The fact is that Iran wants nuclear power. It wants to join a growing list of countries that already enjoy the benefits of nuclear power.

Which countries currently have nuclear power plants operating within their borders?

The list might surprise you. Argentina, Armenia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, South Korea, Lithuania, Mexico, Netherlands, Pakistan, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and the United States. According to the Uranium Information Centre[1] there are a total of 441 operable reactors in these countries.

Countries that are exploring or actively seeking nuclear power capabilities include Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Turkey, and Vietnam. The countries that are known to have stockpiles of nuclear weapons are Russia, the United States, France, China, Great Britain, Pakistan, and India. Israel is considered a de facto nuclear power by most observers, although it has long maintained that it will neither confirm nor deny whether it has nuclear weapons. North Korea is suspected to have joined the list of nuclear powers in 2005. South Africa once had nuclear weapons but has since reportedly destroyed the weapons, but not the capacity to manufacture them again if necessary.

Given the fact that nuclear power plants are currently operating in 31 countries with 7 more countries in pursuit of atomic energy, is it possible that the United States of America is honestly threatened by Iran seeking nuclear power capabilities? And given the fact that there are currently approximately 31,000 nuclear warheads deployed or in reserve in the stockpiles of eight countries: China, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, is it plausibly that Iran, even if it had 20 nuclear warheads, wouldn’t be pulverized if it ever attempted to launch a nuclear weapon against the United States or any of our allies? Nuclear or not, Iran will never be a nuclear threat to the United States.

It is a mathematical improbability.

According to Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, of these 31,000 nuclear warheads, about 13,000 are deployed and 4,600 of these are on high alert, i.e. ready to be launched within minutes notice. The combined explosive yield of these weapons is approximately 5,000 megatons, which is about 200,000 times the explosive yield of the bomb used on Hiroshima.[2]

None of these nukes are in Tehran’s control.

With this perspective intact, is it possible that the United States of America is really threatened by Iran’s nuclear ambitions? It does not seem possible, yet the propaganda machine is churning out battle cries daily that do not match reality. That’s what propaganda is, words masquerading as news that defy and deny reality.

The truth be told, Iran’s current nuclear ambitions, whether for peaceful purposes or not, do not pose any greater threat to the United States then when Pakistan became a nuclear power in 1988. Prior to Pakistan becoming a nuclear power, Muslim countries in the Middle East were surrounded by non-Muslim nuclear powers. Therefore, beginning in 1970’s, Pakistan viewed the development of a nuclear bomb as its last resort and only defense against being invaded by India or the Soviet Union. There are many historical indications that Pakistan was most likely correct in its assessment regarding the need to become a nuclear power.

In 1979, when Afghanistan was invaded by the Soviet Union, Pakistan feared becoming a future target of Soviet aggression. To make matters worse, in 1980, Pakistan was told that the United States would not commit forces to defend Pakistan if the Soviet Union invaded. This lack of support from the United States made any claimed alliance between Pakistan and the United States doubtful in the eyes of the Pakistani people, and only increased Pakistan’s urgent approach towards becoming a nuclear power.

Although relations between Pakistan and the United States have improved significantly since September 11, 2001, it is a matter of fact that Pakistan played a vital roll in helping Iran and North Korea advance their nuclear programs during the 1990’s. In other words, without Pakistan’s assistance, it is likely that the Iran nuclear hysteria would not be possible today.

Regardless of past cooperation between Pakistan and the nuclear pursuits of Iran and North Korea, the rhetoric suggesting that a future nuclear-powered Iran presents a clear and present danger to the Middle East and the United States simply cannot be substantiated when measured against the number of countries that currently operate nuclear power plants and the staggering amount of nuclear warheads stockpiled around the world that are controlled by the United States and its allies.

The Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States clearly demonstrated the positive power to be found in fearing a nuclear counterattack. If either the Soviet Union or the United States would not have been a nuclear power during the Cold War, it is reasonable to suggest that the country possessing nuclear warheads would have invaded the one that did not, thus making the Cold War, hot.

The governments of India and Pakistan intensely distrust if not despise each other, but knowing that each side has nuclear weapons has restrained either side from launching all out invasions on the other ever since both became nuclear powers. In both the Soviet Union vs. United States and India vs. Pakistan nuclear showdowns, President Ronald Reagan’s tactical strategy, “Peace through superior firepower” proved flexible enough to withstand being minimized to “Peace through similar firepower”, and remain a fundamental truth.

It is worth noting that during the 1990’s, Pakistan considered Iran as its closest regional ally. However, times have changed this alliance. Iran is now a fundamental Shiite haven with a government to match. Pakistan on the other hand is sliding toward an ideological Sunni state. Shiites are outraged by Pakistan’s cooperation with the United States, with most viewing the Unites States / Pakistan relationship as an unholy alliance that amounts to nothing less than blasphemy. If tensions between Iran and Pakistan escalate as expected, then Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon will mirror Pakistan’s urgency to develop a nuclear weapon in the 70’s and 80’s to defend itself against a nuclear India.

Iran also knows what the world knows but Israel will not admit; that Israel is a nuclear power with an overwhelmingly decisive military advantage over Iran. Iran might spout words of hate towards Israel, but they do not dare launch missiles, because unlike the United States, Israel doesn’t fight wars for oil. It fights wars for survival, and will not hesitate destroying Iran’s oil reserves if it determines such military actions to be tactically advantageous.

The bottom line is that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are well documented and have existed for more than two decades. Pakistan played a vital role in advancing the nuclear capabilities of both Iran and North Korea in the 1990’s. As Pakistan moves closer to the United States, and with 130,000 U.S troops in Iraq, Iran is being pushed into a weapon of last resort scenario similar to that of Pakistan when India became a nuclear power.

In January 2006, the Big Five media conglomeration has fired up the propaganda presses and aggressively started churning out the Iran Nuclear Threat headlines at an alarming pace, even though there is really nothing new about Iran’s 20-year-old nuclear ambitions. When measured against the list of 31 countries that currently operate nuclear power plants, the 7 that are pursuing nuclear power, the 31,000 nuclear warheads already distributed around the world, the fact that Israel is a nuclear power, and the United States having 130,000 troops in neighboring Iraq while building permanent military installations faster than George Bush can say 9/11, nuclear or not, Iran is of no military consequence to the United States or Israel, and it will not be for generations to come, if ever.

If Iran’s desire to have access to nuclear power is old news, which it is, then why is it being splashed as breaking headlines across the world? Why now? What has happened thus far in 2006 that was not happening in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005?

Did uranium enrichment equipment and facilities suddenly and surprisingly appear on the Iranian landscape? Is Iran’s announcement that it has restarted its uranium enrichment research; the Big Five called it breaking the seals on its uranium enrichment equipment, which sounds vaporously spooky, when all it really means is that Iran unlocked the doors of the facilities that house the uranium enrichment equipment and turned the lights on once again; is this action an actual threat to the security of the United States of America?

No, it is not.

So what is it? What is Iran doing that has the Big Five, the Federal Reserve Banking Cartel, U.S. Congress, and the Executive Branch Bushians urgently leading the misinformed American people down the road of “we found those weapons of mass destruction we were looking for in Iraq, in Iran”? If Iran’s nuclear ambitions don’t add up to the propaganda, which it does not, what does?

In a December 16, 2005 Associated Press article, President Bush said that Iran is a “real threat” to the United States and called on Tehran to “prove it does not seek nuclear weapons.”

Sound familiar?

Just a few years earlier, Bush challenged Iraq to prove it didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. Saddem Hussein said that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction. But how do you prove you don’t have something?

Vilified and scorned U.N. Weapons Inspector, Scott Ritter repeatedly told the Big Five that Iraq did not have active weapons of mass destruction programs prior to the Bushians launching its pre-emptive strike.

The truth is that Iran stands about as much chance of convincing President Bush that they are not seeking nuclear weapons as the nineteen men and women convicted in 1692 by the Massachusetts Puritans for practicing witchcraft did in convincing the Puritans that they were not witches.

The Executive Branch Bushians know that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are of no real threat to the United States, but believe that Americans will take the nuclear threat bait. Either way, the Executive Branch Bushians, along with the Federal Reserve Banking Cartel, and the U.S. Congress, need this new lie to stick firmly in the minds of approximately half of the population of the United States so that it can go about the business of thwarting the real threat that Iran posed to the United States.

And yes, Iran does pose a real threat to the United States, a clear and present danger far worst than anything the Big Five is reporting. Why the Big Five is not reporting on the real economical “nuclear bomb” that Iran already possesses serves as evidence to the intuitive American that this unspoken threat is absolutely real.

In March 2006, Iran will break the seals on its Iran Oil Bourse.

If you are not familiar with the Iran Oil Bourse, you need to Google it promptly. Thankfully, many reporters, commentators, and scholars that operate in the 10% zone not controlled by the Big Five have written outstanding articles and analysis regarding the true implications of the Iran Oil Bourse. In fact, there seems to be a new article on the subject, released daily.

On January 15, 2006, Krassimir Petov, Ph. D. wrote The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse. His analysis: the proposed Iranian Oil Bourse will accelerate the fall of the American Empire. His qualifications: Petrov received his Ph.D. in economics from Ohio State University and currently teaches Macroeconomics, International Finance, and Econometrics at the American University in Bulgaria. In his article, Petov recommends reading two works by William Clark: The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War in Iraq, and The Real Reasons Why Iran is the Next Target.

Here are the key points made by Krassimir Petov, Ph. D. in his report: The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse

·The Iranian government has finally developed the ultimate “nuclear” weapon that can swiftly destroy the financial system underpinning the American Empire

·The weapon is the Iran Oil Bourse slated to open in March 2006

·With the opening of the Iran Oil Bourse:

·Europeans will no longer have to buy and hold U.S. Dollars in order to secure payment for oil. They will be able to purchase oil with their own currencies, the euro.

·The Chinese and Japanese will be especially eager to adopt the Iran Oil Bourse because it will allow them to drastically reduce their enormous dollar reserves and diversify with euros, thus protecting themselves against the depreciation of the U.S. Dollar.

·Russians have an inherent economic interest in adopting the euro because the bulk of its trade is with European countries

·The Arab-oil exporting countries also need to diversify against the rising mountains of U.S. debt notes – the depreciating dollar

What the Iran Oil Bourse means to the average American is that suddenly, hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars will become unwanted around the world. In essence, the money supply will double or triple. When supply outweighs demand, prices go down – except when dealing with currency. When money supply exceeds demand, prices go up. Its called inflation – the hidden tax brought to the U.S. taxpayer courtesy of the Federal Reserve Banking Cartel and our friends in the U.S. Congress.

Imagine if every Americans income doubled in next week’s paycheck. Do you think prices for goods and services would decrease, remain the same, or increase? If you think they would decrease or remain the same, can I interest you in a hot stock I’m selling called Enron?

Another way to think about the U.S. dollar is in terms of a company stock. Speaking of Enron, when the truth about this company’s finances hit the street, what happened to the value of the stock? It plummeted. Why? In theory, the news of false financials didn’t directly cause the stock value to drop. It dropped because there were more sellers than buyers. From its highs of $90 per share, Enron quickly became worthless in the span of a few weeks. Everyone who held shares of Enron, simultaneously sold their stock, and there was nobody willing to buy the shares.

The situation with the U.S. dollars is very similar. If enough people and countries stop holding U.S. dollars, the value of the dollar in your wallet will plummet. The greenback will go the way of the Continental. In 1775 the Continental Congress authorized the issuance of paper money to finance the American War for Independence. These notes, known as "Continentals," would be redeemable only after the colonies won their independence. Overprinted and distrusted by the public, they declined rapidly in value, giving rise to the popular expression "not worth a Continental."

So what are the real options that the United States of America has to protect its security and financial stability?

Option A is to believe the Big Five propaganda machine financed by the Federal Reserve Banking Cartel that prints our funny money, and take our chances with invading Iran to thwart the March 2006 launch of the Iran Oil Bourse.

To some that might sound appealing, but such action will not change the fact that our federal government has been operating on a Federal Reserve credit card, which has no credit limit, for so long that We the People now have a $8 trillion dollar national debt.

The Federal Reserve Banking Cartel loves this enormous debt because it represents interest payments from the U.S. taxpayer to its network of private corporations. The ability of the federal government to tax incomes, on behalf of the Federal Reserve Banking Cartel, before the wage earner ever receives his or her paycheck, makes hard-working men and women slaves to the Federal Reserve Banking Cartel.

The U.S. Congress supports using the citizenry as collateral for its wayward spending, for without the Federal Reserve Banking Cartel accepting as collateral, the birth certificates of American citizens and the potential, future taxable wages that they represent, the federal government could no longer finance its 1174 federal agencies and the payroll associated with 4.3 federal employees.

Option B is to abolish the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 immediately, eliminate seventy-five percent of the 1174 federal agencies and the millions of federal mandates they represent, seize all gold held by the banking cartel, allow the cartel member’s financial institutions to collapse while forgiving all debt owed to the cartel, return the printing and coining of money to the U.S. Treasury, eliminate fractional and fiat money schemes, and return our currency to a commodity backed system such as gold and silver.

Finally, there is need to amend the Constitution of the United States of America so as to abolish the 16th Amendment and add language that would prevent the federal government of the United States from deficit spending or operating with a national debt ever again.

There really are no other options, and March 2006 is fast approaching.

This is not a doomsday scenario. It is fact.

The fiat money scheme run by the Federal Reserve Banking Cartel is about to collapse. Meanwhile the President of the United States, the U.S. Congress, Federal Reserve Banking Cartel, and the Big Five media conglomeration are so fearful of the court of public opinion in the United States, that they will not even utter the words, Iran Oil Bourse.

On a personal note: I have two sons, ages 18 and 15. I myself am a veteran who served ten years in the United States Marine Corps. Arguably, we are all hawks. There are wars worth fighting, and there remain causes worth dying for in defense of the United States of America. Sustaining the Federal Reserve Banking Cartel, a failed fiat money scheme, and a federal government out of control, is not one of them. Fighting against the Federal Reserve Banking Cartel, a failed fiat money scheme, and a federal government out of control, is.

It’s time for the We the People of these United States to spread the word and truth regarding the real threat Iran poses to the United States, and act boldly to fix our own government and money system so that we no longer are required to fight wars to maintain the stability of our own currency.

[1] Uranium Information Centre, Melbourne, Australia, World Nuclear Power Reactors 2004-06, January 4, 2006, http://www.uic.com.au/reactors.htm, [Accessed January 17, 2006]

[2] Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Nuclear Stockpiles, http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/basics/nuclear-stockpiles.htm#, [Accessed January 17, 2006]

Ed Haas is a freelance writer and author originally from Mt. Penn, Pennsylvania. He currently resides in beautiful Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. To learn more about Ed's work, please visit craftingprose.com.

The director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been frustrated by Iran’s resumption of nuclear research – the move that set off US and European attempts to send the issue to the Security Council – as well as by a slowdown in Iranian co-operation with his inspectors. He has informed Tehran it has until the end of next month to give his inspectors improved access to documents and sites.

Only if Iran does not accede would he be ready to declare his investigation was no longer making progress and that his hands were tied.

Diplomats said leading European governments had asked Mr ElBaradei to make an earlier report, ahead of the February 2-3 meeting of the IAEA board.

“ElBaradei has refused because he believes in due process,” said an official close to the agency. “He has said that the next report will be for the [regular] March 6 board and he can’t just advance that report.”

Mr ElBaradei may still issue a summary next month that would detail Iran’s decision to restart some “research” work at its Natanz nuclear facility, as well as other violations of its suspension of activities related to uranium enrichment. But he would not then address the wider issues concerning Iran’s alleged failure to demonstrate its nuclear programme is peaceful.

The decision was made by the IAEA chief as Iran steps up its own diplomatic efforts. Last Sunday Mr ElBaradei met Ali Larijani, Iran’s chief negotiator, who is believed to have asked for more time. Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, Iran’s president, began a trip on Thursday to Syria, a traditional ally of Iran and one of the 35 members of the IAEA governing board.

European diplomats say they are confident of winning a majority of votes to send the Iran dossier to New York, but a thin majority could slow down the momentum for censuring Iran at the UN. US and European officials are continuing discussions with Russia and China, two of the most important members of the board, to try to secure their agreement for a referral.

China said it was waiting to see a draft IAEA resolution prepared by EU governments before deciding. Russia has proposed a Security Council debate but wants to hold off a formal decision on referral until March.

Russia's Foreign Minister Thursday called for a cautious approach to the mounting crisis over Iran's renewal of nuclear research, while a senior U.S. envoy accused Tehran of deceiving the world about its intentions.

The United States and several European countries have been pushing for Iran's referral to the UN Security Council, a first step toward possible sanctions over Iran's unsealing equipment earlier this month and announcing the start of small-scale experimental uranium-enrichment, a potential step toward nuclear weapons.

Syria is facing its own international condemnation, over its reluctance to co-operate with a UN investigation implicating it in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Damascus has denied any role.

Ahmadinejad said the two countries needed to co-ordinate their positions.

"Considering that Syria is the steadfast party confronting Israel and Iran is the defender of the Islamic revolution, this obliges us to have more consultation and co-operation," the Iranian president said in Farsi comments translated into Arabic.

"The circumstances in the region dictate on us such strengthening (of ties)," he said.

Syria, Iran's closest Arab ally, sits on the 35-country Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which meets Feb. 2 to vote on referring Tehran to the Security Council.

Gregory Schulte, U.S. delegate to the IAEA, accused Iran on Thursday of deceiving the world about its atomic program, saying referring Iran to the Security Council would be meant to deny "the most deadly of weapons to the most dangerous of countries."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called for a cautious approach.

"In this situation, it is essential not to harm the global community, the nuclear non-proliferation regime," he said.

Russia and China carry great weight with other IAEA board countries and both have vetoes on the 15-member UN Security Council. They are opposed to sanctioning a country with which they have strong economic and strategic ties. In recent days, they have expressed reluctance even to the idea of referral.

Placing an embargo on Iran's oil exports would hurt Tehran, which earns most of its revenues from energy sales but also roil world crude markets.

Schulte, in comments at a public lecture, played down differences with Russia and China, saying both "have been pressing very strongly on Tehran."

Alluding to comments by Ahmadinejad denying Israel's right to exist, Schulte said: "A country that threatens `death' to other countries must be denied the most deadly of weapons."

Iran's top nuclear negotiator told the BBC his country is ready to compromise.

"If they want guarantees of no diversion of nuclear fuel, we can reach a formula acceptable to both sides in talks," the negotiator, Ali Larijani, told the BBC.

The offer to guarantee nuclear fuel won't be diverted to weapons was unlikely to satisfy Europe and the United States, which are insisting Iran not enrich uranium at all.

Iran insists its plans for enrichment are only to produce nuclear fuel. But a series of suspicious finds by IAEA inspectors over almost three years have hardened suspicions Iran wants to make weapons-grade uranium for nuclear warheads.

Europe, backed by the United States rejected an Iranian request to renew talks Wednesday.

France, Germany and Britain had been leading negotiations on behalf of the 25-member European Union.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told ZDF television from Egypt on Thursday that talks had "reached a point where we would have risked our credibility if we had simply continued" but that "does not mean that we are no longer seeking diplomatic solutions."

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday: ``There's not much to talk about" until Iran halts nuclear activity.

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, also rejected any return to talks

Ahmadinejad accused the West on Wednesday of acting like the ``lord of the world" in denying his country the peaceful use of the atom.

As the Guardian leader article suggested: "Diplomacy is the right way to respond" (Tangling with Tehran, January 12, The Guardian). We also believe that diplomatic action has not completely been put to the test.

Instead of resorting to exaggeration about the issue and relying on unfounded stories to name one party as guilty, it would be much more useful to review impartially the existing facts and figures. Unlike exonerated parties who pose a real threat to the world's stability by bluntly ignoring article 6 of the NPT obliging them to phase out their nuclear arsenals, Iran has signed the treaty and has time and again renounced the pursuit of any nuclear weapons programme.

We have even signed the additional protocol which provides the International Atomic Energy Authority inspectors with the authority to carry out on-the-spot and intrusive inspections. Moreover, the IAEA cameras haven't hesitated to monitor any movement, whether animate or inanimate, in Iranian nuclear sites. In addition there are the 1,400 person-hours of inspection of the sites by the authority, which is another indication of Tehran's transparency in its nuclear activities. This evidence rules out any baseless accusations about Iran's "intentions". But what else is needed and what can be added to this menu so that the west's double-standards approach comes to an end?

After two and a half years of voluntary suspension and confidence-building measures, our plans are now just nuclear research and have nothing to do with enrichment, the details of which are to be discussed with Russia in Moscow on February 17.

It has been said that Iran, as a major oil-producing country, should not change its energy mix in favour of clean and renewable sources, as recommended by the Kyoto protocol. But we will definitely need nuclear power plants to meet our future energy needs. Our domestic oil consumption stands at just under 1.7m barrels a day. Based on our annual growth rate, it is predicted that our energy consumption will increase by 7-12% each year for the next 10 years. So this precious source of energy will be exhausted in the foreseeable future.

It is not right, by any civilised norms, to impose imperial-style ideas on a sovereign state - and especially on a country which has historically been a stabilising and civilising force in the highly sensitive Persian Gulf region.

· Hamid Babaei is first secretary at the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in London

h_babaei@iran-embassy.org.uk

President Ahmadinejad's press conference was a massive affair, spilling over with international reporters, intimidated, yet hoping to be called. They approached the microphone tentatively when addressing this pompous man. Even Christiane Amanpour, CNN's bold International Correspondent, was uncomfortable. Her head covered obediently in an aqua shawl, she showed measured deference when questioning this newly influential man.

It took little time for journalists to learn they were fodder for the President. He humiliated them at will. His arrogance was unbearable but they remained reverential to the end. Those who asked multiple questions were admonished. To one reporter the President jeered, "You've asked three and a half questions. That's three questions and one half." He then imposed a one question limit and made derogatory remarks about news services he didn't like. He selected reporters based on their employers and was particularly hard on the television press. He embarrassed reporters at will, singling out physical characteristics to pick on. He chided one very large, soft-spoken man, by saying, "You're a big boy. Why don't you speak louder?"

Sound familiar? The performance of this arrogant President is discomfortingly reminiscent of another. Also similar are the circumstances that brought him to power and the way he acted once he got there...

The new President landed unexpectedly on the world stage. An unlikely, ill-prepared leader. His election shocked millions in his nation for he defeated a more prominent man. He was educated, but so arrogant and brash that he quickly embarrassed his people. As their representative to the world, his lack of sophistication reflected on them. He swaggered and smirked, loving the limelight. As President he was the global face of his people. One that instantly threatened the world. An un-extraordinary rendition of a man.

To counter criticism of his inexperience, the President boasted of his managerial skills. Prior to his election to the Presidency, an unusually brazen reporter questioned his skills at diplomacy, to which the new President smugly replied, "The art of a Presidency is good management." It was as simple as that. Good management. Achieving victory was equally simple. Victory would happen because the President declared that it would, absent any method or well defined plan.

Even more familiar....

The new President had held prior office. But it offered no substantive training in foreign affairs or relationships with other world leaders. He was neither well traveled nor culturally aware. He was gruff and sarcastic. He belittled those in his presence simply because he could. His presumption of absolute authority was undeniable. He embraced it as any autocrat would and held himself in higher esteem than his talent and intellect demanded.

Immediately upon taking office, the new President made changes. He altered long standing treaties without negotiation. His unilateral approach rattled allies who viewed him as provocative and cavalier. Rather than acknowledge other leaders' concerns and coalesce for the common good, the new President responded in a dangerously childish way. He used the might of his nation to engender fear. The more nations he angered, the more he became cavalier.

Of further concern was the President's religion. His religious zealotry frightened the secular populace of his nation who feared the intrusion of religion in their government and their lives. But the new President ignored them. They weren't worthy of consideration. He held the loyalty of the like-minded disciples who chose him. To maintain them, he need only declare his dedication to god from whose dictates he promised to govern.

It takes no great genius to appreciate the likenesses between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and American President George W. Bush. Both are brash, egotistical and in love with their power. Unfortunately the likenesses between these two arrogant men hold little hope for future cooperation between them. There's no room in any pond for two egos this big.

Historically George W. Bush has disliked leaders with egos as large as his own. Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Cuba's Fidel Castro, North Korea's Kim Jong Il, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. And now Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has joined the same club.


One might wonder if Mr. Bush has witnessed his own swagger or seen his own smirk. One might question whether Mr. Bush has heard himself ridicule others, or dismiss all opposition as irrelevant. Does he notice how much he loves power? How he can't get enough? How he wants more and more?

Interesting how we like even less in others that which we dislike the most in ourselves.....

Linda Milazzo is a Los Angeles based writer, educator and activist.

Speaking during a visit to a French nuclear base in Brittany, Chirac said: "Leaders of any state that uses terrorist means against us, as well as any that may be envisaging - in one way or another - using weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they would be exposing themselves to a firm and appropriate response on our behalf.

"That response could be conventional, it could also be of another nature," he said in a clear reference to nuclear weapons.

"Our world is marked by the emergence of affirmations of power that rely on the possession of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons"

Jacques Chirac
The president said he was extending the definition of "vital interests" protected by France's nuclear umbrella to include allies and "strategic supplies".

The French press understood "strategic supplies" to include oil.

Le Monde newspaper said that was aimed at "probably also those countries from which France imports part of its energy needs".

Graduated response

"If, theoretically, such interests were threatened by regional powers - Iran, North Korea? - France would react," the paper said.

The French president, however, did not single out any country in his speech.

He did indicate, though, that the previous Cold War stance of threatening massive and widespread destruction against enemies had been changed to a doctrine permitting a graduated and limited nuclear response.

France has configured its nuclear arsenal to be able to respond "flexibly and reactively" to any threat, by reducing the number of nuclear heads on certain missiles on board its submarines, he said.

"Our world is marked by the emergence of affirmations of power that rely on the possession of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons," he said.

In an apparent reference to Iran, Chirac condemned "the temptation by certain countries to obtain nuclear capabilities in contravention of treaties".

Cold War echoes

There was mixed reaction to Chirac's statements.

In France the former prime minister Laurent Fabius, speaking on behalf of the Socialists, said there was nothing shocking about the position put forward.

But Helene Luc, a senator from the Communist Party and member of a defence committee, said: "This extension of the concept of nuclear dissuasion takes us back years to the Cold War and can only deepen tensions with countries that aspire to have such weapons."

The comments also provoked concerned reactions in Germany, from across the political spectrum and the press.

There was no official comment from Angela Merkel's coalition government but opposition MP Winfried Nachtwei said Chirac's comments were "totally adventurous" and "irresponsible".

Andreas Schockenhoff, the deputy president of Merkel's parliamentary party said in an interview on Friday with the regional daily Koelner Stadtanzeiger: "I fear that these comments will not help the international community achieve the highest level of solidarity."

The comments were also widely criticised in German newspapers.

Chirac's comment's are "clearly counterproductive," the economic daily Handelsblatt said.

The Westdeutsche Zeitung in Duesseldorf said: "Chirac's threat is not only unwise, but also counterproductive, because it leads to believe that diplomatic means are very limited in the face of nuclear ambitions."

Thursday's bombing poses a challenge for interim Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who assumed power after Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who said it was designed to sabotage the January 25 parliamentary poll.

Sharon aide Raanan Gissin told Reuters Israel had "ample, concrete evidence" that the Tel Aviv bombing, for which the Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility, was bankrolled from Tehran and planned in Damascus. The bombing injured 30 people.

Gissin said he could not reveal the evidence. Israel has often made similar accusations, noting that Islamic Jihad has offices in Damascus. Gissin's comments echoed similar accusations by Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz to Israeli media.

In a fax to Reuters, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi rejected Gissin's accusation as "baseless".

The Haaretz daily reported that Mofaz said Israel had "decisive proof that the attack in Tel Aviv was a direct result of the Axis of Terror that operates between Iran and Syria".

Yedioth Ahronoth quoted Mofaz as saying Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on a two-day visit to Syria, was holding a "terrorism summit" with President Bashar al-Assad.

During his visit to Damascus, Ahmadinejad pledged support for militant Palestinian factions at a meeting with their leaders on Friday, a Palestinian group said. Leaders from Islamic Jihad and Hamas were present.

Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, is expected to make a strong showing against Abbas's Fatah movement in the election. The militant group staged rallies across the Gaza Strip on Friday attended by tens of thousands of supporters.

WARNING TO EUROPEANS

Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyah said the group would not abandon its campaign against Israel "until we raise flags over the Dome of the Rock" -- the Jerusalem shrine in a complex holy to Muslims and Jews.

Thursday's bombing by Islamic Jihad, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, was the first in the Jewish state since an 11-month truce expired at the end of last year.

Gissin portrayed the Tel Aviv bombing as a warning to European powers considering measures against Tehran over its nuclear programme.

The United States and the European Union want the International Atomic Energy Agency to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which could decide to impose sanctions.

"This attack was in Tel Aviv. Tomorrow it may be in Berlin or in Paris or in London -- countries that may vote against Iran on the issue of its nuclear programme," Gissin said.

Gissin said Israel's evidence of Iranian and Syrian involvement had been presented to U.S. and European officials. Asked for details, he said: "It would be wrong to elaborate or to specify."

The bombing, at a popular sandwich stand, was the first in Israel since Sharon's stroke on January 4.

The West suspects Iran of seeking nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian atomic programme. Tehran denies this.

Olmert declared earlier this week that Israel "cannot in any way or at any point" allow Tehran to obtain a nuclear bomb.

The audiotape -- the first one from the al Qaeda leader since December 2004 -- said the militant network was preparing attacks in the United States but was open to a truce with Americans, linked to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

As soon as the tape aired on Thursday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said it proved al Qaeda leaders were fugitives under the gun and Vice President Dick Cheney said bin Laden appeared to be in deep hiding with difficulties getting messages out.

But some counterterrorism officials and analysts say this assessment from the White House is off the mark and fails to examine the benefits a savvy operator like bin Laden may derive from showing he is alive and focused on a U.S. attack.

A U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said al Qaeda was propaganda savvy and knew how to manipulate the airwaves, in contrast to the United States, which has had trouble getting its message across.

"In the cacophony of the media and the Internet, the al Qaeda voice is clear and identifiable," the official said. "They have us on that and this is another example of it."

Gen. Russ Howard, a recently retired army terrorism expert who headed the counterterrorism program at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, said bin Laden was showing the world he was still in action.

"It's a message to rally his own forces and people loyal to him," he said. "He gets a 'two-fer': he's rallying his own people and psychologically he's raising the threat here."

ANALYZING THE MESSAGE

Several officials, including Cheney, said bin Laden's choice of an audio over a videotape was a sign of his crippled logistical capabilities. Some officials have suggested he wanted to avoid being seen in a video because he was ill.

Some analysts and other officials were wary of these suggestions and cautioned against wishful thinking.

"You can read it either way: if you're an optimist, Osama's deep down in a cave," Howard said. "If you're a pessimist, he's in downtown Islamabad two doors down from the president."

Michael Scheuer, a former top CIA official who once led the spy agency's hunt for bin Laden, said the Bush administration failed to understand al Qaeda and would shrug off the tape at its peril.

"You ought to take the measure of your enemy and we're not doing that," he said, adding the truce call would resonate positively in the Muslim world.

"U.S. officials continue to describe these people (al Qaeda) as a small bunch of gangsters and crazy people. They have no apparent conception that so much of the Islamic world is angry with America, not because of our freedoms or liberties but because of our foreign policies," he said.

Several former U.S. counterterrorism officials, including Scheuer, noted how bin Laden manipulated to his advantage the Bush administration's own rhetoric about fighting the war on terror abroad so America would not have to fight it at home.

The al Qaeda leader said he was offering his conditional truce because polls indicated "Americans do not want to fight Muslims on Muslim land, nor do they want Muslims to fight them on their land."

"Bin Laden ridiculed the president's arguments that we're fighting them in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here," Scheuer said. "I think he raises that as a foreshadowing of what's coming."

Only a few days ago in the Pakistani tribal area of Bajur a US Central Intelligence Agency drone delivered punishment from heaven toward what should have been al-Qaeda's No 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, but turned out to be villagers, including children, and also reportedly some al-Qaeda militants.

Cue to a tape moving hand-to-hand undetected from the tribal areas - it could be South Waziristan in Pakistan, it could be Kunar in Afghanistan - to Al-Jazeera's office in Peshawar and then to the network's headquarters in Doha, Qatar. There's no reason to doubt Al-Jazeera's assessment that the tape was recorded last month. It didn't have to sit very long to reach the limelight.

Bin Laden may have never read James Joyce, but he is applying to perfection the Dubliner's motto: silence, exile, cunning. Against the awesome US military machine, al-Qaeda's weapons of choice since September 11, 2001, have been subterfuge, evasion and deception.

But the Bush administration - and US public opinion - will have only themselves to blame if they confuse the messenger's tactics with the message. Whatever the tactics, bin Laden is always on message - and should be taken at his word.

Bin Laden is now explicitly offering a truce to the United States: "We do not mind offering a long-term truce based on just conditions that we will stick to. We are a nation that Allah banned from lying and stabbing others in the back, hence both parties of the truce will enjoy stability and security to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, which were destroyed by war."

The chances of the Bush administration ("we don't negotiate with terrorists, we put them out of business") accepting the offer are as slim as the chances of Vice President Dick Cheney rejecting oil as an expendable commodity.

So, according to bin Laden, Zawahiri and al-Qaeda's "Allah bans us from lying" reasoning, they have fulfilled their duty. The enemy has been warned. This means bin Laden's threat of a renewed al-Qaeda attack inside the US is not pure imaging - or a weapon of rhetorical destruction. Then, after the fact, a tape - audio or video - will inevitably follow, florid Arabic elaborating once again that "you never listen to what we're saying".

It's always the same message. When he last showed up on video, in October 2004, a few days ahead of the US presidential election, bin Laden said there would be no more September 11s if the US stopped attacking Muslim lands.

With Bush - al-Qaeda's preferred candidate - re-elected, bin Laden reappeared in audio on late December 2004 to designate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, an anointed supreme commander in a local defensive jihad against occupation by a Christian army.

In at least 35 messages - in audio or video - delivered by both bin Laden and Zawahiri since September 11, the heart of the matter is always the same. The US must leave the Middle East alone - it must stop supporting Israel over Palestine and stop supporting corrupt dictatorial regimes in the Arab and Muslim world.

Strategy mutating

The fact that Zawahiri - influenced by the Islamists' foremost thinker, Sayyid Qutb - defines jihad as "an armed putsch ... requiring cooperation between civilians and the military to achieve its goal" proves that al-Qaeda is all about politics, and marginally about religion.

Bin Laden's latest tape is devoid of any window-dressing of Islamic phraseology. Al-Qaeda is above all involved in a long-range political war of attrition. Al-Qaeda's ideology relates to model military operations that can be easily comprehended and identified with by local populations.

In this sense, al-Qaeda's hit-and-run tactics in Afghanistan may work with Pashtun tribesmen, but Zarqawi's senseless killings of civilians may not be working with nationalist Sunni Arabs in Iraq.

Numbers also play a crucial part. This year marks the 10th anniversary of al-Qaeda's rite of passage from strategic considerations to an overall battle plan.

In August 1996 in Afghanistan, bin Laden issued his "declaration of jihad against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy sites". Less than two years later, in February 1998, the World Islamic Front against Jews and Crusaders was created and an offensive was intensified, culminating in September 11.

So al-Qaeda's war was firmly declared twice on the record. The Madrid bombings took place exactly two and a half years after September 11, which was a precise military operation that took five years of meticulous planning. Al-Qaeda's love of symmetry may point to an attack five years after September 11 - this year.

The initial, Zawahiri-formulated basic concept was to "strike at the faraway enemy" (the United States), thus opening the way to the overthrow of the "nearby enemy" - pro-American leaders in the Muslim world. This simply did not happen; al-Qaeda's strategy failed.

So, once again showing signs of strategic operational flexibility, al-Qaeda since September 11 and the invasion of Iraq mutated into privileging local jihads in Afghanistan and Iraq, where according to its own strategic objectives, it is winning. Let a thousand mini-al-Qaedas bloom. Now bin Laden's new message may reveal a renewed commitment to "strike at the faraway enemy".

According to Zawahiri's conceptualization, radical Islam must bridge the gap between an elite - a revolutionary vanguard, of which al-Qaeda is part - and the Muslim masses. Jihad, according to Zawahiri, requires a "scientific, confrontational, rational" leadership.

So stigmatizing al-Qaeda's leadership as "evil terrorists" won't help. Zawahiri and bin Laden are now practitioners of realpolitik. They favor Niccolo Machiavelli over the Holy Koran. It's all about coining the right rhetoric - and the right audio-video global media coups - to lift the Muslim masses out of fatalistic passivity, impregnate them with political conscience, and persuade them to join the jihad.

What you hear is what you get

Al-Qaeda inevitably has to move beyond surprise, stealth and heavy symbolism (how can you top September 11?) So for a high-impact, multi-layered message like bin Laden's, you don't need video. You have to force people to listen to what the voice is saying. Enter bin Laden the politician.

Politically, addressing US public opinion, bin Laden clearly identifies the Bush administration - and its "war on terror", a military response to a concept - as the problem. Overwhelmed by media noise, Americans once again won't listen. Dealing with the Muslim masses is much more complicated. They will listen - but they won't necessarily agree.

Support for al-Qaeda may consist of scattered Muslim intellectuals, clerics, Islamic bankers and a small army of young, disgruntled, desperate suicide bombers. To succeed, al-Qaeda would have to unify poor urban youth (not only in Muslim lands but all over Western Europe), Muslim middle classes everywhere, and the Islamist intelligentsia.

Borrowing a concept from liberal democracy, al-Qaeda, to succeed, needs a broad coalition. To attract, for instance, sectors of the anti-globalization movement, it needs to be less Islamic. To conquer moderate Muslims, it needs to be less radical.

By any standards, al-Qaeda now needs political, not military, skills. This correspondent has identified many echoes - from Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Western Europe - that Islamic radicals who sympathize with al-Qaeda's project have been seriously questioning its strategy, or lack of it. As far as global Muslim public opinion is concerned, bin Laden's message has tried to address these concerns.

Careful examination of bin Laden's latest words also reveal that unlike the Bush administration spin, al-Qaeda does not want to destroy the United States or its way of life. But at the same time the US, and the Bush administration in particular, may enhance al-Qaeda's appeal as it will never waver from its two strategic imperatives - absolute security for Israel in the heart of the Arab Middle East and the obsession in taking over all of the Middle East's oil reserves.

So there's no way to stop the infernal spiral. The husky voice on the tape has been, once again, unmistakable; we want a Middle East not subjected to the United States, deciding its own destiny. This is like any politician in the developing world talking about national sovereignty. But it's not going to happen. We, the damned of the Earth, seem to be condemned to "war on terror" forever.

(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd.)

In the papers, prosecutors say that Exinia was asked to move the men in by his boss in the notorious Gulf Cartel, a Mexican drug smuggling and organized crime network.

Investigators moved immediately at the suggestion of a terrorist nexus. "We jumped on that right away," a federal law enforcement official from one of the agencies involved told United Press International.

But the investigation "did not develop that way," the official said.

"The goods were not as advertised."

Nonetheless, the official said, "We were ready. That's the good news. If it had been the real deal, we had all the visibility we needed. We could have stopped it."

Exinia's plans never came to fruition. He was arrested the following month, and pleaded guilty late last year to drug importation charges.

According to the Brownsville Herald, which first reported the story, his defense lawyers had successfully fought to keep any reference to terrorism out of the trial.

Nonetheless, the case is the latest in a string that have highlighted the security risks posed by human trafficking and weak points in the country's immigration and border security.

A naturalized citizen faces charges in Michigan as the head of a ring that smuggled 200 mainly Iraqi illegal immigrants into the United States since 2001.

Iraqi-born Neeran Hakim Zaia was indicted in October 2004 along with her husband and three others following an undercover investigation spanning three continents that lasted more that three years and cost millions of dollars, U.S. officials familiar with the case told UPI last year.

And other federal officials tell UPI that Zaia is just one of a handful of so-called Tier One human trafficking targets in the sights of federal investigators and U.S. intelligence agencies concerned about their links to "special interest" countries -- those where global Islamic terrorists are thought to have a foothold.

The cases are stoking concern that human trafficking routes, including those across the porous southern border, are increasingly being used to smuggle special interest aliens into the United States.

The 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act gave legislative form to the U.S. Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center. It aims to co-ordinate the work of federal government agencies and their foreign and international partners against "the separate but related issues of alien smuggling, trafficking in persons, and smuggler support of clandestine terrorist travel," according to the State Department.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the Department of Homeland Security currently holds the directorship of the center, which its web site describes as "an interagency joint intelligence fusion center," conjoining other parts of homeland security, the Departments of State and Justice and "members of the intelligence community."

Exinia will be sentenced in March, according to court records, and could face life in prison.

His lawyer said that there was no evidence of any real terrorist involvement. "They were terrorists only in his mind," John Blaylock told United Press International in a telephone interview from Harlingen, Texas.

Blaylock said his client had been asked about getting people over the border, but the idea that they were Iraqi terrorists "was an invention of Noel Exinia's."

He said the reference had none the less "got the attention" of federal authorities. "He got himself in a world of trouble."

Blaylock added prosecutors were introducing the terrorism conversations as "relevant conduct," to argue for a longer sentence even though "They know there were no real terrorists involved." He accused them of "piling on."

"It is unseemly," he said.

According to the pre-sentence review filing by federal prosecutors, the wiretapped and consensually recorded conversations about the "gente de Osama" took place largely with a pilot who had volunteered to help with his drug importation business and who later become a federal informant.

The pilot was husband to a "curandera," a traditional Mexican spiritualist, and met Exinia after the smuggler and his brother Carlos had asked for her help in silencing someone they believed to be an informant, and in blocking a police investigation after Carlos was arrested.

The curandera made "A doll with certain characteristics," that the brothers believed would "help in controlling" the informant and in "closing the mouth" of the policeman leading the investigation.

© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc.

Park City, Utah, is a long way from Baghdad. The four Iraq war veterans attending the Sundance Film Festival, which starts this weekend, are probably more comfortable in combat boots than Ugg boots, but they hope their presence will help promote "The Ground Truth," a documentary directed by Patricia Foulkrod in which they appear. Two of those vets, Paul Rieckhoff and Sean Huze, recently joined a third, Jimmy Massey, to talk with interviewer Terrence McNally about their experiences in Iraq.

As a corporal in the Marines, Sean Huze participated in the March 2003 invasion of Iraq with the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion. Huze was awarded a Certificate of Commendation citing his "courage and self-sacrifice throughout sustained combat operations" while in Iraq. After returning to the United States, he starred in his debut as a playwright, "The Sand Storm: Stories from the Front." His third play, "The Dragon Slayer," which focuses on PTSD, will premiere in Los Angeles in March.

Paul Rieckhoff enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves on Sept. 15, 1998. In early 2003, he was assigned as platoon leader for the 3rd Platoon, B Company, 3/124th INF (Air Assault) FLNG, and spent approximately 10 months in Iraq. Third Platoon conducted over 1,000 combat patrols; all 38 men in Rieckhoff's platoon returned home alive. In June 2004, Rieckhoff founded Operation Truth -- now called Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) -- along with a couple of other veterans, some volunteers and massive credit-card debt.

Jimmy Massey, a co-founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War, is a former staff sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. He was a boot camp instructor at Parris Island, S.C., and a Marine recruiter before fighting in the Iraq war and was honorably discharged in December 2003 after 12 years of service. His autobiography, "Kill, Kill, Kill," was recently published in France. Ron Harris, a reporter for the St. Louis Dispatch, once embedded with the Marines in Iraq, claims Massey has lied or exaggerated his accounts of atrocities in Iraq. The controversy was recently a cover story in Marine Corps Times.

TERRENCE MCNALLY: Sean Huze, when and why did you enlist?

SEAN HUZE: I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in response to the September 11th attacks in 2001. The following day I went to the Marine Corps recruiting office at Sunset and La Brea, and told them I wanted to be in the infantry. I deployed with Second Light Armor Reconnaissance Battalion for Kuwait in February of 2003, and we were part of the initial invasion in March.

TERRENCE MCNALLY: When you went to Iraq, did you believe that the invasion was part of the response to September 11th?

SEAN HUZE: I don't know that I actually believed that it was a response to September 11th. I did believe that Iraq was a credible threat. Polls at the time show that about 90 percent of Americans believed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, believed that Iraq posed a threat not only to its neighbors but possibly to us. I was part of that 90 percent. I like to say I was part of the 10 percent of that 90 percent who'll admit it now.

It all comes down to weapons of mass destruction, for me. And they weren't there. Dick Cheney's going around accusing all of us of being revisionist now. But if you're trying to say that the war in Iraq was about anything other than WMD, that's revisionism. I don't care how many times Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, whoever, says that this war was about anything other than WMD, or that we were given a justification or rationale other than WMD.

I've got a long memory, and it was only a couple of years ago. I know why I was sent to Iraq; I know why I went to war. And when that proved to be false, I think that's when we lost our credibility and our world standing. And ultimately we're in a quagmire right now.

TERRENCE MCNALLY: Your play, "Sand Storm," how did that happen?

SEAN HUZE: "Sand Storm" was born out of a lot of personal pain. From talking to other veterans. Everything that makes you a functional and healthy individual amongst society are all detriments in a combat zone, and it takes a while to decompress from that. You kind of go numb.

It's not like two armies went out there on a battlefield. This war was fought in an urban environment amongst the civilian population, and ultimately it is that civilian population that has paid the heaviest toll. It's difficult as a husband and as a father to reconcile who I was over there with some of the things that I saw. I mean, a dead child on the side of the road in Nasiriyah, about the same age as my son right now. And how unfeeling I was at the time about it, with who I am now, how I feel about it now.

Writing a play and putting these feelings on to characters was a safe way for me to start the road home. It's been well-received, and I'm really grateful for that.

TERRENCE MCNALLY: Paul Rieckhoff, why did you enlist?

PAUL RIECKHOFF: I enlisted in 1998 because I wanted to serve. My father had been drafted during Vietnam, and my grandfather spent a few years in the South Pacific during World War II. They weren't exactly thrilled about their experiences, but they definitely grew as people and instilled in me a sense of honor and a need to serve my country. When I graduated from college it was definitely an unusual path to choose. This was before 9/11. I felt that just because I didn't have to serve didn't mean that I shouldn't serve.

TERRENCE MCNALLY: You graduated from a fairly elite college, yes?

PAUL RIECKHOFF: Yes, I went to Amherst.

TERRENCE MCNALLY: So it wasn't like the guy next to you was following you down to the recruitment center.

PAUL RIECKHOFF: No, I remember having a conversation with the president of the college, and he couldn't comprehend why I would ever consider joining the military. All my colleagues and friends were going to Wall Street or law school or into consulting. But it was something I really wanted to do. I didn't feel that I could attain the same skills and leadership abilities anywhere else. That really fueled my passion to join the military. There was also a sense of adventure. I think ultimately it came down to either joining the Peace Corps or joining the military. And to be honest with you, in the military you get to ride around in tanks and blow stuff up, and jump out of buildings and out of helicopters, and it excited me, so I was in.

TERRENCE MCNALLY: You went over when?

PAUL RIECKHOFF: I went over with the initial invasion at pretty much the same time Sean did. He came up with the Marines and I came in with the Third Infantry Division. We ended up finally settling in central Baghdad at the end of April and were there till spring of the following year, almost a year in total. We were there for the invasion, and then the initial looting, the disbanding of the Iraqi military and the chaos that followed. We were there also for the birth and emergence of the insurgency. It pretty much came to a crescendo as we were leaving in the spring of 2004.

TERRENCE MCNALLY: Yours was the first reserve unit awarded the combat infantry badge since the Korean War …

PAUL RIECKHOFF: Right, there's a pretty unprecedented level of involvement for the National Guard and Reserve. During the initial invasion, among the first couple of hundred thousand that went across the border, Reserve and Guard made up a pretty small percentage of the overall force structure, something like ten or fifteen percent. Now, close to 50 percent of our overall force structure are National Guard and Reserve.

When I came home after the first year of the war, most of my friends and colleagues in the National Guard didn't think they were going to go. We never thought that a few years later over 80 percent of the National Guard and Reserve would be deployed throughout the theater of Iraq. At that point, our guard unit hadn't been actively in combat since Korea, neither had any other unit in the National Guard, so it was really something new.

TERRENCE MCNALLY: You're one of the founders of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America [formerly Operation Truth]. How did that happen?

PAUL RIECKHOFF: Well I think, like Sean and Jimmy, when I came home I was pissed off and dissatisfied with the dialogue. In the spring of 2004, John Kerry and George Bush were throwing the Iraq war back and forth like a political football. And to be honest with you, nobody really knew what the heck they were talking about. The news media was dominated by Martha Stewart and what color pajamas Michael Jackson was wearing, and the country didn't really seem connected with the war.

We felt it was about time to inject people who'd been on the ground into the discussion. We formed IAVA last summer, and have been focused primarily on trying to connect people with the war, giving them a way to get involved. Our website has been a real hub for veterans to connect and also for people to find out more about what's happening in the veterans movement, as well as on the ground in Iraq.

I don't care what George Bush tells you, our military's been run into the ground. More than half of our folks are there for a second time, the divorce rates have doubled, we're now moving combat units out of Korea and out of training units in the United States to perform combat missions in Iraq, recruiting numbers are in the toilet, and retention numbers will soon fall. At the end of the day, he's really destroyed our military, and that will have long-term effects for our national security for decades.

TERRENCE MCNALLY: Jimmy Massey, why did you enlist?

JIMMY MASSEY: I enlisted in 1992. I grew up working class, sometimes poor, and I went to college for a year after I graduated from high school. I ran out of money, and I took a job working in the wool fields in New Orleans. And that fell short, so I found myself basically homeless living on the streets of New Orleans. And I was on my way to a job interview when I passed by a Marine recruiter who was pumping gas in his car. And he motioned me over, and I went and talked to him and he bought me lunch, and by the end of the day I was nodding north and south and ready to join the Marines.

But the reason I joined -- this was shortly after the first Gulf War, and I felt that at that point we had kind of cured or healed the ghosts of Vietnam, and I was going in for primarily tangible benefits. And so I went in and I spent several years, and I enjoyed my time and career that I was in. The Marines taught me very valuable lessons, intangible traits and that sort of thing.

But I basically became indifferent to the military or the Marine Corps while I was on recruiting duty. I started to realize what I was doing was in fact economic conscripting young men and women into the military. And I realized that I myself was an economic conscript. And I began to realize that as far as us being a first-world economic power, we fell short as far as having a free health care system for Americans and free education system, since I've traveled abroad.

So I went into Iraq with already indifferent feelings toward the military. But I did feel that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. I went into the Marine Corps during a time and period when the Cold War had just ended, and we were searching for a new enemy.

TERRENCE MCNALLY: Let me ask you about your actions since you returned. You saw combat -- from what I've read you were horrified by what you experienced?

JIMMY MASSEY: Yes, primarily the killing of innocent civilians. That's where I really began to question our overall motives. My questions to my command became, how do you tell a 25-year-old Iraqi male who just witnessed his brother being killed at a checkpoint, how do you tell this young man not to become an insurgent? So I was very critical of our mission and what we were performing and the lack of humanitarian support to the Iraqi people.

TERRENCE MCNALLY: If you could say one thing to the American people, what would you say?

SEAN HUZE: Accountability and responsibility. I bring up these two words because the American public are largely responsible for where we are right now, therefore they are accountable for our nation's failure in Iraq and diminishing status abroad. We sat idly by and accepted the Supreme Court's anointment of George Bush. We allowed ourselves to be manipulated following 9/11 and adopted the "any Muslim will do" attitude that afforded the administration the opportunity to use 9/11 to justify Iraq, a nation that had nothing to do with the attacks.

We then watched as Karl Rove twisted and turned an election away from the issues (out of necessity, since his candidate had failed on virtually every one of them) and let it become a smear campaign. Whether you voted for Bush or not, we collectively failed by extending his reign. If you voted for Kerry, like I did, then you have to ask if you did enough to spread that message of hope for our country. Again, based on the results, you have to accept the bitter fact that the answer is no, we did not.

TERRENCE MCNALLY: If you could say one thing to U.S. leaders, Bush administration, what would you say?

SEAN HUZE: Again, accountability and responsibility. While the American public is to blame for allowing itself to be manipulated, this administration is to blame for the manipulation. The war in Iraq has been a total failure and an abuse of power. Whether it's the world's second-largest oil reserve, a strategic location for a U.S. presence to intimidate that region of the world or a personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein, none of these justify the loss of life and the billions of dollars that the U.S. taxpayer is paying. Bush and the rest of this administration must be held accountable for their colossal failures following 9/11, chiefly focusing on Iraq while Osama bin Laden is still at large, and for manipulating intelligence, lying to the U.N., and for the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis and U.S. service members.

TERRENCE MCNALLY: What do other service personnel or vets have to say?

SEAN HUZE: While the military ranks tend to be more conservative than the nation as a whole, more and more veterans of this war are becoming disillusioned. For many of us it all goes back to WMD, the president's primary -- or sole -- justification for the invasion. When they weren't found -- hard to find something that is nonexistent -- the ever-morphing rationale for the war is disheartening for those fighting it. With an ever increasing number of KIA and WIA, along with the heavy toll on the Iraqi civilian population, more and more vets are asking, "Is our sacrifice worth it?"

PAUL RIECKHOFF: Recently, I got an email from a very close buddy serving as an officer in Ramadi. He speaks with a candor and level of frustration that you won't hear from the generals. Check this out:

Paul,
I wish I had the time or energy or memory capacity to describe to you how wrong this whole thing has gone. It's just as you described it a couple years ago. We can make a difference here, and I believe in the mission as it looks on paper. But your president and his brain-dead colleagues aren't even trying to give us what we need to do it. The add-on armor HMMWVs are a joke. The terrorists target them b/c they know they offer no protection. The M1114s have good armor, but every time we lose one (I had one blown up Monday, driver had his femoral artery cut -- will recover fully -- b/c there apparently is no armor or very weak armor under the pedals) it's impossible to replace them. So now I have to send yet another add-on armored vehicle outside the wire daily.

The M1114s also have certain mechanical defects, known to the manufacturer, for which there is apparently no known fix. For example, on some of them (like mine) if it stalls or you turn it off, you cannot restart it if the engine is hot. We have to dump 3 liters of cold water on a solenoid in order to start it again. Not that much fun when your vehicle won't start in Indian country. I wonder if DoD is getting a refund for the contract. Speaking of contracts, KBR is a joke. I can't even enumerate the problems with their service, but I guarantee they do not receive less money based on how many of the showers don't work, or how many of us won't eat in the chow hall often because we get sick every time we do.

There is so much. I could go on forever. The worst thing, which we have discussed, is that they are playing these bullshit numbers games to fool America about troop strength. If they stopped paying KBR employees $100,000 to do the job of a $28,000 soldier, maybe they'd have enough money to send us enough soldiers to do the job. As it stands we have no offensive capability in the most dangerous city on earth. General Shinseki should write an Op/Ed that basically says, "I told you so." Idiots.

Where are the AC-130s? The Apaches? They have them in far less active AOs (areas of operations). All we ever get is a single Huey and Cobra team, both of which are older than I am. It's such a joke. They're not even trying. At all. They have Apaches in Tikrit but Hueys in Ramadi.

I wish every American could see this for him/herself. Registering your frustration at the ballot box isn't nearly enough. There should be jail terms for this.

TERRENCE MCNALLY: This has been very brief considering the wealth of experience that the three of you bring. Thank you for putting your lives on the line in Iraq and thank you for putting your consciences on the line since your return.

Interviewer Terrence McNally hosts Free Forum on KPFK 90.7FM, Los Angeles (streaming at kpfk.org). To find out when "The Ground Truth" screens, visit the Sundance Film Festival website.

Her trip, originally scheduled for this week, was postponed because of the current crisis in Israeli politics caused by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's recent stroke.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan has also called on the international community to "reach out to Iraq as well" to help with its reconstruction.

And according to the US Agency for International Development, Iraq must also look to private investment, international lending and its own economy to finance future reconstruction.

Japan is due to pull out its 600 troops from Samawah in southern Iraq in May, and, according to a Kyodo News report, the US will ask Japan to become more involved in reconstruction efforts.

The United States' desire to stop the bleeding of funds for reconstruction comes along with a new report that suggests the eventual overall cost of the war in Iraq will not be $70 billion, as the administration first advertised, but at least US$1 trillion.

The new initiative comes barely a month after Bush appointed Rice to take over the lead role in supervising and coordinating the US reconstruction program in Iraq from the Pentagon. The administration has signaled that it will not seek further funding for these efforts and the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office (IRMO) will go out of business.

"The US never intended to completely rebuild Iraq," Brigadier-General William McCoy, the Army Corps of Engineers commander overseeing the work, said at a recent news conference. "This was just supposed to be a jump-start."

However, McCoy's assertion seems to be at odds with previous administration statements. For example, in a speech on August 8, 2003, Bush said: "In a lot of places, the infrastructure is as good as it was at prewar levels, which is satisfactory, but it's not the ultimate aim. The ultimate aim is for the infrastructure to be the best in the region."

Relatively little ($3.3 billion) of the $21 billion allocated for reconstruction since the invasion remains to be spent, and IRMO is scheduled to disband in June 2007. Thus the decision not to renew the reconstruction program leaves Iraq with tens of billions of dollars in unfinished projects and an oil industry and electrical grid that have yet to return to prewar production levels.

The US State Department has been given a mandate to provide a "focal point" for reconstruction efforts and to supervise and coordinate reconstruction programs not only in Iraq, but also in other countries emerging from civil strife. These include Afghanistan, but Bush administration officials have announced they will henceforth rely more on the Afghan government, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and contractors from other countries.

Steven Aftergood, head of the government secrecy program of the Federation of American Scientists, told Inter Press Service that the switch from the Pentagon to the State Department was "a belated recognition that existing policy on reconstruction and stabilization has been woefully inadequate".

According to a study published last month by the US Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute:

Only $1 [billion] to $2 billion of the [initial] $18 billion authorized for reconstruction by Congress in late 2003 had been expended a year later, and Iraqis had yet to see much tangible improvement in employment or quality of life after a year and a half of occupation. A study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, argued that, in every area necessary for a successful reconstruction of Iraq, there had been not only lack of progress but an actual deterioration of conditions on the ground.

That switch of reconstruction responsibility to the State Department from the Pentagon came in a little-noticed December 7 presidential national-security directive that said, "The secretary of state shall coordinate and lead integrated United States government efforts, coordinating these efforts with the secretary of defense to ensure harmonization with any planned or ongoing US military operations across the spectrum of conflict."

The State Department will lead US government efforts to prevent countries at risk "from being used as a base of operations or safe haven for extremists, terrorists, organized crime groups or others who pose a threat to US foreign policy, security or economic interests", the Bush directive said.

Some administration observers say the switch was a product of increasing frustration with the pace of reconstruction work in Iraq. They also believe the cutoff in reconstruction funding is part of a new White House narrative that includes reduction in the number of US troops in Iraq before US mid-term elections next November, when the entire House of Representatives and a third of senators will stand for re-election.

The Army War College study, "Revisions in Need of Revising: What Went Wrong in the Iraq War", does note that while many of the criticisms of the Bush administration for the haphazard way it planned and prepared for the invasion of Iraq are valid, the result would have been much the same even if things had been done differently.

The authors write, "Nevertheless, strong reasons exist for believing that the most serious problems facing Iraq and its American occupiers - 'endemic violence, a shattered state, a non-functioning economy and a decimated society' - were virtually inevitable consequences that flowed from the breakage of the Iraqi state."

Unfinished business
According to the regularly updated Iraq Index run by the Brookings Institution in Washington, at the end of 2005 crude-oil production was 1.92 million barrels per day, lower than the prewar peak of 2.5 million. Crude oil exports were 1.071 million, down from an estimated 1.7 million to 2.5 million.

The shortfall in oil production, which, according to the Pentagon's prewar planning, was supposed to provide the funds for Iraqi reconstruction, has been attributed mainly to sabotage by insurgents.

The average amount of electricity generated nationwide in 2003 was 3,958 megawatts. Last month it was 3,800MW, with the average Iraqi receiving less than 12 hours of power a day. This is despite the $4 billion spent on restoring electricity supplies. Foul-ups such as new generators not being linked to the national grid have not helped matters.

The US Embassy said the reconstruction effort had restored sewage treatment to more than 7.7 million Iraqis, opened 21 berths at the Umm Qasr port, built nearly 1,000 kilometers of roads and developed three new international airports. It said 124,000 Iraqis were employed under reconstruction and military contracts.

But much of the reconstruction funding has been diverted to other projects. At least $2.5 billion earmarked for infrastructure and schools was diverted to building up a security force. Funds originally intended to repair the electricity grid and sewage and sanitation system were used to train special bomb-squad units and a hostage-rescue force.

The US has also shifted funds to build 10 new prisons to keep pace with the insurgency, and safe houses and armored cars for Iraqi judges.

Hundreds of millions of dollars from the reconstruction fund were also used to hold elections and for four changes of government, and to establish a criminal justice system, including $128 million to examine several mass graves of Saddam Hussein's alleged victims.

In addition to the diversion of funds to other types of projects, the reconstruction efforts have been plagued by substantial corruption and overcharging by contractors.

While 3,600 projects will be completed by the end of the year, the cost of security has eaten up as much as 25% of each project, according to the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (IG).

A US congressional report in October forecast that many reconstruction projects were unlikely to get off the ground because of security costs. Iraqi authorities estimate that $10 billion would be needed for the health sector alone, to build or rehabilitate and provide equipment for hospitals and clinics.

Another problem hindering reconstruction is a familiar one - scandal. More than 18 months after the Pentagon disbanded the Coalition Provisional Authority that ran Iraq, neither the Justice Department nor a special inspector general has moved to recover large sums (in the region of $8 billion) suspected of disappearing through fraud and price gouging in reconstruction. Earlier audits by the IG found that oversight of contractors by the authority was so lax that widespread abuse was likely.

Running costs
The US is preparing to hand over billions of dollars' worth of infrastructure projects to the Iraqi government over the coming year, but US officials are increasingly concerned that the Iraqis lack sufficient funds to run the high-technology water and electric plants, among other projects, that have been built since 2003.

US officials say the costs of running the new facilities and training Iraqis to operate them will be borne by US taxpayers for years, barring significant improvement in the Iraqi economy.

An audit released in October by the IG estimated that annual costs could reach $550 million and that the additional expense of protecting those projects from insurgent attacks could push the total price tag to almost $1 billion per year.

Although details are still being hammered out, State Department officials said they were prepared to shoulder about $350 million out of the $550 million in the estimated operating costs in Iraq for 2006. The Iraqi government would be responsible for the remaining $200 million, and would be expected to pay a greater share of the operating costs in 2007.

The end of reconstruction funding appears to mark a change from a promise the president made in 2003 to provide Iraq with the best infrastructure in the region.

But just how far the US intended to go in that process has always been murky. While Bush gave the impression that Iraq was slated for a complete makeover, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appeared less certain.

He told the Senate Appropriations Committee in March 2003, "I don't believe that the United States has the responsibility for reconstruction, in a sense [reconstruction] funds can come from those various sources I mentioned: frozen assets, oil revenues and a variety of other things, including the [UN-administered] oil-for-food [program], which has a very substantial number of billions of dollars in it."

On the other hand, that view seems to contradict a report submitted the same year by the prime consulting contractor hired by the Pentagon to lay out the future of Iraq's economy. The company, BearingPoint Inc of McLean, Virginia, said: "The reconstruction of Iraq has begun. Not the reconstruction of vital public services such as water, electricity or public security, but rather the radical reconstruction of its entire economy."

Clearly, this has not happened. And the administration's recent funding decision suggests it is not likely to happen any time soon - unless with the help of some generous friends.

David Isenberg, a senior analyst with the Washington-based British American Security Information Council (BASIC), has a wide background in arms control and national security issues. The views expressed are his own.

William Fisher writes for Inter Press Service.

Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd.

Soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division have been coming under nearly daily attack from roadside bombs.

Fuad said the U.S. military was now enforcing a curfew from 5pm. He said "so many explosions occur now which terrify our children."

The U.S. military began to use bulldozers Jan. 7 to build a large sand barrier around the town in an effort to isolate fighters who have been attacking U.S. patrols. Oil pipelines from the area which lead to Turkey have been regularly sabotaged by resistance groups.

The drastic measures have enraged many of the 3,000 residents of the town.

"They think by these measures they can stop the resistance," Amer, a 43-year-old clerk at the nearby Beji oil refinery told IPS. "But the Americans are creating more resistance by doing these things. The resistance will not stop attacking them unless they pull out of our country."

The clerk said he had not been able to leave his house for several days, and was unable to work or to visit family members outside Siniyah.

The U.S. military has named the project of building the huge sand wall 'Operation Verdun' after a battle from World War I. Occupation forces believe the city has become the main launching pad for attacks on their patrols, as well as mortar attacks on their nearby Summerall Base.

Checkpoints have been set up near the town, with U.S. and Iraqi security forces checking every car for weapons and explosives.

"We can't work any more, our income depends on distributing fuel," truck driver Abdul Qadr told IPS at one of the checkpoints. "We are in a very bad situation. The city is isolated now and they are putting barricades everywhere to stop the fighters. Our houses are raided daily while they are searching for foreigners, yet they can't find any of them."

Abdul Qadr, who grew up in Siniyah, told IPS he and his neighbours felt they were in a "concentration camp". That is also how residents of Fallujah and Samarra have described their towns after U.S. forces built similar walls around them.

An 18km long wall has been constructed by the U.S. military in Samarra, while Israeli-style military checkpoints remain in place in Fallujah. The occupation forces have imposed similar measures also in other towns such as Al-Qa'im, Haditha, Ramadi, Balad, and Abu Hishma.

While such security measures have been in place for some time in several towns, the attacks on security forces have only risen, to an average of more than 100 a day over recent months.

"The Americans think the fighters are coming from outside Iraq," said Qadr. "But they are not. Can't they see the only real solution is to let the people of a country rule themselves?"

THE ARROGANCE OF DOMINANCE

There's little dispute that the U.S. today is the preeminent world power and unlike any that ever preceded it. It now admits to being an empire. In fact, it's the first ever world global empire. To expand its reach and influence, it now spends nearly as much on its military as all other nations combined and has built and maintains a military capacity no other nation dare challenge. It also reserves for itself the sole right to develop and use the most dangerous and destructive weapons, even those banned from use by international law or custom. Some of those now in charge at the highest levels believe they have a divine right to use them, even a duty. George Bush may be one of them. A self-proclaimed and so-called born-again Christian, he says he gets his direction from the Almighty. That's real arrogance, the supreme kind only an unchallengeable power and its leaders dare arrogate to itself.

Up to now, the U.S. has effectively used its power to dominate other nations either by persuasion, economic isolation or conquest. We claim to be a model democracy, but our policies and actions prove otherwise. At home we're a democracy for the few - the privileged and powerful. It's they who govern and run our institutions including the most dominant one of all - the giant transnational corporations whose interests all administrations serve including waging war for their benefit. Wars are good for business - as long as they're easily winnable, the public supports them, and they don't cause undo economic stresses that may disrupt the economy, in which case they're bad for business.

There's a striking term often used in the plural and in a business context that's also appropriate more broadly. The term is "externalities." In business it refers to the unfortunate side effects or consequences of a company's action that may have a detrimental affect on others. A typical example is an industrial plant that produces a dangerous substance as an unsalable byproduct from its production process. To avoid the cost of disposal, storage or treatment, the plant dumps it into waterways, unused land areas or through smokestacks. In so doing it harms the environment. Wars also have "externalities" - with far greater consequences. Overall, death, disease and destruction are the best examples. But so are the dangerous residues and their side effects from the use of weapons like toxic chemicals, biological agents and all types of nuclear munitions. We're all aware of the danger from the first two categories, although when used they only affect small areas and are not "weapons of mass destruction." We've also seen the destructive capability of a nuclear bomb and have heard of DU. But, the public has little or no knowledge about the real danger and threat from the use of any nuclear device or substance. That information has been willfully and deliberately suppressed because the potential harm is so great and irreversible. Even when there's clear evidence of widespread problems as there was in the case of the Agent Orange effects on Vietnam veterans and "Gulf war syndrome" on the military from that conflict, our government has denied any connection and stonewalled efforts to help those in need - until they no longer could hide the truth and had to act.

Depleted uranium (DU) is a "dense metal" that increases its ability as a weapon to penetrate a target, thus enhancing its destructive capability. Pentagon propaganda and disinformation falsely describe all DU weapons as only being coated. In fact, they are solid missiles, bombs, shells and bullets weighing up to 5,000 pounds in a single "bunker buster" bomb. All these weapons have solid DU projectiles or warheads in them, and their use in combat as the U.S. military has done in 4 wars and is now doing every day in Iraq is the "de facto" use of nuclear bombs. From Nagasaki in 1945 until the 1991 Gulf War, these weapons were effectively banned by common consent (and common sense) and never used (except for one time in the 1973 Yom Kippur war). No longer.

Above I asked why are these weapons used if they're so deadly and dangerous well beyond the areas they target? The answer's simple - because they work so well, and the enemy forces attacked don't have them and can't retaliate against us with them. The fact that we understand the danger from their use and the "externalities" left in their wake is someone else's problem to deal with. Just like a public corporation worries only about meeting Wall Street estimates of next quarter's earnings, our government and the military only worry about winning the next battle and next war - too bad if in the process we irradiate the planet and threaten all future life on it. That's someone else's problem later on. That's how big business thinks and also how our political and military leaders do as well.

OUR PRECIOUS PLANET AND HOW BADLY WE TREAT IT

Today we're threatened by many natural and "man-made" disasters we could act to prevent but don't. To the ones mentioned above add polluted air, water and soil. Include the unsafe food we eat from the chemical and other contaminants and unsafe additives in them. Don't ignore ozone layer damage, deforestation, the destruction of precious natural habits and endangered species, the reckless ways we develop and use our natural resources including wasteful overuse of a finite supply of fresh water that could run out and is irreplaceable. And don't forget wars that get more recklessly destructive as new technologies and weapons are developed to fight them and powerful nations having them show no restraint in their use.

In November, 2005 this nation lost a great man unfortunately unknown to most of the public. His name was Vine Deloria, Jr, a renowned Native American intellect, historian, author, scholar and activist. With great eloquence Deloria spoke and wrote about how for all its existence the planet was well preserved by those who lived on it - until about 200 years ago when western technological development began and changed everything. It was then transformed from being pristine to poisoned. He expressed such great wisdom in his writings and talks, it's worth quoting. Below are some examples:

"Progress is the absolute destruction of the real world in favor of a technology that creates a comfortable way of life for a few fortunatelysituated people. Within our lifetime the differences between the Indian use of the land and the white use of the land will become crystal clear. The Indian lived with his land. The white destroyed his land, he destroyed the planet earth."

Deloria once said that Christian missionaries had "fallen on their knees and prayed for the Indians" before rising to "fall on the Indians and prey on their land." He also claimed the destruction wrought by corporate values and its technology was so damag that a return to Native American tribal standards and culture could be viewed as salvation.

He viewed a corporate run predatory society, like the U.S., as an "Adolph Eichmann of the plains", whose soldiers were tools "not defending civilization; they were crushing another society."

Deloria wrote 20 books, edited others, and published his memoirs and a two-volume set of U.S. - Native American treaties, all of which are devastating accounts of U.S. duplicity. Every treaty made was broken or ignored to this day, and the rights of our Native Indians willfully violated and trampled over through lies, deception and deceit. Just the latest example of this is in one of the accusations in the ongoing Jack Abramoff political and financial corruption scandal now making daily headlines. Abramoff, his partner, and other well-known Republicans are accused of bilking Indian casino gambling interests out of an estimated $85 million. Further, in his now disclosed emails, he referred to Native Americans as "monkeys, troglodites (people with a sub-human like nature), and idiots."

Deloria also wrote that unlike African Americans, Native Indians did not want to be equals in U.S. society. They wanted no part of it. Vine Victor Deloria, Jr., historian, scholar, activist and much more was born March 26, 1933 and died November 13, 2005. He will be missed.

The Industrial Revolution and its single-minded pursuit of profit (what Veblen called "the maximization of pecuniary interests") was Deloria's point. It produced along with it a vast array of toxins that have done untold ecological damage. The alarm was prominently sounded in Rachel Carson's landmark book "Silent Spring" published in 1962 that forced the banning of DDT, influenced President Jack Kennedy and led to legislation affecting our air, water and soil. It also launched an environmental movement that's grown into many and diverse advocacy groups that lobby and fight for environmental sanity and justice. Since Carson's time we know much more about the dangers we face, and we have many more of them. But despite our knowledge and the influence of many concerned scientists and a public supporting the need for a healthy environment, our political leaders from both parties, in service to the dominant corporate interests they serve, pay little more than lip service to this most important of issues along with war and peace. Although the Congress passed more than a dozen major environmental statutes and laws since the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 including the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, CERCLA establishing the Superfund to pay for toxic cleanups, the Endangered Species Act and more, those statutes have since been weakened or ignored. As a result, conditions today are much worse than 40 years ago and the dangers from them threaten our survival.

In his 2003 published book - "Hegemony or Survival" - Noam Chomsky cited the reflections of eminent biologist Ernst Mayr. Mayr observed that other species were better able to survive than humans and that the average life of a species is about 100,000 years. It's generally believed the human species has now about reached that limit and may be near becoming extinct. If so, and in light of our more recent behavior, we may, as Chomsky notes, turn out to be the only species ever to destroy ourselves and much else along with us.

THE NUCLEAR AGE CHANGED EVERYTHING

Since the atom was first split in a Berlin laboratory in 1938, the world has never been the same. The great scientist Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity was instrumental in the nuclear development that followed creating the atom bomb. But his greatest influence was the letter he sent to Franklin Roosevelt in 1939 urging him to build it. Einstein feared the Nazis might do it first with disastrous consequences. He later regretted his action and said: "I made one great mistake in my life....when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made...." He also said "our world faces a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing the power to make great decisions for good and evil. The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." If he were alive today, what might Einstein say about the threat from depleted uranium (DU) which when weaponized is possibly the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. But even if he said it, would the public be allowed to hear him? And most important, would his words change anything?

DEPLETED URANIUM (DU) - WHAT IT IS AND HOW IT'S USED

To use uranium as a fuel for commercial reactors or for nuclear weapons it must be enriched. The enrichment process is then followed by gaseous diffusion in two streams - one is enriched and the other depleted. Before a use was found for it, DU was just stored in vast amounts as a byproduct. However, when it was discovered that solid "dense metal" DU projectiles in all forms (missiles, bombs, shells and bullets) greatly increased their ability to penetrate and destroy a target, the Pentagon had a new technology it hoped to use in combat and now has for the past 15 years.

The first DU weapon system was developed for the Navy in 1968, and DU weapons were first given to Israel for use in the 1973 Yom Kippur war under U.S. supervision. These weapons were later sold to 29 countries but never used until the 1991 Gulf War when the U.S. broke an international taboo prohibiting them. Since then the U.S. has fought wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and again in Iraq. In all these conflicts, thousands of tons of solid DU weapons have been used causing far more devastation thus far from its radiation and chemical toxins than from the targets destroyed and those killed in target areas. Worst of all, the lingering and spreading affects from DU contamination never end, resulting in all those exposed to it and their loved ones with whom they have intimate contact and their offspring the likelihood of having one or more of virtually any illness, disease or disability imaginable often leading to early death or at the least a lifetime of pain, suffering and great expense. In Orwellian language, DU is the (deadly and unwelcome) gift that keeps on giving - and killing.

USING DU AS A WEAPON IS ILLEGAL UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW

Poison gas in various forms was first used as a weapon in WW I by both sides. It's effects were deadly causing well over 1million total casualties and nearly 100,000 deaths. After the war, the revulsion over their use led to the 1925 Geneva Protocol and other succeeding Geneva Weapons Conventions that specifically outlawed the use of chemical and biological agents in any form for any reason in war. The 1925 Geneva Convention Gas Protocol specifically prohibits the use of poison gas weapons. Although no Geneva Convention or other treaty bans the use of radioactive uranium weapons, including DU weapons, these weapons are, in fact, illegal de facto and de jure when judged by the standard of the Hague Convention of 1907 which prohibits use of any "poison or poisoned weapons." DU weapons in all their forms and uses are radioactive and chemically toxic, and thus clearly fit the definition of poisonous weapons banned under the Hague Convention. The U.S. is a signatory to the Hague and Geneva Conventions (which are binding treaties under international law). In using DU weapons in combat or for any purpose, the U.S. has violated its sacred treaty obligations and is guilty of a war crime. Further, all DU weapons also meet the U.S. federal code definition of "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD) in 2 out of 3 categories:

[The US CODE, TITLE 50, CHAPTER 40, SECTION 2302 defines a Weapon of Mass Destruction as follows: "The term 'weapon of mass destruction' means any weapon or device that is intended, or has the capability, to cause death or serious bodily injury to a significant number of people through the release, dissemination, or impact of (A) toxic or poisonous chemicals or their precursors, (B) a disease organism, or (C) radiation or radioactivity." Because the U.S. is a signatory to the Hague and Geneva Conventions, the U.S. military is violating its own military code. By using depleted uranium (which is clearly a WMD and thus illegal) in combat in 4 wars, the U.S. is clearly guilty of the very crime we claimed our right to go to war against Iraq to prevent.

In addition, under various UN Conventions and Covenants that are binding international law for its signatories, the use of any weapons that cause harm after the battle including away from the battlefield, harm the environment, or kill, wound or cause harm inhumanely are illegal and banned. DU weapons are poisonous under international law and violate all the above conditions. Even the seminal Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is legally non-binding to its signatories, implies a moral duty never to use any weapons as potentially harmful as DU.

KNOWN EFFECTS FROM DU USE THUS FAR - AND THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING, THE WORST IS YET TO COME

I'm very indebted to Leuren Moret for the data discussed throughohis article and below. Leuren is an independent scientist and internationally recognized expert on radiation, DU and public health. She's done extensive research on the environmental and public health effects of low level radiation from atmospheric testing fallout, nuclear power plants and DU weapons radiation in 42 countries, has written detailed reports and articles on her important findings, given testimony on the harmful affects of DU poisoning and is an outspoken critic of DU use. In an article she authored in July, 2004 she wrote: "The use of depleted uranium weaponry by the United States, defying all international treaties, will slowly annihilate all species on earth including the human species, and yet this country continues to do so with full knowledge of its destructive potential."

Leuren's work has revealed some shocking facts. Since the U.S. military first used DU weapons in the 1991 Gulf War, it has released the radioactive atomicity equivalent of 400,000 Nagasaki nuclear bombs into the global atmosphere (that's no misprint) causing permanent contamination with a half-life of 4.5 billion years. Furthermore, that DU radiation is 10 times the amount released by all atmospheric testing which in total equaled 40,000 Hiroshima bombs (again, no misprint). The 2 atom bombs used against the Japanese killed a likely 300,000 or more people from the initial blasts and subsequent radiation and chemical poisoning deaths. To this day, there are still reported deaths attributed to the bombings. Now imagine the potential threat to all planetary life from all the DU weapons used since 1991 and their continued use in Iraq and Afghanistan - the equivalent of 400,000 Nagasaki bombings and increasing daily as U.S. forces now are conducting 4 to 6 daily bombings of target sites in Iraq alone using DU bombs.

Leuren calls DU "The Trojan Horse of nuclear war - it keeps giving and keeps killing. There's no way to clean it up, and no way to turn it off because it continues to decay into other radioactive isotopes..." As it decays, it continues to release more radiation. DU when used as a weapon in war, as the U.S. has now done 4 times and continues to do so in Iraq and Afghanistan and intends to continue using, is Stanley Kubrick's fictional Doomsday Machine for real (from his 1964 film Dr. Strangelove). DU may be the ultimate weapon of mass annihilation. Unless there's a mass worldwide public awakening to this threat to demand an immediate end to its use for any purpose, we're left with little more than the message from the subtitle of the Kubrick film - stop worrying and love the bomb--and likely prepare to die.

The greatest damage from DU comes from the radiation residue after its use. When a DU weapon strikes a target, it penetrates deeply and aerosolizes into a fine spray which then contaminates the air and soil around the target area. The residue is permanent, and its microscopic and submicroscopic particles remain suspended in air or are swept into the air from the tainted soil and are carried by winds around the earth as a radioactive component of atmospheric dust. That dust falls to earth indiscriminately everywhere causing radiation contamination that affects every living thing and cannot be remediated. The contamination causes virtually every known illness and disease from severe headaches, muscle pain and general fatigue, to major birth defects, infection, depression, cardiovascular disease, many types of cancer and brain tumors. It also causes permanent disability and death. In June, 2003, the World Health Organization (WHO), without specific reference to DU, announced in a press release that global cancer rates will increase by 50% by 2020. WHO is usually conservative in its estimates. Might they believe things are potentially far worse? And are they closely examining the effects of DU to those in combat areas where these weapons are and have been used?

Those individuals (military and civilian) at or near target areas are most immediately affected by DU contamination, especially if they remain there for an extended time. During the 6 week 1991 Gulf war only 467 U.S. personnel were wounded and about 150 killed. Out of the 580,000 military personnel who served in that war, 325,000 were reported to be on permanent medical disability by the year 2000. It was also reported then the number was increasing by 43,000 each year. In fact, the annual increases were even greater, and by 2004 the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (the VA) reported over 518,000 Gulf-era veterans to be on medical disability. It also reported over 500,000 veterans were homeless. Studies were also done on veterans whose wives had normal babies before the war. It reported two-thirds of post-war births of those studied had severe birth defects, such as missing brains, eyes, legs and arms and blood diseases.

There are already scattered early reports of DU caused health problems from the current Iraq conflict (and probably Afghanistan) as well as an above normal rate of still active duty military and veteran suicide and family violence. As deployments in the current conflict are much longer than the short Gulf war and most serving go back for a second or even third tour of duty, it's easy to imagine a literal holocaust that will eventually devastate all military and other personnel who have or are now serving or will serve in Iraq and the region. And it likely will have a similar effect on the wives and husbands of veterans and their post-service offspring. Once again it must be emphasized. The U.S. government prior to 1991 had full knowledge of the devastating effects DU would cause and still used it, still does and still intends to keep using it. Beyond belief? You bet. If someone wrote this as a work of fiction or science fiction, no one would believe it, and probably no one would publish it.



DU USED AS WEAPONS - A WILLFUL ACT OF GENOCIDE

From its use already in 4 wars, the use of DU weapons is an act of insanity as well as possibly the greatest ever crime against humanity (and all other living species) and a war crime. Those responsible include 3 presidents, scores of high government officials and the Pentagon high command to include a lot of generals and admirals. These people are criminals. They're guilty of mass murder without end. They all should be made to answer for their crimes through indictment and trials both in our federal courts and at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague which was established in 2002 to try individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. These people, or at least most of them, are guilty of all three crimes and should pay the highest price for them with no leniency. Their convictions should once and for all serve as a reminder to all future leaders that this type reckless behavior will never again be tolerated.

Nobel laureate Harold Pinter, a distinguished author and man of great honor, passion and eloquence, in his 2005 acceptance speech made these comments about the current Iraq war. Too ill with cancer, he was unable to travel to Oslo for the award ceremony and instead read his comments on videotape. Pinter is a sharp critic of the Iraq war and the U.S. and his U.K. government's role in it. In his Nobel award address he called the invasion of Iraq a "bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law." He stressed "the United States no longer bothers about low intensity conflict. It no longer sees any point in being reticent or even devious......It quite simply doesn't give a damn about the United Nations, international law or critical dissent, which it regards as impotent and irrelevant."

Pinter is right, and he said much more in his 46 minute acceptance speech. He also could have added the Bush administration since 9/11/01 has governed recklessly and arrogantly. With obsessive secrecy and contempt for the Constitution, the Congress, the courts and the U.S. public, George Bush has governed by Executive Order or Decree, a tool of tyrants when used to excess as this president has. He's done it to pursue a policy of permanent imperial war for U.S. global domination. The tragedy of 9/11 aside, the Bush administration created a fear-induced sham world terrorist threat to fight a so-called "global war on terrorism" for decades to come. It also created a near police state at home with baseless mass roundups, illegal detentions and deportations as part of a racist war against dark-skinned immigrants, illegal warrantless domestic spying and systemic use of torture of those detained and those held in offshore prisons and "renditioned" to mostly unnamed countries tolerating this practice. The Bush administration did all this based on a foundation of willful deception, deceit, and endless web of lies, and an utter contempt for political, economic and social justice at home and abroad and the rule of law.

Until recent months, Bush has gotten away with it all. Now with his poll numbers plummeting, the Iraq war a hopeless quagmire (despite the disinformation to the contrary), the possibility of further high level administration officials being indicted beside Lewis Libby along with the potentially huge political and financial Jack Abramoff corruption scandal, and the Democrats and some Republicans finally stirring and expressing their ire, the administration may be nearing its Waterloo. Like many other regimes in the past guilty of imperial arrogance and overreach (like the last one that tried - the Nazis - and thought they'd rule for 1000 years but only lasted 12) this administration and its reckless and heartless agenda may meet a similar fate.

Great thinkers and perceptive observers have ventured to guess what our fate may be as a result of our actions. Without predicting it, Noam Chomsky in a recent talk cited the worst of all possible outcomes - a nuclear holocaust, environmental destruction or the end of even nominal democracy.

Yale Senior Research Scholar Immanuel Wallerstein in his important 2003 book, The Decline of American Power, believes the U.S. "has been a fading global power since the 1970s, and the U.S. response to the (9/11) terrorist attacks has merely accelerated this decline." He goes on to say "the economic, political and military factors that contributed to U.S. hegemony are the same factors that will inexorably produce the coming U.S. decline." He later wrote he can't predict the outcome of "this chaotic crisis of our capitalist world system", but the U.S. attempt to stop it will fail. At best, they'll only delay it as they've been trying to do. Wallerstein sees a future that will go one of two ways (if we survive) - either one based on progressive values or something that's quite the opposite.

Retired professor Chalmers Johnson, in his important 2004 book, The Sorrows of Empire, also predicts the dissolution of the U.S. empire if its present path continues. Unlike imperial Rome that took hundreds of years before it fell, he sees U.S. sorrows arriving "with the speed of FedEx." He predicts 4 sorrows if the present trend continues that will create an ugly alternative to our present constitutional form of government: imperial overreach with a "state of perpetual war" leading to more terrorist retaliation against us; a loss of democracy and our constitutional rights; the end of truthfulness "replaced by a system of propaganda, disinformation, and glorification of war, power, and the military legions"; finally, he sees the nation going bankrupt from its inability to maintain ever more "grandiose military projects." The U.S. national debt now exceeds $8.2 trillion. It's growing unsustainably by over $400 billion annually as is the current account deficit that in 2006 may reach $1 trillion. Both deficits rely "on the kindness of strangers" (foreign governments and investors willing to keep buying our treasury securities and invest in our equity and fixed income markets) to sustain us. They'll do it only as long as they believe they're making sound investments. Johnson doesn't believe the present trend is irreversible. There's still time to change it, but so far he says we're not even trying. He thus believes the only hope for us and the planet is for the world community of nations to act together to "checkmate" us. If they don't or won't or can't, nuclear war may eventually ensue and "civilization will disappear."

To prevent the above scenarios from happening, the world community of nations must coalesce soon and go for "checkmate." And united they should demand that this kind of behavior will never again be tolerated by any nation. They should strengthen the international laws now in place enough to insure it, require every nation to be a signatory and force all nations to abide by these binding laws with the severest consequences for those who don't. But even if all this were to happen, the damage already done is overwhelming and spreading. It may already be too late. In the U.S. alone, 42 states are now contaminated with DU from its manufacture, testing and deployment. Also, the manufacture of millions of DU bombs and their deployment to U.S. military bases around the world continues.

Leuren Moret just learned from a declassified document a Hawaii based Quaker group obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that the U.S. military has 2.7 million DU bombs in U.S. still occupied South Korea (over 50 years after the end of the Korean War). She says it's little wonder North Korea wants nuclear weapons. She believes these bombs were moved there in the 1990s from U.S. still occupied (Japanese) Okinawa (60 years after WW II) because the Japanese (who abhor nuclear weapons) refused to domicile them any longer. And she speculates further that we very likely have many millions more DU bombs deployed in other countries where we have bases. That could include a great many more according to Chalmers Johnson. In The Sorrows of Empire, Johnson mentioned the existence of at least 725 known U.S. bases in 153 countries, besides hundreds more in this country. He also believes we have secret bases so the real total could be much higher and now likely is with all the new bases we're building in Iraq, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and plans for Africa. Even without these weapons being used, imagine the potential danger we're placing the people of these countries in (and our own citizens as well) just because the weapons are there (and here). There could be accidents, the military engages in exercises where they likely test and use these weapons, and, of course, they could be stolen or even sold by rogue military or other personnel looking for a quick buck.

Imagine for a moment a reverse scenario. What if the U.K, France, Russia or China had bases in this country (bad enough) and additionally stored millions of DU bombs or other nuclear weapons on our soil. Would we citizens tolerate just the bases, let alone with DU bombs? Unlikely. Also imagine if the public here knew thousands or millions of these weapons were being stored on U.S. bases here, near where they lived.

They might also consider the 104 current operating commercial nuclear power plants in the U.S. They're all dangerous, but especially the aging ones. Every one is a potential unstable nuclear bomb and possible disaster waiting to happen, either from an inevitable accident or from sabotage. Responsible experts believe it's just a matter of time before a major nuclear disaster occurs somewhere in the world, possibly or even likely a full nuclear core meltdown - the worst possible kind of nuclear catastrophe other than a nuclear or thermonuclear explosion or widespread use of DU weapons.

If a core meltdown happened (or more likely when one happens), a vast area would be contaminated and made uninhabitable forever. Where I live in Chicago I'm surrounded by 11 nuclear power plants, many of them aging and all of them with histories of safety violations caused by aging and shoddy maintenance. Even without an accident, these facilities (and all others everywhere) discharge enough radiation daily in their normal operations to contaminate the food we eat (even organic food), the water we drink and the air we breathe into our lungs. If one of these plants had a core meltdown and metropolitan Chicago was downwind from the fallout, the city and suburbs alone would become uninhabitable forever and would have to be evacuated quickly with all possessions left behind and lost (including our homes) except for what we could carry in suitcases or in the trunks of our cars. Everyone should thus ask the obvious question - is this kind of insane "nuclear Russian roulette" risk worth taking? There are much cleaner, safer alternatives available or that can be developed, if we'd just be willing to invest heavily in alternative energy sources other than the nuclear option and fossil fuels. There are also common sense ways to practice conservation, without significantly impeding our western lifestyle.

Up to now, our leaders have been irresponsible and derelict in their duty to inform us of the risk and act responsibly to remove it to protect us from potential harm. They've also shown no restraint in their actions or respect for the people in countries we seek to dominate. Those countries are never the developed ones in the Global North with the power to respond. They're always weak, less developed and overexploited ones, usually with darker skinned people and a non Judeo-Christian faith. In this country, especially without a draft and with few good career opportunities for the poor and underprivileged, military service with the promise of education and other benefits (that most inductees never get) becomes the temporary career choice of expedience. The rich and well-off only wage the wars but don't fight in them. Instead they send the poor to fight and die for them to make them richer. When our Vietnam era military came home sick and dying from the toxic effects of Agent Orange (highly toxic dioxin), Henry Kissinger, a Nobel Peace prize recipient and accused war criminal, arrogantly insulted them all when he called them "just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." Used, abused and discarded like worn out shoes. Kissinger's past has come back to haunt him. Before travelling abroad now, he must check with the State Department to be sure there are no warrants out for his arrest.

The world today is closer to the tipping point than ever before. We may, in fact, have passed it and it's already too late. The price we've paid for our technological advances has been an equal growth in the threat to our survival. Up to now we've found no way to end this destructive path. We're fast running out of time, and unless we do it and soon, we may not get another chance. The U.S. today is like a giant Gulliver Agonistes and the rest of the world like the Lilliputians - in Jonathan Swift's classic satire. Despite the mismatch, the Lilliputans (who stood 6 inches high) were able to tie down this giant and prevent him from wrecking their homes. In the end, they got Gulliver to leave and were able to go on with their lives. The lesson is clear. People everywhere need to understand the great peril we all face - our survival. Then, like the Lilliputians, we need to hog-tie this out-of-control predatory Gulliver to save ourselves.

Two final thoughts to consider - the first one from Dr. Helen Caldicott, president of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, an expert on the medical hazards of nuclear energy, author, activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee from her 1978 book Nuclear Madness (updated in 1994): "As a physician, I contend nuclear technology (military and commercial) threatens life on our planet with extinction. If present trends continue (and they have and have gotten worse), the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink will soon be contaminated with enough radioactive pollutants to pose a potential health hazard far greater than any plague humanity has ever experienced."

The second is from the great British journalist, Robert Fisk from his year end London Independent column entitled War Without End: "Only justice, not bombs, can make our dangerous world a safer place."

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net

Until recently, many councillors on Ireland's west coast stressed the economic benefit of the stopovers, which generated an estimated €37m (£25m) for the airport last year.

The former Labour mayor of Shannon, Gregg Duff, said those opposed to the presence of GIs had been accused of not caring about local jobs and endangering the US investment which fuelled much of the Celtic Tiger economic boom. In one local radio debate, a Fianna Fáil party activist warned that US businesses would pull out of the west of Ireland if locals were seen as hostile to troops.

But amid new concerns that Shannon may have hosted CIA "rendition" flights carrying prisoners to countries where they could be tortured, local politicians have changed their tone. Town councillors, warning that the region's reputation is being damaged, have unanimously approved a motion calling on the government to inspect US planes at the airport. Clare county council has seen wide support for a motion demanding that the Irish army inspect every CIA-chartered flight.

Fine Gael's Martin Conway, who raised the motion at Clare county council, warned that Shannon's international standing was at risk. "I would prefer to see US troops not use Shannon at all," he said.

Brian Meaney, of the Green party, said: "You can't allow an airport's future to depend on selling sandwiches to soldiers. People have a notion of Irish neutrality, and they think it is being undermined and sold out."

The Irish Human Rights Commission and the Council of Europe have called on the government to seek US agreement that every plane suspected of transporting prisoners will be inspected.

A spokesman from Dublin's department of foreign affairs said the government strongly condemned torture and had received "explicit, unambiguous and unqualified" assurances from the US that no prisoners had been transported through Irish airports.

Six CIA-chartered planes have landed at Shannon 43 times over the past four years, according to the government. But Amnesty International believes the CIA landed 50 times at Shannon between September 2001 and 2005.

Last month, peace activist Cindy Sheehan visited Dublin demanding that the Irish government inspect CIA flights. She said her son stopped at Shannon on his way to Iraq and described the airport in his last unposted letter. The US academic Noam Chomsky this week told a Dublin audience that if Shannon was being used by the CIA to transport prisoners, Ireland would be participating in a war crime as defined by the Nuremberg tribunal. Such was the demand to hear him speak that 4,000 people were turned away.

Edward Horgan, a former Irish soldier who served with UN peacekeeping missions for 22 years before leading a campaign against US military use of Shannon, said up to 100 peace activists had been prosecuted in Ireland since 2002.

After two retrials, Mary Kelly, an Irish nurse, was found guilty of criminal damage for taking an axe to a plane at Shannon. She plans to appeal. Five protesters accused of damaging another US plane at Shannon are awaiting their third trial after the second collapsed when defence lawyers suggested that the judge had been invited to both George Bush's presidential inaugurations and attended the first one in 2000.

Seeing them close up immediately breaks the Mohammed Atta stereotype of the so-called “terrorism detainee.” They were black, brown, white. Some spoke clipped British English, some perfect German.

These men say that words are incapable of describing what it is like to be tortured, how it feels to live day after day in 2x2 cages. I am now struggling to capture the power of their personal testimony in words. I’ll try.

The first speaker was Moazzam Begg, a British citizen. He is a slight man, with wire-rimmed glasses and a professorial air. Moazzam described in stark language how U.S. forces – in the name of fighting terrorism – engaged in acts of terror against him and other human beings. “It is terrifying to be interrogated repeatedly with cocked guns pointed at your head. It is terrifying to sit in a cage day after day and believe that you will never see your children again. It is terrifying to watch and hear others humiliated by guards all around you.”

Jamal al Harith, a soft-spoken British national of Jamaican descent, spent two years, three weeks, and six days in Guantanamo before his release. He was beaten, stripped naked, and interrogated repeatedly. He spent weeks in solitary confinement, where he was exposed to extreme temperatures and bright lights day and night. Jamal, who was captured by the Taliban while in Afghanistan, noted with irony that when the Americans arrived in Afghanistan, he was relieved -- he thought they would treat him fairly and help him get home.

Tarek Dergoul spoke from behind a curtain. He told us how he was beaten with baseball bats and left in a freezing cage. When military forces refused to treat his frostbite, one of his toes and part of his arm had to be amputated.

Feroz Abbasi spent one year and seven months in solitary confinement at Guantanamo. Yet Feroz and several other men said the most painful experience for them was witnessing the abuse of other prisoners, and listening to their screams night after night.

Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal look like shy, scared kids. They were two of the named plaintiffs in the lawsuit brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights to challenge the unlawful detention of Guantanamo detainees. In one of the few victories in the ongoing legal struggle, the Supreme Court held last year that they had a limited right to challenge their detention. While still in Afghanistan, Shafiq and Asif were both packed into containers for transport. When the containers were opened, most of the people inside had suffocated to death. Some of the guards shot bullets into the containers to provide air holes, and one of those bullets struck Shafiq.

Rustam Akhmarov, a Russian, was sold by Pakistani police to U.S. forces for $5000. Rustam said that he and other men at Guantanamo were given injections by force, and were later diagnosed with Hepatitis B. Though a number of Russian detainees have been released and cleared, Russian officials keep them and their family members under constant surveillance. They can’t get work because employers fear they will be tainted by the stigma of hiring former Guantanamo detainees.

Though it was painful to hear the former prisoners speak of their ordeals, these men realize they are among the fortunate few who are now free. It was even more devastating to hear the pleas of the family members of those still locked up.

Rabiye Kurnaz is the mother of Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen who was a long-time resident of Germany. Murat is twenty-three years old and has been in Guantanamo for four years. The German government won’t help secure Murat’s release because he is not a citizen, and the Turkish government refuses to help. Rabiye said that she tries to keep news about Guantanamo from her other children, but that they hear about it on the news and on the Internet.

Nadja Dizdarevic is the wife of ElHadj Doudellaa of Bosnia. A small woman in full hijab, Nadja is the mother of four children. One son, now four years old, has never seen his father. Nadja said the children are suffering because both of their parents are absent – she must spend hours and hours each day advocating for the release of her husband. Nadja ended with a poignant thank you to “all of you who have sacrificed precious time with your own families to be here to listen to my testimony.”

Yet anger and horror were not the only emotions provoked by this gathering.

It was incredible to hear several former prisoners insist that others had it far worse than they. Martin Mubanga, another British citizen, talked about the strong spirit of Yusef El Gharani, who was sent to Guantanamo when he was just 14 years old. Shafiq Rasul talked about Jamil el-Banna, who remains at Guantanamo because the British government won’t negotiate the release of non-citizens. Shafiq said, “I have no children and yet they finally let me go. Jamil has five children who desperately need him – he deserves to be released more than I did.”

Meeting other people who had been detained was a powerful experience for many of the men present. Moazzam realized that he had spent six weeks in Kandahar lying face down in a freezing cell next to a Russian man who he never saw face to face until this weekend.

Several of the former prisoners were asked how they coped. Martin Mubanga found relief in poetry and rap. Moazzam memorized everything he could remember from school. Jamal learned not to think about his family.

A filmmaker in the audience asked whether any of the guards expressed kindness towards the prisoners. Several said they formed powerful bonds with some guards, especially while in solitary confinement. Moazzam and Tariq came to realize that many of the guards had no real choice but to join the army, and were putting in their time because they had to. There are different forms of imprisonment, they implied.

These moving testimonies are not isolated instances but part of a widespread and systemic policy of abuse. And yet one rarely sees these victims or hears their stories in mainstream media or anywhere else in the United States. Worse, our government officials continue to dismiss the overwhelming evidence of torture. When two courageous Iraqi men who are suing Rumsfeld for torture were in the U.S. last week, Rumsfeld's sick response to their testimony was that "terrorists are trained to lie about their treatment, and they do it consistently, and it always works."

As Moazzam pointed out, the iguana is a protected species at Guantanamo. Human beings are not. What have we become in America?

Welshofer's murder trial, which began this week at the home base of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment to which he was assigned in Iraq, opens a window into the murky world of military interrogations.

Issues raised by the prosecutors and the defense about how to calibrate interrogations during the war against terrorism echo those made during the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the recent debate in Washington over banning torture.

Welshofer described spending months in Iraq without any clear directives about how to manage interrogations. When rules came down, he said, they were vague and he soon found that his training did not apply.

"There was no preparation from the schoolhouse at all for what we encountered in Iraq," he said. "The doctrine was based on an enemy from 60 years ago."

But the prosecutor, Lt. Tiernan Dolan, said that Welshofer took advantage of, or blatantly neglected, decades of military standards in how to practice interrogation. "You use psychological ploys to let [detainees] know you are in control," he told Welshofer. "But you crossed the line from psychological control to physical control."

When Welshofer and Mowhoush met in the fall of 2003, the insurgency was gaining strength and interrogators were under intense pressure to obtain leads from Saddam Hussein loyalists, such as the captured general.

U.S. commanders at the time had asked for what Welshofer called a "wish list" of new interrogation techniques. Beginning in September, U.S. generals in Iraq issued a stream of rules on the acceptable bounds of interrogation, sometimes shifting them from week to week.

A witness who testified behind a screen on Wednesday — whom an attorney inadvertently referred to as someone who worked for the CIA — said Welshofer told him the day before Mowhoush's death that he was aware of the most recent regulations, but that "he was breaking those rules every day."

Welshofer said he did not recall the conversation, but his attorney, Frank Spinner, argued that his client was navigating a gray zone. Spinner cited disagreements within the Bush administration about what techniques constituted torture. "There are not clear-cut rules here," Spinner told the panel of six officers, who will determine whether Welshofer is guilty. He faces life imprisonment if convicted.

The interrogations took place at a converted train station outside of the western Iraqi city of Qaim. Mowhoush was believed to be directing attacks in the region and had surrendered himself to authorities in hopes of helping his sons, who were also in U.S. custody.

At the prison, Welshofer supervised a handful of other interrogators and 40 military intelligence officers. Another interrogator had invented the sleeping bag technique, which Welshofer said was designed to create a claustrophobic effect. Welshofer said a supervisor had approved the technique, but was concerned whether prisoners would be able to breathe, and only allowed Welshofer and its inventor to use it.

Welshofer acknowledged Thursday that when briefing his superior, he omitted that the technique he used involved straddling the detainee's chest.

Welshofer said he started gently with Mowhoush. He said he began by simply questioning the general. When Mowhoush denied his role in the insurgency, the interrogations became more heated. Over two weeks, Welshofer progressed from conversing, to slapping the general in front of other detainees, to having him held down and pouring water in his face.

During that time, Welshofer was in an interrogation room when Mowhoush was severely beaten by a group of Iraqis who, according to published reports, were in the pay of the CIA. One witness said Welshofer appeared to be directing that interrogation, but the defendant said he had "no command and control" over that situation.

Two days later, Welshofer made his final choice. "I had gone through all my techniques and all my experience that might have been applicable — except that one technique," he said.

Army Spc. Jerry L. Loper, a guard at the prison who is cooperating with the prosecution, testified that Mowhoush was unable to walk after his beatings by fellow Iraqis (those allegedly paid by the CIA), and that even on Nov. 26, he had difficulty moving and was breathing heavily. At 8 a.m., Loper led the general into the interrogation room and questioning began.

The general was issuing blanket denials, and after the final one, Loper said, Welshofer told the detainee: "If you don't answer, you're not going to like what's coming."

Welshofer said that the general at times appeared tired, but he believed he was faking his fatigue. He ordered that the olive-green sleeping bag be dropped over his head, and that he be wrapped in an electrical cord "like winding a yo-yo" to fasten the bag to his 300-pound frame. The general was lowered to the ground on his back, and Welshofer straddled his chest and continued to ask questions, occasionally putting his hand over the general's mouth, the interrogator said. He said he was stopping the detainee from calling out to Allah.

Loper and another witness testified that after several minutes, the general became unresponsive and Welshofer stood up. Then, they said, the general emitted a loud gasp and Welshofer expressed relief that he wasn't dead. Welshofer said he did not recall this occurring.

It was after the general was flipped on his stomach and Welshofer straddled his back that he became silent again. Welshofer said he pulled the bag from the general and saw an odd smile on his face, so he threw water on him to get a response. It was then, he said, that he realized the general was dead or dying, called for medics, and began CPR.

The military contends the general was smothered during the interrogation, but the defense called a pathologist who testified that the cause of Mowhoush's death was probably heart failure. Mowhoush had an enlarged heart and other signs of heart disease.

Welshofer, who has spent 17 years in the Army, is also charged with slapping another detainee, wrapping him in a sleeping bag, and body-slamming him. He said he wasn't sure to which of the many detainees he interrogated the charge referred, but said that in one case, he had to use his body weight to control a prisoner who was becoming violent.

Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times

A 48-hour deadline for the demands of the kidnappers to be met expired on Wednesday with no word on the hostages: an American, a Briton, a Bulgarian and a Honduran.

Speaking after the deadline, Nigerian Information Minister Frank Nweke told CNN: "The security authorities ... are very much in contact with these people and the discussions are ongoing ... and we do not expect they would take any of these extreme measures which they have threatened to take."

So far, Shell is the only major operator to have said it suffered at the hands of the ethnic Ijaw militants, who are demanding greater control for the impoverished local people over the delta's enormous oil wealth.

"The reports of attacks on Agip and Total flow stations are correct," the group said. "We will attack all oil companies including Chevron facilities."

Chevron spokesman Don Campbell said: "We're monitoring the situation. We have made no plans to shut down production."

Spokesmen for the French and Italian companies in Nigeria dismissed the statement. Oil industry executives met urgently with government officials on Wednesday in Abuja to discuss security in the delta's mangrove swamps and tidal creeks.

The month-long campaign of violence against oil pipelines and platforms in the delta has hit 221,000 barrels a day of Shell's production -- roughly a tenth of the output from the world's eighth largest exporter.

Analysts say the violence is part of growing political rivalry between the regions in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, ahead of 2007 presidential elections. An Ijaw uprising before 2003 elections hit 40 percent of Nigeria's production.

FOUR MONTH HIGH

Oil prices climbed to their highest level in almost four months on Wednesday as the group's threats exacerbated the markets' concerns about the OPEC cartel's capacity to meet demand. Nigeria is a leading OPEC member.

U.S. crude oil climbed as far as $66.91 a barrel, the highest since September 30. It was up 19 cents at $66.50 at 1437 GMT. London Brent crude was up five cents at $64.95.

Shell, the largest producer of oil in Nigeria's delta, said in a statement it was reviewing its staff deployment, after the militants repeated threats to target oil employees.

The company evacuated 330 workers from four oil platforms after a militant attack on Sunday which killed four soldiers.

"Pipelines, loading points, export tankers, tank farms, refined petroleum depots, landing strips and residences of employees of these companies can expect to be attacked," the militant group said. "We know where they live, shop and where the children go to school."

Witnesses to attacks last week describe military-style operations involving around 40 trained militants, intelligence officials said. The group used a 12.7 mm heavy sub-machine gun mounted on a motor launch to attack one platform, they said.

The militants demand local control of the Niger Delta's oil wealth, payment of $1.5 billion by Shell to the Bayelsa state government to compensate for pollution, and the release of three men including two ethnic Ijaw leaders.

Meanwhile, shipping sources said loading was due to begin shortly at two major Nigerian oil terminals operated by ExxonMobil, after industry talk the loading might be suspended because of fears of an attack.

"The two Exxon terminals are going to start loading this afternoon under heavy military guard," a shipping agent said.

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Sheikh Sa'ad al-Abdullah al-Sabah, 76, was proclaimed emir last Sunday, just a few hours after the death of his cousin, Sheikh Jaber, 78, who had ruled since 1977.

Under the constitution Sheikh Sa'ad must swear an oath in parliament before assuming his duties, but there is open speculation in Kuwait that he is too ill to utter the oath - a single sentence of around 30 words.

Sheikh Sa'ad had colon surgery in 1997 and spent a week in hospital last year with high blood sugar. According to the pan-Arab daily, al-Quds al-Arabi, he is unable to concentrate or identify people and may have Alzheimer's disease.

On its front page yesterday, al-Qabas daily said national burdens had exhausted Sheikh Sa'ad and urged him to make a further sacrifice by "leaving it to who is able among the sons of the honourable ruling family".

The most likely alternative contender for the throne is Sheikh Sabah, the prime minister, who has already been de facto ruler for several years because the late emir was also incapacitated. Sheikh Sabah is himself 77 and has a pacemaker.

Yesterday, members of the ruling family visited the prime minister and "reaffirmed the trust bestowed upon him by the late emir", according to an oddly worded statement from Kuna, the official news agency. It was not immediately clear if this pledge was aimed at paving the way for Sheikh Sabah to be named crown prince or to replace Sheikh Sa'ad as emir. The prime minister later wished Sheikh Sa'ad good health and long life but did not refer to him as the emir.

Members of the ruling family have held several meetings over the past few days to discuss the succession tangle. Removal of the ailing Sheikh Sa'ad would break a long-standing tradition in which the post of emir alternates between two branches of the family.

A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of an acute, civilisation-changing energy crisis. The latest wobble over disruptions to gas supplies from Russia is merely the latest in a series of reminders of how dependent our economies are on growing supplies of oil and gas. On Wednesday, Gazprom's deputy chairman was in London reassuring Britain that there would be no risk of disruption to British gas supplies in the fall-out from the ongoing spat between Russia and Ukraine over pricing. The very next day, temperatures in Moscow broke a 50-year record, plunging to minus 30C. Gas normally exported was diverted to the home front. Supplies to the West fell.

In December, Sir Digby Jones, director-general of the CBI, warned that any shortfall in gas could cause disaster for British industry. The problem, he said, was the likelihood - as forecast by the Met Office - of a particularly cold British winter. This would mean more gas burning in homes and power plants than our liberalised energy market - or its infrastructure - might be able to supply. There aren't enough pipelines from the continent to carry the imported gas that we need now that our North Sea production is dropping. Tankers that are supposed to be bringing liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the UK are instead following market forces and going to the US, where gas prices have rocketed even higher than they have here. Meanwhile, not enough gas has been stockpiled, because market forces don't favour that kind of thing in relatively warm years.

We shouldn't panic, insisted energy minister Malcolm Wicks, because British Gas is being very grown up about it, and anyway all this will be sorted out by 2007 when a new pipeline and more LNG plants come on stream. Sceptics pointed out that our gas reserves were down to 11 days, compared with an average of 55 on the Continent. That was before the concerns about Russian supplies. If the thermometers fall in the UK it is still quite possible that UK firms may have to stop using gas for one day a week, or even that the suppliers will also have to introduce rolling power cuts by postcode.

Meanwhile, domestic gas bills, which rose by more than a third last year, are expected to rise even higher in the next few months. For many people, such fluctuations have lethal implications. Last winter, there were some 35,000 "excess winter deaths" in the UK, most of them attributable to old people not being able to keep warm enough; and last winter was a relatively mild one.

All this concerns gas, of which there are undoubtedly huge proved reserves left in the ground (even if half of them are in Russia and Iran). Consider oil. The geopolitical risks are the same. Only last week Iran threatened to retaliate by cutting oil supplies if Europe continued to meddle in what it sees as its right to develop a nuclear programme. Where oil differs from gas is that a debate is fast emerging about whether we have enough reserves to meet needs in the short term - even if geopolitics don't kick in and the current infrastructure keeps working as it should. At the annual summit of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) in December, Kuwait told the world that, without urgent outside help, it could not continue to pump oil at its customary rate. The Kuwaiti oil minister invited Western oil companies back into his country to see if they could do better. The very next day the US government quietly slashed 11 million barrels a day (that's equivalent to the entire daily output of Saudi Arabia) from its forecast of oil production levels for 2025.

To most people who noticed them, such announcements will have seemed remote and academic. In fact, as I shall attempt to explain, they represent the tip of a very big iceberg indeed: one that holds the potential to sink the global economy.

We have allowed oil to become vital to virtually everything we do. Ninety per cent of all our transportation, whether by land, air or sea, is fuelled by oil. Ninety-five per cent of all goods in shops involve the use of oil. Ninety-five per cent of all our food products require oil use. Just to farm a single cow and deliver it to market requires six barrels of oil, enough to drive a car from New York to Los Angeles. The world consumes more than 80 million barrels of oil a day, 29 billion barrels a year, at the time of writing. This figure is rising fast, as it has done for decades. The almost universal expectation is that it will keep doing so for years to come. The US government assumes that global demand will grow to around 120 million barrels a day, 43 billion barrels a year, by 2025. Few question the feasibility of this requirement, or the oil industry's ability to meet it.

They should, because the oil industry won't come close to producing 120 million barrels a day; nor, for reasons that I will discuss later, is there any prospect of the shortfall being taken up by gas. In other words, the most basic of the foundations of our assumptions of future economic wellbeing is rotten. Our society is in a state of collective denial that has no precedent in history, in terms of its scale and implications.

Of the current global demand for oil, America consumes a quarter. Because domestic oil production has been falling steadily for 35 years, with demand rising equally steadily, America's relative share is set to grow, and with it her imports of oil. Of America's current daily consumption of 20 million barrels, 5 million are imported from the Middle East, where almost two-thirds of the world's oil reserves lie in a region of especially intense and long-lived conflicts. Every day, 15 million barrels pass in tankers through the narrow Straits of Hormuz, in the troubled waters between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The US government could wipe out the need for all their 5 million barrels, and staunch the flow of much blood in the process, by requiring its domestic automobile industry to increase the fuel efficiency of autos and light trucks by a mere 2.7 miles per gallon. But instead it allows General Motors and the rest to build ever more oil-profligate vehicles. Some sports utility vehicles (SUVs) average just four miles per gallon. The SUV market share in the US was 2 per cent in 1975. By 2003 it was 24 per cent. In consequence, average US vehicle fuel efficiency fell between 1987 and 2001, from 26.2 to 24.4 miles per gallon. This at a time when other countries were producing cars capable of up to 60 miles per gallon.

Most US presidents since the Second World War have ordered military action of some sort in the Middle East. American leaders may prefer to dress their military entanglements east of Suez in the rhetoric of democracy-building, but the long-running strategic theme is obvious. It was stated most clearly, paradoxically, by the most liberal of them. In 1980 Jimmy Carter declared access to the Persian Gulf a national interest to be protected "by any means necessary, including military force". This the US has been doing ever since, clocking up a bill measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and counting. With such a strategy comes a disquieting descent into moral ambiguity, at least in the minds of something approaching half the country. The nation that gave the world such landmarks in the annals of democracy as the Marshall Plan is forced by deepening oil dependency into a foreign-policy maze that involves arming some despotic regimes, bombing others, and scrabbling for reasons to make the whole construct hang together.

America is not alone in her addiction and her dilemmas. The motorways of Europe now extend from Clydeside to Calabria, Lisbon to Lithuania. Agricultural produce that could have been grown for local consumption rides along these arteries the length and breadth of the European Union. The Chinese attempt to emulate this model even as they enforce production downtime in factories because of diesel shortages and despair that their vast national acreage seems to play host to so little oil.

There is a similar picture with gas. The scale of the addiction - and of the resource - is smaller. But the patterns are the same: growing demand for a finite resource, most of which has to be imported from the Middle East and the former Soviet Union. Even a temporary blip in supply, such as occurred in Europe this week, is enough to create something close to panic among governments. But it is oil that keeps our civilisation functioning.

This half-century of deepening oil dependency would be difficult to understand even if oil were known to be in endless supply. But what makes the depth of the current global addiction especially bewildering is that, for the entire time we have been sliding into the trap, we have known that oil is in fact in limited supply. At current rates of use, the global tank is going to run too low to fuel the growing demand sooner rather than later this century. This is not a controversial statement. It is just a question of when.

Oil is a finite resource, and there will come a day, inevitably, when we reach the highest amount of oil that can ever be pumped. Beyond that day - which we can think of as the topping point, or "peak oil" as it is often called - will lie a progressive overall decline in production. Putting the same question a different way, then, at the current prodigious global demand levels, where does oil's topping point lie?

This is a question, I contend, that will come to dominate the affairs of nations before this first decade of the new century is out.

Already, a battle is raging, largely behind the scenes, about when we reach the topping point, and what will happen when we do. In one camp, those I shall call the "late toppers", are the people who tell us that 2 trillion barrels of oil or more remain to be exploited in oil reserves and reasonably expectable future discoveries. This camp includes almost all oil companies, governments and their agencies, most financial analysts, and most business journalists. As you might expect, given this line-up, the late toppers hold the ascendancy in the argument as things stand.

In the other camp are a group of dissident experts, whom I shall call the "early toppers". They are mostly people who - like me - have worked in the heart of the oil industry, the majority of them geologists, many of them members of an umbrella organisation called the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO). They are joined by a small but growing number of analysts and journalists. The early toppers reckon that 1 trillion barrels of oil, or less, are left.

In a society that has allowed its economies to become geared almost inextricably to growing supplies of cheap oil, the difference between 1 and 2 trillion barrels is seismic. It is roughly the difference between a full Lake Geneva and a half-full one, were that lake full of oil and not water. If 2 trillion barrels of oil or more indeed remain, the topping point lies far away in the 2030s. The "growing" and "cheap" parts of the oil-supply equation are feasible until then, at least in principle, and we have enough time to bring in the alternatives to oil. If only 1 trillion barrels remain, however, the topping point will arrive some time soon, and certainly before this decade is out. The "growing" and "cheap" parts of the oil-supply equation become impossible, and there probably isn't even enough time to make a sustainable transition to alternatives.

Should the early toppers be right, recent history provides clear signposts to what would happen. There have been five price peaks since 1965, all of them followed by economic recessions of varying severity: after the 1973 Yom Kippur War; in 1979-80 after the Iranian revolution and the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war; in 1990, with the first Gulf War; in 1997, with the Asian financial crisis; and in 2000, with the dot.com collapse. The most intense peaks were the first two. In 1973, the oil price more than doubled, reaching around $35 per barrel in modern value. The cause was an embargo by Opec, led by Saudi Arabia, and triggered through overt American support for Israel at the time of the Yom Kippur War. World oil supplies fell only 9 per cent, and the crisis lasted only for a few months, but the effect was simple and memorable for those who lived through it: widespread panic.

The embargo was short-lived, largely because the Saudis feared that if they kept it up they would create a global depression that would cripple Western economies, and hence their own. As it was, the short embargo created an economic recession. I spent much of it doing my homework by candlelight. I didn't see much of my father. He was queuing for petrol.

The second, and worst, oil shock was triggered by the toppling of the Shah of Iran in 1979, and prolonged by the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War in 1980. The first shock did not push prices as high as those at the time of writing, but the second shock pushed them to more than $80 a barrel in today's terms. Again panic reigned, even though the interruption to global supplies was only four per cent.

The crisis ended in 1981 when the price fell for three main reasons. First, the Saudis opened their taps. With their huge reserves, mostly discovered in the 1940s and 1950s, they were able to act as a "swing producer", increasing the flow to bring prices down just as they had decreased it in 1973 to push prices up. Second, new oil came onstream from giant oilfields in more stable regions of the globe, including the North Sea. Third, large amounts of oil were released from government and corporate stockpiles.

These three reasons are high on the list of why we should worry today, because in the face of another shock things could not be resolved in a similar way. First, there are grounds to worry that the Saudis are pumping at or near their peak, no longer able to act as a swing producer. Second, the early toppers fear that there are no more giant oilfields left to find, much less wholly new oil provinces like the North Sea. Third, there is not much oil in storage, relative to current demand. The modern world works on the principle of just-in-time delivery (another factor in the short-term crisis facing Britain this winter). Our economies, overall, are more efficient in their use of oil than in the 1970s - a point much emphasised by late toppers - but the sheer weight of demand is much higher today, and it is still growing without an end in sight, or even strong governmental or corporate leadership demands that there should be one.

The cost of extracting a barrel of oil from the ground doesn't change much. A good rule of thumb might be $5 a barrel today, though obviously there are variations between oilfields in different geographic and political settings. What influences the price of oil most is confidence in supply and demand among oil traders. Oil prices are already at their second highest levels ever, in real terms, at the time of writing. Some pundits now profess that they will soon reach their highest ever levels, in modern value. This situation has arisen for many reasons - but these do not include the fear that the oil-production topping point is near. Early-topper arguments are not on the radar screens of the oil traders and analysts, as things stand. Should that happen, and should the mood of the packs on the trading floors flip to the view that we live no longer in a world of growing supplies of oil, but rather shrinking ones, the price will soar north of $100 a barrel very quickly.

An investor friend of mine has already concluded that this scenario is inevitable. He has switched his investment portfolio to anticipate the moment of "market realisation". This peak panic point, as he calls it, will not be limited to oil traders. The worlds of economics and business routinely assume a future in which oil is in growing and cheap supply.

Economists tend to assume that their "price mechanism" will apply. Higher prices will lead to more attractive conditions for exploration. This will lead to more oil being found, and the inevitable discoveries will bring the price down until the next cycle. Massive corporations write five-year plans based on assumed access to cheap oil and gas. Think, for example, how important such access must be to a chemical company dealing in plastics derived from oil. Or a food-processing company reliant on oil for every stage of food transportation, including of perishable final products, plus almost all the bottling and packaging and many of the preservatives and additives.

But suppose the economists and corporate planners are wrong? Imagine the collapse of confidence when a critical mass of financial analysts, across the full breadth of sectors in a stock exchange, conclude that they are wrong?

If the topping point is indeed imminent, economic depression looms as a real prospect. The Saudis were right to be scared of this possibility in the 1970s. In the Great Depression of the 1930s, triggered in 1929 by the worst-ever stock-market crash, economic hardship was horrific. World trade fell by a breathtaking 62 per cent between 1929 and 1932. The widespread unemployment and social unrest bred Fascism in many countries, in some nations on a scale that would change the course of history. As for the stock markets, it took them 50 years to regain their pre-collapse value in real terms.

There are so many things to worry about in the fall-out from a premature peak in oil production. Here is one that gives me particular nightmares. When I and some of the oil-supply whistleblowers addressed a conference on oil depletion in the formerly oil-rich nation known as Scotland last year, five leaders of the British National Party sat in the audience. They said nothing. They just listened, and learnt, and no doubt reflected that the far right does well in tough times.

The stakes are high with energy policy. Higher than most people dream of when they flip a light switch.

The question of how much oil is left actually breaks down into three sub-questions. First, the existing-reserves question: how much oil is there in discovered oilfields, mapped out, proved and ready to be exploited? Second, the reserves-addition question: how much oil remains to be added via new discoveries, enhanced recovery techniques and so called unconventional oil? Finally, the speed-to-market question: how fast can the oil, once found, be delivered to fuel tanks?

One also needs to consider these questions both in relation not only to conventional oil - that is, liquid that sits underground in a reservoir under pressure - but also unconventional oil (which consists of sands and shales containing solidified oil or solid tar or bitumen deposits; is mostly found in Canada, the United States and Venezuela; and carries considerable environmental extraction costs). The same applies, strictly speaking, to deep water oil (much-hyped by Exxon a few years ago but already widely thought to have peaked) and gas, whose patterns of availability tend to mirror those of oil, and which already faces its own problems of increasing consumption (gas demand is expected to double by 2030, reaching 4.3 billion tonnes of oil equivalent a year, of which over 40 per cent will be used for power generation).

I find it hard to feel optimistic about any of the answers.

I say this as someone who, for most of the 1980s, was a creature of Big Oil. I taught petroleum engineers and geologists at the grandiose-sounding but in fact quite tatty Royal School of Mines, part of Imperial College of Science and Technology in London. My researches on the history of the planet included such issues as the source of oil, and was funded by BP and Shell, among others. I also consulted for oil companies. In those days, I was psychologically insulated in a quest for the respect of my peer group, and highly selective as a consequence with the information I allowed on to my radar screen. The build-up of greenhouse gases (a separate but scarcely less urgent reason for worrying about our dependence on oil) registered nowhere on my list of concerns. I had concerns about oil depletion, but only in the sense that this cloaked my quest to find more with a certain nobility, at least in my own eyes.

But one thing that was clear to me even then was that most of the planet has not a drop of drillable oil. Almost everywhere geologists have looked - which means everywhere by now, at least at some level of exploration - there is no oil because one or more of the key geological requirements is missing. Even when all the boxes can be ticked, you can end up finding no oil. Only one well drilled in every 10 finds oil. Only one in a hundred finds an important oilfield. And the more wells that are drilled in a province or country, the smaller the oilfields generally tend to become.

In my book, Half Gone, I examine in detail the prospects of future viability for each of the major sources described above. But one of the most important arguments against over-confidence in future reserves can be summarised simply.

Think of all that expertise that had been built up since the first oil was drilled in 1859. Think of all the trillions of dollars in oil revenues stacked up in the 20th century, and all the hundreds of billions spent on exploration and the hi-tech toys of exploration in the half-century since the biggest Saudi and Kuwait fields were discovered. Think of the sophistication of the seismic reflection profiling offshore. Consider the all-important oil source rocks, and how relatively limited they are in distribution. As BP's former reserves co-ordinator, Francis Harper, told the Energy Institute in November 2004: "We know how many world class source-rocks there are, and where they are." Wouldn't it be reasonable to think that with modern technology at least one more field of more than 80 billion barrels might have been found somewhere, in all the places the companies have looked these last 50 years?

The third-biggest oilfield in the world is Samotlor, discovered in 1961, with 20 billion barrels. The fourth-biggest is Safaniya, discovered in 1951, at which time it also supposedly contained 20 billion barrels. The fifth-biggest is Lagunillas, discovered in 1926, containing 14 billion barrels. Only around 50 super-giant oilfields have ever been found, and the most recent, in 2000, was the first in 25 years: the problematically acidic 9-12 billion barrel Kashagan field in Kazakhstan.

Let us reduce our scale of scrutiny from the super-giant to the merely giant. Half the world's oil lies in its 100 largest fields, and all of these hold 2 billion barrels or more, and almost all of them were discovered more than a quarter of a century ago. Consider the recent record of discoveries of giant oil- and gas-fields of over 500 million barrels of oil or oil equivalent. Half a billion barrels - the definition of a "giant" field - sounds a lot. But since the world is eating up more than 80 million barrels of oil a day at the moment, it is in fact less than a week's global supply. In 2000 there were 16 discoveries of 500 million barrels of oil equivalent or bigger. In 2001 there were nine. In 2002 there were just two. In 2003 there were none.

On the basis of this kind of evidence, is the industry going to meet the steady increase in demand with new discoveries? Francis Harper, for one, doesn't seem to think so. "Worldwide, the frequency of finding giant oil provinces and super-giant oilfields has been declining for decades and will not be reversed," he told an agog audience at a November 2004 London conference on oil depletion held in the Energy Institute. "We've looked around the world many times. I'd say there is no North Sea out there. There certainly isn't a Saudi Arabia."

In January 2004, the early toppers' case suddenly looked a good deal more worryingly feasible to those who have tended to take the late toppers at face value. Shell's then chairman, Sir Philip Watts, told investors that the company had overestimated its reserves by more than 20 per cent. By March, internal e-mails had been requisitioned by lawyers and these made it clear that the chairman and his head of exploration had known about this problem for some time, and had deliberately lied about it. Both men departed the scene.

Shell's corporate scandal is dramatic enough. But there is a clear risk that it is only the tip of an iceberg. Today, many people in the oil industry appear to be under pressure when it comes to supplies of oil. "There is something strange going on in this industry," Shell's replacement boss, CEO Jeroen van der Veer, told the press in November 2004. He suspects that other companies have the same problems he inherited. The Economist drew the following conclusion: "Industry analysts and investors are quietly saying that Mr van der Veer may be right, and another big reserves scandal may be brewing somewhere."

Against this unpromising start, how much oil do we think the oil companies have found to date? Call BP for a bit of help with the answer and you'll be sent their annual BP Statistical Review of World Energy. In it, you'll see lists of data for national proven oil reserves. Add these up to a global total of oil reserves year by year, and you'll see the total creep reassuringly upwards over time. The chart on page seven shows those figures, from successive annual reviews split into the Middle East and the rest of the world. Global reserves rise from just over 600 billion barrels in 1970 to almost double that today: 1,147 billion barrels at the last count, up to and including 2003.

So what's the problem? The first hint that something might be amiss comes, as is so often the case in life, in the small print. Squinting through a lens if you have anything but perfect eyesight, you will find that the data in BP's own report are not BP's at all. The estimates have been compiled using "a variety of primary official sources, third-party data from the Opec Secretariat", and a few other places completely removed from BP's headquarters in St James's Square with all its accumulated research and knowledge. Think how many libraries of understanding BP must have gathered in over a century of aggressive oil exploration and production all over the world. And yet all they offer us as a guide to our own understanding of how much "proved" oil reserves there are left on the planet is a compilation of other people's data. And much of that itself is secondhand.

After this revelation comes another. The small print continues: "The reserves figures shown do not necessarily meet the United States Securities and Exchange Commission definitions and guidelines for determining proved reserves, nor necessarily represent BP's view of proved reserves by country."

They don't even believe the figures they are publishing! Referee! This is a publication used as an energy bible by researchers the world over. Students quote it as whole truth in undergraduate essays. Journalists quote it as gospel in legions of articles. They don't insert caveats like this. Neither have they seen such caveats in earlier reports.

You might end up with a few questions for the authors of the BP Review at this point. But then, at the end of the document, we read the following: "BP regrets it is unable to deal with enquiries about the data in the Statistical Review of World Energy."

So what is BP's real view of "proved" reserves? Could it go something like this?

Looking closer at the chart and zooming in, you'll see that the figures show that global reserves of oil went up particularly quickly between 1985 and 1990 (a big black oily arrow indicates the point). There must have been some big new oilfields discovered then, right? Wrong. The actual new discoveries in that period were less than 10 billion barrels. But the Middle East nations hiked their "proved" reserves from already discovered oilfields by fully 300 billion barrels collectively in that period, professing one after another that their national calculations had all somehow hitherto been too conservative. Three hundred billion barrels is a lot of oil. It is more than a decade of demand at current levels.

Here's how it happened. In the 1950s, the nations with oil organised themselves into the cartel known as Opec. Opec's main aim was and is to try and control the price of oil. They don't want it too low. That would cut their income. Neither do they want it too high. That might get the addicts thinking of maybe going elsewhere. They want it just right, perhaps around $30 per barrel in today's money. To do this they can't produce too much, because that would flood the market, causing the price to drop. They have to produce exactly the right amount collectively, and that means quotas. After much bickering in the early days, the Opec oil ministers decided in 1982 to allocate a quota to each country in the cartel according to the size of its reserves.

But in 1985, they began to - how shall I put it? - massage the data. Kuwait was the first to give in to temptation. They found that their reserves had gone up overnight from 64 to 90 billion barrels. In 1988, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Iran and Iraq all played the same card. Abu Dhabi had been so needlessly conservative that their reserves went up from 31 to 92 billion barrels. They surely must have employed some incompetent geologists. How could they have overlooked 60 billion barrels? Finally, in 1990, Saudi Arabia decided it too had been conservative, hiking its total from 170 to 258 billion barrels.

You can also see in BP's data that the Middle East's reserves have been almost constant in size since then. What you don't see in the figure - but do see in the data - is that this is apparently the case not just for the sum of the reserves of the Middle Eastern oil producers but also for the figures of reserves for the individual nations.

Consider the enormity of this coincidence. It means that the billions of barrels found in new discoveries each year would have to match exactly the billions of barrels produced each year in each of the Middle Eastern OPEC nations, and do so consistently every year for more than a decade.

BP's Statistical Review of Everyone's World Energy Statistics Except Their Own invites us to believe all this without comment from them or recourse to questions by us. We are left to look at the total figure they cite for "proved" reserves, 1.1 trillion barrels, and think to ourselves ... "Er, really?"

The early toppers have a different view. Being in most cases old hands from the oil industry, they know a thing or two about the games that go on in their industry. They estimate the total of proved reserves to be 780 billion barrels, some 300 billion barrels short of "BP's" figures. This is less than the world has produced since the first oil was struck over a century ago: 920 billion barrels by the end of 2003 (a figure about which there is somewhat less controversy).

Let us take some opinions that ought to be difficult to discount, one from the top of the oil tree in the US and two from the Middle East. The Houston-based energy investment banker Matthew Simmons has been one of George W Bush's energy advisers. He has studied reports by Saudi engineers showing that pressure is dropping in Saudi oilfields. The four biggest fields (Ghawar, Safaniyah, Hanifa, and Khafji) are all more than 50 years old, having produced almost all Saudi oil in the past half-century. These days, Simmons says, they have to be kept flowing largely by injection of water. This is of explosive significance, he argues. "We could be on the verge of seeing a collapse of 30 or 40 per cent of their production in the imminent future. And imminent means some time in the next three to five years - but it could even be tomorrow."

The Saudis dismiss this, claiming that they have slightly more than the 258 billion barrels of "proved" reserves they claimed they had in 1970, with lots more yet to be found, and that they can lift the current extraction rate of around 9.5 million barrels a day to more than 10 with little difficulty. As Nansen Saleri, Manager of Reservoir Management at Saudi Aramco, puts it: "... we have lots of oil, not only for our grandchildren but for the grandchildren of our grandchildren."

Saudi Aramco has the largest reserves of all the oil companies in the world: 20 times the size of ExxonMobil's, if they indeed have 260 billion barrels. They also have the lowest discovery and development costs, some 50 cents per barrel, or 10 per cent of what the private companies pay in Russia or the Gulf of Mexico. And, being state-run, without much need for debt, they are under no pressure to divulge much to the financial markets.

Lately, in the face of concerns about their ability to ramp up production, they have been marginally more open. They say they can maintain spare capacity of 1.5 to 2 million barrels per day and would be content with a fair price of $32-$34 a barrel. Aramco's geologists have insisted they can hike output to 15 million barrels a day (adding more than 5 million to the 9.5 million reported today); 5 million of which come from the giant Ghawar field alone. Contractors report that drilling activity is increasing, as it needs to, given the age of the fields.

But consider what A M Samsam Bakhtiari of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has told the Oil & Gas Journal about the existing-reserves question: "I know from experience how 'reserves' are estimated in major Middle Eastern and Opec countries, and the methods used are usually far from scientific, as the basic knowledge for such a complex exercise is not to hand." Bakhtiari is withering about Saudi Arabia's reserves hike of 90 billion barrels in 1990. But he is not too keen on his own national figures either. The BP Statistical Review cited 92 billion barrels of "proved" oil reserves at the end of 1993, but Bakhtiari preferred the estimate of a retired NIOC expert, Dr Ali Muhammed Saidi, who could add the proved reserves up to only 37 billion barrels.

Dr Mamdouh Salameh, a consultant on oil to the World Bank, agrees there is a 300-billion-barrel exaggeration in Opec's reserves. More recently, a former director of Aramco has said that Saudi Arabia's proved developed reserves stand at 130 billion barrels. An anonymous informer talking to Dr Colin Campbell of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil goes further. His conclusion is that Saudi Arabia would have gone over its peak of production in the last quarter of 2004. This person speaks with front-line inside knowledge. "Saudi has at various times put 19 fields into production," he says. "Of these, eight are 'stars', being highly productive fields that produce around 90 per cent of the country's production. All the others are 'dogs' that have never worked well and probably never will. Recovery rates of up to 50 per cent may be appropriate for the 'stars'. For the 'dogs', 10, 15 or 20 per cent would be more appropriate. Make this adjustment and Saudi has depleted more than 50 per cent of its realistically recoverable reserves."

In February 2005, Matthew Simmons speculated that the Saudis may have damaged their giant oilfields by over-producing them in the past: a geological phenomenon known as "rate sensitivity". In oilfields where the oil is pumped too hard, the structure of the oil reservoir can be impaired. In bad cases, most of a field's oil can be left stranded below ground, essentially unextractable. "If Saudi Arabia has damaged its fields, accidentally or not," Simmons said, "then we may already have passed peak oil."

Is there any chance that the early topping point of oil production is somehow wrong, all just a bad dream? I am sorry to say that I think not. It is important to realise that the early toppers are not advocates or agitators by choice. They tend to have high residual affection for the industry they have spent their lives in. Colin Campbell, for example, the founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO), worked for 40 years in the oil industry before retiring to western Ireland. Chris Skrebowski, the editor of Petroleum Review, a leading trade journal of the oil industry, spent nearly a decade arguing against Campbell before conceding that he was right. "In 1995 it all seemed pretty fantastic," says Skrebowski. "I tried hard to prove him wrong. I have failed for nine years. I am now with him. In fact, I think he's a bit of an optimist." Other early-toppers include Richard Hardman, former chief executive of Amerada Hess; Roger Bentley, formerly of Imperial Oil in Canada; and Roger Booth, who spent his professional life at Shell, and who now believes that, when the peak does hit: "A crash of 1929 proportions is not improbable."

Chris Skrebowski believes that, from as early as 2007, the volumes of new oil production are likely to fall short of the combined need to replace lost capacity from depleting older fields and to satisfy continued growth in demand. In fact, given the time frames with which offshore oilfields are developed and depleted, it seems certain that there will be nowhere near enough oil to meet the combined forces of depletion and demand between 2008 and 2012. If there were, it would be from projects we would know about today (oil companies liking as they do to boast to their shareholders about every sizeable discovery). Given the inevitable time-lag from discovery to production, there is now no way to plug that gap.

There is worse: people in the oil industry must know this. They should be alerting governments and consumers to the inevitability of an energy crunch, and they aren't.

In July 2004, Campbell and Skrebowski tried to carry their warning jointly to the UK parliament. In the Thatcher Room they delivered a seminar to a pitifully thin audience, including only three MPs and a handful of researchers. I sat there listening to it with as surreal a feeling as I have ever experienced in all my years working on energy. Over the course of a decade at and around the climate negotiations, I have rarely been able to claim that the global warming problem is not reaching the ears it needs to. The same can manifestly not be said about the oil-depletion problem. This is the starting point for any analysis of how serious the problem is. How can evidence so compelling go almost unheard in one of the world's centres of government, even with a suspiciously high oil price at the time and so much obvious oil-related trouble brewing in the Middle East?

Having built their cases, the two spelt out the consequences of the early topping point. "The perception of looming decline may be worse than the decline itself," Campbell said. "There will be panic. The market overreacts to even small imbalances. Prices are set to soar in the absence of spare capacity until demand is cut by recessions. We will enter a volatile epoch of price shocks and recessions in increasingly vicious circles. A stock-market crash is inevitable."

"If the economic recovery continues," Skrebowski added, "supply will get very tight from 2008 or 2009. Prices will soar. There is very little time and lots of heads are in the sand."

In 1956, a Shell geologist called M King Hubbert famously calculated that oil production in the "lower 48" states of America would peak in 1971. Almost nobody believed him. Shell censored the written version of Hubbert's address to the American Petroleum Institute, changing the wording of his conclusion to read that "the culmination should occur within the next few decades". The US Geological Survey, in particular, did everything it could to hike the estimates of ultimately recoverable American oil to a level that would make the problem go away. The US had 590 billion barrels of recoverable oil, the survey said, in 1961, meaning that the industry had 30 years of growth to look forward to.

The years went by and the "lower 48" did indeed hit their topping point. It came a year ahead of estimate, in 1970, at 3.5 billion barrels. Since then, production has sunk down the second half of the curve at a steady rate. Many billions of dollars have been spent on ever more sophisticated exploration, including in areas where nobody imagined oil would be found at the peak of discovery in the 1930s, such as the deep water in the Gulf of Mexico. A frenzy of new domestic exploration began after the first Arab embargo in 1973 and the realisation that domestic production could be ramped up no more. Every enhanced production technique invented has been tried and tested in American oilfields. But it has all made no difference to the remarkable symmetry of the up-and-down curve that expressed Hubbert's thinking. The US is just short of halfway down the second half of the curve now. In other words, it has used up some three-quarters of its original endowment of recoverable oil. Given its almost total lack of attention to the efficiency with which oil is burned, the US becomes more dependent on foreign oil imports by the day.

The US Secretary of the Interior at the time, Stewart Udall, later apologised for having helped lull Americans into a "dangerous overconfidence" by accepting the advice of the US Geological Survey so unquestioningly. A long-serving US Geological Survey director who had led the campaign against Hubbert, V E McKelvey, was forced to resign in 1977.

We need to remember this sequence of events, and the windows it gives us into individual and collective behaviour, when we come to consider the global oil topping point.

The American pattern of historical oil discovery and production is only a loose guide to what is going on in the rest of the world. In the US, oil, once found, was pumped without much substantive effort at constraint. The curves for discovery and production are going to look different where conservative nationalised companies are doing the looking, or where - as in the case of Saudi Arabia - there has been so much oil that the taps can be turned up and down for long periods so as to moderate supply and thus influence price. Countries that have onshore and offshore oil can have two curves, because the technology for offshore oil exploitation was developed much later than that for onshore. Curves will also be disrupted by wars, big political events, even accidents. None the less, country after country follows a crude bell curve - like Hubbert's curve - in both discovery and production. Today, more than 60 out of the 65 countries possessing oil have passed their discovery topping points and 49 of them have passed their production topping points. The US has a particularly long gap between the two: 40 years (1930 to 1970). The UK has one of the shortest: 25 years (1974 to 1999). This is because the first discoveries were made much later in the UK, when technology for both exploration and production were more advanced. Growing supplies of British oil didn't last long, though. Britain is now a net oil importer just like the US.

Nor is there any comfort to be derived from gas. Gasfields deplete very differently from oilfields, gas being much more mobile than oil. It is normal for a gasfield to yield 70-80 per cent of its gas over its production lifetime, whereas an oilfield will typically yield only 35-40 per cent of its oil. Drillers normally set gas production far below the natural production capacity so as to give a long production plateau. But the danger in this is that the end of the production plateau comes abruptly, and without market signals.

Colin Campbell, a prominent early topper, estimates that the original global endowment of conventional gas was around 10,000 trillion cubic feet (equivalent to 1.8 trillion barrels of oil), of which about a quarter has been produced to date. He expects a global plateau in production of around 130 trillion cubic feet per year during the period 2015 to 2040, with production falling over a cliff beyond that. Jean Laherrère forecasts 12,000 trillion cubic feet for all gas including unconventional sources (2 trillion barrels of oil equivalent). He puts the peak of gas depletion in 2030, at 130 trillion cubic feet per year. But the exact figures need not concern us. What matters is that gas has all the same problems of dependence on overseas supplies as oil, and more besides.

Meanwhile, the five essential facts about global oil discovery can be summarised as follows.

1. The biggest oilfields in the world were discovered more than half a century ago, either side of the Second World War.

The big discoveries on the Arabian Peninsula opened with the discovery of the Greater Burgan field in Kuwait in 1938. At that time, it supposedly held 87 billion barrels. The slightly bigger Saudi Arabian Ghawar field, supposedly holding 87.5 billion barrels before extraction started, followed in 1948. These fields, the two biggest in the world, are so big that they dominate the global figures in their years of discovery.

2. The peak of oil discovery was as long ago as 1965.

How many people appreciate this? I invite you to do a bit of personal market research. Line up ten of your better-educated friends. Preface your question to them with a few reminders about how many millions of dollars the oil companies make in daily profit, tell them, if you can, an anecdote or two about the technical wizardry they use, and ask them to imagine how many billions of dollars they must have spent on exploration over the years - both of the companies' own money and of the massive tax-deduction subsidies available to them. Then ask: in what year would you guess the most oil was ever discovered?

3. There were a few more big discovery years in the 1970s, but there have been none since then.

The biggest irregularity on the downside of the global discovery curve involved the discovery of oil in Alaska's giant Prudhoe Bay field, and the North Sea, in the late 1970s. I was a geology student then. I remember the thrill as the giant fields were discovered one after the other. They all had such serious-sounding names. Forties, Brent, Piper. I look back on those days now and I see something of the primeval attractions of the hunt in it. As a junior trainee hunter, I used to listen to the tales of the senior hunters, and how they had found their quarry, quite atremble with admiration. However, what I and the other hunters didn't know was that the days of giant discoveries were more or less over.

4. The last year in which we discovered more oil than we consumed was a quarter of a century ago.

Since then, despite all those generations of eager brainwashed geology students, we have been burning progressively more, and finding progressively less. This is another one to try out on the 10 educated friends.

5. Since then there has been an overall decline.

A small rise in discoveries in the 1990s that must have looked promising at the time has dropped in the opening years of the new century. Does this sound like a world without a looming oil depletion problem, as portrayed by BP's CEO Lord Browne - who in March last year insisted "There is no physical shortage. The resources are there"? Are people are being lulled into a sense of false security about oil supply based on his speeches, and publications like the BP Statistical Review of World Energy? Or are we simply failing to pay sufficient attention to alarm signals such as last month's little-noticed announcement by the US government's Energy Information Administration, in which forecasts of Opec production between now and 2025 were slashed by 11 million barrels a day?

Let us suppose for a moment that the late toppers are correct. The topping point, as defined by reserves available in principle, is off in the 2020s or 2030s, and we can look forward to growing supplies of relatively cheap oil for a decade or more. There is another aspect of the problem: whether or not the production capacity is sufficient.

Oil-industry analyst Michael Smith, who took his PhD in geology just after me - sitting in the same chair as I did in the research lab - is an expert in this subject. He has spent most of his vocational life as an oil-industry geologist working around the world, particularly in the Middle East. "Reserves are largely irrelevant to the peak," he says. "Production capacity is the important thing - how quickly you can get it out. It is an engineering problem, not a geological problem."

Of the 11 countries in the Middle East, only five are significant oil producers: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, known sometimes as the Middle East Five. They produce around 20 million barrels a day today, a quarter of the global total. If global demand rises at the average rate of the past 30 years, 1.5 per cent per year, these five countries will have to meet around two-thirds of the demand, Smith calculates.

Let us assume they can do what they say they can, no more, no less. Where does that leave us? Saudi Arabia says it can lift production from 9.5 million barrels per day today to 12 million by 2016 and 15 million beyond that. This despite 50 per cent of the oil coming from the Ghawar field, where a water cut is already reported. Smith sums all the reported capacities in the Middle East Five and finds that if the rate of demand growth continues at 1.5 per cent they will fail to meet global demand by as soon as 2011. If it rises to 2.5 per cent the demand gap appears in 2008. If it is 3.5 per cent - the rates in China and the US of late - the gap is already here.

"What's more," Smith adds, referring back wryly to the starting assumption, "I do not truly believe the claims of the Middle East Five. In fact, although I don't believe Saudi and Iranian claims in particular, I think their politicians do believe them. I don't think there is a conspiracy, more a division of labour such that no one knows the whole story, each part of which has wide error bars. The summed result is inevitably the most positive conclusion which goes to the politicians. I've seen this in all the oil companies I have worked for." At the November 2004 conference on oil depletion at the Energy Institute, Michael Smith showed a slide at the end of his presentation that gave a pictorial summary of his views. It showed a group of firemen posing for the camera outside a burning house.

The investment bank Goldman Sachs drew attention to the problem of access to oil on a global scale in a much-quoted 2004 report. "The industry is not running out of oil - reserves are large and continue to grow," it asserts - though failing to offer evidence of this analysis. "What the industry is running out of is the ability to access this oil." Two decades of chronic underinvestment in the 1980s and 1990s are responsible. During this time the industry was feasting on reserves discovered in the 1960s and earlier with infrastructure capitalised in the 1970s, after the first oil shock. Global oil demand is now closing fast on tanker capacity and refining capacity. The peak year for tanker capacity was way back in 1981. So, too, was the peak for refinery capacity. Global rig counts also peaked that year.

So, how much new investment is needed to fix the shortfall? Over the next 10 years, assuming oil demand increases as commonly projected, fully $2.4trillion will need to be spent, according to Goldman Sachs. This is nearly triple the level of capital investment by the oil industry in the 1990s. And if it isn't spent? "If the core infrastructure does not improve, energy crises are likely to become progressively more frequent, more severe and more disruptive of economic activity," the investment bank concludes.

Stated simply, it seems that even if an early topping point doesn't hit us, the results of two decades of negligence in investment in infrastructure and exploration will. You need to read between the lines of the Goldman Sachs report to smell the level of anguish about this. Even where substantial money has been invested, a further list of serious unresolved problems can often be quickly summoned up. Oil in the Caspian is central to every scenario that envisages oil supply meeting demand off into the 2020s. The oil industry has long regarded the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey as essential if it is to get Caspian oil out to market without the need to go through Chechnya and Russia. By the time this pipeline begins to shift oil as planned in 2005, it will have cost $4bn, almost three-quarters of that in the form of bank loans. The problems for this pipeline begin with reports of its construction standard. Four whistleblowers recently told a UK national newspaper that the pipeline was failing all international construction standards, including installation of inadequately welded pipe before it had even been inspected. It passes through a major earthquake zone. Turkey has had 17 major shocks in the past 80 years, and the pipeline is supposed to last for 40 years.

At the time the pipeline was conceived, industry reports talked of several hundreds of billions of barrels in the Caspian region. Now estimates of around 50 billion barrels, about the same as the North Sea, are more common. After the discovery of the last of the super-giants, the Kashagan field in 1990, there was a burst of predictable interest in Kazakhstan. But now, in terrain where individual wells cost $1bn to drill, in conditions where only foreign companies have the know-how and technology to drill, the Kazakh government has introduced new legislation that makes investment unattractive. As an ExxonMobil executive told Petroleum Review, "...the jury is still out on whether all these obstacles will delay Kazakhstan's production".

This example of a real-world current problem for the oil industry raises the subject of the interplay between the early topping point and oil geopolitics. As the world's No 1 consumer, the United States will have much to say about how the crisis - whether of early depletion or inadequate infrastructure and investment, or both - plays out. The geopolitics of American oil dependency is well summarised by Michael Klare in his recent Blood and Oil. He sees four key trends in US energy behaviour: more imports, increasingly unstable and unfriendly suppliers, escalating risk of anti-American violence and rising competition for diminishing supplies. Imports we have talked about above. Increasingly unfriendly suppliers and escalating anti-American violence are linked.

The point here is that the US can have relationships with governments in unstable countries if it chooses the path of oil dependency, but not easily with their populations. Terrorism can be expected to grow with every American act interpretable as imperialistic in the Middle East and Central Asia. The Iraq-to-Turkey pipeline illustrates the problem perfectly. It suffered near daily attacks in 2003.

As for competition over diminishing supplies, therein lies the stuff of nightmares. The Pentagon established a Central Command in 1983, one of five unified commands around the world, with the clear task of protecting the global flow of petroleum. "Slowly but surely," Michael Klare concludes, "the US military is being converted into a global oil-protection service."

At $30 a barrel, the total bill for imported oil - now more than half the US daily consumption and rising fast - should reach $3.5 trillion over the next 25 years, and this does not include the Pentagon's overhead. Beyond the Middle East Five, the Bush strategy of supplier diversification will look to eight main sources, which Klare calls the Alternative Eight: Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and Angola. These countries and their oil operations are characterised by one or more of the following attributes: corruption, organised crime, civil war, political turmoil short of civil war, and ruthless dictators. The US military is being forced into deeper relationships with such regimes, including joint military exercises.

The bottom line for Klare is this. "Any eruption of ethnic or political violence in these areas could do more than entrap our forces there. It could lead to a deadly confrontation between the world's military powers." Because obviously, in a world as enduringly addicted to oil as ours is, others are going to be looking for their own supplies. Russia and China will be among them. As one global-security analyst recently put it: "I am afraid that over the years we will see China become more involved in Middle East politics. And they will want to have access to oil by cutting deals with corrupt dictatorships in the region, and perhaps providing components of weapons of mass destruction, ballistic missiles and other things they have been involved with, and that could definitely put them on a collision course with the United States." Oil dependency could yet prove to be the route to a Third World War. The stress associated with an unforeseen early topping point surely makes that horrific prospect more, not less, likely.

Humans are good at staying loyal to their theocracies, and a hundred years of fossil fuel addiction has created impressive theocracies. However, as Einstein said, you can't solve the world's problems with the same thinking that created them. We have to think outside the box. That means giving renewable energy, alternative fuels, energy efficiency and storage technologies the space they need to grow explosively.

The good news is that it will be possible to replace oil, gas and coal completely with a plentiful supply of renewable energy, and faster than most people think. Shell employs roomfuls of clever people just to think about the future. They are called scenario planners. In their 2001 book of scenarios, Shell's planners mention that renewable energy holds the potential to power a future world populated with 10 billion people, and do so with ease. The needs of the 10 billion can be met even in the unlikely and undesirable event that all of them use energy at levels well above the average per-capita consumption today in the EU. The Shell futurists mention this almost in passing, in the caption of a diagram showing the continent-by-continent potential for individual renewable-energy technologies to contribute to such a power-rich future. Working for an oil and gas giant as they do, it is perhaps no surprise that they fail to explore a scenario wherein something resembling this renewable-power-rich future comes to pass. Others are not so constrained.

When I began my time in Greenpeace, in 1989, the protestations my colleagues and I made that renewable energy could displace fossil fuels and run the world were ridiculed by energy experts and officialdom as naïve wishful thinking. Now, more than a decade later, such views can be found in the heart of government, at least in Europe. The Blair Government published a report in 2003 that concluded: "It would be technologically and economically feasible to move to a low carbon-emissions path, and achieve a virtually zero-carbon-energy system in the long term, if we used energy more efficiently and developed and used low-carbon technologies."

Among the low-carbon technologies on offer, the government report placed heavy emphasis on renewable energy and hydrogen, rather than nuclear power. Of solar energy, the report concludes: "[It] alone could meet world energy demand by using less than 1 per cent of land currently used for agriculture." Tony Blair used these same words in the speech he gave launching the UK Energy White Paper. I sat there watching him do it, 10 feet away in the front row. I was momentarily tempted to leap to my feet and shout: "So why don't you invest in it like the Germans and Japanese, then?" But he hasn't. Not then. Not now.

Microcosms of what could be done can be found already on the local government scene. Take the small town of Woking. Its borough council has cut carbon-dioxide emissions by fully 77 per cent - yes, more than three quarters - since 1990 using a hybrid-energy system involving small private electricity grids, combined heat and power (CHP), solar photovoltaics (PV), and energy efficiency. Woking has turned its town centre, its housing estates, and its old people's homes into inspirational islands of energy self-sufficiency. The UK grid could go down for ever, and these folks would have their own heating and electricity year-round. The technologies work in perfect harmony. The CHP units generate heating when needed in winter, and lots of electricity along with it when the PV is not working at its best. The PV generates plenty of electricity in the summer, when the heating isn't needed, meaning the CHP can't generate much electricity. Because the use of private wires is so much cheaper than using the national grid, the whole package costs fractionally less than the equivalent heating and electricity supply would cost from the big energy suppliers.

Compare such out-of-the-box ingenuity with what nuclear has to offer. Even if there were no environmental problems associated with it, and we could afford the billions needed in perpetuity from the public purse to make the voodoo economics stack up, a new fleet of stations couldn't come on-stream in the UK much before 2020. And if we and the Americans can't solve the energy crisis without resorting to nuclear, the whole world will follow our example. Bad as the terrorist threat is now, it would be compounded many times as a result. We would live with much increased risk of losing whole cities to suitcase bombers.

There is a part of me that looks at the prospect of a cold snap in Britain this winter, and of a consequent fuel-supply crisis, and thinks "Bring it on." Maybe this is what we need to stop our sleepwalk towards catastrophe, and to make us rethink our energy policy. Perhaps the government can be judo-thrown into the Wokingisation of Britain now, and dissuaded from the nuclearisation of Britain 15 years from now.

But then I think of all the grans and granddads that would die in a one-in-ten winter, and I just feel sad. Sad, and mad with our hot-air Government.

Adapted from "Half Gone: Oil, Gas, Hot Air and the Global Energy Crisis", by Jeremy Leggett (Portobello Books, £12.99). To order a copy for the special price of £11.99 (inc P&P), call Independent Books Direct on 08700 798 8897

What is at stake to allow Americans to be abandoned to murder, if not actually murdered by the thousands by their own government, just as the Naval personnel were allowed to be attacked by Japan in the original Pearl Harbor for purposes suited to the American government? The American government has never been honest about their complicity in the original Pearl Harbor, even sixty-plus years after the fact.

So why the current state of affairs? The best available information at present relates to civilization-shattering changes that lie in our immediate future. These involve the end of the era of cheap oil and the related phenomenon of global climate change. The end of the oil era will without a doubt coincide with the end of American predominance over the world, because American wealth and military power are directly tied to oil-derived wealth and control of strategic oil in an era that is on the verge of ending. Global climate change was predicted just this week by a major international figure in ecology to portend the end of human civilization and quite likely the end of the human species, and the situation was stated by Dr. James Lovelock to be irreversible.

But still, what is the strategy of the U.S. Government to deal with these mega-crises? What do they know that they aren't telling us? What is the President and what is John Kerry and what is Ted Kennedy planning to do to save himself (themselves) at the expense of the American public at large? Was Hurricane Katrina a portent of the era of global climate change, when the poor are left to die first, and then everyone else left to fend for themselves?

What is the plan? What is the democratic way of handling a known mega-crisis? Shouldn't the public have a say in government strategy, or will the general public be victimized by their rulers and thus subject to the machinations of a police state, spying on their communications, abandonment in emergency settings, etc.?

There is something our government knows; there is something our government is planning; there is something about to happen that they are preparing for and not telling us about. It has little to do with foreign terrorism. Someone is preparing to survive at the expense of someone else.

Capitalism is the paradigm that drives the economic and the philosophical engines of America. So ingrained in the collective psyche of society is capitalism that it is rarely questioned, much less challenged on the grounds of social justice. Capitalism is the antithesis of democracy. Therefore it is the enemy of social justice. This economic system concentrates wealth at the top of the economic ladder, in the hands of the rich and powerful. Those who occupy all but the uppermost rungs are left to scramble for the crumbs that fall from the top. Thus the form of government we have much more closely resembles a plutocracy than it does a democracy.

Trickle down economics have never served the interest of working class people, especially the poor. Concentrated wealth and power cannot serve the needs of social justice. Only when wealth and power are distributed equitably will this occur. All power must rest in the hands of ordinary working people. It is they who must decide their fate, not wealthy plutocrats and corporatists, who do not know the meaning of sacrifice or justice.

Because enormous power and wealth is concentrated in the hands of a privileged few, we find ourselves in our present precarious position near the cliff’s edge. We are losing our tenuous hold and a vortex of chaos and uncertainty swirls menacingly below. Rather than using our national wealth for the public good, those in power have usurped our tax dollars to further increase their enormous wealth and to tighten their grip on power. The rich always prey upon the middle class and the poor. They send us to suffer and to expire at the altar of corporate greed; to die in wars in distant lands. They condemn us to work at menial jobs that generate enormous wealth for the corporate CEOs, while paying the workers slave wages, often without health benefits.

Apart from its fabulous wealth, America is distinguished from the rest of the world by its bristling military muscle, which is the result of the concentration of power and wealth. Militarism does not further the aims of democracy and freedom, as we are told. Its real purpose is to protect the financial interests of wealthy investors; to open world markets to the exploitation of cheap labor—and to make the world safe for relentless corporate abuse and plunder. That is the real purpose of America’s war machine. Our young people need to know this before entering the military. They must decide whether or not these are causes they wish to die for.

As evidence for this view, fifty-two cents out of every dollar in the federal treasury ultimately finds its way into the bottomless coffers of the Pentagon. Our total military expenditure far exceeds the entire gross national product of many nations. It exceeds by far the expenditures of our nearest competitors combined.

Were so many of our resources not subverted to overt militarism, we would have universal health care. We would have the best schools and universities in the world. There would be no hungry children; no homeless or disenfranchised people sleeping on sidewalks on bitter winter nights. Our veterans hospitals would not be filled with broken men and women who thought they were serving their country when, in reality, they were serving empire. The needs of the elderly would be provided. Growing old would not be the hardship that it is now. There would be no poor, and no class divisions to separate us. Everyone who wanted a higher education would be able to get it because of our national bounty. There would be more than enough to go around if the wealth were equitably distributed. Our young people would not be placed in harm’s way, occupying sovereign nations while helping corporations to steal their wealth. Every working person would earn a living wage in a safe and clean work place. The family unit would be intact. The work week would be significantly shorter than forty hours.

The people would not be misled by a corporate media subservient to money and power. Poor minorities would not be the sacrificial lambs for the war machine that threatens our planet’s life support systems, because there would be no poor minorities, and there would be no war. We would not be led astray by the lies of pasty faced war pimps, who by virtue of their positions of wealth and privilege will never encounter the cost of war—who do not know the meaning of personal sacrifice. Their path has been paved with the blood and sweat of those they tread upon without a thought. They are men and women with social pedigrees who do not know the meaning of struggle, whose bellies have never known the pangs of want and hunger.

To our utter shame, we are the only industrialized nation in the hemisphere that does not provide universal health care to its citizens. But we grant enormous welfare to obscenely wealthy corporations on a scale that boggles the mind. We provide tax cuts to the wealthy by stealing from the middle class and the poor. We are a nation that encourages the rich to prey upon the poor with impunity.

One of our greatest citizens, Dr. Martin Luther King, stated: “Silence is betrayal.” Those in power expect the rest of us to remain silent and servile. They expect us live on dirt while they dine on steaks and lobster and consume goblets of wine. Their tenuous hold on power, endowed by the privileges of class they enjoy, depends upon our continued self betrayal through silence, indifference and apathy. They expect the multitudes to continue to sacrifice so they can have more and lord extraordinary power over us. They require us to continue to die in wars and to tolerate intolerable inequity. Why should we?

Enough, I say! Let us stand upright like men and fight for all that is sacred and decent about America. We will never have a just society by being silent and remaining ignorant. We have no rational choice but to open our eyes and to see things as they really are. We have a moral obligation not only to speak out against injustice; we have an obligation to act against it. That is our duty as citizens; it is our duty as servants of justice and peace.

Revolutionary change is never easy. Its currency is blood, sweat and tears. Revolution demands personal sacrifice and courage. Direct action and civil disobedience is the only thing that has ever brought justice to the oppressed in this or any land. The forty four work week and the weekend are the result of such struggle. American child labor ended because of massive direct action and civil disobedience. The Civil Rights Act is the result of millions of people committed to social justice taking to the streets day after day and demanding justice. The Viet Nam War was brought to an end only when citizens took to the streets in mass to end the killing. It is not enough to simply say no with our conscience and with our spirit. We must also say no with our bodies. It has always been so.

Justice is always born of struggle. Nothing less can bring about the kind of change America needs. There are no easy solutions. A price must be paid. We all know what happens to revolutionaries in America. Coretta Scott King and her children certainly know. Dr. King showed us the way out of the morass we helped to create through apathy and indifference. A man like Dr. King only comes along once in lifetimes. Do enough of us have the courage and strength of character to follow his example?

Charles Sullivan is a furniture maker, photographer, and free lance writer living in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. He welcomes your comments at earthdog@highstream.net.

Subsequently, the US tried to mitigate the severity of the crime, by claiming that they were targeting al-Qaeda members. Even if the alleged al-Qaeda members were present, that does not automatically give the US right to bomb houses inside a foreign territory, with total disregard for the innocent civilians. Unless, the US is above the law or inflicting collateral damages with impunity is an automatic entitlement for the leader of the free world! The air strike was a clear violation of the sovereignty of Pakistan, according to international law it was an act of war. So where is the UN now? Where is the Morgan Freeman look-alike UN-Muppet, Kofi Annan?

The US decision to bomb the village must have been based on credible ‘intelligence’. In that case, why not surround the area with armed forces, and then give the innocent civilians in the village a safe passage to vacate, and demand the surrender of the alleged al-Qaeda members? For sure the US has more than adequate resources and firepower to take on a small band of men lightly armed. If this route was pursued, the al-Qaeda members would have been taken prisoners or they would have died resisting the US firepower. Taken alive they might have provided valuable information; if they died, that could be argued to have prevented future attacks on the US. Either result would have yielded benefit for the US.

>However, instead of attempting to seize the alleged al-Qaeda members, the US decided to kill them by bombing the place. Why did the US opt for the least beneficial route in terms of the “war on terror”? The decision can be explained by the following reasons:



Pervez Musharraf responded by making a nation-wide television address. He defended his collaboration with US foreign policy on the grounds that it was preventing open US aggression against Pakistan. This is the same argument he used at the very beginning, when Afghanistan was attacked but it still has not stopped the Pakistanis and other innocent Muslims being killed by the US firepower.

Even with open assistance from Musharraf, the US continues to arm India favourably, and has allowed the pro-Israeli elements to inspect all the nuclear assets of Pakistan. Such information inexorably will end up with the Israeli intelligence (Mossad), and eventually with the Indian intelligence. Musharraf has excelled in showing subservience to the US, he promised the US that the nuclear weapons are guarded. Such is the absurdity of the situation, instead of using the nuclear weapons to protect the country; the country is protecting the nuclear weapons. Nuclear deterrence has become a nuclear burden for Pakistan!

Therefore, Pakistan’s security has worsened in relative terms, which is serious, as it makes her more vulnerable to an attack. This erosion of security is natural and expected, when a country allows a foreign power to use it as a base. What guarantees have the US provided that it will not attack Pakistan in the future directly or through a proxy like India? The same guarantee their British cousins provided to the rebellious Arabs, who fought against the Ottomans. Instead of independence, the Arabs were made more dependent, by dividing them into weak despotic states, mini-states, some of the oil-fields turned into pathetic micro-states.

The colonial powers consumed the cheap oil, the Arab sheiks and their tribes got fatter than the camels and the West in turn ‘rewarded’ the Arabs collectively with the grand prize of Israel for their obedience (treachery)! Similar division of Iraq is taking place according to the policy of divide and conquer, just look at those people who are rushing to aid the US in this matter. So prepare for the future US-led liberation of Sindh, Balochistan, Punjab, and Kashmir. Then divide these territories further along the sectarian lines of Sunni and Shi’ites.

Mass anti-US demonstrations followed the US bombings, but why exclusively blame the US, when it was Musharraf, who opened up the country for the US forces to use it as a military base. When a paid assassin kills, it is not the assassin or the weapon that should be blamed but the one who paid the assassin - the primary cause. The Americans are like the assassin with a deadly weapon, but it was Musharraf who allowed these assassins to use the country for target practice; and we all knew who the US was going to use for their target practice. Hence, the ultimate blame lies on Parvez Musharraf, the primary cause.

The families should demand compensation for the murder of their loved ones, according to the laws of Pakistan, where the crime was committed. In addition, the masses should call for the removal of US bases from the region to prevent future strikes and to protect the sovereignty of Pakistan. Finally, demand impeachment of Musharraf for treason, and for complicity in the murder of the Muslims in Pakistan and Afghanistan by the US forces. The masses ought to raise questions about the weakening of the security of Pakistan, which is dependent on strength and independence of the nation and its leadership. Certainly, Musharraf as a leader has shown neither strength nor independence. The age-old colonial system inherited and run by the feudal lords continues to bleed the country. It is time to reflect on the fundamental questions: why Pakistan was created, where it is today and where is Pakistan heading towards.

Hundreds of police, carrying teargas launchers and submachine guns, looked on. Protesters beat an effigy of Mr Bush with sticks, then set it alight.

Speakers railed against last Friday's attack in the border village of Damdola that killed 13 civilians and possibly several top al-Qaida operatives, among them an explosives and chemical weapons expert and a relative of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the terror network's second-in-command.

The rallies, the latest in a series of protests, were organised by a six-party alliance, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, which opposes Pakistan's support of the US-led war on terror.

At Wana, in the South Waziristan tribal region - scene of bloody counter-terrorism operations by Pakistan's military - about 1,000 people marched through the town, where a local cleric branded America "a strong enemy of Muslims".

Shahid Shamsi, a coalition spokesman, said protesters also demanded the withdrawal from Pakistan of US troops assisting in earthquake relief efforts in northern Pakistan. He accused the American forces of spying. Thousands of lawyers protested in various cities to denounce the airstrike and Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, said Abdur Rahman Ansari, deputy chairman of the Pakistan Bar Council. About 100 lawyers protested in front of the supreme court in the capital, Islamabad, chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Musharraf."

"I must analyze the provocations, the outlandish things (US authorities) are doing," President Fidel Castro pledged on state television.

The electronic screen perched on the fifth floor level of the six-storey US Interests Section in Havana broadcasts in crimson letters more than a meter (three feet) high.

Last Monday and Tuesday it began broadcasting the UN Declaration of Human Rights, thoughts of US civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr and news, as stunned passersby watched on Havana's storied seafront.

The USIS said in a statement to AFP Monday that "it is here to stay. We are trying to provide the Cuban people uncensored information. The intention is to break the news embargo Cubans are subjected to."

The screen, however, was not turned on on Wednesday and Thursday.

Castro, 79, also charged the United States was "planning to break the migratory accords" reached with the US government of Bill Clinton in 1994. He did not elaborate.

But the accords -- under which Cubans trying to emigrate to the United States and who are picked up at sea by US authorities are repatriated to Cuba -- are a cornerstone of the neighbors' tense bilateral ties.

The new US lighting fixture is the latest chapter in US efforts to draw Cuban public attention to what the United States sees as human rights concerns in Cuba. The former top US diplomat in Cuba, James Cason, started the campaign in 2004, which has been expanded by his successor Michael Parmly, who took over at the USIS in September.

The United States and Cuba do not have full diplomatic relations, but maintain interest sections in the other's capital. Washington has had a full economic embargo on Havana since 1961.

Castro on December 23 called US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "mad" after having condemned the new head of the US diplomatic mission in Havana as a "little gangster".

Castro's tirade against the United States followed Rice's meeting last month with a US government commission intended to prepare for a democratic transition in Cuba after Castro.

"I am going to tell you what I think about this famous commission: they are a group of shit-eaters who do not deserve the world's respect," Castro told the Cuban parliament in blunter-than-usual language.

"In this context, it does not matter if it was the mad woman who talks of transition -- it is a circus, they are completely depraved, they should be pitied," he added.

The attack followed Castro's comments a day earlier when he called Parmly a "little gangster" for criticizing the regime at a speech marking International Human Rights Day this month.

"The Cuban regime's hurling of angry and often violent groups against pro-democratic dissidents is particularly disgusting," Parmly said, adding that such actions recalled the Nazis.

The Rebellion of the Hanged is one of B Traven's novels of the Mexican jungle, written in 1936. In these stories the Indians turn slowly from rebellion to revolution, and something of that spirit infuses the new mood in Latin America. The heirs to pre-Columbian civilisations have conquered their distrust of white "democracy" and are again moving to the front of the historical stage. They do so as one of Kondratiev's long economic waves has been sweeping through the continent like a tsunami. The terrible impact of neoliberal economics is reminiscent of the slump of the 30s that brought revolution to many countries of Latin America.

Morales's victory is not just a symptom of economic breakdown and age-old repression. It also fulfils a prophecy made by Fidel Castro, who claimed the Andes would become the Americas' Sierra Maestra - the Cuban mountains that harboured black and Indian rebels over the centuries, as well as Castro's guerrilla band in the 50s. His prophecy exercised US governments in the 60s. Radical elected governments were destroyed by the armed forces - guardians of the white settler states - supported by Washington. Countries such as Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Bolivia were prevented from following anything that might have resembled the Cuban road.

Today the rules have changed. The cold war no longer provides an excuse for intervention, and the US is stretched in other parts of the world. The ballot box, for the first time in Latin America, has become the strategy of choice for revolutionaries and the poor majority. The result in Bolivia is a president who invokes the memory of the silver miners of Potosi and Che Guevara, who dreamed of a socialist commonwealth of Latin America. Castro's prophecy looks close to fulfilment, and, in his 80th year, he will go to Bolivia to savour the moment.

Another historic presence will be the shadow of Simón Bolívar, the independence leader of the 19th century who also had faith in the ability of the Andean provinces to change Latin America. He drove the Spanish from the mountains, and finished his battles in the country that was given his name. Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, mentor of Morales and largely responsible for channelling the new mood into revolutionary paths, will also be present this weekend.

The "axis of good" - as Morales terms it - of Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia, is a huge threat to US political, economic and cultural hegemony. It is also a challenge for Latin America's traditional left, which has never had much success in coping with indigenous populations. Now the representative of Bolivia's farmers, tin miners and coca growers of indigenous ancestry is to wear the presidential sash and seek their incorporation into political life. They will be joined by more overtly socialist groups that derive their legitimacy from half a century of union work - an alliance that will be at least as problematic for the president as US hostility and international companies seeking to exploit Bolivia's oil and gas. These won't be nationalised but will certainly have to pay higher royalties.

False dawns are common in Latin American history, but the strength of the radical tide suggests that this time it will not be dammed, still less reversed.

·Richard Gott is author of Cuba: A New History; and Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution rwgott@aol.com

A government report published on Tuesday said the missiles were earmarked for disposal because they were obsolete.

But outgoing interim President Eduardo Rodriguez, who presented the report, said that while the missiles needed to be destroyed he did not authorize their being sent to the United States -- a move that sparked outrage in impoverished Bolivia where anti-U.S. feeling is strong.

"The people who are responsible must be punished harshly. Disarming a country and its armed forces really is a crime," said Morales, who will be sworn into office on Sunday.