New Mars Forums

Why 9/11?
Why Bali?
Why Beslan?

    Islam means 'submission'. A Muslim man submits totally to Allah; a Muslim woman submits totally to a Muslim man. It's an all-encompassing religion which describes precisely what a person must do every day, every week, every year. Morality is controlled in every detail and there's no need for an individual to have a say in the running of the state because there's no room to debate the word of Allah.
    Islam was born at a time when Arabia was a violent tribal society and people were ruled by the man with the biggest army. The authoritative nature of Islam, and the allowance for violence within it, reflects the era and the place of its origin.

    The West could hardly be more different. Church and state are separated. Our laws are no longer directly connected with any religion and are constantly evolving. Men and women are equal under the law and their sexual behaviour and preferences are no business of the state. Nudity and sexual activities are regularly displayed in movies and on television. Tobacco and alcohol are used openly and many other drugs are used covertly.
    Within broad limits, you can do almost anything you want to do. There's a price for it but we call it freedom and we love it.

    Fundamentalist Islam sees us as decadent, weak-willed, and disobedient to Allah; in other words, an abomination before God. Their duty is to convert us. In the old days, that would involve a direct jihad, or Holy War, with them holding a blade to our throats and 'asking' us to accept Islam. It was possible then simply to cross borders and establish an Islamic Federation by force of arms. (See a history of the Moorish Empire.)
    That's a lot harder these days because nations are better organised, have internationally recognised borders, standing armies, and allies. Astride all of this is today's leading power, the United States of America, the most prominent secular (read 'decadent') country and the world's policeman in many ways. That a country as decadent and disobedient to Allah as the U.S.A. should become as wealthy and as powerful as she has is not only an insult to God but a definite indication of involvement with Satan. America's support for beleaguered Israel hasn't earned her any respect in the eyes of Islamic extremists, either!
    While all of the West will have to be converted ultimately to Islam, by whatever means necessary (perhaps including nuclear persuasion), the U.S. was the obvious first target for Al Qu'aida back in 2001.

    Islamofascists aren't in this with any rational demands or to claim reparation for indignities suffered back in colonial times. There's nothing to talk about and no horses to trade. Their aim is the Islamification of us all and we can either go along with it or be killed.

    It's not a nice situation to be in and I'm starting to think there's no easy way out.
                                            :bars:

Not sure how I missed this post of yours, Atomoid, but your comment about olivine managing to remain unaltered even here on Earth is a very interesting point.
    A little googling revealed that accessible sources of olivine are rare on Earth, as you would expect, because of their susceptibility to weathering by water; rare but NOT ABSENT! Outcrops are only found in the driest of areas, such as Zagbargad Island, in the Red Sea, and Arizona.
    But, as for Mars, it occurred to me that massive weathering of olivine could indeed have occurred during the warmer wetter intervals in its history. I can imagine deep deposits of olivine weathering into clays etc. at the surface, and underground at the periphery of the deposit, where water has access to it. I can then imagine those weathering products being removed by aeolian erosion in drier spells, revealing unaltered olivine once more.
    In addition, perhaps more frequent volcanic activity than Mars is given credit for, even into quite recent times, has produced fresh supplies of olivine at the surface. Even allowing for recent episodes of 'wet weather' on Mars, presumably there would still be significant unaltered deposits here and there on the surface, which is what we're seeing.

    Thanks, Atomoid, for triggering this cascade of speculation on my part! I appreciate your response to my comments on the apparent contradiction of evidence of large amounts of water on Mars and the existence of significant quantities of olivine, a problem which has bothered me for some time. Your input is serving to make it less of a problem!
                                             

Thanks, Atomoid.
    A nice update on the Beagle 2 crash mystery. I didn't even know they were still looking for the wreckage and I don't suppose we'll ever know for sure what happened.
    Ah well ... here's to Beagle 3 (one day).   

Yes, there are some optimistic noises coming from scientists about the Genesis data which might yet be saved. I read somewhere, though, that the most unreliable data were likely to be those connected with carbon isotopes, since significant carbon contamination from the desert dust and even from the atmosphere would make those experimental results too ambiguous.
    But, overall, it looks like at least some of the mission is salvageable.
                                       

This is certainly an interesting and very relevant point, Cindy. And I get your drift about the Bush political rhetoric, too. But if, as the Left implies, he was bluffing about WMD, he must surely have known that it would come back to haunt him when no major caches of WMD were discovered.
    Either he didn't care about possible recriminations after the war or he was genuinely convinced that weapons illegal under U.N. regulations existed in Iraq.
    This leads back to your first point regarding the number of countries, states, political parties, and individuals who seemed quite convinced about WMD before the talk of war began. Most of these people switched quickly from affirmation to denial and condemnation when the circumstances required it!
    Here in Australia, the Australian Labor Party (the opposition to the governing Liberal/National Party Coalition, and the broad equivalent of the American Democratic Party) are on record as saying there was no doubt Iraq had stockpiles of WMD, contrary to U.N. Resolution requirements. Since then, of course, they have accused the Prime Minister, John Howard, of taking Australia to war under false pretences!
                                           

    But still, that's politics; what can you expect? It's in each party's interests to discredit the other side.

    It would be very interesting to see a full list of every organisation which acknowledged Iraq's flouting of the U.N. Resolution requirements before the war, with a pertinent quote from each. But I imagine the most embarrassing records of this have been 'lost' or 'misplaced' long since!   

Yeah. I couldn't figure out what that picture was either.
    At first, I wondered whether it was an overexposed shot of Venus in the sky, with someone's head silhouetted against it. But I couldn't work out what the long thin thing was, sticking out of the person's head!   

    Hence the inevitable visual drift down to the caption. Curiosity got the better of me very quickly, I'm afraid.

[If the caffeine question was directed at me, no I don't drink coffee after about 4pm.     ]

Thanks, SpaceNut.
    Despite my support for the space elevator over some time, it still seems surreal to me to see it discussed like that. It's like the future has arrived early!
                                                   I love it!

Hi Grypd!
    If I've caused any offense, I apologise. I was composing that post in a cheerful and positive frame of mind, simply pointing out that technology can move fast enough to be embarrassing to 'the experts' sometimes.
    It's just that I'm in a hurry (I'm 49 years old) and take great delight in reminding myself, as much as anyone else, that the rate of progress is accelerating.
                                           

No, Algol, I'm not insinuating that 9/11 was anticipated and allowed to happen. While intelligence organisations can quite plausibly gauge general trends in world affairs, I believe predicting individual acts of terrorism is necessarily very much more difficult.
    An appropriate analogy might be weather prediction. A showery weekend might be forecast with a considerable degree of accuracy but predicting the actual time of each shower, and the amount of rain which falls in each shower, is next-door to impossible.

    I don't believe governments are very good at keeping things secret, despite the feelings of the UFO fraternity/sorority(! ). The distinct possibility that they might be found out would be enough to dissuade any government from staging or acquiescing in something as apocalyptic as the attacks on U.S. soil staged in 2001. You would also have to assume, in such a cloak-and-dagger scenario, that everyone involved is a mass-murdering traitor to his/her own country.
    I know many of you are more than happy to brand George W. Bush with any appellation of evil, no matter how base and low(! ), but you then have to accept that everyone connected with the plot is as demonic as George!!

    I'm always fascinated that the same people who laugh at UFO conspiracy theorists insisting world governments are covering up the existence of an alien presence here on Earth, are perfectly happy to entertain notions of the most fantastic conspiracies when it comes down to politics!   

I don't really want to get involved in arguments over the pros and cons of liberating Iraq because they inevitably degenerate into the usual 'Bush-bashing' routine by American Democrats or 'Yankee-bashing' routine by the International Socialists.
    However, there's little doubt in my mind and the minds of many other observers that the great majority of the trouble in Iraq, post liberation, can be directly attributed to just a few thousand Islamic terrorists. Many of them are in the pay of, or are the ideological cannon fodder of, Iran and Syria. The rest are just local religious fanatics agitating for power. The fact that they can wage an effective terrorist campaign against the Iraqi people for such an extended period, despite determined military policing by America, Britain, Australia and the rest of the coalition forces, is strong evidence that they're being backed by the effectively limitless resources of a nation state (read Iran/Syria).

    The motive for this disruptive intervention by Iran and Syria is plain to see. The very last thing they want or need is a prosperous democratic Iraq next door to their theocratic dictatorships. The contrast with their benighted feudalistic regimes, where women are chattels and academic publications are vetted by clerics to see that they don't clash with Islamic dogma, would be too embarrassing. And besides, it would be a backward step on the path to an Islamofascist Superfederation, occupying all of the Middle East and liaising with the Islamic Superstate planned by Jemaah Islamiah terrorists here on Australia's doorstep in Indonesia.

    But wait, you say!  Shouldn't Bush, Blair and Howard have had the foresight to see this coming? How blind they were .. how impulsive and stupid!
    But were they?
    We sit here at our keyboards, socially-aware, compassionate and wise, gazing out at the world situation and agonising over the crassness of our leadership. But how much do we really know?
    There are hundreds of people in the bowels of the Pentagon who spend all their time looking at the world and its political dynamics. They have access to information we don't, from sensitive sources you and I will never hear about, and they make contingency plans which are never published.
    Let's just imagine that the West, in conjunction with Israeli intelligence, has seen this Islamic terrorism thing coming for many years. Let's suppose that a plan was hatched, a plan breathtaking in its scope and audacity. What if they were just waiting for an excuse to implement that plan and the excuse arrived in New York on September 11, 2001.
    The excuse allowed a coalition invasion of Afghanistan, to hunt down the Al-Q'aida group responsible for 9/11. And, in concert with the strong suspicion that Saddam was developing WMD, it also allowed for the invasion of Iraq and the liberation of the Iraqi people.
    It was probably a given among Western intelligence organisations, already well aware of Iran and Syria's involvement with terrorism for years, that those two states would not, could not, countenance the rise of a free democratic Iraq in their midst. Wave after wave of terrorism, sabotage and violence were anticipated from the beginning but it was all part of the plan.

    Now, you have a quarter of a million coalition troops in Iraq, ostensibly policing it as the first free elections approach and the violence escalates. Now, the Iranians are in the news more and more - developing nukes and ballistic missiles and becoming the focus of blame for the atrocities committed against innocent Iraqis every day.
    With elections coming up in America, Britain and Australia, the time may be politically right for the next stage of the plan. American troops are being withdrawn from Europe and elsewhere as we speak. Can all of the 200,000+ coalition troops in Iraq be engaged in clearing out insurgents and terrorists? It seems unlikely to me.

    Just suppose, for the sake of argument, that the coalition were to launch a sudden surprise invasion of Iran and Syria, annihilating their military forces and establishing temporary martial law. (After Beslan, an unexpected bonus might even be the acquiescence of Russia; perhaps even its military support! )
    All of a sudden, Iraq becomes manageable and democracy is successfully implanted. The threat of a theocratic Iran armed with nukes is eliminated. Iran and Syria's support of Palestinian terrorism ceases. Israel's siege mentality is quelled, since she no longer feels as seriously threatened, and negotiations begin with a Palestinian Authority now much more willing to compromise.

    No doubt the outcry from the world's media and the usual suspects at the U.N. and in China would be fierce but, staggered by the scope of the action and presented with a 'fait accompli', there is little they can do about it. The Arab world, the despots at the U.N., and the totalitarian regime in China, really only understand and respect power. Pussy-footing around these people is an invitation for them to despise you and to dominate you.
    With this in mind, and the fact that those in the world who would object most strongly to such an invasion already hate them with a vengeance just for who they are, what have Bush, Blair, Howard and the rest got to lose?

    Just a few thoughts.     

Grypd:-

    It was said that heavier-than-air machines would never fly.
    It was said, by the Commissioner of the U.S. Patents Office in 1899, that "Everything that can be invented has been invented".
    It was said, by the British Astronomer Royal, Richard Wooley in 1956, that "Space travel is utter bilge".

    I don't see why it should be extraordinarily difficult to create a braid of continuous carbon nanotubes, with an arbitrary number of tubes to suit the purpose, and which will closely approach the maximum theoretical strength of such a material.
    I admit we can't do it today. However, there's no new physics involved in this; it's just another chemical engineering problem. And humans are great problem-solvers .. it's what we do .. it's our job!
                                         

    A little more optimism here, gentlemen, please!!   

Thanks for bringing this up, Algol. (I can't remember where your politics lie, exactly, but I assume your post was tending somewhat toward sarcasm. )

    The Iranian government is a totalitarian fundamentalist Islamic regime, which has been strongly linked to terrorism for many years now. Their aim is to run Iran as a theocracy, with Muslim clerics in charge, and the rules derived directly from a narrow interpretation of the Koran. They form one part of a loose amalgamation of Arab Islamic states, including Syria, one of the primary aims of which is the total destruction of Israel and the annihilation of the Jewish people.

    Iran has proven reserves of crude oil amounting to some 130 billion barrels, roughly 10% of total world reserves, together with proven natural gas reserves of 940 trillion cubic feet, the world's second largest reserve! Due, no doubt, to this energy shortage(! ), Iran's leadership has decided it needs to create its own nuclear industry ... purely for peaceful energy production purposes, of course 
    In addition to a few small nuclear research reactors already in existence, Iran is in the process of completing a large-scale nuclear power plant in a town called Bushehr in the south of the country. The plant has a long history, having been started in 1974 with help from West Germany but delayed by the war with Iraq, during which it was severely damaged by bombing on several occasions. Since the mid-nineties, Russia has been providing all the assistance Iran needs to facilitate completion of the reactor. (Remember Russia? They supported the French in opposing the liberation of Iraq. Remember the French? They were the ones who constructed a nuclear reactor for Saddam Hussein near Baghdad.)

   ...... [Hmmm. (West) Germany, Russia, and France. All involved in providing nuclear facilities to Middle Eastern countries and all involved, coincidentally, in undermining U.N. determination to make an example of Iraq. Isn't it funny how things work out? You could almost imagine some kind of connection.
    Still, at least the U.N. is moving swiftly and decisively to put an end to the genocidal ethnic cleansing, being perpetrated by Islamic terrorists in Sudan, ... isn't it?   :hm:
    Ah well. Enough idle musing for now.] ......

    In addition to its almost completed nuclear plant, Iran has a very advanced uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, which involves hundreds of gas centrifuges. The facility was described by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors as "impressive". You need to enrich uranium if you want to create bomb-grade nuclear material, by the way.

    Just to complete the picture, Iran last month successfully tested the latest version of its Shahab-3 medium range ballistic missile. With a range of 1300 km, the projectile can reach anywhere in Israel and/or U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf.

    As I've said elsewhere at New Mars, unless somebody does something about it, this time next year Iran could well have an atomic bomb and a missile on which to launch it.
    Does this matter? After all, the Soviet Union and America aimed nuclear missiles at each other for 40 years but neither side dared to push the button, right?  Right, they were constrained by fear; fear of something called "MAD" - Mutual Assured Destruction. But does this apply to Iran?
    We have to remember here that we're dealing with a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy. The theocratic fascist leaders of this state espouse the spreading of their religion by whatever means available to them, including death and destruction even of their own people! These so-called clerics surreptitiously support the suicide-bombing murders of innocent people in Israel and are content to kill people of their own religion in Iraq, by the same means, to undermine the emergence of democracy there. They are understood to fund and support terrorist organisations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad, and are believed to spend $millions aiding murderers in Iraq.
    The Iranian leaders seek to propagate a religion which embraces death, glorifying suicide-bombers who, in the act of slaughtering the innocent, are promised "70 black-eyed virgins" to tend to their every whim in paradise. These people have turned savage and cruel butchery into religious martyrdom and promised the perpetrators heaven in return for mayhem.
    Do you trust these people to shy away from a nuclear attack on American bases, or on Israel, for fear of a massive loss of life on both sides?
    Hmmm. You might .. but I don't!

    There's no doubt in my mind that if America or the U.N. don't do something about Iran soon, Israel certainly will. Already vilified by much of the world's media, experiencing the gradual emergence of a new wave of anti-semitism, surrounded by implacable enemies, and mindful of a time when meek acceptance of world events led 6 million of them to the SS ovens, it's hard to see what alternative the Israelis would have.

    Stay tuned to Iran for more exciting news in the weeks and months ahead!

An absolutely ingenious tale, Robert!   :up:

    I'm impressed with how you managed to weave so many ideas into the one story and included the very topical Spirit angle in it, too.    Nice job!