The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Some facts about the Middle-East > Comments

Some facts about the Middle-East : Comments

By Steven Meyer, published 5/5/2011

The Middle-East is fast running out of lots of things, but not people.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. Page 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. All
ARJAY <Does this in some way justify the illegal invasions of Iraq,libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan>

Re:Iraq. You fail to mention the illegal invasion by Iraq into Kuwait, where they raped and looted at will for 3months before America was persuaded by the United Nations and the world to go in and stop the atrocities. America wanted to pursue Suddam Hussein into Iraq and take him out then after the success of Desert Storm. The United Nations supported by the Arab World did not want America to continue the war into Iraq at the time so they imposed transparency sanctions on Suddam that he would allow constant inspection and oversight of his country, so he could not once again become a military threat in the region. He broke this UN sanction when he refused to allow inspectors into his country. America having just been attacked on 9/11 was in no mood for Suddam Hussein to break his war treaty with them.

Re: Libya. The people involved in the uprising in Libya against the brutal regime of Gadaffi, begged the Americans to come in and stop Gadaffi using his planes and tanks on them. The Americans weary from war in Afghanistan and Iraq were reluctant to commit to another war. Never the less they did go in to offer some assistance by bombing Gadaffi’s airforce.

RE: Afghanistan you failed to mention the invasion and extremely cruel rule of the Afghan people by the Pakistanian Taliban. (There are some horrific stories that came to light there too.) After 9/11, the Americans found that Osama Bin Laden had terrorist training camps that were harboured and supported by the Taliban. Apparently Osama didn’t mind the cruel and inhuman rule of the Taliban over the Afghan People even though they too were Moslims. Not Moslim enough for Osama it would seem.
It was only when the Americans came that the Afghan resistance fighters managed to free Afghanistan from the Taliban and drive them back over the border into Pakistan.

There is by no means only one guilty illegal invader involved in these sorry war scenes.
Posted by CHERFUL, Thursday, 5 May 2011 11:23:36 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
*Ask yourself why the process would need subsidies if it really were economically viable*

Well it probably could survive without them, but if profits are
marginal, people won't invest. The subsidy is actually not high,
around 45c a gallon and with gasoline at 4$ a gallon, its not
a huge part of the final price. But for the industry to become
viable, it also needs economies of scale and that can only come
through volume. So the first step was to get it up and running,
the next step will probably be to change to biomass use, rather
then corn.

The thing is, global food/grain prices were artificially low,
because of huge dumping subidies paid by both the US and EU.
That limited production in places like Australia and many other
countries, because often grain prices were below the cost of
production. Food energy needs to be worthwhile to produce,
just like other energy, or people won't do it.

Even now, grain prices are not expensive. The cost of moving the
product from farm gate to the consumer is far greater,as it goes
through many middlemen. But companies regularly use rising grain
prices as an excuse to bump up their own margins. They seldom
tell you when grain prices are plummeting.
Posted by Yabby, Friday, 6 May 2011 10:22:39 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Yabby,

Probably the worst thing that ever happened to the food market was EU subsidies.

The second worst thing was US subsidies.

But all this is another story deserving of a thread on its own.
Posted by stevenlmeyer, Friday, 6 May 2011 10:45:06 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Stephen,

You certainly mentioned Turkey including its dams on the Euphrates which will directly impact Syria and Jordan both of which featured strongly in your article. Perhaps you meant to say you didn't discuss Turkey as such.

And just as water features strongly in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict there is ample evidence of growing tensions particularly between Turkey and Syria over the same and the threat of conflict is very real.
Posted by csteele, Friday, 6 May 2011 11:35:38 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
csteele wrote.

>>Perhaps you meant to say you didn't discuss Turkey as such.>>

Yes, that is what I mean't to say.

But the biggie is Egypt. What Egypt does if the upstream states decide to divert some of the water that feeds the Nile for their own use I really don't know.

To me Egypt still looks on the verge of becoming a failed state. Yes I accept that many of their problems are due to corruption and poor governance; but I don't see those issues being corrected in time, if ever.

My GUESS is that a decade hence most Egyptians will be even poorer and more desperate than they were when the present uprisings began.
Posted by stevenlmeyer, Friday, 6 May 2011 3:02:12 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/05/world_population_forecasts

Steven, this some predictions about the global population by 2100.
Nigeria at 850 million, Africa to treble, Afghanistan at over 100
million.

The elephant in the room remains birth control and if countries
don't deal with it, it will simply be survival of the fittest.

Australia will no doubt be flooded too, as people like Csteele
take them in as ever more refugees, as the problem keeps growing.
Posted by Yabby, Friday, 6 May 2011 5:51:43 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. Page 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy