Martin,

It is not widely reported in the West that Colonel Khadafi has delivered to his people the largest fresh-water transportation and delivery system of all time. An amazing engineering achievement, pumping water from under the mountains in the desert and bringing it through a pipeline and into reservoirs.

At the start of the project, 100% of the skilled workforce were foreign (mainly American, British and German), with only manual labour being done by Libyans. Now that foreign contingent is down to below 10%, because Khadafi has been spending the money training the people that he is there to look after.

How were the Iraqis under the "dictator," Saddam Hussein? My answer would be, "alive and well." They were not bothered about oil. They were more interested in fresh water.

It was not that long ago when you and I could have gone to Baghdad and sat drinking mint tea together in the cool of the evening. It was not too long ago when I was doing exactly that in Saudi Arabia, for instance. But not now.

As for Castro, one of his finest moments was when he publicly offered to send observers to monitor the US election voting when Bush was almost prevented from becoming president just because he had received 500,000 fewer votes than the other guy.

Maybe my view is too simplistic. Or maybe Occam's razor has some merit after all.

Cuba and Libya may well turn out to be far preferable to Western "civilisation" when the printing of paper money is turned off.

Regards,

Neville

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