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He claimed he wanted to avoid a repetition of the appeasement at Munich, and so he gave the world the kind of ultimatum that led inexorably to the guns of August. Instead of being the leader of the free world, he sounded like an Austrian emperor demanding capitulation from the Serbs who had assassinated an Austrian archduke.

But no one really tried to kill his Dad. George W. Bush has been acting truer to the traditions of the “old Europe” his secretary of defense claims to despise than the leader of the New World.

Never has America embarked on such naked aggression, on such brazen imperialist behavior, without even the tiniest fig leaf of morality. In the past century of American world power, one cannot find a case where America acted as it does now.

In 1898 America went to war with Spain to avenge the (accidental) explosion of the USS Maine, claiming at the same time to be liberating the oppressed Cuban people -- only to establish one brutal native regime after another until Fidel Castro came along. Castro may well be the next leader to be deposed -- but only after Hugo Chavez, because Venezuela, like Iraq, has vast reserves of oil which a US president needs to buy a way out of the worst deficit in US history and secure his reelection.

The United States did the same in the Philippines, only to annex a country which had already liberated itself. It invaded Mexico to get Pancho Villa before he became the Mexican masses’ first real president. It invaded Nicaragua when a civil war threatened its interests there, and supported a terrorist campaign to the same end. So in Haiti.

But all the world’s great powers were doing it too: Great Britain, way ahead of the wolf pack, could pretend to be more restrained. But France, Germany, Italy, and Japan, coming late to the table, left all manners and morals behind.

World War I, like World War II, was fought to prevent another world power from commanding the resources of the world outside the continental US. In Korea and Vietnam, the US may have been genuinely misled that the world was on the brink of communist conquest. Yet it faked an attack on a US Navy vessel to justify dropping more bombs on a very poor and very small country than on Nazi-occupied Europe. The US at least fought the first Gulf War to repel an invasion, though US diplomats appear to have encouraged it. Saddam was then America’s favorite mass murderer against Iran.

The catalog of American involvement in international conflicts is spelled out to show where America may be holding fast to its usual economic ambitions and yet gravely departing from the mantle of moral ascendancy with which it has hitherto cloaked its actions.

It holds no such mantle today; it can invoke no credible casus belli; this is not, by any means, America’s finest hour. On the contrary, George W. Bush’s tendentious speech Tuesday morning represents the nadir of international law since Hitler said somewhat the same thing about his invasion of Russia. But Germany at least had the guts to come up against the biggest country in the world. In oil-rich Iraq, the US will be swatting a fly with a cannon. We would be surprised if the US suffered a single casualty outside of friendly fire.

For all that the US President offered only a glib, even petulant, nod toward international opinion; a potent force for good that America helped create during World War II but which it curtly ignored when it became clear that neither bribes nor threats could sway world opinion in America’s favor.

America is going into this war publicly announcing it is even prepared to violate one of the central tenets of its traditional military strategy: the annihilation of the economic strength of its enemy before striking at its armies.

There will be no bombing of the industrial heartland as in Nazi Germany; no strangulation of raw materials as in Imperial Japan; no Agent Orange and carpet-bombing as in Vietnam: all carried out to bring the enemy economically to its knees. Instead there will be a mad dash -- like Hitler’s tanks for the oil fields of Russia. To break the Arab grip on the world’s oil and give it back to Standard Oil in A World Restored, to borrow from Kissinger.

This war is about trading blood for oil. But only Iraqi blood, because the United States and Great Britain will be striking very hard from very vast and therefore totally safe distances -- before taking over the country and milking it dry. For the US fully intends to make the Iraqis pay for the destruction and reconstruction of their country -- the more of one, the more of the other -- to the greater profit of Richard Cheney’s companies.

Bush said it himself in a speech of magisterial simplicity. A speech that very nearly convinced the world, friend and foe, of the sincerity of American motives. That is, if he had not said -- addressing the Iraqi people directly -- for them to steer clear of US troops who may shoot them on sight while urging everyone to secure Iraqi oil.

That’s right. The Iraqi people must take their chances. You can’t pump blood into a Ford Expedition. But Iraqi oil wells should not be put at risk. Bush was just shy of asking the Iraqi people to form a wall of flesh around the oil wells to protect them from a possible scorched-earth policy by Saddam Hussein.

He could have ended with a plea for Iraqi flesh not to get in the way of American bullets. He could have spelled out how a combatant had only to raise his arms to be spared. But no. He saved the best for oil.

When the trenches filled with burning oil have burned themselves out; when some Iraqi puppet has been selected to pose like a blinking Hirohito next to a general who will be no MacArthur but just a security guard of Halliburton; when the same children trotted out to wave at Saddam Hussein do the same for gum-chewing G.I.’s., and the world is told that freedom has come to Iraq and this is shown by mustachioed Iraqi politicians giving American proconsuls the kiss of peace -- then, yes, the world will know that America has brought one conflict to a swift and successful conclusion and started a conflagration throughout the region.

The Americans point to Germany and Japan as examples of how liberation and freedom can be imposed on those who do not want it. Yet they forget that these same people, particularly the Germans, have learned the meaning of freedom and democracy so well they will not, for any price, consent to a war that owes more to the imperialist and racist history of a European legacy successfully exported to America but which they have outgrown, than the brave new world that exists only in Bush’s imagination.

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www.vheadline.com Posted: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 By: David Coleman

Plaza Altamira shooting suspect Joao De Gouveia has been transferred to the La Planta prison in El Paraiso (Caracas) after an appearance before 45th Control Court judge Alejandro Rebolledo. He is being held in protective isolation in a high-security area of the prison because of the risk that he may be brutalized of killed by fellow-inmates.

De Gouveia is being held pending trial for the qualified homicide of three victims and the wounding of more than 20 others in a highly-publicized incident at the rebel HQ in Plaza Altamira on December 6 last year.

Opposition radicals have claimed that De Gouveia was acting under direct orders from President Hugo Chavez Frias, but the claims have been rejected as patently ridiculous despite an underhand propaganda effort by the opposition.

De Gouveia's incarceration has been in direct contrast with house arrest privileges accorded to rebel business leader Carlos Fernandez.

www.msnbc.com

NEW YORK, March 17 — U.S. gasoline prices are at all-time highs at the pumps due to thin supplies and fears that a war on Iraq could disrupt oil shipments from the Middle East, the American Automobile Association (AAA) said Monday.

    RETAIL GASOLINE PRICES are roughly 50 cents a gallon higher than they were a year ago, the AAA said.
   Energy experts say they expect prices to continue higher as spring weather tempts drivers back onto the roads and boosts demand during a time of war <ampersand/>#8212; a situation that could threaten a U.S. economic recovery by cutting discretionary spending.
   The American Petroleum Institute (API), which represents a number of big U.S. oil companies, has said that the surge in retail gasoline prices can be justified by a dramatic rise in the cost of crude oil as dealers fret over potential supply woes in the event of war.

Tight timeline for U.S. oil supplies But the price boom has again raised concern over potential price-gouging by retailers, with a group of Midwest lawmakers already calling for stringent monitoring of pump prices to ensure fair pricing. The average price of regular unleaded gasoline hit a record $1.719 a gallon March 15, with prices breaching the $2 mark in a number of major cities, according to the

      AAA<ampersand/>#8217;s latest survey of more than 60,000 self-serve stations.
   Crude oil futures prices were hovering around $35 a barrel Monday, up about 35 percent in four months as tensions rose between Washington and Baghdad and amid supply disruptions from OPEC-member Venezuela due to a national strike there.
   In a sign that an attack on Iraq is nearing, the United States, Britain and Spain Monday ended diplomatic efforts to win U.N. approval for an ultimatum to Iraq, paving the way for war. United Nations weapons inspectors were withdrawn.   

   President Bush will demand in a speech to the American people Monday night that President Saddam Hussein leave Iraq to avoid an attack, a White House spokesman said.   

     The AAA, the nation<ampersand/>#8217;s largest automobile and travel association, said in a statement last week that motorists should avoid <ampersand/>#8220;panic buying<ampersand/>#8221; in the event of a U.S. invasion of Iraq because it has <ampersand/>#8220;the potential of causing needless fuel shortages in local areas.<ampersand/>#8221;

www.presstelegram.com Article Last Updated: Monday, March 17, 2003 - 9:38:56 PM PST

With the energy crisis still fresh in our minds, it's no surprise that many Californians are eyeing the rise in gasoline prices now at about $2.14 a gallon and climbing with intense suspicion. If energy and natural gas companies could hoard supplies and reduce production to drive up retail prices, as was alleged, what's to stop gas companies from doing the same?

There is no evidence that current gas prices are the result the kind of market manipulation alleged in the energy crisis, but residents deserve to know for certain what is going on. The increase is costing consumers and businesses an extra $18 million a day, according to state estimates.

Gov. Gray Davis last week called on the Public Utilities Commission and the California Energy Commission to investigate the rise in gas prices. The current average retail price of $2.14 is an all-time high for California, though when adjusted for inflation is lower than record prices during the Iran hostage crisis.

The spikes could very well be explained by market forces some combination of war jitters, unrest in Venezuela, higher costs of adding Ethanol to gasoline instead of the more toxic MTBE (by federal mandate), and other factors.

Then again, as state Energy Commission spokesman Rob Schlichting told the Press- Telegram's Felix Sanchez, refinery production has increased by 8.2 percent since March 7. Why the production increase hasn't led to price stabilization or reduction should be a key question before the investigative commissions. They must also examine whether more refineries than normal were shut down for maintenance in February and early March, and why.

The state has examined price spikes at the gas pumps many times before, and usually determines that market forces are to blame. Such was the case in 1999, when Attorney General Bill Lockyer found that California's isolation from other gas-producing states left it vulnerable to price increases.

However, as Davis noted last week, gas prices tend to go down once the state starts looking into things. That's reason enough for investigators to get started.

www.smh.com.au By Neela Banerjee March 19 2003

Saudi Arabia has amassed a reserve of nearly 50 million barrels of oil for use in case of disruptions to Iraqi oil exports, according to a senior Saudi official and industry experts who have been told about the build-up.

"We have about 50 million barrels, most of it in the country," said the Saudi official. "We can tap into it immediately once there is a shortfall."

The Saudi stockpile has been built up over the last three months as oil prices have climbed to their highest levels in years.

Calls have increased from various political quarters for the Bush administration to release oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which holds 600 million barrels of oil. So far, the administration has said it will let the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries try to make up for any disruptions before tapping the strategic reserve.

OPEC is led in effect by Saudi Arabia, the only country with spare production capacity that can be called on in case of supply disruptions.

"We will make sure there is enough oil in the market," the Saudi oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, said. "We have plenty of spare capacity."

In New York yesterday, the price of crude oil for April delivery settled at $US34.93 a barrel, down US45c, on profit-taking by traders. During the day, oil traded between $US34 and $US36.95 a barrel.

Industry analysts said Saudi Arabia probably felt compelled to increase production to back up assertions it has long made that it can take care of problems that buffet oil markets.

"It is in the Saudis' interest to produce oil and store some of it away, and the cumulative effect of that is a substantial reserve," said Lawrence J.Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation.

"The Saudis know that sustained high prices weaken economic activity, decrease demand and encourage non-OPEC production. They want to see a predictable, stable oil supply."

Iraq has been exporting about 1.5 million barrels a day. The Saudi reserve could make up for about a month's disruption of those exports, although Saudi Arabia did not plan to draw down all 50 million barrels, the Saudi official said.

"The US consumes about one million barrels a day of Iraqi crude," said Yasser Elguindi, a managing director at Medley Global Advisers, a New York consulting firm. "So I don't think it's by accident that the Saudis have these numbers."

A representative of the Saudi oil ministry declined to comment on the reserve. The Saudi official said that he had told members of Congress about the oil pool.

"Our oil people have been talking to the National Security Council," he added.

But he said that Saudi Arabia took this step on its own, without arm-twisting by the White House. "You look around and make plans based on different scenarios," he said. "What if there is a war? So you increase capacity. But how do you tap into reserves immediately?

"You want to make sure that if there are disruptions, the oil markets are covered," he said. "The administration didn't say, 'Gee, guys, can you do this for us?"'

Saudi Arabia is producing about 9 million barrels a day, the official said, or about 1.5 million more than its OPEC quota. The Saudis have about 1.5 million barrels of additional production capacity that they can bring on in less than several weeks, if the need arises, he said.

Independent experts have estimated that Saudi Arabia is producing 9.2 million to 9.5 million barrels a day, with an additional one million barrels that can be called upon.

The Saudis have stored nearly all their reserve within their borders, the official said, rather than in installations they have in the Caribbean, Europe and the Far East.

Saudi Arabia increased production when a general strike in Venezuela reduced exports from there to a trickle.

But prices for oil have climbed so high that foreign companies are buying only enough Saudi oil for their immediate refining needs, not to build supplies, Mr Elguindi said.

Rather than reduce output, the Saudis have continued to increase and store what has not been bought.

Oil that would be shipped from Iraq at this point would reach the US in about 40 days and any Saudi oil sent to make up for disruptions would take the same amount of time.