Osama bin Laden was quite specific in his demands in several of his fatwas. I don't have access to it right now, but I believe it was his "First Message to America" that outlined demands to restore the Palestinians to their land and remove US forces from the Muslim Holy Land in Saudi Arabia. I think these demands were credible, in part because he had no apparent motive to be dishonest, moreover they were public demands, and, within the Muslim community would necessarily have had to have apparent sincerity and weight to draw adherents.
What I think is interesting is to analyze the strategic choices made by the USA from an economic perspective. Prior to 9/11, as I recall, we had military expenditures in the area of $50 billion annually in the Middle East. Compare this with oil imports that I believe were in the area of $10-15 billion. Now, with Afghanistan, Iraq and all the other initiatives stretching all the way east to the Philippines and north to Mongolia, we're probably spending over $100 billion/year. And these costs are probably dwarfed by all the different costs, real, opportunity, imputed, etc., of economic terrorism. If we were to view the strategic choices made by the US as strictly a matter of achieving energy security in the most cost-effective way, the decisions made were/are clearly nonsensical. For less money we could simply enlarge our strategic petroleum reserve to buffer any interruption in supplies and withdraw from the Middle East. So, and this is my real point, there must be other reasons for our actions. And we must be willing to spend enormous sums for these reasons, whatever they may be. In part, I think the answer is that literally pouring money in a hole in the ground doesn't yield the same Keynesian effects as military expenditures. So there are probably political and institutional factors at play. Any thoughts? Peter Hollings -----Original Message----- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michael Perelman Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2004 2:51 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Economic terrorism Interesting. The Irish had specific demands. What are Al Quaida's? Some we know, but just getting out of Saudi Arabia and giving some land to Palastine would not likely be enough -- even if there were a strong political base that the group represented. Economic terrorism is probably effective. If the Palestinians kept up the Intifada much longer -- especially if they were able to make tourism dangerous -- might hurt the Israeli economy, but it might also enourage more private and public aid from the US. This is certainly a murky area. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
