<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; = charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 5.50.4522.1800" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV> Hi.   I am convinced the highest good in recorded history has been attained = by the United States and its struggles to set up and strengthen democratic = freedoms to a previously only dreamed of level. I don’t want to loose them and = I’m not talking about some restrictions in the interest of security. I want to = share these thoughts with you, I think they bear mention.     It is being said, these days, that the attacks on the United States = have their source in the poverty and frustration in the Middle East, particularly among the Palestinians. There is poverty in the region, certainly. At the same time we conveniently forget that the Middle East has one of the largest agregations of capital, money, in history. Every time an engine is running either in North America, Japan, Europe or Australia - money flows to the Middle East, Saudi = Arabia in particular. Tens of millions of U.S. dollars every day; around the = clock 365 days a year. Multiply that sum by the number of days in a year = and then, again by the number of years since the 1973 Arab oil embargo and you = get an astronomic amount of money. Where is that money? Some of it has = been given, by the Saudis, to a number of terrorist organizations for the = past 30 years and is, at this moment, being given to setting up training = camps for Palestinian suicide bombers to bomb civilian targets in Israel. One = may like Israel or not but how do you know that the people who train terrorists = to kill and mame Israeli civilians won’t practice their craft on = terrorists with United States civilians in mind? Also, just for the record, Saudi Arabia is a = country where the birth of a girl is not even registered and where women = aren’t allowed to drive because they’re considered not very valuable. This is the = only country in the world today that has weekly or biweekly executions, beheadings, = right in front of the main mosque in Riad, on Fridays at about 1 o-clock p.m. as worshipers file out of the mosque. A government employed executioner = swingigng a large, sharp and heavy sword does the job on those whom the Saudi = government considers political or religious undesirables. I’m only mentioning = all of this to point out how easy it is to cozy up to a ‘friendly’ = country without attaching some strings in return for generous American support. Strings like = ‘no training terrorists or financially supporting any country or organization who undertakes = such training’.     The United States had periods of poverty, extreme poverty, the last = such period was the great depression which brought on nation wide = down-to-the-dirt poverty. I don’t recall the United States government setting up = training camps for terrorists to give vent to the frustration born of the national = poverty. I do recall the United States government bending every effort, employing = the finest minds it could find to turn the situation around and to help = everyone get their lives back to being productive and economically sound. So the = formula, proposed by some, ‘poverty = frustration = terrorist training = = attacks on innocent civilians excuseable on the grounds of poverty’ is a = falasy.     The bulk of the oil money from the United States, Europe and Japan is = in the possession of a few hundred people and is sitting, in the guise of gold bullion, in Swiss bank vaults. Could some of that money be used to alleviate some of the poverty in = the region? Maybe to build an infra structure; roads, hospitals, universities, industries in the Palestinian territory? Maybe to close some of the refugee camps by letting the refugees settle somewhere in an Arab country = and providing them with enough money, it doesn't take that much, to begin = a productive life and an education for their children? Of course it = could. Why isn't it, you ask, because the wealthy in Saudi Arabia, Iran or = Lybia like their money to remain theirs! and we in the United States and = Canada have been cozying up to these countries, Saudi Arabia in particular = while turning a blind eye to what we knew, or should have known, has been = going on all these years.      So poverty in the Middle East is not there because of us but because it is imposed by the wealthy of the region and, not to forget, the religious priests of Islam - the Mullas. They are not too excited = to spread enlightenment, liberal education and equal opportunity among = the masses of the people, far easier to rule when ignorance prevails, so = much easier to foment hatred towards the United States or Israel or = whoever is convenient at the moment. Before the U.S. and Israel it was the = British.     Another statement being repeated is that poverty breeds terrorist organizations and attacks. Let us not forget that terrorist organizations, all of them, from Red October and Bader Meinhoff to Ben Laden's - are = all rich, well financed and very well versed in enriching themselves by = such industries as the drug trade. Also, no terrorist organization has = ever alleviated poverty anywhere. Terrorist organizations do their dirty work = for reasons other than alleviating poverty either in Latin America or the = Middle East.   So what's all this about? Either we allow terrorist organizations and = their pay masters and host countries to attack us with impunity or not. = The poverty in the Middle East is neither the fault of the West ( it was = there aplenty, well before the arrival of any western power, nor is it our responsibility to alleviate it. It IS our responsibility to force those = to whom we send all that oil money to spend a reasonable percentage of = it on an ongoing and supervised basis to alleviate that poverty. Quite = independently from action we take to foil terrorists and their schemes.     Thanks for reading this.   Ari Isaac.    </DIV></BODY></HTML>