• Trump Loving Rightist Anti-Science Climate Change Deniers In League Wit

    From Ubiquitous@21:1/5 to All on Tue May 18 01:37:31 2021
    XPost: soc.culture.usa, alt.fan.jai-maharaj, soc.culture.indian
    XPost: alt.philosophy, alt.politics.trump, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
    XPost: alt.politics, alt.politics.conservative, alt.politics.republican
    XPost: alt.politics.republicans, talk.environment, alt.politics.economics XPost: talk.politics.misc

    Rightists are in league with our fundamentalist Islamic
    terrorist enemies by standing against the continued development
    of high tech alternatives to their shamless addiction to muslim
    oil. It is the so-called Libertarians and socialist
    Conservatives who are the biggest threat because they kow tow
    and pander to their oil conglomerate masters, they are slaves.
    Oil Man deposed despot George W. Bush held hands while on long
    romantic walks with Saudi King Abdullah, allowing them free
    passage from the USA on 9/11, despite how the attackers that
    day were Saudis. Radical rightist Republican Senator James
    Inhofe has received over $1 million in "donations" from the oil
    industry in return for his support of Muslim terrorism and the
    subsequent death of American soldiers caused by AGW denial and
    support of Islamic oil. The right is against choice and
    freedom, demanding that we continue on the course of
    unsustainable oil gluttony; mainly because they are fat and
    shiftless, with tiny brains and low I. Q.s.

    Fueling Terror

    "...the hijackers, 15 hijackers who are Saudis, they studied
    this thinking --
    destructive thinking -- in Saudi Arabia. They spent a few
    months in Afghanistan. But they lived their life, they studied
    this in government mosques. [..] Government curriculum inspired
    what happened in New York." - PBS interview with Ali Al-Ahmed,
    executive director of the Saudi Institute
    Much has been reported about the complex system of terrorist
    financing
    and the money trail facilitating the September 11 terror
    attacks. Individuals and charities from the Persian
    Gulf--mainly from Saudi Arabia--appear to be the most important
    source of funding for terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda.
    According to an October 2002 Council on Foreign Relations
    report of an Independent Task Force on Terrorist Financing,
    Osama bin Laden and his men have been able to accumulate
    millions of dollars using legitimate businesses such as
    charities, nongovernmental organizations, mosques, banks and
    other financial institutions to help raise and move their
    funds.

    How does it work? Take Saudi Arabia for example. This Gulf
    monarchy is a rentier state in which no taxes are imposed on
    the population. Instead, Saudis have a religious tax, the
    zakat, requiring all Muslims to give at least 2.5 percent of
    their income to charities. Many of the charities are truly
    dedicated to good causes, but others merely serve as money
    laundering and terrorist financing apparatuses. While many
    Saudis contribute to those charities in good faith believing
    their money goes toward good causes, others know full well the
    terrorist purposes to which their money will be funneled.

    What makes penetration and control of money transactions in the
    Arab world especially difficult is the Hawala system--the
    unofficial method of transferring money and one of the key
    elements in the financing of global terrorism. The system has
    been going for generations and is deeply embedded in the Arab
    culture. Hawala transactions are based on trust; they are
    carried out verbally leaving no paper trail.

    The Saudi regime has been complicit in its people's actions and
    has turned a blind eye to the phenomenon of wealthy citizens
    sending money to charities that in turn route it to terror
    organizations. Furthermore, Saudi government money funneled
    into madrassas where radical anti-Americanism is propagated has
    been instrumental in creating an ideological climate which
    generates terrorism. Former CIA director James Woolsey
    described the Saudi-sponsored Wahhabism and Islamist extremism
    as "the soil in which Al-Qaeda and its sister terrorist
    organizations are flourishing."

    Barrels and bombs
    It is no coincidence that so much of the cash filling
    terrorists' coffers come from the oil monarchies in the Persian
    Gulf. It is also no coincidence that those countries holding
    the world's largest oil reserves and those generating most of
    their income from oil exports, are also those with the
    strongest support for radical Islam. In fact, oil and terrorism
    are entangled. If not for the West's oil money, most Gulf
    states would not have had the wealth that allowed them to
    invest so much in arms procurement and sponsor terrorists
    organizations.

    Consider Saudi Arabia. Oil revenues make up around 90-95% of
    total Saudi export earnings, 70%-80% of state revenues, and
    around 40% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). In
    2002 alone, Saudi Arabia earned nearly $55 billion in crude oil
    export revenues. Most wealthy Saudis who sponsor charities and
    educational foundations that preach religious intolerance and
    hate toward the Western values have made their money from the
    petroleum industry or its subsidiaries. Osama bin Laden's
    wealth comes from the family's construction company that made
    its fortune from government contracts financed by oil money. It
    is also oil money that enables Saudi Arabia to invest
    approximately 40% of its income on weapons procurement. In July
    2005 undersecretary of the Treasury Stuart Levey testifying in
    the Senate noted ?Wealthy Saudi financiers and charities have
    funded terrorist organizations and causes that support
    terrorism and the ideology that fuels the terrorists' agenda.
    Even today, we believe that Saudi donors may still be a
    significant source of terrorist financing, including for the
    insurgency in Iraq."

    If Saudi Arabia is the financial engine of radical Sunni Islam,
    its neighbor Iran is the powerhouse behind the proliferation of
    radical Shiite Islam. Iran, OPEC?s second largest oil producer,
    is holder of 10 percent of the world?s proven oil reserves and
    has the world?s second largest natural gas reserve. With oil
    and gas revenues constituting over 80 percent of its total
    export earning and 50 percent of its gross domestic product,
    Iran is heavily dependent on petrodollars. It is a hotbed of
    Islamic fundamentalism and supporter of some of the world?s
    most radical Islamic movements such as the Lebanese Hizballah.
    Iran?s mullahs are fully aware of the power of their oil. Its
    supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned in 2002: ?If the
    West did not receive oil, their factories would grind to a
    halt. This will shake the world!? As the world?s demand for oil
    increases, Iran grows richer --Iran?s oil revenues have jumped
    25 percent in 2005?and more than able to snub the U.S. and its
    allies in their efforts to prevent Tehran from developing
    nuclear weapons.

    The line between the barrel and the bomb is clear. It is oil
    wealth that enables dictatorial regimes to sustain themselves,
    resisting openness, progress and power sharing. Some
    semi-feudal royal families in the Gulf buy their legitimacy
    from the Muslim religious establishment. This establishment
    uses oil money to globally propagate hostility to the West,
    modernity, non-Muslims, and women. This trend is likely to
    continue. Both the International Energy Agency and the Energy
    Information Agency of the U.S. Department of Energy currently
    project a steady increase in world demand for oil through at
    least 2020. This means further enrichment of the oil-producing
    countries and continued access of terrorist groups to a viable
    financial network which allow then remain a lethal threat to
    the U.S. and its allies.

    Drying the swamp
    There are many strategies proposed by counter-terrorism experts
    to obstruct terrorist financing. Many of them are effective
    and, indeed, some of the steps that have been taken since
    September 11, such as freezing bank accounts and improving the
    scrutiny over international monetary transfers, contributed to
    a reduction in Al-Qaeda's financial maneuverability. But the
    only way to deal with the problem strategically is to reduce
    the disposable income and wealth generation capacity of
    terrorist supporters.

    Hence, America's best weapon against terrorism is to decrease
    its dependency on foreign oil by increasing its fuel efficiency
    and introducing next-generation fuels. If the U.S. bought less
    oil, the global oil market would shrink and price per-barrel
    would decline. This would invalidate the social contract
    between the leaders and their people and stem the flow of
    resources to the religious establishment. It will likely
    increase popular pressure for political participation,
    modernity and reformed political and social institutions.

    Reducing demand for Middle East oil would force the
    petroleum-rich regimes to invest their funds domestically, seek
    ways to diversify their economies and rethink their support for
    America's enemies. Only then financial support for terrorism
    could radically diminish.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)