The hands of an enemy...

So, last night I was trolling the web for interesting things, and I found someone webcasting Bull%#!*.

No, the Penn & Teller series. They purport to blow myths out of the water. I caught a couple of episodes, and it was some really funny, amazing, stuff. A little language, but funny. And maybe it's the lasting effects of that, but tonight, as I was flipping channels, I saw the family of the captured American, Paul Johnson, begging and pleading with the "Saudis" to get it done, and bring his Dad home.

After carefully listening to what was said, I'm willing to believe that he was talking to the terrorists, and not to the Saudi government. After all, for any government to deal/negotiate with terrorists is to grant an image of respectability and legitimacy to what amounts to a group of thugs, murderers, thieves, and vandals. Criminals.

And personally, I don't understand the rationale of the latest attacks in that area. Attacking oil pipelines? Threatening your own local economy? What could they possibly hope to gain from such a thing? That the Saudi government will roll over and say, "okay, maybe we won't implement any democratic reforms"? If they succeed in halting the oil industry, what happens then? The U.S. will get oil from someplace. It'll be expensive, but we'll get it. The only thing they'll wind up doing is a) pissing us off even more (Gas is HOW MUCH A GALLON? HEADS WILL ROLL!!!); and b) self-bankruptcy. If they're getting any money from that region, that money is coming from oil. It sure isn't coming from olive farms.