I can still recall the too familiar face of Terek Aziz during the hectic run-up to the invasion of Iraq when he claimed that the Iraqis would make another Vietnam out of the American invasion. When questioned by a reporter, who observed that there were no jungles in Iraq, Aziz responded: “We will make a jungle of our cities. We will fight them in the streets of Tikrit, Mosul, Fallujah and Ramadhi.” No one believed this tough Iraqi talk then, but look what has happened since.

In April of 2004, the US got its first taste of what this street fighting could be like when Marines (2nd Battalion /1st MAR) pushed into Fallujah after four American “contractors,” (ex-Navy Seals) were ruthlessly burned and mutilated in that city. The Marine battalion, a force of about 600 men, encountered surprising resistance in the city, which led to the huge spike in US casualties in “Bloody April” of this year, along with 600 dead Iraqis and another 1200 injured, mostly civilians. A supporting battalion was called up to relieve the first, and then a third was brought in to help cordon off the city and prevent the insurgents from escaping.  Engineering units even constructed a huge earthen berm around the city so that insurgent fighters trying to cross it would show their silhouette to watching US forces.

In the end, the fighting produced news clips of young Marines firing from the rooftops of Fallujah, and I recall one chilling morning when a live feed from an embedded reporter clearly showed a small Marine squad holed up in what was once the living room of an Iraqi family as they battled to extract two wounded men. The image of blood on the Marine uniforms was plain to see,  and they were looking for a way out of the dilemma as they planned to withdraw.  Strangely, a so called “expert” color commentator, (a former Army Colonel who should have known better), tried to bravely gloss over the incident by characterizing it as a “well coordinated small unit action,” where the squad was laying down “a base of fire” as they moved in to suppress insurgent positions. Nothing could have been further from the truth.  As someone who has studied military tactics and strategy for over 30 years, I could easily assess that this squad was in grave difficulty, in unfamiliar territory, receiving fire from several angles, with men down and no clear route back to their platoon’s positions.

This is street fighting, though the action described was only a pin prick compared to the hell that urban combat can actually produce. One has only to recall Stalingrad, where the highly trained and mechanized German Army was fought to a standstill by the Russians in WWII. While Fallujah is no Stalingrad, it will still present a thorny problem for the US military when the next round of fighting begins there as an attempt to reclaim this insurgent stronghold.  In preparation for the battle, the US recently put on a large Brigade sized operation, (five Battalions comprising at least 4000 men) at Samarra, north of Baghdad. Lessons from the bloody fighting last April were apparently well learned, and this time the US forces (1st Inf Division troops) brought significant clout to the battle with well armored Bradley AFVs and Abrams tanks in support of the infantry. In addition, air support from both fixed wing aircraft and helicopters was laid on in abundance. Thankfully, the resistance in Samarra was not significant, and the US cleared the town out in just two days.

Fallujah may prove a different battle altogether. The city is an odd warren of dense urban housing, that juts out like a sore thumb from the Euphrates river flowing past its western border. There are several tribal district neighborhoods: the al-Shuhada district, the al-Askari neighborhood on the Euphrates, a slum ridden area of filthy row houses, and the Johan district in the city's north-west. Each neighborhood is home to many mosques, so many that the settlement is known as “The City of Mosques” to Iraqis, and these are likely to become final strong points for the insurgents when the US applies its “precision airpower” to the rubble making operation that will certainly consume the place when the offensive is launched. The city of over 300,000 residents has been reduced to a population of between 50-60,000, as families have fled from the impending clash. One can only wonder what will remain of their homes if they should return after the battle. Modern combat will transform the city into a nightmarish landscape of burned out building and rubble.

But this is, according to some analysts, exactly what the foreign fighters desire—a symbolic fight to the finish against the US occupation forces, where they can claim martyrdom. Wahabbi infiltrators and the Al Zarqawi organization have brought their own radicalized brand of ultra conservative Islam to the city, antagonizing the locals there as much as anything else. Even when bullied by nightly air strikes, stealth night raids and other operations aimed at getting Zarqawi, the local tribal leaders say they cannot hand over the master terrorist as the US demands. In fact, the US order is literally asking civilians in the city to round up the terrorists and turn them in—something that all our well equipped troops, tanks and AFVs have been unable to accomplish thus far. Negotiations have broken down with the tribal leaders, and the Marines are moving into positions, out from the fortified barracks southeast of Fallujah where they occupied a former leisure and recreation site used by Saddam’s inner circle.

The Marine Base near Fallujah is called “Camp Baharia” after an Arabic word “mushaat al-baharia ,” which loosely translates into “walkers of the navy.” The old regime once called the place “Dreamland” because they had built an artificial lake there, lined with lush palms and an amphitheater where Saddam’s sons and visiting guests could watch boat races on hot summer nights. The lake was lit by elegant white lamp posts jutting up from the water itself. Now, its reinforced concrete structures have been converted to bungalows and bunkers for some of America’s toughest young men under arms. The gates of Dreamland have opened recently, and the troops have issued forth to take up starting positions for the offensive that will probably begin soon after the election here in the US. The Bush administration was clever enough to delay this “democratization” of Fallujah until after we have had our votes cast here. Blood on the streets and the heavy casualties of urban street fighting would not play well for the President as Americans pondered their choice in this crucial election.

As the Marines gird themselves for battle, certain military analysts have noted the recent intensified training in the US of the vaunted 10th Special Forces Group, Green Beret units with skills in several key areas. The 10th SFG, with its expert snipers, linguists, forward air strike controllers, and intelligence staff, is said to be slated for imminent deployment overseas. Rumors have it that the unit is headed out to Dreamland, where it will join up with the young Marines and serve as a spearhead  for the assault platoons as they move into the city. It is likely that the assault will begin at night, and seem like just another of the air raids that have been making rock piles of suspected Zarqawi hiding places. Teams of elite Green Beret units will begin moving into the city from the north with their night vision goggles glowing with eerie green phosphorescence. They will be backed up by platoons of Marine infantry, and the force is likely to be well equipped with armor to provide fire support as the troops push forward. The Green Berets will identify insurgent strong points, call in air strikes, and use their language skills to try and mitigate the misery that will soon befall any innocent civilians that still remain there. In the words of Brigadier General Denis Hajlik, Commander of the 1st MEF: “We are gearing up for a major operation. If we do so, it will be decisive and we will whack them.”

Whack them indeed… It’s a nightmarish task to have to fight your way into a place where the enemy will be dressed exactly like the civilians. You either wait until you are fired upon, or you simply blaze away at anything that moves. Untrained children and young boys fleeing the advancing tide of combat will be indistinguishable from the enemy fighters—just another body moving out there in the sights of a sniper rifle. God only knows how many will die.

Again, the Zarqawi group, if it indeed stands and fights for the city, intends these civilian casualties as a means of swaying popular opinion in the battle. There is little doubt that the Marines will prevail, but at what cost in blood and the hardening of “hearts and minds” against the occupation? Even if  the operation is staged after the US election, it is still a bill that will have to be paid in Iraq. Will the battle trigger another widespread flare-up of insurgent attacks? This is, in fact, what the insurgents have publicly announced. They went online with a video this week warning that they would stage unprecedented attacks, with new weapons and tactics, all across the embattled nation.

To minimize the impact of this sort of general counteroffensive by the insurgents, the US has taken on the issue of Fallujah with a strong dose of caution. The lessons of Samarra were well learned—go with enough force to ensure a speedy victory. Estimates on enemy strength in the city range from as little as 400 hard core fighters and terrorists to as many as 5000. To provide the military muscle the operation will require, the Marines will have to bring at least five to nine battalions to the fight. All this week, British units from the Basrah region in the south have been relieving Marine units south of Baghdad so the leathernecks can reinforce their brethren camped in Dreamland.

It was soon announced that as many as 10,000 US troops were assigned to this operation, a full division. This is a force that means business. (UPDATE: At 19:00 hrs Iraqi Time, (8:00am pacific, on November 8th,  operation "Phantom Fury" (or PF for Pulverize Fallujah) was launched.) The military boasted that: "We have the largest concentration of firepower on earth here." In the darkness preceding the attack, US and Iraqi forces seized the two bridges over the Euphrates on the western end of the city, and the hospital there. They wanted to make sure that the civilian casualty numbers were not "over reported" to control public opinion of the battle. Meanwhile, as air strikes and attack cobras continued the battlefield "shaping operation," at the eastern end of the city, a massive "breach and penetration operation is being mounted. This consists of a series of aimed high explosive charges that are "capable of clearing and leveling an entire city block." A barrage of smoke is then fired, and the cleared breach is penetrated by a shock column of heavy armor and Bradley AFV mounted infantry dubbed "Taskforce 2-2" from the First Infantry Division. 10,000 Marines assumed final battle positions and will launch a massive assault from the north, with the city divided into slices assigned to each battalion as it sweeps south.

Elsewhere, there is reportedly violence erupting in Sadr City, Rahmadi, Samarra and other Iraqi towns, but it is not clear yet how extensive these attacks are. This might be the publicly announced counterattack the insurgents promised.

There are still an estimated 30-40,000 civilians in the city. It is night in Iraq, and all electricity has been cut off. I am sitting here imagining this happening here in my city, and trying to feel what it must be like for them, all those unnamed, faceless human lives that the cavalcade of Bush evangelicals will never know about or think about when they sanction war...all those deeply Christian and God fearing religious people who love life so much they turned out in massive numbers to oppose things like abortion and stem cell research in the November ballot measures.

If the Iraqi insurgents are wise, they would not give pitched battle in the face of this awesome American war machine.  As I see it, the insurgents have two choices: 1) to give battle in an urban setting  against a superior enemy, and exchange the loss of the defending force for political gain--in effect, by creating an “Alamo” in Fallujah.

The second choice is to follow the advice of old Sun Tzu in “The Art of War,” and instead melt away to other hidden weapons caches and begin mounting widespread attacks elsewhere. This is classic insurgency tactics, with the aim of drawing out the conflict as long as possible to wear down the invader’s resolve. The insurgents, who know their ground well, would be foolish to sit in Fallujah and be annihilated, because after the US election now, the gloves are coming off in Iraq.

My best guess is that the operation will be concluded before the Thanksgiving holiday weekend arrives, along with all its sentiment in the joining of friends and family around tables laden with every culinary delight imaginable. But, sadly, if this happens there will be a good number of military families who will get some very bad news about their young and dedicated sons in the field. Street fighting is a messy, bloody business, no matter how much firepower is brought to the task. The young Marines going into the fight have all been tattooed with a “kill number” in indelible ink, so even if a severed hand is found after a booby trap explodes, they can still be identified. It’s a ghastly testament to the truth: urban warfare is bloody.  Casualties may be high, and even those that come through without physical wounds will bear a scar for life. They are going to see and do things that no young man should ever have to even imagine. They will soon be tested in the crucible of combat, and none will emerge from it unchanged. Killing is no easy thing, though it might be a reflexive habit of military training. The dreams will be there for years to come—and the awful memories.

So… somewhere tonight in the base that was once named Dreamland a young Marine is sleeping and dreaming, unaware of the fact that he is living out the last few weeks or days of his life.  God be with them now. Many of these boys are no more than eighteen years old. They’ve been there for many months now, and they have doubtless seen things they never expected when they first enlisted, full of pride, bravado, dedication and the desire to serve their country. It will be hard to receive the news that any one of them has fallen, and harder yet on the mothers and fathers who raised them with such loving care, and then let them go to make their way in the world as a soldier.

We must never forget that we, as a nation, sent them there to handle this dirty business, and never forget their sacrifice. That being said, there is something in me that has nothing but damnation for a civilian leadership that can find no other way of furthering our aims in the world except through war.

Why do we fight?

There were many reasons given to us for the war. the shock of 9-11, the war on terrorism, the hidden weapons of mass destruction were the Green Berets that led the charge. Behind them came another set of reasons, the assault platoons waving flags of liberation for the Iraqis, moving in to in to “wack ‘em” with democracy. But to find the real reasons for the war you have to look just a little further. The Indians once had a quaint expression while the US cavalry ran roughshod over this continent in years past: “follow cigar smoke, find the fat men there.” To express the same sentiment in more contemporary terms, how about a famous line from the Watergate era: “just follow the money.” Following the money will lead you to some interesting places, and expose a host of hidden motives for this war. And following the money inevitably leads you to one place...

The initial code word for the operation in Iraq was: “Operation Iraqi Liberation” and the initial caps conveniently spelled out: O.I.L.  Rumor has it that Carl Rove made an edit, and changed Liberation to Freedom to avoid the obviously negative aspects of the initial handle. But no amount of adroit political editing can change the fact that were it not for the oil in the Middle East, the US Army and Navy would not be there.

Bottom line: the dilemma we now face in Iraq was the inevitable result of a short-sighted policy that aimed to secure and privatize the vast oil reserves and facilities there in order to ensure America’s access to a supply of petroleum that is slowly dwindling away all across the world. That doesn’t sound very noble, but it is the sad fact of the matter in Iraq. You may balk at that notion, and proclaim that the war is indeed about freedom and the spread of free markets and democracy, but guess again. Take away all that oil under the Iraqi sand, and Saddam was just another 3rd rate dictator that we would have most likely ignored, just as we ignored the carnage in Central Africa over the last decade. But all that oil and gas has a particularly riveting way of focusing the attention of the current administration, who clearly perceive the growing crisis in the energy industry that feeds our economy.

The Big Oil rollover is now predicted to happen as early as 2008. This is the moment of “Peak Oil” that Hubbert, Campbell and others have predicted. It is the moment when reserves and production peak and begin to decline for the world as an average. Many places have already passed their regional peaks. The US oil glut peaked in the 1960s and has been  in steady decline ever since. The British recently got a shock to realize their North Sea fields have peaked and are now in decline. Today, it is becoming more and more difficult for the Big Five oil companies to replace produced barrels in their inventory. In short: The oil is running out, and what remains is located in the Middle East and Central Asia.

And here is the stickler: even as production starts to decline, demand will continue to soar, particularly for nations like China, who is now #2 in global oil use and growing every year.  Bush, Cheney and the others in charge are old oil men at heart. They can read a chart as well as anyone, and they have decided the time to do something about all this is now. We are starting into the decline, and the bear “seller’s market” will now take hold in the oil business. The price, once thought high at $30 a barrel, has now topped the $50 mark. For them, it was time to get while the getting was good.

Case in point: the plan to unseat the recalcitrant strong man, a dictator that we favored and supported for decades, was laid well before 9-11.  The Iraq war was never something that arose from a righteous reprisal against the 19 Saudi hijackers that struck at our nation on that grim morning. It has been found,  by one investigating body after another, that Saddam had nothing whatsoever to do with 9-11, and that none of the much feared weapons of mass destruction the Bush administration used as a pretext for war were in his possession.

No, the plan to invade Iraq was hatched in the minds of Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Libbey and others, and all well before Osama’s master stroke of 9-11 set the whole thing in motion. Iraq, holding down the number 2 spot in the world for proven oil reserves, was deemed a threat to number 3 on the list, (Kuwait) and number 1 on the list (Saudi Arabia). Iraq had a leader that was harried and badgered by American sponsored UN resolutions, repressive economic sanctions and “Fighting Falcons” flying over the country on a daily basis. In reprisal, he assigned key development contracts for the rich oil fields there to countries like Russia, France and China—the very same nations that opposed the American march to war. The eight year war between Iraq and Iran, fomented by the US when it armed both sides, caused a real crimp in the daily oil production of both nations. Exxon-Mobil, and other US and British corporations, were locked out and something simply had to be done.

We have had nearly two years of it on our televisions since the Rumsfeld war plan began to unravel in one suicide or roadside bomb after another. It doesn’t take a genius to put the facts together and see just how badly the war has been managed by the Bush Administration. First and foremost the fact that this war was planned  by the world’s leading “democracy” is the most glaring condemnation that can be made. Oh, it was said that we were out to set Iraq free, but when General Granger announced that he intended to stage elections within 90 days of the fall of Baghdad, he was quickly removed and replaced by Paul Bremer. It would take much longer, you see, to arrange the privatization (read seizure) of the Iraqi oil infrastructure. The US corporations that seem to follow the Army around these days like flies on a rhino’s back were going to need at least a year to get all the contracts reassigned to them, to wait for Presidential executive orders to void foreign claims to Iraqi oil revenue and for the time to simply get an infrastructure working again there so the oil could be brought to market. If the Iraqi people had actually voted within 90 days of Saddam’s fall, do you think they would have turned over the wealth of their nation to US corporations?

The vote had to be carefully prepared, to assure that it would turn out to our liking. As the Global Policy forum reported: “Among the most controversial (Bremer) orders is the enactment of an elections law that gives a seven-member commission the power to disqualify political parties and any of the candidates they support.” Bremer signed edicts narrowing who can hold office, or run for election, how they campaign, mandating that 1/3 must be women, and appointing ministers and bureau inspectors of his choice to five year ironclad terms that the electorate will not be able to overturn. While not as blatant as the Mullas of Iran, who recently “disqualified” moderate and liberal candidates on the ballot for the Iranian “election.” Bremer’s edicts have the same effect—that the US is controlling and shaping the new government of Iraq into one that will be friendly to US interests…that is, oil interests.

It did not take long for the US to stake its claim to the oil revenue of Iraq. U.N. Security Resolution 1483, pushed through by the United States a year ago, gave total control of the money from oil sales in Iraq to the occupying power, i.e., the United States. The funds were to be deposited into a development fund for Iraq under complete control of the occupying power or “Authority.” This resolution was given further bite by  a Bush Presidential order that  exempted all Iraqi oil revenues from any foreign (read French, Russian, Chinese) claim.

Andrew Cockburn explained this in an article published for Salon.com: “President Bush followed up the May 2003 resolution with Executive Order 13303, which forbids any legal challenge to the development fund or any actions by the United States affecting Iraq's oil industry. Since then, the Iraqi oil ministry, famously secured by the U.S. military during post-invasion riots and looting, has been kept under the close supervision of a senior U.S. advisor, former ExxonMobil executive Gary Vogler.” It’s amazing how useful former oil corporation executives can be! In fact, one can hardly imagine our own executive branch functioning without them.

Another Bremer order is quite interesting. It claims that foreign investment is essential to Iraq’s future, and then sweeps all existing Iraqi law away concerning private foreign investment in Iraq, replacing it with the Bremer edict. Some of its provisions assure that foreign companies (principally US) have access to business interests in Iraq, and “the amount of foreign participation in newly formed or existing business entities in Iraq “shall not be limited.”

Hundreds of contracts have been “awarded” thus far, many or most without any competitive bidding. Consider them the “spoils of war” for the US corporations marching fast on the heels of the Army. Furthermore, to make sure the corporate tracks are well covered, a law was recently passed in congress, over the objection of the Democrats, that exempted the Coalition Provisional Authority actions, including how it disbursed funds for contracts, from any investigation by the Government Accounting Office! And to add insult to injury, a last edict issued by Bremer the day before his departure stated that US and allied occupation troops and US and other foreign contractors have immunity from prosecution by Iraqis for any violations of Iraqi law that they may commit. Bremer decreed that contractors "shall not be subject to Iraqi laws or regulations in matters relating to the terms and conditions of their contracts." In short, the US corporations there, and the 30,000 private security people they have brought over with them, may break Iraqi law with complete impunity, and no consequences. The Iraqis will have no say in the matter. (Imagine us tolerating that here from the Chinese.)

Let me get this straight: The US set up a fund for the development of Iraq where all of Iraq’s oil wealth would be deposited. No other foreign nation may make any claim to this money, (which evaporated all the Russian, French and Chinese oil contracts). They then took complete control of this fund with the authority to make unlimited contract awards to private companies “investing” in Iraq. These companies are free to operate with complete immunity from Iraqi law, and there is to be no GAO investigation of the business at hand.

Michael Corleone could not have done it better himself!

Comically, another of the Bremer edicts made it illegal and punishable to undertake any activity that could be constituted as “theft” of Iraqi oil resources! (The edict was meant to curtail smuggling of oil out of the country, while the US was busy connecting the Iraqi Rumalia oil fields to terminal ports in Kuwait!)

My, my… Ain’t democracy wonderful?

(If you care to read them, here is a link to all 100 Bremer edicts: http://www.iraqcoalition.org/regulations/index.html#Regulations  )

No, the clarion call of “freedom” was just another high sounding pretext, a persuasive rallying cry for an administration set to do the hard work of securing energy reserves for our gluttonous economy. Instead of using 9-11 to bring a radical shift in the way Americans think about their place in the world, the Bush administration used it as a pretext for their oil wars, calling them instead, a “war on terror.”  We should have been shaken by 9-11, and led to the realization that we simply could not go on consuming at this level. (Americans use 26% of all the oil produced each day in the world.) Instead, the Bush administration consoled us with the exhortation to go about our business and “keep shopping.”

We could have realized that the time for change and self-sacrifice was now fast approaching. Conservation and alternative energy development could have been raised up as paramount national imperatives. But conservation is not good for oil company profits, and alternative energy is a death knell to the big energy concerns who have countless billions invested in their petrochemical infrastructure, from prospecting to pumping, transport, refining, delivery and sale. The last thing the big energy companies wanted to hear after 9-11 was talk of conservation or alternatives to their dominance of the energy markets. And the Bush administration, heavily supported by the oil companies in the 2000 election and then staffed, at the very highest levels, with ex-CEOs and executives from those same corporations, had another idea. Their idea was to simply go out into the troubled, tumultuous, oil-rich regions of the world and make damn sure that the contracts were assigned to American companies—not those squirrelly Russians, Chinese and French. The war in Iraq was the result, and that was the whole of it—lock, stock, and oil-barrel.  Put as much tinsel of “democracy” as you want on it, but the presents under the tree are barrels of oil.

It seemed a simple plan—just use our unstoppable military to topple the regime and then set up a new administration more to our liking. The insurgency, and places like Fallujah, were the big surprise. They didn’t count on the groundswell of rebels, and the infiltration of hundreds of foreign radicals. They thought the Iraqis would welcome us as liberators.  Now any poll you could possibly take there would see 8 of 10 Iraqis saying they wish the US was gone from their country.

That’s the job the Bush Administration has accomplished. They invaded (the biggest mistake) and then proceeded to make one error after another, bungling the occupation at every level. They disbanded the Iraqi Army, failed to secure the borders, failed to guard the weapons depots, trashed the Geneva accords at Abu Ghuraib, postponed the transfer of power until Bremer had carved 100 edicts in stone there that favored US corporate control of the oil business. Then they set to work with feverish delight—to build a new Iraq. First on their list was the oil infrastructure. The oil ministry had to be guarded, while all of Baghdad was awash in the chaos of looting. The refineries had to be secured, brought on line and upgraded. The pipelines had to be inspected and shored up—and then it all had to be connected to existing oil terminals in Kuwait. The labor was a 24-hr round the clock operation, and it was so intensive that the lights from the work crews could be seen from space!  (A retired weather man with a penchant for logging on to weather satellites caught this view of the feverish glow of the oil crews working at night in the Iraqi desert. The bright glowing line pointed out by the red arrow shows the march of the oil pipelines from the heart of Kuwait to the Iraqi border, and the vast Rumalia oil field in southern Iraq. The oil field was the very first objective of US forces when the invasion began.)

So as our young men storm into Fallujah you might want to think on a few of these things. The war in Iraq was never about WMD, about 9-11, or even about Democracy. It is not about fighting terror, because all it has done is increase that by tenfold and create thousands of newly radicalized jihadis in that country. These were all simply platitudes that the administration decided to feed to the American people in order to  instigate their plan. They are  things young men will die for: to keep us safe, and to keep us free, but they are not the real reason we are asking these Marines to fight now. In the end, it is all about the oil and the hunger of our economy for this rapidly diminishing resource in the years ahead. It was conceived and planned by long-time oil men, and now it is being guarded by the young men camped outside of Fallujah.

Remember that—remember the young boys sleeping tonight in Dreamland, and the blood that will surely be spilled in the weeks ahead. Think long and hard about it when you pull up to the gas pump and cringe at the paltry price of $2.20 per gallon, (when it is more than double that in Europe !) Remember the boys who will be squinting through their night vision goggles and aiming their sniper rifles at other young men in the dark of the night. Each time you see the angry orange glow of an explosion on Fox News or CNN, you are watching someone die. Ponder it well as you start your SUV or Hummer up to run out for your Thanksgiving grocery shopping.

Was there no other way? I’ll give you a few alternatives to Marines and continued oil dependency on the troubled Middle East: Bio-fuels, wind farms, solar power, managed nuclear power, hydro power on rivers and using the tidal forces along our coastlines, hydrogen fuel cell development, expansion of mass transit, and conservation, improved vehicle efficiency. If our engines were just mandated to be 2.7 MPG more efficient, we could forgo all our foreign oil imports. Why aren’t we pursuing these things with an urgency and national resolve? We need leaders who believe in them, and believe in a way forward in the world without the resort to war.

But... Big Oil doesn’t want things that way just now, and Big Oil is running the show. They helped convince 59 million Americans that this was all about freedom, safety and democracy...but over 55 million of us out here know it just ain’t so. What will it take before the real truth gets through the veneer of righteous religion and the other 59 million wake up? In Vietnam, it took several years of war and 58,000 dead before the message got through and the people demanded an end to the war. What will it take...how long will it take this time?

(c) John Schettler, 2004

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