fionn, dont know where you get the idea that I couldnt care less - about energy consumption, (I do plenty of walking myself, but I need a vehicle for work - and its a bit hard to fit a couple hundred pounds of boxes on a bicycle - the reality is whether we like it or not, the world economies are dependent on energy use.

(time and again you hear the root causes argument - poverty? most of the 19 hijackers were well off Saudis,

the problem is when you look at what these guys (the radical islamists) are saying, they dont want an egalitarian world. They want what the Fascists wanted, economic development without social change and cultural permissiveness. in 1979 Khomeinis sermons in Iran specifically targeted the freedom of the West. 'Yes, we are reactionaries, and you are enlightened intellectuals, and you do not want us to go back fourteen hundred years' he said immediately after the revolution. 'you who want freedom for everything, freedom of parties, you who want all the freedoms, you intellectuals: freedom that will corrupt our youth' .. 'People cannot be made obedient except with the sword. The sword is the key to Paradise, which can only be opened for holy warriors'

the same goes for Ayman Zawahiri, the leader of egypts islamic jihad, that joined with AL Qaeda, wanted exactly what Iran had, the rule of Sharia (stern Islamic law) in Egypt and for that matter everywhere in the world.

(Egypt by the way gets 2billion in US aid per year)