A constructive and non-violent solution to terrorism.

Submitted by Victor Lipshutz (United States), Jul 24, 2003 at 16:22

It is virtually IMPOSSIBLE for the US, and perhaps even for the world, to "eliminate" them. What it would take is something so horrible that, in the final analysis, we would end up being no better than they are. Possibly even worse. I am appalled at the suggestion, because it is made, not in the heat of immediate anger (such as in moments following the attack on the WTC or Pearl Harbor), but offered up in the guise of sensible or justifiable national policy.

Bush isn't attempting to eliminate the Bigger Problem at all. He has squandered precious US lives and resources on achieving personal revenge. He and his disinformation apparatus are the ones primarily responsible for muddying the distinctions between Al Qaeda and Iraq, but we are also responsible for buying that fantasy.

Al Qaeda was born in the ashes of a cold war conflict between the US and Russia on the soil of Afghanistan, where we left the locals to fend for themselves after we achieved what we had set out to do there. It, and other extremist muslim initiatives, is funded directly or indirectly by oil money, derived from the west but funneled to corrupt governments and royals who we prop up with our political and economic support.

The fire of islamic extremist groups is only fanned by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as it is easily, although falsely, made the poster-issue between muslim arabs and non-muslims. It was merely a shrewd PR move by A.Q. to incorporate anti-Israel sentiment into their anti-west program.

So how to stop the spread of the disease? If they are such parasites on the fruits of others' cultural achievements and industrial productivity, how then can the rest of the world avoid becoming or continuing to be the host? IMHO, that would be a thinking person's basis for developing an approach to The Problem. Surely western civilization has the ability to create an intelligent and effective strategy that can be followed without scrapping what made us who we are in the first place.

As mentioned in your article, it is no coincidence that the troublesome Middle East is sitting on a major source of much of the world’s petroleum reserves, from which revenues fuel not only global boilers, but Middle East strife. We need only focus our attention on significantly reducing global dependency on oil, and the problem will be greatly diminished.

My fantasy solution is to divert the $billions being squandered fighting terrorism in all its forms, into a crash program to develop a petroleum-free global energy economy, by developing as many alternate energy solutions as practical, including nuclear, solar, wind, hydro, geothermal and ocean thermal, all of which can yield adequate energy to eliminate most, if not all the world's dependence on oil in less time than it will take to democratize Iraq to our liking.

For example, it is technically possible to launch a family of geosynchronous satellites, each consisting of a gigantic solar collector, perhaps miles in diameter, that would convert immense amounts of solar energy into a laser beam that would be continuously focused on Earth-bound energy receivers, that could be used to generate electricity or hydrogen fuel. Gyroscopes would be used to maintain aim of the laser beam on the receiver.

Another fantasy is to tap the vast thermal energy in the Earth’s oceans, using the principle of the heat pump, to generate electricity that can be used to produce hydrogen. This is known as Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, or OTEC, (http://www.nrel.gov/otec/what.html) a little known ongoing endeavor. Adequate funding is all that is needed to move these efforts into the commercial arena.

There are, of course hundreds of other alternate energy possibilities that, in combination, could easily eliminate the need for fossil fuels altogether.

A collateral benefit of this effort would be the simultaneous elimination of air pollution and global warming and the creation of tens of thousands of new jobs.

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