Anti-Islam film protests spread across Middle East

[Dad]

From a post on facebook:

In 1986, when he (Reagan) was President, Libya killed Americans.

He bombed their leader's house. Libya was quiet for 25 years.

Then someone apologized.

[Christcorp]

Unfortunately, I don't even think "Fearing" the USA is even an option any more. We've gone from a country that was "RESPECTED" by our allies and "FEARED" by our foes. Now; no one respects or fears us. Whenever anything controversial happens IN or OUT of our country, our "Leader's" first response is to "Apologize". The same think happened in Egypt.

They definitely do not fear us, and they sure in hell don't respect us. Gotta love our political correctness. Don't want to offend anyone. Such a crock.

[AF6872]

And muslims are afraid in the US.

[fairwinds]

Sad to say, I feel like American citizens and our military are more unsafe today than ever before...overseas and at home.

If these groups will not respect us (and I don't think they ever will), then we need them to FEAR us!!!

Watching these brave men come home to Andrews....very, very sad...

[hornetguy]

I'd like to see us be able to not rely on them. The quicker we can reduce our dependence on oil, the sooner that part of the world can learn what it's like when we don't need them. A broke mob can hurtle stones at our embassies, but its a lot harder to export that back here at home without the money to finance them.

[Jcleppe]

Because of the deep cultural divide and the hard line militant views from the ultra consevitive factions in these regions, respect is something that will not come easy. While these intense Anti-American views are not shared by everyone, the loudest voices get the most attention. Even after 10 years of war we are still trying to learn how to combat those that hate us while not alienating those that do not, it's a very hard and a very thin line to walk.

To bring these countries to a point where they fear us seems to just breed more anger from the more militant factions. There does not seem to be an easy answer, we've tried both, being aggressive and being passive, and neither has worked out very well.

My thought, develop a cheaper Hybrid, and a better battery. Become energy independent. Have no further need for what they sell and take our ball and go home. Until then the whole thing is going to continue to be a mess.

I ackowledge that my thought is a simplistic view, but it would be a start.

Hornetguy,
It seems we cross posted with similar views, Great minds....

[hornetguy]

Originally Posted by Jcleppe

Hornetguy,
It seems we cross posted with similar views, Great minds....

Agreed.

I'd rather not care about them than try to figure out how best to make them respect/fear us.

[LineInTheSand]

Originally Posted by hornetguy

Agreed.

I'd rather not care about them than try to figure out how best to make them respect/fear us.

Except "not caring" doesn't prevent planes from crashing into buildings or fields....

Simply ignoring them does nothing. We have oil in the Arctic and Gulf.... just need to drill and refine it....

Light a fire under the ass of a countries leader to control its people.... and you have a smaller problem.

[hornetguy]

Originally Posted by LineInTheSand

Except "not caring" doesn't prevent planes from crashing into buildings or fields....Simply ignoring them does nothing.

Lot of African militants that want to hurt us, too. They lack resources to make it work. The 9/11 hijackers had a lot of money to plan, train, and execute. It doesn't make it impossible for them, just much harder.

We have oil in the Arctic and Gulf.... just need to drill and refine it....

Won't do a thing to solve the problem. Oil is a global commodity. So long as we use it and provide a market, it will sell. We buy very little OPEC oil, but we support the global price, thereby allowing them to make billions. Flooding the market (something we probably can't even do), won't change that as they price manipulate. We could talk through so many scenarios where we try and flood the oil supply to cut their profits and we end up losing every time. Increasing domestic production still helps them maintain importance in the world. Losing the largest consumer of their product and THEN big things happen. That's just thinking in a vacuum and ignoring the global implication of energy technology cheap enough for us to replace oil use. But I'll settle on this point unless you want to go through a discussion on it.

Light a fire under the ass of a country's leader to control its people.... and you have a smaller problem.

Yup, let's remove the need to maintain safe oil supplies and announce that any country willing to harbor someone planning or executing a strike against us will be hit back. If we don't need oil, a Saudi/Iraqi/Iranian/etc. retaliation is a credible threat and they don't have power over us through oil markets to stop us.

[LineInTheSand]

Originally Posted by hornetguy

Lot of African militants that want to hurt us, too.

Um.... and they have.... more than once.

As for oil as a commodity, it's going to stay that way, whether you remove some of the demand, demand will remain. You can lessen the NEED for oil, but it won't go away. Drill and refine your own oil, you effect the price, but make no mistake you have many other countries that will continue that demand, and therefore the markets will remain.

Beyond that, a majority of the United States will be dependent.

And that's not even considering the number of products that have oil based ingredients.