Set America Free Notes&Comments

Is Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. This is what he said on CNN’s Late Edition today:

BLITZER: There has been a lot of outrage here in the United States, indeed, around the world in recent days to this judicial ruling in Saudi Arabia that a woman — a 19-year-old woman who was gang-raped, was herself sentenced to 200 lashes, six months in prison for even speaking out about this.
How would you as president, Governor, go ahead and balance U.S. strategic, national interests, working with Saudi Arabia, while at the same time they have these policies towards their own — half of their population, namely women?
HUCKABEE: Well, I have been very outspoken about some of the dissatisfaction I have towards the House of Saud. I think that our country, the United States, has been far too involved in sort of looking the other way, not only at the atrocities of human rights and violation of women.
But, look, we have allowed ourselves to become so completely attached to Saudi oil, it essentially is now where Americans are financing both sides of the war on terror. Our tax dollars pay for the military side. Every time we put our credit card in the gas pump, we are paying so that the Saudis get rich
- filthy, obscenely rich, and that money then ends up going to funding madrassas…
BLITZER: Well, what would you do about…
HUCKABEE: … that train the terrorists.
BLITZER: What would you do about that — Governor, excuse me for interrupting, what would you do about…
HUCKABEE: Yes.
BLITZER: … their religious edicts involving the way they treat women while at the same time U.S. dependence on Saudi oil and U.S. hope that the Saudis will cooperate in the war on terror?
HUCKABEE: I would make the United States energy independent within 10 years and tell the Saudis they can keep their oil just like they can keep their sand, but we won’t need either one of them.
America has allowed itself to become enslaved to Saudi oil. It is absurd. It is embarrassing. Since 1973, we keep talking about project independence. We never have the political will to do it.
It is high time that we stop this sense of almost being subordinated by the Saudis as well as the rest of the Middle East, particularly countries who do not like us, who do not have our best interests at heart.
We need a self-sustaining, environmentally friendly energy source or energy sources. And that is no longer a matter of just environmental concern and our economic interest, it is now really a matter of utmost national security.

Coalition member Gal Luft was given a badge of honor by Esquire Magazine which titled him as “the most hated man in Riyadh, Detroit, and Des Moines.”

“What separates him from other energy specialists are his pragmatic solutions. He doesn’t peddle pie-in-the-sky political strategies. He’s a realist. He has a single goal: freeing America from the grip of foreign oil. And he wants to do it now. At right are four steps he says we can — and should — take today.”

Read more here

Fifty years after the launch of the Sputnik Gal Luft warns that another technological surprise is in the making. “This time the surprise, also coming from a Communist country, will not be in the sky but on the ground. Our next Sputnik is the Chinese automobile soon to roll onto America’s roads.”

“Exhibiting the same hubris that our leaders showed 50 years ago, American automakers still believe that the quality and appeal of their products will defend them against China. To be sure, China still has a way to go before it can produce cars of quality comparable to that of the Big Three. But the quality gap is closing rapidly. China trains four times more engineers than the United States while systematically violating patent laws and replicating technologies. The Chinese allow foreign automakers to operate in their country only through joint ventures with domestic manufacturers. This allows them to learn new manufacturing techniques and to gradually improve the appeal of their products. Chinese cars like Geely and Chery that until recently failed to pass the strict U.S. safety and environmental standards now are close to doing so. It could take as little as a decade for China’s auto industry to become competitive with Western manufacturers. Once this happens, ailing Detroit could be on the ropes.”

But there are also good news: Just like Sputnik unleashed an unprecedented boost of investment in science and engineering education and research so can the “Chinese Sputnik” do to us. “China is now on track to provide our auto and energy sectors with what the Soviets provided our weapons and space industries – a jolt. If a Chinese Sputnik is what’s needed to awaken Detroit and Congress to boost investment and speed up the commercialization of vehicles that run on clean and cheap nonpetroleum fuels, then so be it.”

Six explosions in Mexico early this morning shut down major oil, natural gas, and propane pipelines and forced the evacuations of surrounding residents. AP reports that police say a “small, shadowy leftist group linked to similar attacks in July left a note claiming responsibility”.
Sunday night there was an explosion on a pipeline carrying natural gas from Iran to Turkey, halting the flow of gas. Russia’s state controlled natural gas monopoly Gazprom increased its exports to Turkey in response.
Pipeline attacks are quite common and extremely difficult to prevent. For more details on this threat to energy security and efforts to address it read: Pipeline sabotage is terrorist’s weapon of choice. To understand the appeal of pipelines as a terrorist target read: Terror’s next target.