unfeasable. The radical notion that creating energy alternatives is patriotically viable has largely been styfled in the media. By that I mean, that America investing in energy alternatives so that foreign countries can't hold us over the oil barrel, even though such options are much more expensive, means PROTECTYION for the Uninted States and it's citizens and property that we do not enjoy right now. For instance, it would cost more to convert every home in Amereica to alternative energy, but in thte end, oil would not be used to heat or to cool homes and businesses. By changing automobiles to run on alternative fuel schemes that do not include oil products means that America would no longer be under the bootheel of Suadi Arabia and the like. Imagine how it would be: America would pull out of many countries in the world, because we no longer are blackmailed into providing troops and materials to those countries. That means that we would be at a giant advantage in any political negociations. And America could stop being Terrorists to much of the world and locals could blame someone else for their problems.
But would we, as Americans, do it if offfered a choice? Would you pay more in alternative energy if everyone else agreed to also do so at the same time? Was it worth the expense of putting a man on the moon? Was it worth investing unaccounted BILLION$ of Dollars in SDI in order to pressure the Soviet Union to collapse? How much money are you willing to pay to keep your kids from having to go to Wars for Oil? What is it worth to get rid of the Office of Homeland Defence? What would it be worth to you to be able to roll-back to a time before 9-11 and feel "safe" once again?
posted on May 31, 2002 02:02:52 PM new
REAMOND - When you consider what it is good for as feed stock for chemicals and plastics it is criminal to BURN oil. There should be other energy sources for just that reason, but nobody plans for 5 years from now much less 200 years from now. Future generations will look at the things we have done and view them as just as short sighted as the sins of damage to the land in the last two centuries here in North America.
posted on May 31, 2002 02:22:29 PM new
Yes, and it's precisely for the reasons detailed by both reamond and borillar, as well as gravid, that support for administrations such as this one should be curtailed. The oil producing corporations hold sway in American politics in order to preserve the status quo, and there will be no advancement until they are relieved of that power.
I do think that with proper media presentation the American people could be made to think that such a break from oil domination would be worth any sacrifice and would adopt the project with the energy devoted to victory during WW2.
These are ideas brought to the political sphere by the much maligned Jerry Brown.
posted on May 31, 2002 03:50:02 PM new
Kraftdinner - ..."bad all along...this type of activity being so totally supressed for all these years....how long...how do they know...how long have they known...
etc."
I can't answer your questions as I don't have that inside information. But that's where I have to/choose to put my trust in those we vote into office [at least to some degree]...that they do have that information and are doing all they can to act in our nations best interests. I kind of liken it to when both our sons were teenagers....I was glad that I didn't know everything that was going on until years after and they were grown. I don't mean to infer that I choose to put my head in the sand and ignore what's in my face, but just that having **all** the information about what's happening in the world, can be totally overwhelming at times.
I was in school when they regularly did the 'drop' under the desks routine in school....and families were building bomb shelters in their back yards, so when it comes to 'feeling safe'....I don't think I can say I have ever felt totally safe....just more safe sometimes than others.
posted on May 31, 2002 04:03:56 PM new
Reamond - Thank you very much for sharing your opinions ....I appreciate it.
When you said, "......that cannot imagine a dynamic economy without petroleum or nuclear as the main energy source.....We can only hope they are wrong"....that's what I was referring to.
I agree with gravid and Borillar that we, as a nation, need to do some serious talking about at least decreasing our dependence on foreign oil [oil all together]...so that as Borillar says, "foreign countries can't hole us over the oil barrel".
Yes, Borillar I'd be willing to pay more for alternative energy but believe it would need to be on a *grand* scale....not a few well-to-do families here and there.
And while it kills me to say so... [just kidding - it doesn't] I totally agree with krs' statement that "the American people could be made to think that such a break from oil domination would be worth any sacrifice and would adopt the project with the energy devoted to victory during WW2. Both my parents served in WW2 and shared a wonderful 'coming together' of our country....I totally believe we could do it again.
posted on May 31, 2002 05:39:07 PM new
the US, Russia, France, and Great Britain set of hydrogen bombs and there was little environmental damage and virtually none outside the actual sites.
Little damage?
Because of the crimminals who did these tests,
every mother on earth now has strontium 90 in measurable levels in the breast milk she feeds her children.
No terrorist did this.
the people in power did it,
then did and do their best to cover up everytime they create more of this filth that is responsible for so much suffering.
Nuclear power creates waste that will be around longer than any government has.
posted on May 31, 2002 05:44:55 PM new
When they are told to bail, it isnt a very good sign:
U.S. Urges Americans to Leave India
WASHINGTON (May 31) - The State Department on Friday urged the 60,000 Americans in India, including hundreds of U.S. diplomats and their families, to leave the country because of a risk of conflict between India and Pakistan.
``The fact that both of these countries possess nuclear weapons is part of our thinking,'' said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.
Still, the department stopped short of ordering nonessential U.S. diplomats and their families to depart. ``At this point, this is voluntary,'' Boucher said.
``Tensions have risen to serious levels and the risk of intensified military hostilities between India and Pakistan cannot be ruled out,'' the department said in a travel warning.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said officials are concerned ``that the Indians might find they have to attack.''
``I don't know what their timeline is,'' he told the BBC. Powell said he had no immediate plans to go to the region, ``but it's always a possibility.''
A small group of military personnel from the U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii is going to New Delhi to review the U.S. embassy's evacuation plan, a senior U.S. military official said Friday on condition of anonymity.
There are about 600 U.S. diplomatic workers and dependents in India, Boucher said. Those considered essential were not advised to leave.
Boucher said he did not know how many of those diplomats - in the New Delhi embassy and consulates in Calcutta, Bombay and Madras - or the 60,000 private U.S. citizens would choose to remain.
Americans who decide to stay should avoid all border areas between the two countries, the department said. Those who decide to leave will use commercial flights, which are plentiful, Boucher said.
Lalit Mansingh, India's ambassador to Washington, said the U.S. action was unnecessary.
``I don't think the situation justifies asking Americans to leave India,'' he told The Associated Press in an interview in Raleigh, N.C.
Mansingh also said India was willing to have a dialogue with Pakistan, but not under a threat of Islamic extremism. ``It can't be with a gun pointed to our head,'' he said. ``First and foremost, terrorism must come to an end.''
In Pakistan, all nonessential U.S. Embassy staff and dependents were ordered home March 22, five days after an Islamabad church was bombed, killing four people including two Americans. Private U.S. citizens, numbering up to 10,000, were told of the ordered departure to encourage them to leave.
Dozens of U.S. Embassy staff remain in Pakistan. The embassy in Islamabad is open, as are consulates in Karachi, Peshawar and Lahore, although they are heavily fortified.
While Boucher stressed the potential for conflict, he also said Pakistani authorities apparently had issued instructions to halt the influx of militants into Kashmir, the territory claimed by both Pakistan and India and the cause of a half-century of tension.
``We are still looking for confirmation of results on the ground,'' Boucher said.
Both India and the United States have sought to curb the infusion of Islamic extremists into Kashmir.
On Thursday, President Bush demanded that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf ``live up to his word'' and crack down on extremists.
The State Department's travel warning said, ``Conditions along India's border with Pakistan and in the state of Jammu and Kashmir have deteriorated.'' It cited artillery exchanges between Indian and Pakistani troops and said terrorist groups linked to the al-Qaida network and implicated in attacks on Americans have attacked and killed civilians.
A White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, echoed the State Department's description of the situation.
``Anytime you have tension between two countries that possess nuclear weapons, it is a serious situation, and that is all the more reason why high-level diplomacy is ongoing with India and Pakistan,'' he said.
In parallel moves, Britain and Canada also advised their citizens to consider leaving India.
The families of British government staff, and officials holding nonessential government positions in New Delhi and Bombay will be allowed to return home, said Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. His office estimates there are about 150 government staff in India, with 200 dependents.
In Ottawa, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham said nonessential diplomatic workers and families of Canada's diplomatic staff in India had been told to depart.
In Singapore, after meeting with Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said a war between India and Pakistan would be ``somewhere between terrible and catastrophic.''
Fernandes, meanwhile, said there was no change along the border between India and Pakistan. ``The situation is stable,'' he told The Associated Press.
On the diplomatic front, the Bush administration is encouraging India and Pakistan to discuss Kashmir and other issues directly with each other.
Powell talked by telephone Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to meet next week with senior Indian and Pakistani officials at a conference in Kazakstan.
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage plans talks in Pakistan next Thursday and in India next Friday. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld intends to speak with leaders of both countries a few days later.
Boucher said they would stress to both sides ``that the consequences of even contemplating nuclear war can be disastrous.''
posted on May 31, 2002 06:31:24 PM new"But that's where I have to/choose to put my trust in those we vote into office [at least to some degree]...that they do have that information and are doing all they can to act in our nations best interests."
That's precisely how I felt about Clinton during his years. I winced everytime he signed some bill or measure that favored corporations and foreign interests over America and Americans. Even got angry and critical at times. But I did have that trust that deep down, Clinton had our best interests at heart.
Not so with Bush. Not once has Bush shown the least concideration for anyone but himself and his cronies. Not once has he sided with Ameericans over foreigners, if said interests were to the benefit of corporations and/or his buddies. Not once has Bush sided with the American People and their welfare over corporate interests or his pal's interests. Not once has Bush hesitated to publically and loudly screw over the majority of his constituants in order to please some far, right-wing agenda or the corporations or his friends.
posted on May 31, 2002 06:41:29 PM new
I think that is the crux of the matter ever since Bush took office. The majority of americans had that trust that deep down that our president had our best interests at heart. With this one, that feeling is not present and its showing in many ways all over america. Perhaps its that lost and bewildered feeling many have...or anger that others experience. It falls into the category of "I feel this....disquiet....but cant quite put my finger on it" sorta thing. I think its exactly what was said..there is no trust and lots of dread.
posted on May 31, 2002 06:45:16 PM new
The winner in the long run in such an atomic exchange would be the one with the best civil defense - dispersed industry - decentralized communucations and the best instructions to civilians for seeking shelter and decontaimination. Both are too poor to do much of that. I bet there is not one good radiation meter for each 10,000 people. They won't know how to avoid exposure to fallout.
They don't have lots of clean water under pressure for wash downs.
posted on May 31, 2002 07:12:20 PM new
I sort of suspect all the deep motives on this agreement.
They take the weapons off the self as assembled weapons but keep the cores and parts so if there is a need they can reassemble tham in days for a few or weeks for the lot.
It reduces the risk of a big exchange just going on and on once you start it and makes them cheaper to store.
However it retains the power structure of the two powers not with each other but with all the smaller nations. With thousands still on line and deliverable it hardly matters to say Syria if the US still has more warheads than they have targets in their country.
posted on May 31, 2002 07:56:52 PM new
WW3 - I doubt it. India crosses border, Pakistan Nukes India, India returns the Favor -Repeat until one side runs out of nukes or cant get up again- Everyone says 'Wow look at that' not much else happens. The leather goods trade gets realigned toward China,and we have lots of benefit concerts on tv - "Who is John Galt"
posted on June 1, 2002 06:28:51 AM new
The biggest challenge to alternative energy isn't really "big oil" interests, it is world wide economic forces.
The US can't afford to pay more for alternative energy in a global economy. Independence does not guarantee viability in the long or short term.
If the US resorted to alternative energy that was only 10% higher than current petro or coal sources, US goods and services would be priced further out of the market. Labor price competition has cost us thousands of jobs, couple this with inefficient energy sources, and job loss will be even worse.
Oil prices would plummet to perhaps $2 a barrel if we stopped using it.
Our economic competitors will still be using oil, and it will have become an extremely cheap energy source, severely undercutting the price of anything the US produces.
Imagine China building electric generating plants fueled by dirt cheap petroleum. Their incremental energy costs would be hugely less than ours. An economic shift will then occur towards these countries that are using a cheaper energy source.
But there is an interesting anectdote about cheap oil in Saudi Arabia which makes this point. SA decades ago used to import grain, they actually export it now. Energy is so cheap for them that it can be used to de-salinate ocean water and irrigate crops with it. This was pointed out to the farmers in the 1970s that chanted " a barrel of oil for a bushel of wheat". The farmers were living in the distant past.
For an alternative energy source to be adopted, it must be more economically efficient than petroleum to displace it.
While the environmental benefits might be desired, we have learned that in a world economy, if everyone doesn't play by the same environmental rules, all we accomplish is to shift the pollution and jobs to another country. Politically, losing too many jobs is unacceptable, and air pollution, once produced, knows no boundaries.
Many are critical of Bush for refusing the Kyoto Treaty, but when you look at the facts of the treaty, he did the right thing. China and many other countries were exempted from the greenhouse gas and other regulations.
All this agreement would do is shift the pollution and jobs to China and other countries. The protesters here in the US would not be allowed to protest in China, while China spews the CO2.
The only way for the US to utilize alternative energy and reduce pollution is to deny importation into the US of goods manufactured by countries not using alternative fuels and not using the same pollution regulations. The economic ramifications of this type of policy would be gigantic and unmanageable.
We need a Manhattan project for an alternative fuel source. But that won't happen until oil hits and maintains a price of $50 a barrel.
This global economy and "new world order" will require many changes for the US and the rest of the world. Terrorism is how some are responding to these changes.
While it doesn't seem too obvious, one of these issues of change is the English only referendums floating around the country.
At first blush, you would have to ask yourself why anyone would be against English only laws.
For many the English only push is viewed as purely a social justice issue, but in reality it is not. It is an economic issue too.
The US will continue to be "latinized" from the influx of people from Central and South America.
The political Right wants the cheap labor, the political Left sees it as a social justice issue.
Europe is seeing the same thing happen only their influx of people is coming from Africa and Asia.
Can we digest these changes without a world war or many "regional" or civil wars with allies and enemies constantly shifting? History tells us we can not avoid a conflict and digest the changes that are brewing. The push for an anti-missle defence is because many have realized the conflict may be unavoidable. But I can predict this, the next war will not start like the last one, it will not be fought like the last one, and will not be won like the last one. It may include another civil war here in the US. Immigration may trigger it, a push to unite under one government the countries of Mexico, the US and Canada may trigger it, or a split in the US, with the South West uniting with Mexico, the rest of the US joining Canada.
If the economy slips into depression, it will hasten the conflicts. Changes are much easier to digest if you have a job.
posted on June 1, 2002 07:31:50 AM new
If Pakistan is our "ally" in the Afghani/Taliban/Al Qaeda fight, and India is at odds with Pakistan, is India now part of the Axis of Evil? Is India now on our sh*t list? Where do our public and private loyalties lie?
Please, quit confusing these folks with facts and logic. It's much more fun for them to bash the evil oil companies and corps. Now, say you are sorry and refrain from this in the future.
