A View From Mars to the Middle East

A View From Mars to the Middle East

John LeBoutillier
Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2006

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Last week, I had the pleasure to see a Disney-produced 45-minute documentary - "The Mars Rovers" - about the entire Mars exploration project.

This wonderful IMAX film shows the young American scientists who conceived the Mars mission - from theory right through to the landing, deployment and amazing successes of two robot vehicles driving around the two sides of Mars.

What a feat!

These young men and women are truly the best we have to offer - and their scientific and engineering accomplishments are the product of the American system: free thinking, and serious exploration and experimentation all under the rubric of aiming high to achieve a dream.

American technological successes are inspiring. We lead the world in these breakthroughs and advances.

Now, half way around the world, a bunch of crazed Hezbollah killers launch missiles into Israel to provoke a war. Massive killings of innocents follow.

The human race is strange, isn't it?

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Some people devote themselves to launching rockets to Mars; others launch to randomly kill our fellow man. And for what?

To provoke yet another war between Arabs and Israel - all concocted out of hatred and bitterness.

The Arab mentality is the reason they are mired in medieval times. Instead of overcoming their problems with the Jews and learning to live together and aim for a better future, the Arab leadership (and Muslim leadership) is missing out on all the wonderful progress the human race has made in the last 50 years.

Medicine, science, health-care breakthroughs, and agricultural and irrigation advances that can sustain millions - many of these advances pioneered by Jews, by the way, and none by Arabs - are available to all mankind.

To spend your life killing your neighbors is ridiculous; the human race is moving forward at an exponential rate. And the world is dividing into those who look forward and those who look back.

The United States, China, India, Israel, and some in Europe are the pioneers into new science and new vistas; the rest of the world basically chooses to wallow in their own backwardness.

While we are driving remote-controlled cars around Mars, Iraqis and Palestinians are blowing up cars in Baghdad and Jerusalem.

What a waste.

Now, my fellow Americas, we need to get our focus back on what we do right - and stop what we do wrong:

We need to clean up our own act. Under G.W. Bush, we have gone from the most admired nation in the world to the most despised. Why? Because instead of trying to be Ronald Reagan's "shining city on the Hill," we have become the arrogant, know-it-all, condescending bully who tells the world "you are either with us or against us."

We need to work toward setting a positive example for the world. This means not trying to run other countries when we can't repair New Orleans - or even account for the billions allocated for Iraq reconstruction.

We need to use our best brains to develop new technologies to get us off our reliance on imported oil. And we need to make this our number one political objective. Why? Because every time you fill your car and pay $3.55 a gallon, much of that money ends up in the pockets of our mortal enemies.

Criminals like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and corrupt Arab leaders use that money to pay for "protection" from al-Qaida, i.e., we are in fact financing the very terrorists who attack us. How crazy are we to continue this inevitably fatal habit?

We need a Manhattan-style national project - called "project independence" - to get a new source of energy ASAP. We need to stop financing our enemies; instead we need to lead the world through a positive new scientific breakthrough that will change the politics of Earth.

Greedy pessimists must not be allowed to forestall this project. They may want to maintain the status quo because they own oil stocks or they can't see into the future far enough to envision cars and trucks powered by something other than imported petroleum. But our young brainy scientists are dying to attack this problem because they know it is one of the keys to our future.

This country is in deep, deep trouble. Make no mistake about it.

Our government is off-track. The two national political parties are as backward as the warring factions in the Middle East: so obsessed with settling scores that they can't see the bigger picture.

The American people - as usual - are way ahead of their government. And they know we are in big trouble.

We need new leadership - not the same old tired hacks and D.C. insiders who have endangered this country through their short-sightedness. Enough of these two royal families - the Bushes and the Clintons - dominating our two parties.

Let's band together and demand new leaders, new priorities, and new goals.

If we can drive cars on Mars, we can do anything.

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