And public sphere or connected it. Its deepened it that the women are feeling that the public sphere particularly all of this public drinking at elections is causing a problem for them in their households. So they say if were going to protect our sphere, this domestic sphere we need to have a whole lot less drinking in the public sphere. So if they succeed in this Temperance Movement and the public sphere becomes one thats much more temperant than the argument is the domestic sphere and public sphere will be in more harmony than they are when you have this high level of drinking, both public and private. Yes . Wouldnt increasing the amount of alcohol go against the idea of increasing productivity because that would promote things like protests among the workers . Well, it might but workers like to have their jobs. This is a time in which the Union Movement was very weak. So not all employers can get away with this but most employers can get away with it because even where people are unionized there are other issues that are more important to them such as having better pay. So sometimes employers are improving pay a little bit at the same time that they are taking away the provision of this alcohol in the work place. Now, i say sometimes. Often the employer is just taking away the alcohol provision and not improving the pay but workers have to take it because they are not unionized. This is a time in the country when the government, state, and national do not recognize unions. Thats a development of the 20th century. Okay. So the work place is changing. Now, again i want to remind you most americans stay farmers. A lot of farmers are still providing alcohol so its not so much that the workplace is changing for farmers, its that a lot of farmers are becoming evangelical christians and they want to reduce Alcohol Consumption because its in their conviction, the moral thing to do. Some employers are not only eliminating the alcohol they provide in the work place, they are also telling their workers, dont you bring your own flask in here. No more drinking on the job. Some employers go even farther where they can get away with it. They say if you really want to keep your job here, id like you to go to the local Evangelical Church and id like to you take a pledge of temperance, and preferably one of abstinence. Now, this means of alcohol. Now, a lot of workers would say no way, but workers concerned about keeping their job would say, okay, ill see you on church on sunday. So this is developing attention. Not all workers want to go along with what their employers want them to do in terms of changing their behavior not simply in the workplace but also in their lease youleas leisure time. Some workers go along with it. Some dont. It also becomes a class divide. Now which social class do you think is going to be pushing hardest for temperance . Upper. Well, yeah. The people who will be owning these workshops or owning farms. So what class who we call that. Middle class and wealthy people, the people who would be most resistant would be the people who feel that they most need alcohol to cope with their hard lives. That would be working people. Im talking about a general pattern. You will find plenty of working men who joined temperance groups because they wanted to get better control of their lives. I dont want you to go away from this thinking all workers wanted to get drunk. Thats not true. There were many workers who cared about temperance but the people who cared most deeply about temperance were middle class people. Any questions so far . Now, theres also so i talked about theres something of a gender divide. Women care very deeply about temperance. Most of the resistance to it will be male. Its a class divide. Much stronger among middle class people than among working class people. Theres also an ethnic divide. People who are already born in the United States were more prone to embrace the Temperance Movement than were immigrants. Immigrants often felt this was a form of cultural warfare. Theres also a religious divide. Many of the immigrants to america were catholics. They didnt quite see the same problem with alcohol that protestants were identifying. They felt that attempts to reduce their Alcohol Consumption was a way of attacking their ethnicity and faith. If you wanted to find the setting where you would find probably the greatest commitment to preserving traditional customs of drinking, it would be in neighborhoods that would have a large number of immigrants, relatively poor, often catholic. They would just say its none of your business what we do on our own time. Leave us alone. There becomes a political divide. By the 1830s and 40s, weve got a new pair of political parties. The old federalist gone. The old jeffersonian republicans have evolved. What are the names of the two parties we find during the 1830s and 1840s . Go ahead. The democrats and the whigs. Now, the whigs drew very heavily upon those social groups that favored temperance. So the whig party made a commitment to pushing temperance because the whig party was strong in the northeast. Strong among business owners. Strong among evangelical christians. Although women couldnt vote. If they could vote, they would have voted overwhelmingly in the northeast for the whigs. The democratic party, on the other hand, draws support from those groups that tend to be most skeptical about temperance. Immigrants, working class americans, more rural americans. So theres something of a Cultural Divide thats emerging in the country that has political consequences. Now the Temperance Movement does start to have an impact during the 1830s and 1840s. Initially, its in the form of what we call moral swasion. Thats like persuasion. Now for example, if youre watching television, you will see ads where there are warnings against the consequences of drunk driving. Now, theres certainly laws against drunk driving, but theres also a Publicity Campaign thats mounted by social groups and by the government to try to persuade people to change their behavior. Similar efforts to try to persuade people today to stop smoking cigarettes. Thats what we call moral swasion. An attempt to persuade people to make the choice themselves to change their behavior. Temperance initially focused on moral suasion and achieved some gains. It essentially became disrespectable to be a middle class person and to be a heavy drinker. Middle class people start to police themself. They dont like to associate with people who are heavy drinkers. It starts to dissipate in the middle class particularly in the northeast and midwest. It persists in the working class where working class people are reinforcing more traditional behavior. Temperance groups are finding that theres kind of a cap to how far they can go in achieving the reduction of drinking if they just rely on moral suasion. So the alternative is so get localities and states to pass laws that would forbid the sale, the consumption, the production of alcohol. Now, youre thinking about the famous prohibition law that Congress Passed in the 1920s. Were talking about an earlier period when it is not a federal issue. Its a state issue. There are a number of states now that take up this question of should they ban the production, the sale, and the consumption of alcohol . The first state to do this is the state of maine in 1851. So this first attempt at prohibition in the country was done at the state level. The very first state to try it was maine. Now, maine is a northeastern state, had a lot of evangelicals. It had a lot of middle class entrepreneurs. It was very strong for the whig party, so its an ideal place to try this for the first time. During the next four years, another 12 states will adopt their own version of the maine law. All of the states were in the north. All of the New England States adopted such laws. New york adopted it and about half of the states in the midwest. Did any Southern States adopt such a law . No. So were seeing that the country is dividing over the issue of temperance and particularly over the attempt to use political prohibition to force people to change their behavior. I have a question. Go ahead. Why does the southern part of the United States not go not pass prohibition laws . This is a very good question. Can anybody think of reasons why the south might be particularly reluctant to jump on board with this northern phenomenon . Yes . With the examples of a factory theres not as many in the south. Theres not as many factories. We talked about industrial capitalism being one of the three sources. That force is particularly weak in the south. People in the south work outside. They are working outside. Its a very rural part of the country. Yes . The town Hall Meetings okay. Its harder to organize social groups in the south because the population is so dispersed. Yes. You dont give alcohol to the slaves. So its all for themselves. So they think of it as an important right of being a free person is to drink all you want. Do they want outsiders telling them not to . No. Theres also a developing suspicion about the north and any kind of social movement that develops there. Its perceived to be some sort of dangerous fad and that northerners shouldnt be telling southerners what to do so part of it is just trying to defend traditions in the south because they dont want to do anything thats new and comes from the north. Traditions of drinking suits their way of living just fine. Now thats not to say there werent southerners who favored temperance. There were. But there werent enough of them to pass any laws. In general, southerners do not like an activist government. They dont like governments passing laws making people change their behavior. They just dont like it. They dont like it when their own states do it. They especially dont like it if any outside government tries to do it. Now, why do you suppose southerners are so sensitive about an activist government . What kind of activity by a government might be especially concerning to them . Yes . The emancipation of slaves. Just temperamentally, they dont want white governments to get it into their head that they can do things like mess with peoples property. Now, messing with tavern keepers property or distillers property is not as bad as messing with slavery because so much was invested in that. Its a slippery slope. If a government thinks it has the right to shut down distilleries or shut down taverns, whats to stop them from shutting down slavery . So just to be on the safe side, southerners, meaning white southerners, likes to say the government that governs best is the government that governs least. So they didnt like what they were seeing in the north. These northerners using state governments to try to change peoples behavior. Question. Werent they also still mad over the protective tariffs and how they had to they are. Who is it thats pushing the protective tariffs. The whigs, the same people pushing temperance. Over the next couple of hours programs normally seen on cspan 2 tv. Up next doug bandow and herman pirchner. Then Senior Adviser hassan abbas talks about return of power of the taliban. Also bruce herschensohn, his political career and Foreign Policy. Next, authors join david keen of the Washington Times to discuss the ongoing conflict in ukraine. This discussion was part of freedomfest, a libertarian Conference Held annually in las vegas. Its about 45 minutes. Youre probably wondering what ive done wrong to be dragged up before congress 70 times to testify. Never been indicted. Ladies and gentlemen, its a great pleasure to be with you today. Our topic today is hot spots around the world, the smaller version of freedomfest last january, i gave a talk on ukraine. Thats before the thing heated up. Mark thought it would be a good idea if we looked at places around the world an whats likely to happen. We have no better panelist than the group we have today. Because weve got gentlemen who have immense experience working in many areas of the world. I think youll enjoy what they have to say. To my far, far right is david keen. David is now the opinion editor of the Washington Times, which means he oversees all the editorials and all the commentary. The Washington Times is in the process of really expanding. They are doing a National Digital edition. I suggest that you all subscribe, because that makes it easy for you to get my weekly column also, plus all the others. Its a great newspaper. Its growing unlike most other newspapers in the world. David is a good part of this change. You may remember david for many years was chairman of american conservative union. He was also president of the National Rifle association. I know a lot of you would be opposed to that. But hes done great things all his life and has been in and out of government and had positions advising president s. Then to my far, far right is herman pirchner. Herman has been longtime president of American Foreign policy council. They do great work looking all the time at the hot spots around the world and trying to anticipate whats going to happen long before it does. You could sort of say they are different than the Obama Administration because they actually look ahead. Herman doesnt have to pick up the newspaper as being surprised by whats going to happen next in the world, because he and his staff have been there, know whats going on and great jobs anticipating it. Particularly, most recently, he was front on Ukraine Russia difficulties. They turn on a great publication. I suggest those of you with a few extra dollars may want to join American Foreign policy council. I suspect all of here are interested in Foreign Policy. Its a way of keeping up to date very low overhead operation but they do great work on Foreign Policy and intelligence. Then to my immediate right is my old friend doug bandow, who i knew from Reagan Administration when he was assistant to the president. Hes a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Doug has turned out i dont know how many books, endless articles. One of the worlds most prolific author dealing with Foreign Policy. Were doing a general session today, specializing narrowly, because we all have experience in various parts of the world. It overlaps. If were speaking earlier, one characteristic now is, as we laugh, the world has gotten smaller, which is really true. The planes plane ride from tehran to north korea is pretty short. So the question is, is that the middle east or is it asia or wherever . Were going to start off with david keene, because hes my boss at the Washington Times. Id like to begin. Ive got one more line before that. David is going to set the stage of really the great global struggle thats going on among the political forces, then well get into more of the specifics. David. Thank you, richard. Id like to begin by this great selfpromotioner were doing to suggest that you need to subscribe to the Washington Times also because bandow writes for the times. Not as much as id like. Thats the problem with being editor, youre always being lobbied by the people. The pages are open to pirchner as well. Its important that were meeting on these subjects today, because the American People are confused as to what the stance of the United States ought to be in terms of Foreign Policy and our place in the world. They have gone through a period in which Foreign Policy dominated and think perhaps it can be remade in the american image without a relationship and understanding of cultures and the like. One can argue in the middle east, were still struggling with the shadow of the great war, celebrating 100 years of its beginning. I guess celebration is the wrong word. I remember from the intimate papers of colonel house, who was adviser to woodrow wilson, he said at one point hed had a busy day because they had spent that morning redrawing the map of the world. But fortunately they had managed to finish by noon and enjoyed a good lunch. Thats the kind of attitude that dominates some folks that involve themselves in Foreign Policy debate even today. We pay the cost for that in terms of blood and treasure and wars and struggles we dont need to be involved in. On the other hand, there are those in reaction to that that say United States cant be involved at all. The best policy for the United States is the policy we pursued in the early days of the republic, which is to trade but stay away. Even then early president s dealt with barbery priorities. There was never a complete separation of Foreign Policy from economic interest. The question American People are struggling with, what are the legitimate interests of the United States that need to be protected. For example, in the middle east, earlier age communist empire, facing what amounts to existential threat, sources bent upon our destruction regardless. Do we have an obligation, as would be argued to remake the world in our image. If we could do that, would it work. If we could do that, show we do it. Do we have a right to do it. Ignore the kinds of problems developing. The modern president s, two president s who lost fewer americans than any other in foreign wars were Ronald Reagan and dwight eisenhower, neither one of which could be viewed as an isolationist and further neither one could be viewed neoconservist in the poddern particle answer. But both were known as people who you could only push so far. The basis of the reagan policy was if you were Strong Enough, you didnt have to go to war. If you were Strong Enough people knew what the limits were and you didnt have to go too far. Remember reagans comment when libyans under muammar gaddafi, i dont know what it was shortly into his presidency, he called his people and said, its about time we teach the people theres new management over here. The problem the American People faces, what do we do now with the kind of management we have and how do we proceed. Also Foreign Policy questions and defense policy questions, thats linked to specific problems, their sources and meaning for us. Thats hawaii this topic, hoth hot spots are so wore today. As you can tell, were old friends here. Herman, well let you pick up where david left off. Related to reality now. Thanks for your comments, dave. I want to pick up on one question you raise, that was a question of islamism versus communism, historical problems for the u. S. All on the stage, a veteran of the cold war. I have to say in many ways the problem with islamism is going to prove more difficult than the problem of communism. Communism promised utopia on earth. The time came where he had 20 million dead in the soviet union, 80 million dead in clean and no utopia. When that was seen by the sons and daughters of the elites running countries, this idea of creating paradise on earth fell apart. The idea and ability to kill en masse went away. When that went away, fear did and soviet union evolved. Everybody that follows bin laden on earth thinks hes been rewarded. The idea is still alive. As long as that idea is still alive, the idea that you may go to paradise by killing innocents, tichl and other problems associated with islamism exist. Essentially dealing with islam they logic question, win the islamic world, and thats a war in which we have little sway. How can you be involved in theological questions about islam if youre not a muslim. Its a problem thats going to be with us a great amount of time. American Foreign Policy published almanac of islamism. Its a work on islamist movements worldwide. The book either receive, hard cover, 1150 pages, but theres an online edition. In the course of looking at the great depth of this islamic problem, you understand what a longstanding struggle is going to be to deal with islamism in the many forms that exist worldwide. I want to switch now briefly to the ukraine. Its the title of the panel. Ukraine is playing out in the following fashion you soon have two cities in the eastern part of ukraine, luhansk, donetsk, surrounded by ukrainian government. In these cities will be a couple thousand rebels largely taking orders from moscow through Russian Military intelligence, gru. Maybe a negotiated settlement where they leave and go into russia. Maybe there will be a fight. If there is a fight, militants from prorussian forces are likely to try to make it as bloody as possible by positioning themselves in hospitals, old age homes and so forth. Will do that with the hope things will become so disruptive, putin will be moved to move in russian forces. If he chooses to do that, the Ukrainian Army has no capability standing with him. They probably could be in kiev in two, three days. If that happens, it will be the foreshadowing of very tense and longstanding tenseness in relations between russia and the west. It will be the beginning of what will be a long guerilla war in ukraine. Ukraine has some history of that, anticommunist forces fought for many years after the close of world war ii against soviet forces. My sources tell me there are tens of thousands of ukrainians with some arms that will harass russian army if it sits there. When you get to this appoint, consequences are a little unpredictable. Ive probably eaten up my opening time. Were going to get back to, that herman, in more detail. First, talk a little about the middle east or whatever you want. I like the idea of whatever i want. We live in a world created by bosnian serb terrorist who shot arch duke and his wife 100 years ago and effectively triggered world war i. Some of the questions we have are the final bits and pieces of that war, middle east, balkans, many of the countries created out of that conflict. There is good news in all this. There are a lot of hot spots and ill briefly mention. For the most part hot spots that dont directly and severely affect the United States. This is not world 3. Came out opponents of nuclear weapons, trained School Children to get under desks if missiles fell. We talked about soviet troops, none of that is with us. Colin powell commented, running out of enemies, down to fidel castro and kim ilsung, but not compared to others with the horrors they impose. Looking at a future with chronic conflicts as opposed to acute ones. Islamic threats terrorism, they will be with us threaten us not existentially but with us, travelers in other ways. When you look around the world, weve got a world full of a lot of messes out there. We have missiles falling in israel, bombings in the gaza strip. We see the israelipalestinian peace process, one which every time they make a go at it, i roll my eyes for the 300th, 400th time they have been trying. Egypt, mubarak dictatorship, get to choose between a military dictatorship, russian brotherhood, not a choice any of us in this room would like. We look at syria, driven by a civil war where we have a government i think none of us like. On the other hand, the other side includes such wonderful folks that run people they dont like and shooting School Children if theyre thought to blaspheme. Those are our allies in the syrian civil war. Iraq, of course, we all see falling apart, and it turns out one of the main force against the government that we supported are the opposition in syria. So were in this rather odd situation of opposing the government in syria thats fighting the bad guys but were in favor of the government in iraq fighting the same bad guys assuming our friends in washington can get this straight assumes a lot of competence that i dont think is really there. We look at iran, a country which presumably we all think is after nuclear weapons. None of us really want that to happen. Theres a negotiating process going on. I think theres at least a little hope that that might turn out in a positive way but i wont hold my breath. The world would be a much better place if it did. Launching military strikes against iran i think would be catastrophic for a whole host of reasons. So we should look for any option outside of that to try to solve that. My friends the North Koreans are constantly busy. Theyre mad because the new movie the interview is out there in which james franco wants to assassinate kim jongun. They are, very, very happy and threatened war over this movie. Hollywood has obviously become a tool of imperialism. The vietnamese kind of want us to come, our old enemies, suddenly want us around and like to have us help them out. Then we get to ukraine where clearly in a sense the cold war in some sense is being recreated there. You know, its a difficult situation, but the reality is no one in europe or america i think wants to go to war over ukraine which means the russians have the capability that do what they want though i expect putins ambitions are somewhat bounded. Im not sure he wants to bring in a lot of ukrainians. The ukrainians dont like if if theyre subjugated. You bring in 60 or more ukrainians, thats not likely to be very stable for you. So i suspect thats going to be a chronic problem for the future and there are others, moldova, georgia, and others in the same situation that have the difficulties with the russians. So were looking ahead, id say the world is going to be a mess and aflame. The good news for the u. S. Is it can stand back and assess each of these carefully. Theres no reason to assume we have to jump into all of them or some of them. Theres no clear way in which we want to get involved. It will vary i think but i think the world today gives us more options that be we had in a world with the soviet union. Luckily today there is no evil empire. We stand alone in terms of the summit of military power. We have options we didnt have during the cold war. I want to pick up on all that. One of our colleagues at the Cato Institute is andre, and andre had been putins chief economic adviser up to 2004, and putin had been moving toward denationalization and somewhat towards freer markets but then he began to reverse course and renationalize the oil companies, and andre and president putin ceased getting along, and so andre moved to the u. S. And joined the Cato Institute. From the kremlin to the Cato Institute where he is much happier, but andre also he has recently returned from ukraine and he does go back and forth to russia some, and so far hes been okay. We do worry about him. But his view is that putin wants to recreate the russian empire, not the ussr necessarily, but the russian empire. And many of you probably have forgotten, the russian empire, what year did it actually create have the greatest land mass . Anybody here remember . 1867. Then they sold alaska to us, and then it shrunk after that and alaska was a pretty big piece, but basically dominated Eastern Europe and what we look at as the stands and everything today. And andres view is that putin will continue to nibble around the edges like he has in georgia, crimea, now the main part of ukraine, and i would like to get the views of my fellow panelists on andres view and well just work our way down. David . I think thats essentially correct. You know, you cant fault the leader of a country for acting in his countrys selfinterest. You can be upset because it may clash with your interests, but you cant really fault him for doing that. If hes outmaneuvering you it may mean hes better than your leaders at it but it doesnt mean hes necessarily evil. I think, frankly, and this is without excusing anything putin has done, that part of what happened in ukraine is the result of two things. One, both sides began looking at the world through the eyes of the old cold war ignoring the fact that i dont know who said it once but that countries dont have permanent friends, they have permanent interests at a time when perhaps our interests were closer together than either side was willing to admit. Secondly, were in a world in which a lot of our policymakers dont know very much about history. Think about this. We spent millions of dollars in ukraine promoting the idea that ukraine should move toward the European Community and nato ignoring the fact that i guess suggesting, well, putin really wont mind giving up that warm watt point in crimea, the fact that the russians have always wanted buffer states. That wont bother them. Well just turn this into one of our countries not realizing that the russians for historic and other reasons wanted to keep ukraine as part of their orbit about 100 times more than we wanted to get it. And as a result we added to the problem. Earlier, and this also goes to one of the reasons for the breakdown of the russian u. S. Reproachment if you will, youll remember the balkan crisis in which the United States decided that selfdetermination required an independent kosovo which was part of serbia. That was a violation of a lot of different things, and the russians, who have always considered if we go back and remember world war i, have always considered the southern slavs to be their protector theyre the protectors of the southern slavs, they were outraged at the fact we were going to allow part of a nation state that wasnt a nation to exercise a selfdetermination right and break off, and if you listen to the russians now, theyre saying we have the right to do in ukraine and maybe in latvia and maybe in estonia what you did in the balkans because we have russians living there, and you said that those people shouldnt live among slavs, and so from a legal and a historical standpoint, this whole thing is muddled in part because of putins ambitions, whether we record them as legitimate or not and in part because we helped muddle things up and de facto encouraged or at least forced him to act on those ambitions in ukraine. Am i wrong about that, herman . I agree with a lot of what you said about the balkans. When andre became Russian Foreign minister in the early 90s, he had a rather prowest Foreign Policy but he and others were discredited when nato was use ed offensively in the balka because their argument against the hard liners had always been, no need to fear the west, nato is strictly defensive organization. Lets go back to ukraine and other parts of the former soviet union that putin has designs on. In 2001 russia passed a law in expansion of the territory of the russian federation. Thats the law whose basis was used to annex crimea. This is in line with the thinking of the nationalists about the creation of a greater slavic state that would be belarus, that would be ukraine, that would be northern k kazakhst kazakhstan. You now have a man by the name of dmitrdmitri, now a deputy pr minister, hes russias nationalist number one. Already about 15 years ago he wrote in a book no matter how unrealistic it seems today, we must persevere coming out like germany, united after 40 years. Russias had longterm designs on these territories. The problem is with ukraine its an unrequited love. Ukrainians remember the 2 Million People that were killed by the forced famine in the 1930s. More than that. Well, 2, 3, 4, but its a lot of people that were killed, and many of them were killed in the eastern territories under contention. The empty homes then were filled by russians who came from other parts of russia. If you go as far in russia to the Pacific Island of sakalin, you find many people with ukrainian names. The cream of ukrainian intelligence were sent to the camps. Thats not forgotten in ukraine. So russsia coveted ukraine. Putin is a nationalist. Exactly how ideological is hard to say. I think a lot of it is political. His Approval Ratings have been down. Crimea bumped him up. I think it many way what is russia is today is a pre1914 great power. That is ideological contentiousness is gone. This is not some grand global competition. What he really cares about is Border Security and its respect, and i think balkans is one where you screw with us, you dont take us into account, you toss our allies to the side, we really get upset. Do you it again to us in ukraine, you know, theres an elected leader there who is kind of pro our side, you overthrow him, you organize a street revolution, you want them to sign up with you, you talk about nato, but i think what he is, hes ambitious and opportunistic but also prudent. While he might like to have a russia that looks like a russia is 1860, hes realistic. The question of what he wants, how much hell take, i think a lot of it is opportunistic. Theres a moment he thought he could get it. You get crimea and now you play the gape and see what comes out of it. If nothing else, you finlandize ukraine. You cause them trouble. The new leadership recognizes it needs stability. They understand they better Pay Attention to you. Five years no now they can play this game again. And nato is off the table. I think hes dangerous but i think hes dangerous in a very confined way. Well, i think im a little more skeptic about mr. Putin than minute all of you. I chaired the bulgarian Transition Team in 93 and had been an adviser. Back at the beginning of this year even though im an economic columnist for the times, i write about energy and a number of other things, and i had done several articles about how europe was captive to soviet oil and gas. Most of russias hard currency or exports are oil and gas. Most of it going to western europe and particularly the southern western European Countries are almost totally hostage to gas coming through ukraine. From my old contacts i had received a message about how certain members of the bulgarian parliament, basically the socialist party, the green party and even the turkish party, were receiving payments to vote against fracing in bull gbare y. Northern bulgaria is loaded with oil and gas. They should be an oil and gas exporter. It shoud not ld not be totally dependent on russian oil and gas. It reminded me of the old days that i think all of us here knew had been participants in one way or the other in the cold war and much of this became familiar. At the time i got this information, i was first trying to get some of the western European Press to really run with it, and include some of the bigger newspapers. I had the contacts. And people were somewhat aware but people didnt want to go there. What you have is sort of willing hostages in person europe, and finally i did the column for the Washington Times, and since that time, you look at the last few months theres been a lot of columns now, the economist magazine and others have run similar stories. The economist story was almost word for word my story in the Washington Times but they were all afraid to break it. This fear in western europe about exposing whats going on, and i have been given grief by some are old friends that didnt make the fact i did this. This is a little personal because i have been theres no question that youre right about that, and the antifracking effort in europe is reminiscent of old soviet propaganda campaigns because its in their interest not to allow or to prevent in any way they can independence not just in the Eastern European countries but others that are more dependent on their energy supplies. The reality of russia versus the soviet union, and maybe the difference isnt so great but it may end up in the same place, and that is that putin and his friends have really sort of transformed postcold war russia into a quasi middle Eastern Trust state which is totally dependent on its abill to sell energy to the west because thats how they support not only their private greed but the functioning of their government. I was in a meeting with russian Oil Officials and one of the american officials said what would happen if the price of oil fell to 80 a barrel . And the russian said, well, that wont happen. If if it did happen, theyd have to sell off the kremlin because theyd be good for about 60 days. They need 100 and up oil just to survive because they dont have much else. They havent