So that doesn't look good.

How idiotic. What exactly does Iraq think is going to come of this? You'd think they'd have had enough of war and poverty and birth defects. You'd think they'd know that this is not going to end well if they don't cooperate.

However, after Goerge's speech to the UN yesterday, I'm still left with the feeling that we have no proof of anything and this really has nothing at all to do with making sure Iraq doesn't obtain nukes. Evidently, I am not the only one, either.

George's "hunch" that Iraq has nukes doesn't fly, not in my book; not when your "hunch" is going to lead to the death of thousands, the ruination of thousands of more lives and possible all out nuclear war. The fact that people may "think" you have a weapon in your backyard is not going to get you convicted in any court in this nation, but it's a reason to start a WAR??????

OK, it's time to talk about personal responsibility. I know my entries have been rather heavy-handed lately, but I feel OK about that because hey - nobody ever actually reads this thing anyway.

What any of this - Afghanistan, the US-backed coup in Venezuela, the recent "democratic" elections in Colombia and now a possible strike on Iraq - comes down to is oil. First of all, let's take a look at Bush's cabinet and how many of them are tied to oil companies:

George W. Bush was CEO of Harken Energy.

George Herbert Walker Bush, his dad and the former president, was an oil man. Now he�s on the board of the Carlyle Group, which is heavily invested in oil and armaments.

Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense during Desert Storm. He stepped down to become CEO of Halliburton Oil. Cashed in 34 million dollars in Halliburton stock options before taking office as vice president.

Donald Evans, Bush�s Commerce Secretary, was with Colorado Oil.

Zalmay Khalilzad is the Bush-appointed special envoy to Afghanistan. Khalilzad previously was an aide to the American oil company Unocal. He drew up Unocal�s risk analysis on its proposed trans-Afghan gas pipeline.

Khalilzad reports to Condoleeza Rice, Bush�s national security adviser. When she was a board director of Chevron Corporation, she served as its principal expert on Kazakhstan, where Chevron holds the largest concession of any of the international oil companies.

Khalilzad will liaise with the new Afghani leader Hamed Karzai: A former consultant to Unocal.

There have been plans for a Chevron pipeline in Afghanistan for years. This plan was nixed by the Taliban. Hmm... So we bomb the Taliban out of existence and guess what? The pipeline is now going forward. Now I'm not saying we didn't have ample reason to go after the Taliban and Al Qaeda. I am saying we should watch the trail of money, here. This isn't all about the good guys going after the bad guys. It's also about the good guys getting their oil (the "good guys" being America, in case I'm making that hard to follow, here).

Oh, so I was supposed to talk about personal responsibility. This is aimed at all of you folks out there driving your Suburbans and Escalades and Explorers, et al. You people getting like 10 miles to the gallon. I know, I know - they're cool looking vehicles and it's really trendy to pick Jr. up from school in your big ol' boat. I know, I know, you've been deluded in to thinking that these vehicles are safer on the road (which is crock of shit, by the way, but that's another topic).

Are we even aware that there are cars that get like 80 miles to the gallon? Are we aware that there are alternative sources of energy that we as a nation are barely even exploring? Instead, we are content to drive around in our gas-guzzling but trendy SUVs and sports cars; content to let others fight wars over oil so that we can continue doing so; content to enact ruination on the lives of innocent people the world over to feed our status jones.

And the blame starts at the top. Nobody in government EVER asks us to act responsibly. In fact, I think these vehicles should be taken off the road, or we need to figure out how to get them to get better gas mileage. More than likely, they probably already have the technology anyway. How about encouraging more car-pooling? Something? Anything? But our personal responsibility in this struggle over oil never even comes up.

For the record, my car gets about 30 mpg. Not the best, but not the worst, either.

And by the way, now that Venezuela has new leadership, we're also going to get more oil from them. And just in the nick of time, too. Gee, funny how these things work, isn't it?

OK, I've been on my soapbox long enough today.

The good news is that I found my good tweezers!

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~~~~~~~~~~~peace, love and smooches~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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