Mideast boycott a ‘nightmare’ for Denmark

[Junkman]

With the Arab countries boycotting Danish food products, the Danes have lost a large market share in these countries as a result. There is no question that this will hurt the Danes for a long time to come, but what will it do the the Arab countries since they are also boycotting Danish made machinery and medicine. If these countries continue down this road, and start to boycott other countries products, where will the medicines and machinery come from?? Possibly the Chinese will fill some of the gap, but most pharmaceuticals are developed in the West and produced there also. Even though our (American) production has been declining, our R & D still is strong.

 

[jdwilson44]

There is a lot of chatter on the internet about supporting Denmark by buying their products. The Danes may be getting hurt pretty hard financially by the boycotts but if we back them up by buying their products maybe it will hurt them a little less. You also have to ask yourself where the products that the Muslims are boycotting are going to come from? Somebody is going to replace those boycotted products. It is my personal belief that we could hurt the Muslim world a lot more by boycotting their products than the Muslim world can hurt us by boycotting ours. When the Iraq war was gearing up I said many times that we as country would be much better off spending whatever money will get spent on the war on developing alternative sources of energy that will allow us - and other countries we are allied with - to stop buying Mideast oil. If we really want to win this war of ideologies we need to take away the power behind our enemy - and that is the massive amounts of money that is sent to the Mideast to purchase oil. For an interesting viewpoint on this please read:

http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleID.18976/article_detail.asp

 

[thcri]

I guess what I don't understand is why are they burning the American flag over this deal. One poster said "Down with the USA" while an American flag and others were burning in the back ground. We didn't show them cartoons did we? And the protesters are said not to be true followers.

murph

 

[HarryG]

I guess what I don't understand is why are they burning the American flag over this deal. One poster said "Down with the USA" while an American flag and others were burning in the back ground. We didn't show them cartoons did we? And the protesters are said not to be true followers.

murph

Its just another lame excuse to blame the USA for everything/anything. If they say it enough then some bozo's might just begin to believe it.

QUOTE
It is my personal belief that we could hurt the Muslim world a lot more by boycotting their products than the Muslim world can hurt us by boycotting ours. Quote

Just a question, besides oil a what do the Muslim countries produce that we could boycott?

 

[Dargo]

Just a question, besides oil a what do the Muslim countries produce that we could boycott?

Terrorists

 

[Melensdad]

If you want to boycott "Muslims" then you need to get your minds out of the Mid-East region and expand it to include India and the surrrounding nations as well as large parts of Southeast Asia and the pacific. That would then include companies that produce many goods from clothing to computers to televisions.

You might also want to look at companies like Dell and Circuit City that have customer support centers in places like India. You should also realize that targeting these nations with a boycot will also affect people who belong to other religions and in some cases, like Turkey and Jordan, you would be hurting nations that are primarily Muslim and are allies of the US. Furhter, nations like Egypt, while not close allies of the US/West is a generally friendly nation and is also heavily Muslim. Just some things to consider.

 

[jdwilson44]

Its just another lame excuse to blame the USA for everything/anything. If they say it enough then some bozo's might just begin to believe it.

QUOTE
It is my personal belief that we could hurt the Muslim world a lot more by boycotting their products than the Muslim world can hurt us by boycotting ours. Quote

Just a question, besides oil a what do the Muslim countries produce that we could boycott?

My point exactly. I may be mis-informed on this but to my knowledge the nations of the Mideast do not export anything of substance that the world needs besides oil. I remember reading that the US consumes something like 388 million gallons of oil a year. There are other countries besides the US - China and Japan come to mind - who are much more dependent on Mideast oil as a total percentage of their usage than we are - but as Hurrican Katrina showed even a small interrupt in the flow has big consequences for all. So basically the Mideast has us by the balls over the oil thing. If you read the article that I put in the previous post you will see that there are options to our current dependence - options that help might help us out in many ways. Imagine what would happen if the western world just stopped buying Mideast oil - where would their money come from? The Middle Eastern countries would probably rather quickly descend into a sort of Sub-Saharan africa type of existence - no money coming in and everybody suffers. If there is no money coming in then there is no money for big armies, no money for atomic bombs, no money to support terrorist groups around the world. If the Western World really grew some balls and just shut off immigration from Mideast countries then the Mideast would be left to stew in a problem of their own making. Immigration out of those countries is like letting off some of the steam from a boiling pot - we keep supplying the money and letting the countries bleed off the people who would cause problems by sending them to our countries - where they cause problems for us.

There is more than one way to fight a war - I fault George Bush and all of our current politicians for not having the foresight to think this thru. We have spent upwards of 200 billion dollars so far on Iraq for not much benefit that I can see. 200 billion dollars spent on an alternative energy infrastructure would have gone a lot farther towards making this country truly safe. I predict when this is all over Iraq will be a bigger threat to us than before we went in there (Iraq=60% Shiite Muslim, Iran=90% Shiite Muslim + much cross border exchange = do the math), and we will still be stuck with the same root cause for our involvement over there which is our oil dependency and we will have spent all the money we could have used to fix that dependency on the war. Way to go NeoCons, smart thinking.

As far as the Danes go I applaud them for being able to point out with a few simple cartoons the underlying reasons for this whole mess. It is interesting now that people all over the western world are finally waking up to this when a couple of burning skyscrapers and 3000 dead couldn't quite do it a few years back.

 

[HarryG]

If you want to boycott "Muslims" then you need to get your minds out of the Mid-East region and expand it to include India and the surrrounding nations as well as large parts of Southeast Asia and the pacific. That would then include companies that produce many goods from clothing to computers to televisions.

You might also want to look at companies like Dell and Circuit City that have customer support centers in places like India. You should also realize that targeting these nations with a boycot will also affect people who belong to other religions and in some cases, like Turkey and Jordan, you would be hurting nations that are primarily Muslim and are allies of the US. Furhter, nations like Egypt, while not close allies of the US/West is a generally friendly nation and is also heavily Muslim. Just some things to consider.

Bob, You bring up a very good point. The last thing we need is to hurt and alienate any of our Muslim allies. Furthermore it might give the terrosist Islamistic jerks a "foot in the door" into these countries to recruit more cronies. This would not be good.
This would heve to be carefully thought out.
HarryG

PS I wonder what Dancin Don would suggest. I kinda miss him. Maybe I've had one too many afternoon cocktails.

 

[HGM]

Terrorists

Good point,that gets me thinking...

Dont forget, our media is supporting the Middle East and terrorist activity more than any oil purchases could. In order for this situation to be remedied, a boycott of oil aint gonna cut it... Dont forget that the large majority of the middle east is living in near poverty conditions... Notice how many cab drivers of middl elaster dicent come here for work? Boycotting the region will not effect them like you would think.. Maybe some of the Sheiks would have to stop buying new Rolls Royce's every week, but the people doing the dammage wont feel a thing.(IMO)

Every time you turn on the news, what do you hear? Its always some kind of anti-American agenda that shows how we are picking on someone. It supports the terrorist groups by publisizing the "terror" they are inflicting on innocent people there to help them, forcing the American public to believe we are the bad guys for pissing them off.. They support the "if we left them alone, it would go away" attitude. .. If every media personel were removed from the region, they would be crippled.. We sit here fat dumb and happy(allot of Americans) watching TV thinking what we see is a realistic veiw of what is happening over there.. It couldnt be farther from the truth. I lived in the area in the late 70's.They are not average folks like you and I. They are a totally different culture that has been fighting one war or another since the begining of time.. They get the upper hand be playing by their own rules.. Some of our troops have gotten dirty and fought back, like them, making a differnce.. Then our media persicuted them as foul, unruly, dispicable people.. We need to let them get dirty so we can win this war and come home.. That whole prison thing did nothing but help the enemy, because of our media..

Regardless of what you think of Bush or his policies, Sadam had to go.. He was truly the next Hitler.. Its time for the country to get together and quit self destructing and pointing fingers, and let them get their job done so they can come home..You'll get another chance at chosing a president soon enough.. We are always looking at alternatives for energy, personally, I believe we should take the oil as payment for freeing the country, but thats not PC.. I forget the figure, but I remember hearing a surprisingly low number regarding the % of oil coming from that region for our use anyhow...

With that said, this region will not go away.. Iran will likely be next.. All they know is war, its loosely based on their religion. I say loosely because of the hipocracy driving them, but it wont go away.. They need to be kept in check for the safty of everyone. They dont care if they live or die. They dont have the values we have.. If you were dieing right now, you would worry about your family. They would be thankfull for what they have achieved for the cause.. If we let it go and turn our backs by becoming isolated, they would grow stronger and stronger untill another oportunity to make 9/11 look like a pic nic...

Oh well, I guess its just my observation.... Nice to know we can make these without being beheaded.... I'd like to keep it that way...

 

[Melensdad]

I forget the figure, but I remember hearing a surprisingly low number regarding the % of oil coming from that region for our use

Mideast oil accounts for just over 20% of the US oil consumption.

I really think a boycott of the middle east or Muslim nations is misguided and will actually be counter productive. Very likely would lead to more terrorists, radicals, and hatred of the WEST, not less.

Now if you want to do something, do something constructive. Buy Danish goods. (they make good cookies!) The reality is that entire nation is being punished because of the actions of one newspaper.

 

[Dargo]

Now if you want to do something, do something constructive. Buy Danish goods. (they make good cookies!) The reality is that entire nation is being punished because of the actions of one newspaper.

G Gordon Liddy has been calling for doing just that for the last week. He has been listing Danish makes and brands about every day. Buy Danish!

 

[Melensdad]

Do you know if Liddy is on XM radio? I've had CNN on my office radio since Corretta Scott King died. I usually listen to music but occasionally listen to FOX or CNN. I used to listen to a lot of talk radio but I didn't get much work done then!!!

 

[Dargo]

Do you know if Liddy is on XM radio? I've had CNN on my office radio since Corretta Scott King died. I usually listen to music but occasionally listen to FOX or CNN. I used to listen to a lot of talk radio but I didn't get much work done then!!!

Channel 165 XM 9am to noon

 

[jdwilson44]

Good point,that gets me thinking...

Dont forget, our media is supporting the Middle East and terrorist activity more than any oil purchases could. In order for this situation to be remedied, a boycott of oil aint gonna cut it... Dont forget that the large majority of the middle east is living in near poverty conditions... Notice how many cab drivers of middl elaster dicent come here for work? Boycotting the region will not effect them like you would think.. Maybe some of the Sheiks would have to stop buying new Rolls Royce's every week, but the people doing the dammage wont feel a thing.(IMO)

Every time you turn on the news, what do you hear? Its always some kind of anti-American agenda that shows how we are picking on someone. It supports the terrorist groups by publisizing the "terror" they are inflicting on innocent people there to help them, forcing the American public to believe we are the bad guys for pissing them off.. They support the "if we left them alone, it would go away" attitude. .. If every media personel were removed from the region, they would be crippled.. We sit here fat dumb and happy(allot of Americans) watching TV thinking what we see is a realistic veiw of what is happening over there.. It couldnt be farther from the truth. I lived in the area in the late 70's.They are not average folks like you and I. They are a totally different culture that has been fighting one war or another since the begining of time.. They get the upper hand be playing by their own rules.. Some of our troops have gotten dirty and fought back, like them, making a differnce.. Then our media persicuted them as foul, unruly, dispicable people.. We need to let them get dirty so we can win this war and come home.. That whole prison thing did nothing but help the enemy, because of our media..

Regardless of what you think of Bush or his policies, Sadam had to go.. He was truly the next Hitler.. Its time for the country to get together and quit self destructing and pointing fingers, and let them get their job done so they can come home..You'll get another chance at chosing a president soon enough.. We are always looking at alternatives for energy, personally, I believe we should take the oil as payment for freeing the country, but thats not PC.. I forget the figure, but I remember hearing a surprisingly low number regarding the % of oil coming from that region for our use anyhow...

With that said, this region will not go away.. Iran will likely be next.. All they know is war, its loosely based on their religion. I say loosely because of the hipocracy driving them, but it wont go away.. They need to be kept in check for the safty of everyone. They dont care if they live or die. They dont have the values we have.. If you were dieing right now, you would worry about your family. They would be thankfull for what they have achieved for the cause.. If we let it go and turn our backs by becoming isolated, they would grow stronger and stronger untill another oportunity to make 9/11 look like a pic nic...

Oh well, I guess its just my observation.... Nice to know we can make these without being beheaded.... I'd like to keep it that way...

I am having a hard time trying to figure out what you are advocating - continuing to purchase oil from a region of the world you admit is warlike and has been fighting forever? In my original post I probably worded my response incorrectly - I should not have said we should boycott their products - because the reality is that we can't. We as a nation are not in the position to just stop using Mideast oil - and many of allies - closer allies than any of the Mideast countries that claim to be our allies - are much more dependent on Mideast oil than we are. To solve this problem you have to ask yourself why the US is so heavily involved in the Mideast to begin with. Outside of the liberal biased media portrayal of us being there just for the oil I have come to the conclusion that oil is really the only reason. What else do we as a nation get from the Mideast that we could not walk away from other than oil? Why are we spending so much money to support Israel? - the explanation I always here is that 'we need a friend in the area'. If we weren't so heavily dependent on the oil from the region and the loss of that oil would not have such a bad effect on our country as a whole - why would why need to be so heavily invested in Israel as a "friend"?

Have you noticed how the Europeans are treated by US foreign policy since the end of the cold war and turning of the eastern european countries away from communism? We care much less now about NATO than we used to. We are much less willing to kowtow to European sensibilities than we were before - Iraq is a good example - we went in alone when the Europeans would not go with us. Why? Because we don't need them as much any more - Russia is not the threat it once was.

Remove oil from the equation in Mideast - US relations and the whole world turns on end. You are correct about most of the population in the Mideast being poor - and they blame us for that because we back up dictatorships that do not take the money that flows into those countries and spend it on the people. That oil money also gets spend on Madrassas schools around the Muslim countries that teach Wahabi style Islam which is fundamentalist and has bred much of the terrorists that are against us - take the money away and the schools dry up.


I do not believe we are the bad guys for pissing off the Muslims - I believe however that by being so heavily involved in the region we do give them an easy excuse to be so pissed off at us. If we were not so heavily involved they might still be pissed at us but at least they would no longer have the ready made excuses we give them. I keep making this comparison - does the US really care about much of Africa? Did we as a people get all up in arms when the genocide in Rwanda was going on? No. Why? Because what happens there really does not affect us one way or the other to any noticable extent. Take oil out of the equation and Mideast would have about as much affect on the average American citizens life as Africa does.

We as a country are in the precarious position of being heavily dependent on entire region of the world that has a good percentage of the population that would like nothing better than to be at war with us. A good part of the rest of that population would support war against us if they right chain of events were to occur. Is this really the best policy for our country? Call it a boycott, call it "thanks but no thanks we don't need your oil anymore", call it an economic decision to stop sending our money out of the country - whatever.
The fact of the matter is that the Mideast oil producing countries have us by the balls and they know it.

I do not see how these countries could grow stronger if the source of their support dried up - if nobody purchased the oil any more they would have no money to trade with. What would North Korea be if they had the same political system they have now but also had the billions of dollars from oil money pouring into the country? Right now it is true they posses nuclear weapons, it is true they possess an extremely large army - but there is nothing behind it. War is always threatened but is kept in check because the reality is they are a paper tiger - they have no economic capacity to wage an extended war. And they know it so they huff and puff but nothing happens. Sooner or later if circumstances stay the same North Korea will implode - there will be huge refugee movements to China or South Korea when the people finally realize they are all going to starve to death or some such thing. Communist Russia imploded because we showed them that they just couldn't outspend us on the military and from internal forces also. If we remove the oil money and our dependency from the Mideast equation the same could be made to happen there. Our goverment is unwilling to do what needs to be done - and it has forgotten the lessons of our recent history. If they don't smarten up we are all going to suffer for it.

 

[HGM]

I am having a hard time trying to figure out what you are advocating - continuing to purchase oil from a region of the world you admit is warlike and has been fighting forever? In my original post I probably worded my response incorrectly - I should not have said we should boycott their products - because the reality is that we can't. We as a nation are not in the position to just stop using Mideast oil - and many of allies - closer allies than any of the Mideast countries that claim to be our allies - are much more dependent on Mideast oil than we are. To solve this problem you have to ask yourself why the US is so heavily involved in the Mideast to begin with. Outside of the liberal biased media portrayal of us being there just for the oil I have come to the conclusion that oil is really the only reason. What else do we as a nation get from the Mideast that we could not walk away from other than oil? Why are we spending so much money to support Israel? - the explanation I always here is that 'we need a friend in the area'. If we weren't so heavily dependent on the oil from the region and the loss of that oil would not have such a bad effect on our country as a whole - why would why need to be so heavily invested in Israel as a "friend"?

Have you noticed how the Europeans are treated by US foreign policy since the end of the cold war and turning of the eastern european countries away from communism? We care much less now about NATO than we used to. We are much less willing to kowtow to European sensibilities than we were before - Iraq is a good example - we went in alone when the Europeans would not go with us. Why? Because we don't need them as much any more - Russia is not the threat it once was.

Remove oil from the equation in Mideast - US relations and the whole world turns on end. You are correct about most of the population in the Mideast being poor - and they blame us for that because we back up dictatorships that do not take the money that flows into those countries and spend it on the people. That oil money also gets spend on Madrassas schools around the Muslim countries that teach Wahabi style Islam which is fundamentalist and has bred much of the terrorists that are against us - take the money away and the schools dry up.


I do not believe we are the bad guys for pissing off the Muslims - I believe however that by being so heavily involved in the region we do give them an easy excuse to be so pissed off at us. If we were not so heavily involved they might still be pissed at us but at least they would no longer have the ready made excuses we give them. I keep making this comparison - does the US really care about much of Africa? Did we as a people get all up in arms when the genocide in Rwanda was going on? No. Why? Because what happens there really does not affect us one way or the other to any noticable extent. Take oil out of the equation and Mideast would have about as much affect on the average American citizens life as Africa does.

We as a country are in the precarious position of being heavily dependent on entire region of the world that has a good percentage of the population that would like nothing better than to be at war with us. A good part of the rest of that population would support war against us if they right chain of events were to occur. Is this really the best policy for our country? Call it a boycott, call it "thanks but no thanks we don't need your oil anymore", call it an economic decision to stop sending our money out of the country - whatever.
The fact of the matter is that the Mideast oil producing countries have us by the balls and they know it.

I do not see how these countries could grow stronger if the source of their support dried up - if nobody purchased the oil any more they would have no money to trade with. What would North Korea be if they had the same political system they have now but also had the billions of dollars from oil money pouring into the country? Right now it is true they posses nuclear weapons, it is true they possess an extremely large army - but there is nothing behind it. War is always threatened but is kept in check because the reality is they are a paper tiger - they have no economic capacity to wage an extended war. And they know it so they huff and puff but nothing happens. Sooner or later if circumstances stay the same North Korea will implode - there will be huge refugee movements to China or South Korea when the people finally realize they are all going to starve to death or some such thing. Communist Russia imploded because we showed them that they just couldn't outspend us on the military and from internal forces also. If we remove the oil money and our dependency from the Mideast equation the same could be made to happen there. Our goverment is unwilling to do what needs to be done - and it has forgotten the lessons of our recent history. If they don't smarten up we are all going to suffer for it.

I understand what your saying, but as Bob was able to verify, only 20% of our oil comes from this particular region.. I would immagine that if we wanted to, we could replace that 20% really easily.. I dont believe we are the largest consumers of their oil either, so the impact would likely be less dramatic than you would think..

The issue with the radical muslim extremists is that they feel that our way of life is detrimental to theirs... They will never let us be.. I dont think there is an easy answer to the problems over there but I think we must start by allowing our troops to do what they have to do to get a grip on whats going on. The longer we are there the more likely it is that the good people there will get pissed at us too because they are dying as well.. My problem is the double standard we must play by when these animals can do what they want.. Its like getting in a fight with a guy that has permission to kick you in the balls and bite you, but you can only use your fists(with gloves).. My main point earlier was that if the media was less involved, this would probably be over by now.. I would like to see more self reliance in this country and some isolation as well, but we cant ignore whats hapening in a dangerous area.. Again, Sadam was getting dangerous to us as well as his own people.. I believe we did the right thing, though they should have been allowed to do it 10yrs earlier...

 

[Melensdad]

only 20% of our oil comes from this particular region.. I would immagine that if we wanted to, we could replace that 20% really easily.. I dont believe we are the largest consumers of their oil either, so the impact would likely be less dramatic than you would think..

The issue with the radical muslim extremists is that they feel that our way of life is detrimental to theirs...

A few things to understand about OIL in general:
First, OPEC is comprised of many nations, from South America to Africa to the Mid-East. So we could probably open ANWR and replace the Mid-East oil but we could not replace the OPEC oil. Second, OPEC is not exclusively Muslim but it probably is 50% Muslim?

As for Muslims, they are in far more places that the Mid-East.

I would not be surprised if someone proved that OPEC nations funded 'enviornmental groups' directly, or perhaps more likely, indirectly to keep pressure up to try to prevent opening up ANWR. As well as funding politicians of both parties!

What I think many people do is confuse the facts with emotion.

Denmark, and now the entire WEST is taking heat for the actions of a newspaper in Denmark that is privately owned.

The knee jerk reaction is for us to ralley against the Mid-East because that is where the press is showing all the protests from. But realistically it is going to be difficult to boycott Muslims. It is easy to boycott a nation, but not a religion that spans half the globe.

But simply eliminating Mid-East oil is not really going to hurt "Muslims" because the demand for oil is growing and realistically the oil demand will just shift to more dependence on another nation, while the Mid-East will simply ship more of its oil to places like China and Russia, etc. The real answer would be to shift our dependance away from OIL.