The IMF is projecting Arab oil revenues for this year to amount to some $400 billion. Unbelievable. That really worries me. The Arab oil boom of the 1970s was used, among other destructive paths, to spawn a world-wide Islamic fundamentalist fanaticism that worked side-by-side with the US to undermine not only the Soviet Union by also global ideas of leftism, socialism, and communism. In the Arab world, we greatly suffered from that, and that, partly not totally, explains the demise of the Arab left. What will the new oil revenues be spent on, aside from buying expensive weapons, and funding American covert and overt operations worldwide. How much new corruption will that money buy, and how many new consciences and pens be bought? How many new propaganda sheets will be produced, and how many new redundant Arab satellite stations will be launched? One thing is for sure, with all that money around, some will go to help those who fight Zarqawi, and some will go to fund...Zarqawi. This has always been the case in Saudi Arabia: some members of the royal family, not to speak of the other rich, were fighting Bin Laden, while others (disaffected or dissident according to the Sep. 11 Commission Report) helped Bin Laden. I did not enjoy the effects and repercussions of the first oil boom, and I already am bracing myself for the new effects and repercussions of the new oil boom. I certainly do not expect any gains in the war on poverty. That, you must understand, goes against the policies and philosophy of the World Bank and the IMF. Look how they would not allow the Brazilian government to fight poverty. Some of that money is spent, or wasted, on real estate in the US or elsewhere.