24 July 2004 and 4 September 2001, White House counter-terrorism expert Richard Clarke writes "an angry memo" to his boss Condoleeza Rice asking whether the US administration really understands the threat now posed by Al-Qa'ida (Reported Weekend Australian, 24-25 July 2004)

Iraqi Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin is to look into claims that PM Iyad Allawi shot six handcuffed prisoners about three weeks before he took office. (20 July 2004: Sydney Morning Herald)

Still unclear about free speech in the US, land of the brave and the free?: A media company that has tried to censor an anti-war group's billboard message in Times Square, New York, has come to an agreement with the group, Project Billboard, to carry a sign bearing the message, "Democracy is best taught by example, not by war." The company, Clear Channel, had tried to have the reference to the invasion of Iraq eliminated. (Reported 17 July 2004 in Sydney Morning Herald)

17 July 2004: Re questions posed by Al-Qa'ida (?) Is Al-Qa'ida a big deal, is US serious about dealing with it?" And the failure of now adjudged as a failure of imagination, as concluded by a bi-partisan US report on 9/11 issued just before 17 July 2004.

"Iraqi leader shot inmates in cold blood, say witnesses”: (Front page, referring to Iyad Allawi) (Reported 17-18 July 2004: Sydney Morning Herald W/end edition)

Europe's space chiefs are backing a mission that will launch a spacecraft into a head-on collision with an approaching asteroid. Is it possible to get rid of or change the path of an approaching dangerous asteroid? The mission is to be called Don Quixote (tilting at windmills). (Reported world press, 17 July 2004)

Los Alamos, Arizona: Key US centre for nuclear weapons research, National Laboratory, now reports it halts all classified work after "vital data" has gone missing (two lost data storage discs). 12,000 staff (Reported 17 July 2004 in world press)

2004 "Last week The New York Times published a series of article in which the editors concerned that their support for the war on Iraq was a mistake. The Arab media should concede the crime they have committed against the Iraqi people: the long silence vis-à-vis the practices of the former Iraqi regime. The silence was a perpetual crime committed by the Arab media which tended to go out of their way to appease not only the regime under which they operate but every other Arab government as well. The overriding viewpoint in the Arab media is that an objective treatment of issues will undermine their Arab relations." (Al-Ahran, Cairo, 8-14 July 2004)

Reported 10 July 2004 in world press: Militants from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terrorist group in Iraq threaten to kill two Bulgarian hostages within 24 hours unless US-led forces free all Iraqi prisoners.

Reported 10 July 2004: China is once again cracking down on Tibetan Buddhism, trying to control the monasteries, says a new 122-page report prepared by International Campaign for Tibet.

Reported 10 July 2004: Al-Qa'ida are reportedly developing plans to launch terrorist attacks on US prior to 2 November presidential elections. No details have been discovered of such plans yet, however.

World Court is predicted to rule that Israel's West Bank barrier against Palestine/Palestinians be torn down. (Reported 10 July 2004 in world press)

30,000 years ago: How evolution spurted: Examiners of fossils can now report that about 30,000 years ago, people started living longer. (No explanation why). This fuelled a population explosion. Women could continue reproducing even as their elder daughters reached child-bearing age. As more experienced women lived longer, their contributions to their extended family grew more and more valuable. [The Grandma syndrome] (Reported in world press, 10 July 2004 and derived from recent reports on Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences [US])

Why does use of this phrase, “civilian contractors”, keep bobbing up regarding events in Iraq? Aren't civilian contractors mercenaries, and if so, why is the US employing mercenaries? (The British in India did this a great deal from the 1790s!) This latest mention is in respect of situations where specialist operators can no longer be used in Iraq, where the US now sees itself needing to send in more armoured units to fight insurgency, and now, US officials want to send another 135,000 troops to replace 140,000 now in Iraq. Maybe even 5600 military retirees will be called on, as will members of the US' ready reserve. US is reportedly having trouble meeting future troop-supply needs. (Reported 9 July 2004 in Sydney Morning Herald)

Why does use of this phrase, "civilian contractors" keep bobbing up regarding events in Iraq? Aren't "civilian contractors" mercenaries, and if so, why is the US employing mercenaries? This latest mention is in respect of situation where specialist operators can no longer be used in Iraq, where the US now sees itself needing to send more armoured units to fight insurgency, and now, US officials want to send another 135,000 troops to replace 140,000 now in Iraq. Maybe even 5600 military retirees will be called on, as will members of the US' "ready reserve". US is reportedly having trouble meeting future troop-supply needs. (Reported 9 July 2004 in Sydney Morning Herald)

Iraq on the Net has troubles: It has Internet suffix code, iq, but a Texas-US company handling responsibility for the otherwise impressive iq domain is reportedly under criminal indictment for allegedly funding Islamic extremism (Reported 3 July 2004 originally from Salon.com) (None of which seems to have a high iq about it at all! – Ed)

Life 3.5 billion years ago: One researcher's name of interest is Dr. Arthur Hickman, project manager for the Perth-based Geological Survey of Western Australia. One of his tasks is to host scientists from around the world who are finding Western Australia's old rocks to be increasingly fascinating. On such researcher is Washington geologist Roger Buick who works on rocks 2.4 to 3.5 billion years old, looking for evidence of such as molecular fossils in ancient rocks, or changes in oxygen-use of life forms as part of research which will help guide other researchers working on Mars-based projects. A sample of interest might come from e.g., the Pilbara Desert, near Marble Bar, about 250 metres down, a core sample of red-and-white banded chert, (a jasper-like rock), about 3.5 billion years old which shows the Earth then had life-sustaining levels of oxygen much like today's. The red colouration comes from iron rusted by oxygen. But it is not known if life existed this long ago. (Reported 3 July 2004)

Polish troops in Iraq have found more than a dozen warheads containing mustard or sarin gas, says US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. (Reported 3 July 2004)

New views on Iraq: Iraqi publisher Asraa Shaker has offered this view: “Saddam made a new society to protect himself and Allawi is doing it to protect Iraqis”. (Reported 3 July 2004)

History wars in India: Another minor disagreement in the global village: Accusations are that the previous Hindu administration in India allowed pro-Hindu bias to creep into history books, so now steps are being taken to correct this. Hundreds of thousands of textbooks may be dropped. The new Indian government is Congress-led, and will delete “saffronisation of history” references to India's Muslim rulers as barbarous invaders and the medieval period as a dark age of Islamic colonial rule that snuffed out the glories of the Hindu empire that preceded it. In one book, History of India, by historian Ms Romila Thapar, it is said that the Aryans venerated by the Hindu right as indigenous geniuses who created the Indus River civilisation were really nomadic tribes spreading from the Middle East. Thapar's book was removed from lists by the incoming Hindu government in 1999. There is also concern about references to India's caste system being mishandled in history books. Right-wing Hindus are now furious about “Leftists and Marxists” fiddling with Hindu history. (Reported 28 June 2004 in world press) (History Wars: Australian also has its own history wars, which are perfectly disgraceful, and which are concerned with the extent on the killing of Aboriginals, or not, in Tasmania. These Australian history wars seem most of all about the question: can these historians actually conduct historical research in a suitable way. And the answer is: no! This website wonders what these people are actually paid for in their universities! - Ed)

Michael Moore says in defense of his movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, “The US media just became cheerleaders for this [Iraq] war. And that was a disservice to the American people.” (Reported 28 June 2004)

The Afghan government has asked Australia to send troops and any other security assistance it can provide ahead of elections that are being threatened by resurgent al-Qa'ida and Taliban forces.

28 June 2004, "Iraq torn by terror on even of handover. Iraq's interim government warns that it may be forced to impose a state of emergency and delay its first democratic elections as terrorist bombers and hostage-takers try to hold the country to ransom". (Front page, SMH 28 June 2004)

28 June 2004: Iraq torn by terror on eve of handover. Iraq's interim government warns that it may be forced to impose a state of emergency and delay its first democratic elections as terrorist bombers and hostage-takers try to hold the country to ransom. (Front page, Sydney Morning Herald)

The Afghan government has asked Australia to send troops and any other security assistance it can provide ahead of elections that are being threatened by resurgent al-Qa'ida and Taliban forces. (Reported Sydney Morning Herald, 28 June 2004)

Headline: Sneers and Jeers: Left-wing British intellectual Christopher Hitchens, who supported the Iraq war, accuses US author and fellow stirrer Michael Moore of “a big lie” re Moore's new anti-Bush movie, Fahrenheit 9/11. (Long article, Weekend Australian, 26-27 June 2004.

25 June 2004: Headlines, Al-Qa'ida rains terror on five Iraqi cities five days or so before the US hands sovereignty back to Iraq.

65 million years ago: The theory that the world's dinosaurs were killed off by a nuclear winter syndrome due to some cause(s) has been further supported by new evidence scientists have found - which is that cold-climate-loving fossil plankton (dinoflagellates and benthic formanifera) dating from 65 million years ago appeared suddenly in an ancient sea which had earlier been warm, the remains now at a site in Tunisia called El Kef. The find supports various models of climate behaviour. Also, ideas that a giant asteroid struck the earth, threw up clouds of dust and obscured the sun, while chains of volcanic eruptions were anyway set off that modified climates for centuries. The researchers included: Simone Galeotti of University of Urbino, Italy, and Henry Brinkhuis of University of Utrecht, Netherlands. Also, Matthew Huber of Purdue University, Indiana, USA. (Reported 25 June 2004 in world press and see a recent issue of journal, Geology)

Up to 30,000 Iraqi police officers are being sacked for incompetency and unreliability, though they will be given a payout of $87 million, British military sources have said. (Reported 25 June 2004 in world press)

A Sydney man, Bilal Khazal, 34, has been named by the CIA as a top operative for Al-Qa'ida and been apprehended by Australian authorities, though shortly released on bail. (Reported 25 June 2004 Sydney Morning Herald)

Israeli military police have interrogated five reservist soldiers who have put on an exhibition detailing “the banal evil” of their occupation of Palestinian city of Hebron. (“Banal evil” being an allusion to the view after WWII of writer Hannah Arendt on German's Nazis, the Holocaust, and what she called “the banality of evil”). (Reported 25 June 2004 in Sydney Morning Herald)

Opinion: “I don't think the Americans are making any sense any more. Are they asking the Iraqis whose houses are raided, whose sons are either killed or taken prisoner and whose places of worship are either defiled or bombarded to show gratitude and appreciation? They [the US] demolished the infrastructure of the country, displaced its people and fomented sectarian and separatist tendencies among its multi-ethnic populations, and now expect Iraqis to grin and bear it? I call on them to stop this colonial gibberish. I can only compare them to cowboys and vagabonds who thrive on infringing on other people's privacy and are not regulated by any moral values in their scramble for loot.” From Sameh Abdil-Galil, Al-Hasa, Saudi Arabia, Al-Ahram Weekly, Cairo, 19 June, 2004.

Writer Mark Steyn in New Hampshire, US, suggests that "The West has to face the inevitable and dump the House of Saud"... "The West backs the Saudi regime as a bulwark against local destabilisation, in return for which the regime underwrites destablisation of the West across the entire planet." (Reported 19-20 June 2004 in Weekend Australian).

On Friday 25 June 2004, Left-wing journalist John Pilger is attacked in a long article in The Australian newspaper by Ted Lapkin, associate editor of The Review as published by the Australia-Israel and Jewish Affairs Council. Pilger responds roundly in a letter to the newspaper of 29-6-2004. Lapkin claimed Pilger's documentaries and interview materials are helping support the enemy in Iraq. Pilger disagrees.

22-23 June 2004: Arab militants, as they had threatened to do, behead a lone, young South Korean captive who had piteously pleaded on TV broadcast worldwide not to be killed: "I don't want to die..." The intention of the killing was to intimidate South Korea into withdrawing its troop contingent to Iraq.

Children remain forgotten victims of wars on terrorism: "Millions of children are suffering in 40 wars or serious conflicts but the world's attention is focused only on Iraq and Afghanistan. The head of International Save The Children Fund, Burkhard Gnarig, reports that more than six million children were imperilled by conflicts in just five countries, Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, The Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone. Visiting Sydney, Mr. Gnarig said that these areas are spoken of too little, most talk is about Iraq and Afghanistan. He added that today, much humanitarian aid is influenced by political considerations and media pressure. In 2002, half the US humanitarian aid budget of US$5.5 billion went to only one country, Afghanistan. International aid can also be used as a reward for countries willing to join the "war on terrorism", such as Pakistan. Mr. Gnarig says that if aid is distributed along political lines, the lives of children on battles lines are at risk of disaster. If their countries are not involved in the "war on terrorism", they risk missing out, more so as all UN aid-programs are drastically under-funded.
In other contexts, the fight against terrorism have created new dangers for aid agencies and their staff. Amongst the norms of war disregarded by terrorists are the neutrality of aid agencies, so that Save The Children Fund and others are finding it harder to deliver effective assistance. Aid agencies are also seeing their independence eroded, partly due to agencies finding their work effective only in areas regarded as militarily secure. As well, if military forces themselves did aid work, such as reconstruction or food drops, their work blurred lines of distinction between military action and aid work. Locals resistant to foreign presences may tend to see aid workers as no different to soldiers. (Item by Adele Horin, Sydney Morning Herald, 10 June 2004.)

Below re Arab outrage is from an emailer in Virginia USA by 11 June 2004 and
this looks like straightforward US right-wing propaganda. But certainly, someone has been studying and recompiling from the news! The below material does seem to be a "we didn't start the fire" sort of argument, perhaps courtesy of Billy Joel?
Coarse or not, this speaks for a rapidly growing number of Westerners, particularly Americans, in my view. (The "my" being unidentified in the original e-mail as sent to this website.)
To hell with Arab outrage!!!
Arabs are "outraged" over the humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of a few American servicemen. [As well they might be - Ed)
Where were these "outraged" Arabs when necrophiliacs in Fallujah mutilated four American soldiers by stepping on their burnt skulls and hanging their burnt bodies from a bridge?
Where were these "outraged" Arabs when "Palestinians" mutilated and dragged the bodies of two IDF soldiers in Ramallah?
Where were these "outraged" Arabs when 19 Muslims blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11/01?
Where were these "outraged" Arabs when Muslims continue to slaughter Sudanese Christians?
Where were these "outraged" Arabs when Muslims blew up Pan Am Flight 103?
Where were these "outraged" Arabs when Muslims bombed the marine barracks in Lebanon killing 241 Americans in 1983?
Where were these "outraged" Arabs when Muslims bombed the USS COLE ?
Where were these "outraged" Arabs when Muslims bombed the American embassies in Africa killing 231 people?
Where were these "outraged" Arabs when Abu Mazen engineered the "Black September" Terror Attack during the Munich Olympics, which killed 11 Israeli athletes and a US citizen?
Where were these "outraged" Arabs when ABu Abbas threw the wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer overboard on the Achille Lauro?
Where were these "outraged" Arabs when "Palestinian" rioters torched the Jewish-only Joseph's Tomb?
Where were these "outraged" Arabs when the Taliban blew up the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan?
Where were these "outraged" Arabs when simultaneous blasts rocked two of downtown Istanbul's synagogues killing at least 15 people and wounding at least 140?
Where were these "outraged" Arabs when "Palestinians" handed out candies celebrating the deaths of 3000 Americans on 9-11-01?
Where were these "outraged" Arabs when Jemaah Islamiyah suicide bombers killed 12 people and injured 150 at the J.W. Marriott [Hotel] in Jakarta, Indonesia?
Where were these "outraged" Arabs when bomb attacks in Morocco killed at least 28 people and injured more than 100?
Where were these "outraged" Arabs when suicide bombers killed 12 people at an Israeli-owned beach hotel in Kenya and two missiles narrowly miss an airliner carrying Israelis?
Where were these "outraged" Arabs when nearly 200 people, including seven Americans, were killed in bombings in a nightclub district of the beautiful Indonesian island of Bali?
Where were these "outraged" Arabs when 300,000 bodies of Iraqis were found in mass graves?
Where was their indignation, folks? You know where? NOWHERE!
It was nowhere because Arab outrage when someone non-Arab is a victim, does not exist, it does not rate. Why? Because the Arab culture knows nothing but how to be proud and arrogant. The culture is a cohesive political glob of people united simply by political identity and not at all by morality.
It's time for the rest of us, who DO know the difference between right and wrong, to tell the world that these "outraged" idiots are too pathetic to warrant any sympathy from the rest of us.
We're waiting for these "outraged" Arabs to get up the fortitude to be disgusted BY THEIR OWN people for the despicable crimes they have committed against others around the world.
:::::::FYI - Ends an unsigned e-mail as it arrived, and not endorsed in any particular way by this website::::::::::::::

More updates...

Week ending 23 May 2004: Re Abu Ghraib prison problems, Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary of Defence, is quoted as saying to a Senate committee, "[People] are running around with digital cameras and taking these unbelievable photographs and then passing them off, against the law, to the media." (It appears, US soldiers in Iraq are commonly equipped with notebooks [computers] and digital cameras, and that the pictures in question are not unbelievable - Ed) We later find from Weekend Australian, 5-6 February 2005, that at the height of argument about Abu Ghraib, Rumsfeld twice offered his resignation to Pres. G. W. Bush, though Bush refused to accept the resignation,partly due to an upcoming election.)

Torturing the history of Torture: Quote: “In my judgment this new [US] paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions. Memo from US White House legal adviser Alberto Gonzalez to president Bush regarding toughening interrogation methods in Iraq as part of the war on terror. This report coincides with the fresh release of more horrific pictures of prisoner-treatment in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison. On the same date it is reported that US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld “personally approved aggressive interrogation techniques for suspected Taliban and al-Qai'ida prisoners” to extract extra information about the 9/11 attacks and to help prevent future difficulties, according to Pentagon officials. (Reported in Sydney Morning Herald 22-23 May 2004 in Australia)

Leading member of an Iraqi governing council, Ahmad Chalabi, has now severed ties with the US-led coalition forces after a raid on his house by police and military men,and as he faces accusations that his intelligence chief is an Iranian spy. It appears this completes Chalabi's falls from grace. (Reported 22 May 2004)

The Christian gospel will soon be broadcast to more than half the world's population from an outback town in the Top End – Australia's northern part. Shortwave missionary group HCJB World Radio will build 31 towers at a cost of up to AUD$20 million near Kununurra, 500km southwest of Darwin, after winning a seven-year battle against locals. (Reported 20 May 2004)

18 May 2004: Iraq: US troops have found a Weapon of Mass Destruction (gasp!): An artillery shell which releases sarin nerve gas. However, it may be an old, left-over weapon preceding the current conflict, so does it really count as an anything? (Reported midday TV news)

A Lost Worlds Editorial

Much is being made lately of usually dismal comparisons between the present situation of the US (and its foreign policy) and regarding the Vietnam War to April 1975, when North Vietnamese forces ejected US forces from Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City).
For the US, is Iraq now a quagmire, or not? Some points can perhaps be made (?):
Point One: In North Vietnam, at least, the war ended in 1975 is not called The Vietnam War, it is called The American War. So what might the Iraqis now be calling what the Western media is currently calling, The Iraq War?
Point Two: Once the Vietnam/American War had ended, the Vietnamese, as an uncommonly forgiving nation, decided to get on with the rest of their lives. They even wished to trade with the US, which preferred not to bother to trade with Vietnam (which remains an avowedly Communist State), for around 20 years.
Point Three: (As a Middle Eastern acquaintance, and an Australian citizen) mentioned to this website just this week ending 15-5-2004): "Yes, the Vietnamese were forgiving. And when that war ended, the Vietnamese didn't follow the Americans home. It may happen differently at the end of this Iraq War" (?).
Enough said! - Ed, 15 May, 2004

Here comes the oil price Apocalypse

The below scenario is outlined (as we find from a bounce of some loose email on the Net) by a Canadian named Gary Morton - even though Morton makes no particular claim to it. Lost Worlds imagines some netsurfers will be mildly interested (?). We have not bothered to contact the author due to the sheer entertainment value of the viewpoint. We presume he won't mind - Ed

Notes on The END of SUBURBIA

By Gary Morton, 18 April, 2004 - http://CitizensontheWeb.ca

A new film, The End of Suburbia had its opening in Toronto Friday. Full information on it is at: http://www.endofsuburbia.com
Directed by Gregory Greene and produced by Barry Silverthorn, this film paints a startling picture of the end of North American society as we know it. The reason for the catastrophe is that global demand for fossil fuels is beginning to outstrip supply. World oil production has peaked and it will soon start dropping as the remaining oil is more difficult to extract. Prices could start to rise unbearably in as little as two or three years.
That means there will be no growth, only continuing recessions, shortages and blackouts. Suburbia will collapse because the auto based world is fast becoming a dinosaur. East to west and north to south, America is one vast city serviced by oil that will no longer be available at low prices.
I would say the movie is a must-see because it demonstrates that our way of life is most definitely unsustainable. Where it comes up short is on answers and ways to salvage a society facing collapse.
I have a few answers of my own and they combine with ideas from the movie to paint this picture.
The automobile is definitely dead. Fuel prices by about 2010 will prohibit driving and there are no alternative fuels to save us. Hydrogen and methane take too much energy to produce, so there will be no mass shift to autos powered that way. In the US the media and President Bush are pushing hydrogen as the answer even though most hydrogen is produced from natural gas. Hydrogen is produced by applying electricity to fluid. It can be produced with solar and windmill energy but it will likely be far into the future before large numbers of vehicles run on reasonably priced hydrogen.
The only powerful transport for people and goods is going to be light rail so any investment in highways like the Red Hill Expressway and so on is a waste of money. In the long term, highways may simply end up as new rail routes.
In the area of big power, natural gas is running out, so building gas power plants is out of the question. The grid is inefficient and consumes too much fossil fuels. Governments are going to burn coal and go nuclear. Protesting against new nuclear plants will be futile when the public is stirred up over shortages and blackouts. People may as well start working to make nuclear power publicly run and the construction and maintenance of plants completely transparent and open. With coal the plants in the USA will need scrubbers or they will blacken the sky. Coal will also take us further down the road of global warming disaster.
Neither nuclear or coal will be an answer because combined they still don t produce nearly enough energy and in the nuclear area governments in recession simply won't have the money to build.
A huge investment has to be made in green technology now, yet governments won't do that, so it will only be long after the collapse that we'll see windmills and solar panels popping up everywhere.
Eventually, after millions have died, enough energy may be produced by green and nuclear methods for vibrant local industry and home heating. But not for cars, autos remain a dinosaur and the number one job of Canadian males - trucking - will be gone.
Most deaths will be caused by the collapse of the social system, trade and agriculture and its effects on our aging society. Our food is grown on soil like a sponge by spraying it with oil-based fertilizers and pesticides, a system that will not be viable when the oil supply declines. Meat will be gone. It takes too much grain, water and land to produce meat and all of that land will be needed for local old fashioned agriculture. Lack of food and oil means that huge crops of corn and so on will not be grown for use in making plant-based fuels for autos.
After the rioting and mass death of the angry suburbanites we'll see cities like a New Toronto where food is growing in every park and backyard. Parking lots, golf courses and graveyards will be torn up for use in energy and food production. Garages will mostly exist as housing for the homeless people that move into them. Travel will be through roads turned to bike trails and foot paths. Some electric and hydrogen vehicles will exist, mostly for police, government and military use. Governments will have small planes.
For a long time, society will run on volunteers. When the system collapses, union members won't get paid. They ll be in with suburbanites who think the whole thing is a conspiracy of the oil companies. Volunteering and doing work the government wants done may be the difference between homelessness and having some shelter and meals.

Initially the ill and the disabled will be warehoused but most will perish as there will be no real social programs except handouts for everyone.
The global village will exist through the Internet, while air travel and celebrity society will be mostly killed off. Globalization will die due to difficulty in creating and transporting goods without enough fossil fuel. Economy will be mostly local or continental through rail. An unfortunate symptom is that globalization will perish like an angry dragon. Economies like ours that simply don't produce many forms of goods any more will face endless shortages and unrest.
The war that has started now with the US securing Iraq's oil supply will go world-wide as nations compete for oil. There may be a war with China. Nations like Japan will collapse quickly and Europe is facing a death sentence as global warming is killing off the Gulf Stream, creating a small ice age there. Other parts of the world will fry and medicine, water and food will not be available. Much like it is there now.
By 2020 the US will invade Canada and take over at the federal level with a governor [put] in charge. They will likely leave some form of provincial and municipal governments intact as their goal will be to secure Canada's energy resources for US use. Given that Canada is an educated nation, this could be dangerous. Resistance fighters could use biological weapons against the US and even during the initial world collapse, organisms could escape from germ labs. Nuclear war is also very possible in the Middle East as they war over water and other resources.
Generally war is speeding the collapse. In Iraq the Bush administration has robbed the treasury to give taxpayer and oil-funded reconstruction projects to corporate friends. They've succeeded in creating suffering, looting, robbery and government debt, but still have not secured the Iraq oil supply. Continued unrest will deprive them of control over oil and in the end the US will have to pay high prices for most of its fuel.
In Canada we would have good survival chances if we prepared now, but as the movie notes, it is in everyone's interest to pretend that our society will keep expanding in the usual unsustainable ways. So many products from solvents to inks - and on across-the-board are made with oil when alternatives could be used. Cars have wasted far too much oil. If we had practiced extreme conservation we would not be in this predicament.
Considering my own personal options, I will be older then and may not survive. I will be part of an aging majority in a collapsed world where the young will blame and hate their elders for squandering resources and killing the planet.
Suicide will become a fair option at that time for many who don't want to endure the hardship. A bright note is that long after the collapse people who live may actually be healthier. There'll be no mass-produced cigarettes, junk food or car accidents. It may be a safer world, too, but then we could be killed off by radiation and disease.
Oil boom to oil bust and some people blame the corporations but it is all of us and I am one person who won t miss the automobile because I travel everywhere by bike, foot and rail now.

Ends email bounce of 13 May 2004

US irrationality on Iraq: Pentagon lid liftoff: Sexual depravity and sadism at Abu Ghraib prison: New allegations and/or outrage about US military prison guard behaviour in Iraq may now swamp the Bush re-election campaign. Graphics of guard dogs being used against naked detainees (as supplied by the perpetrators!) have been particularly significant in shifting public opinion, and Republican and Democrats both are now said to be hardening their views about the Bush administration and its handling of the issues. Some former Iraqi detainees have spoken to Time magazine.
US news broadcasters are heavily preoccupied by the issues. Earlier detainee deaths in Afghanistan may also be investigated. By now, the US military is looking at possible abuse of 42 Iraqi civilians and 35 cases of prisoner-abuse. Sources in Iran have spoken of abuses of detainees in Iraq as being worse than so far reported, and occurring for longer than so far reported.
The Pentagon seems amazed so many soldiers carry digital cameras - and use them to send pictures home - a matter which follows a recent furore in the US about distribution of pictures of army coffins being brought home. Meantime, the UK has its own issues with allegations of military prisoner abuse (due to pictures provided by UK troops with a conscience, and/or the staff of a UK photographic laboratory); the government is now overviewing details before speaking to Parliament. In the Middle East, "the Arab conspiracy networks go into overdrive". And in Australia? Amazingly, six soldiers stationed at Townsville, Queensland, have been fined after pleading guilty to charges of cruelty to kittens! They were dobbed-in to their own military police by their fellow soldiers!
(Reported in Sydney Morning Herald on 11 May 2004, story by Paul McGeough)
(More than by the way, if US news broadcasters are now heavily preoccupied by these issues, as above, we can only be highly sceptical about their attention to sensationalism and demographics, not to morality - a lot of them were very gung-ho on a pro-Iraq war effort around March-May 2003, were they not? The US media needs to inspect its values as much as the US army does! - Ed)

10 May 2004: Voice of Conscience: Famed symphony orchestra conductor Daniel Barenboim, speaking as he accepts a prestigious Wolf Prize for Music in Jerusalem, says Israel's policy toward Palestinians contradicts the basic humanist values on which the State of Israel was founded in 1948. He asks: "Is there logic to the independence of one people at the cost of a blow to the basic human rights of another people?" He spoke as two Palestinian gunmen have attacked people at the funeral service for an Israeli settler and her four children who were killed on 2 May.

15 May 2004: Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Natural History unveils what it claims is most complete skull of Tyrannosaurus rex known. It is undistorted and nearly complete; most such skulls world-wide are incomplete or distorted by fossilisation.

US irrationality in Iraq: US president George Bush declares that the graphic photographs of US military guards abusing Iraqi prisoners "made us sick to our stomach".
See re an extracted article from The New Yorker by US investigative journalist Seymour M. Hersh in Sydney Morning Herald on 8-9 May 2004.

US irrationality in Iraq: US Secretary of State Colin Powell says of current allegations about atrocities in US military prisons in Iraq to TV interviewer Larry King, "I don't know what to make of it. I'm shocked. I mean, I was in a unit that was responsible for My Lai. I got there after My Lai happened. So, in war these sorts of horrible things happen every now and again, but they're still to be deplored." Whereas by now, US Defence Secretary has noted that what has been charged so far is abuse, which he believes is technically different to torture. Rumsfeld has called the actions in question "un-American" and "deeply disturbing". In the US, as the Pentagon suspects about 10 unnecessary deaths of detainees, calls from Congress are growing for Rumsfeld's resignation. Rumsfeld has said he did not read the Taguba report on the allegations, nor did his senior aides, although Rumsfeld by May 2004 has set up six inquiries into incidents. A sceptic in the US has detailed information on various atrocities committed against prisoners in Texas prisons while G. W. Bush was governor of Texas 1995-2000, which no one ever worried about.
Based on a column by Mike Carlton in Sydney Morning Herald on 8-9 May 2004. The My Lai massacre of the Vietnam War was in March 1968. Lt. William Calley and his soldiers killed 347 mostly-unarmed South Vietnamese civilians.

Unverified reports arise on an Islamic website using an audio tape of a message, claiming that Osama bin-Laden has offered rewards in 10kg in gold (US$125,000) for killing of US administrator of Iraq, Paul Bremer (and/or some of his officials), or UN Secretary-General, Koffi Anan (or his envoy to Iraq). Bin-Laden here also calls for a jihad by Moslems against the US-led occupation of Iraq, the US-appointed present governing council there, and whoever co-operates with them. Smaller rewards are offered, such as 1kg of gold for a US or UK soldier or civilian working for the coalition, 500 grams of gold for allies such as Japanese or Italians. Meantime, the US currently offers a reward of US$25 million for information helping it to capture bin-Laden. (Sydney Morning Herald on 8-9 May 2004)

US irrationality on Iraq: 6 May 2004: US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh generally releases his latest findings and publishes an article in The New Yorker exposing torture and other atrocious acts by US soldiers in Iraq which apparently break a Geneva Convention article or two. How do the media respond? US CBS network airs the story about noon on 6 May Australian time. Next day, UK newspaper The Guardian front-paged the story as "Torture: The Shame of America". Guardian columnist Naomi Klein asks why are people speaking of a US "quagmire" situation in Iraq, when the situation more resembles free-fall after falling from a cliff. A majority of Australian newspapers downplayed the story, but have since front-paged it.
By 11 May, after apologies have been issued by US President Bush and UK Prime Minister Blair, it is being asked in the Australian parliament, what did government ministers know - and when? - of the Pentagon's slow-release of information about the allegations? It has been the graphic in-prison pictures which have propelled the story, especially in the Arabic world, where disgust at the allegations is unspeakable.
(The situation of the US government by 11 May has gone so far past mere damage control that one wonders when the administration will start to disintegrate due to embarrassment (on the world stage) and sheer self-disgust - Ed - Lost Worlds.)
Some of this item is based on an article from Sydney Morning Herald by columnist Alan Ramsey on 8-9 May 2004.

20 April 2004: World press now reports that US Secretary of State Colin Powell may have spoken too much to journalist Bob Woodward, author of Plan of Attack on the Bush administrations preparations for its Iraq War, in early 2003.

20 April 2004: Spain: The Catholic Church authorities of Cordoba are being petitioned by Moslems to allow them to pray in the city's cathedral as a symbolic gesture of reconciliation. The cathedral sits in "a 10th Century mosque complex" dating from the Moslem occupation of medieval Spain. Cordoba, now a small city but once the capital of Moslem Spain, has about 500 Moslems, too many for the local mosque. Reactions to the request from Catholics have so far not been encouraging.

Mid-April 2004: John Dean, one-time legal adviser to the disgraced US president Richard Nixon, now publishes a new book (mid-April and already in its eighth printing!), Worse than Watergate, claiming that the Bush administration could possibly be called "a constitutional dictatorship" by now, even more corrupt than Nixon's administration, and with even wider "Imperial" ambitions. The book is replete with adjectives and phrases such as: conspiracy of silence, a presidency undone by its own lies, excessively conservative, more ideological, more religious, obsessive, sinister, anti-social, paranoid, scary, malevolent, reprehensible, disturbing, impeachable, stupid, indecent. "America is a divided giant". (Reported in Sydney Morning Herald on 8-9 May 2004. See also Bob Woodward's new book, Plan of Attack, on early US plans to deal with Iraq. And recent books such as David Corn, The Lies of George W. Bush; Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire; Jim Hightower, Big Lies; Lakshmi Chaudhauri, Christopher Scheer and Robert Scheer, The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq; Michael Moore, Dude, Where's My Country?; Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose, Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America; Al Franken; Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.)

4 February 2004: Australia: Re The [Australian] Tracey Report on intelligence community matters - why is it released before the earlier Brown Report of 22 December 2003, asks Australian intelligence whistleblower, Lt-Colonel Lance Collins by 20 April 2004. (Front page, Sydney Morning Herald)

20 April 2004: Claims arise in world press that Saudi Arabia has promised US president Bush it will cut oil prices by November to help prime the US election. The same day arise reports that US National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice says that the US is bracing for possible terrorist attacks in the lead-up to the November presidential elections, more so following probable terrorist motives for the recent attack in Spain as national elections were due. (In Jordan, security forces have said they have lately thwarted a plot by militant Islamists to "launch a deadly chemical attack that could have caused thousands of casualties".)

20 April 2004 and earlier: US president Bush now wants to spend about US$660 million to train, equip and provide support to forces in nations willing to take part in peace operations. This will be for the Global Peace Operations Initiative, which will be largely aimed at affairs in Africa. The world's various (potential?) trouble spots at present include: Haiti, Burundi, Sudan, Cyprus, along with Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans.

w/e 10 April 2004: "A group of people in Najaf have crossed the line. This will not be tolerated." Chief US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer on threats against coalition troops by renegade cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. (It sounds here as though Bremer has never heard that phrase the British used in Ireland about certain Irish patriotism long ago, "Beyond the Pale" - Ed)

Week ending 9 April 2004: Iraq: USA's national security adviser, Condoleeza Rice, testifies in Washington on apparent failures to prevent 9/11 attacks. Also in Washington, and in Australian political circles, comparisons are made between US situations in Iraq and decades ago in Vietnam (the Tet offensive). Controversy reigns on whether comparisons are valid. In Iraq, in Najaf, radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr (who evidently is wanted on a murder charge for an incident in 2003) has gathered a private army which is giving US forces considerable headaches - also forces sent from Britain, Italy, Bulgaria and Ukraine.

Al-Qa'ida's escaper: Right-hand man to Osama bin-Laden, Ayman al-Zahwahiri (a 52-year-old doctor from Egypt with a $US25 million price on his head), may have slipped the US net in Pakistan's South Waziristan area? Evidently he burst out in a bulletproof Land-Cruiser from a tribal compound as US troops approached, determined to rid the area of fighters coming in from foreign areas. Al-Zahwahiri regards the war on terror as a war on Islam and is critical of Islamic leaders who co-operate with the US. His wife and three daughters were reportedly killed by a bomb attack on the Taliban stronghold, Kandahar, early in December 2001. He was born in 1951 in Cairo, a grandson of the grand imam of Cairo's Al Azhar mosque. In 1999, an Egyptian military court sentenced him to death in absentia. (Reported in world press, 20 March 2004)

Gaza: Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi assassinated in north of Israel. Israel now intends to kill all Hamas leaders - except Arafat. (TV news, 18 April 2004) Following, Israel's government has decided to "resume targeting enemies" living in countries beyond Israel's control. Next targets - leaders of Hamas - have been selected.

We were right to go to war against Iraq - "A stable, democratic Iraq would be a beacon of hope for Muslims around the world." (Australia has 850 troops in the Middle East, generally.) (Editorial, Weekend Australian, 20-21 March, 2004)

Maths and God?: A professional risk assessor based in Columbus, Ohio, has used an old maths theory to establish that there is a 67 per cent probability that God exists. He is physicist Stephen Unwin, who used the 200-year-old Bayes's Theory, which will assume a 50/50 chance, then factored-in various pros and cons. In contrast, The Guardian in London has lately consulted some bookmakers who worried about the existence of God due to the lack of some appropriate organisation which could confirm matters one way or the other. (World press item, Weekend Australian, 13-14 March 2004)

13 March 2004: US body parts scandal. Reportedly, the US military has been using cadavers to be blown up by landmines as a way of conducting field tests relating to protective footwear for soldiers. (Reported in world press)

11 March 2004: Madrid: Simultaneous train bombings: Terrorist bombing in Madrid provokes outrage after death of more than 190 people (198?) and 1200 are injured. Four crowded commuter trains and three Madrid stations are blasted. At first the Basque separatist group, ETA, is blamed. Other voices suggest other groups may be responsible. Is this Spain's 9/11? A group linked to Al-Qaida has claimed responsibility (known as Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, which is "anti-western-crusaders). It is suspected that a link may be found to taped remarks from Osama bin-Laden of 18 October 2003 as broadcast on Arab-TV Al-Jazeera, to effect that al-Qa-ida reserved a right to retaliate when it thought fit against participants in an unjust war against Iraq, such as Britain, Spain, Australia, Poland, Japan and Italy. (Australian prime minister John Howard says he cannot guarantee that there will not be a terrorist attack on Australia.) (Various world press reports by 14 March 2004)

Headlines re Iraq: Top US general raises spectre of Iraq civil war (General John Abazaid). First such admission by a senior US official. CIA in Iraq is having trouble penetrating the ranks of "resisters". Anti-American Shi'ite leaders have suggested their private militias do more policing of Iraq. UN secretary-general Kofi Annan wishes to speak to UK ambassador to UN to ask for further information about alleged UK bugging of Annan's office. And in France, railway workers are scouring the national rail tracks (all 32,500km) due to threats made of bomb-planting. (Sydney Morning Herald 5 March 2004)

US now believes that al-Qaida cells may be seeking respite havens in northern and eastern Africa and officials are talking to African countries about allowing-in US troops so they can enjoy fast access to any troublespots. The havens might be in Mali, the southern fringes of the Sahara desert, Chad, Mauritania or Niger. (Sydney Morning Herald, 2 March 2004)

Australian government now decides to hold a three-month inquiry into performance of its intelligence agencies re Iraq's capacity to mobilise WMD from about 12 September 2002, to be met with calls from opposition for "more robust investigation". A report now in on Australia's pre-war intelligence information receives a mixed reaction from political parties and intelligence experts. (Sydney Morning Herald, 2 March 2004, p. 6)

w/e 28 February 2004: "Sometimes I still go to pray but it's an individual thing. Do you think we can believe in God without having to believe in the Mullahs?" (A very good question indeed - Ed) Iranian student Khosrow Ebrahim.

Dear Osama: (Reported re February 2004): Jordanian radical Abu Musab al-Zarqawi from Iraq writes 17-page letter to Osama bin-Laden asking for assistance, and boasts that to end of June will be a time of terror for Western occupiers of Iraq. And is as good as his word, as it turns out. (Reported in August 2004 in world press)

US irrationality in Iraq: Late February 2004: Following January 2004 (see item below), a report on US military prison conditions in Iraq, written by Major-General Antonio M. Taguba and not meant for public release is completed. Taguba cites institutional failings of army prison system. He had found that between September and December 2003 were instances of "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses". Allegations were supported by "shocking" photographic evidence. The perpetrators were soldiers of 372nd Military Police Company and members of the US intelligence community, plus sundry private defence contractor staff. (Mercenaries?) The 372nd was attached to the 320th MP Battalion which reported to Brig-General Janis Karpinski. Taguba has by now gathered lists of specific acts of abuse, detailed witness statements, graphic photographic evidence including videos. There are six major suspects named, including three "specialists", one of whom is a woman, plus Private Lynndie England who fell pregnant and was reassigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Charges pressed will include: conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty towards prisoners, maltreatment, assault, and indecent acts. It has been pointed out regarding the pictures of naked male detainees, and indecent acts in general, that in Iraqi/Moslem society, it is humiliating for men to be seen naked before other men, and homosexual acts are against Islamic law - imposition of being involved in or photographed in such situations for Moslem men amounts to deliberated torture. The offenses amount to systematic dehumanisation (and so on).
Some of this item is based on a recent article from The New Yorker by US investigative journalist Seymour M. Hersh as extracted in Sydney Morning Herald on 8-9 May 2004. Hersh was the US journalist who exposed the My Lai massacre (March 1968) of the Vietnam War. Check website: www.newyorker.com.

21 February 2004 and 4.6 billion years ago - Earthlings are preparing to land a small spacecraft, Europe's Rosetta, on a comet named Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The voyage will take ten years and cover 11 billion kilometres. The comet destination is a ball of snow and ice about the size of a small town, and as with most comets, could be about 4.6 billion-years-old, from the period when the solar system formed. Head of the project is Dr. Gerhard Schwehm.
Rosetta will be launched from Kourou, French Guiana in February 2004. It will weight three tonnes, needs 400 watts of power (think four light bulbs), and rely on solar power. Its trip will be aided by gravitational force from planets it passes. It is intended to find a landing place, release a 100kg lander, then release two harpoons, then drill into the comet's icy crust, check terrain and return detailed imaged. This mission will be ended around December 2015. (Reported by 21 February 2004)

Emotional intelligence?: There has been quite some discussion in recent years of "emotional intelligence" (just netsurf on Google on the topic). Now, researchers find that our brains are hard-wired to feel empathy with others. Brain areas may even "light up" if we see a loved one hurt, British studies using brain-scan techniques now suggest. Placebo-effects used for studies also seem to support such suggestions. One researcher is Jon Levine, a pain specialist at University of California, San Francisco and others led by Dr. Tania Singer at University of London. Suggestions so far are that particular kinds of empathic responses to another's pain are an automatic response that can vary in degree, a response that has probably been hard-wired by evolutionary processes. (Reported in world press by 21 February 2004 and see this February's issue of journal Nature, also a recent issue of Science)

Re Beijing: Another minor disagreement in the global village: The Swiss Parliament is to investigate the plight of thousands of St Bernard dogs being bred in China for their meat. (Reported 14 February 2004)

Australian Anglican Archbishop Peter Carnley tells an international Christian-Muslim conference in Melbourne that French moves to suppress public expressions of religion (as with banning Muslim head scarves in France) are misguided. He says that the Western World is on the verge of momentous change as people realise that secular reason had failed to deliver a good society. (12 February 2004)

Reactions to Mel Gibson's film, The Passion of the Christ:
For 27 February 2004: With the movie being released on Ash Wednesday in Australia, a panel of critics writing for one major Australian newspaper gave Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of The Christ a thumbs-down. What followed?
By 21 February 2004, about 300 religious groups in Australia has booked to block-view the film. Sydney Catholic Cardinal Dr. George Pell thought it was "a contemporary masterpiece, artistically and technically", and not anti-Semitic, rather with a message of forgiveness and love. The Anglican Bishop of North Sydney, Glenn Davies, thought it was "an extraordinarily moving and faithful account", and "good biblical theology", and some details aside, "the overall impact of the film is compelling". Sydney conservative-side commentator Gerard Henderson feels the movie is "a great work", though it might inflame tensions. (He saw a punch-up near the exit at film's end.) Henderson outlines the conservative religious views (as Catholics) of Mel Gibson and his Holocaust-denier father, Hutton, but concludes the film is not anti-Semitic. On website MSN Slate, Christopher Hitchens says the film is anti-Semitic, espousing a variety of Catholicism once associated with General Franco of Spain and the persecutors (in late C19th France) of Dreyfus ("The Dreyfus Case" as it is called in history).
The movie Hitchens says also relies a great deal on sadomasochistic male narcissism. Edward Kessler in The Independent (UK) has written of the movie's gratuitous violence, part of "the most disturbing [movie] I have ever seen. At least 90 of the 126 minutes is devoted to bodily mutilation. ... As a Jewish teacher of Christianity, I was surprised that there was no sign of the Christian emphasis on love and compassion." The Jerusalem Post has reported that Israelis are not experiencing outrage about the film. The movie meantime does extremely well at the box-office.

w/e 28 Feb 2004: Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ by now has taken US$23.6 million (AUD30.6 million), in the US and Canadian box offices. It is already the biggest religious-themed movie since Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments. Pope John Paul has said of the movie, "It is as it was", meaning, the depiction is authentic. Catholic archbishop of Sydney, George Pell, has said "It is a beautiful production, a work of faith, truly based on the Gospels." In the US, the film has an R rating due to the violence of its content.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has endorsed a growing view that the interim Iraqi government cannot be chosen by direct elections by the end of June 2004, and according to the findings of UN's special envoy to Iraq on the matter, Lakhdar Brahimi. Important is a view that the US needs to return the sovereignty of Iraq to Iraq. (Without such sovereignty, Saddam Hussein cannot be tried in Iraq by Iraqis.) Some Iraqi leaders have complained about US interventions and asked for UN assistance. (Sydney Morning Herald of 20 February 2004)

Beliefs current in USA: A recent survey by a UK ABC news poll indicates that most Americans believe many Bible stories, including (64 per cent) believe in story of Moses and the parting of the Red (Reed?) Sea, and that God created the world in six days (believed by 61 per cent). (So, "who ya gonna call, Ghostbusters?" - Ed) (Reported in Australia 17 February 2004)

w/e 21 Feb 2004: "The fact that we moved our troops into Afghanistan was a political mistake, which had to do with the Soviet Union's ideological approach to international policy in those years. Any attempt to force an extraneous social model on a country that has deep traditions of its own is always doomed to failure." Quote from Mikhail Gorbachev.

4 February 2004: Australia: Re The [Australian] Tracey Report on intelligence community matters - why is it released before the earlier Brown Report of 22 December 2003, asks Australian intelligence whistleblower, Lt-Colonel Lance Collins by 20 April 2004. (Front page, Sydney Morning Herald)

The end is nigh: 30 billion years is all the Universe has left to exist, according to scientists working with evidence provided by Einstein's theories and Hubble Space Telescope. (Reported in Australia in February 2004)

Siberian language discovered: American linguist Dr. David Harrison, asst. prof. of Linguistics at Swathmore College in US has discovered a unique language spoken by a shrinking ethnic minority in Siberia - as it unfortunately verges on extinction. Only 35 people now speak it fluently. It is the language of the Middle Chulym, descendants of the nomadic Tartars of Western Siberia who now number only 426 people, with the youngest being aged 52. They are nomads no longer. The people have no educational possibilities in their own tongue and are anyway swamped by Russian language and culture. Currently about 6800 languages are used in the world, but half could be extinct by 2200. The Middle Chulym 350 years ago were one of many nomadic tribes of Siberia subjugated by tsars who were expanding eastwards. Dr Harrison has been researching Siberian languages since 1996 and made his Middle Chulym discovery in July 2003. (Reported in Weekend Australian 31 Jan-1 Feb 2004)

Be very afraid - Jihad book discovered in Sydney: The author is Jordanian-born Aba Qatada (said to have links to al-Qa'ida, now under arrest in UK), the book in Arabic is titled Jihad and Jurisprudence. Moderate Muslims in Sydney are said to see this book as a danger to society. Qatada sees Western laws as null and void; the idea of a Muslim joining a jihad group is seen as a divine order; non-Muslims in Muslim lands are offered protection, but non-Muslims in non-Muslim lands are not to be protected as they are "war infidels". (Reported in Weekend Australian 31 Jan-1 Feb 2004)

The below information reached Lost Worlds early in 2004. It reads like right-wing propaganda from the US and came without proper sourcing, but it is unedited here so readers can make up their own mind - Ed.

My brother sent this to me and I thought some of you might be interested enough to read it. ~Virginia
Trusting that this is accurate--it is GOOD NEWS, indeed! This report was written by Lt-Col/ Scot S. Seitz to his Marines. The Colonel is in command of MWSS-171 of the 1MAW.
As we approach the end of the year I think it is important to share a few thoughts about what you've accomplished directly, in some cases, and indirectly in many others. I am speaking about what the Bush Administration and each of you has contributed by wearing the uniform, because the fact that you wear the uniform contributes 100% to the capability of the nation to send a few onto the field to execute national policy. As you read about these achievements you are a part of I would call your attention to two things:
1. This is good news that hasn't been fit to print or report on TV.
2. It is much easier to point out the errors a man makes when he makes the tough decisions, rarely is the positive as aggressively pursued.

Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...
... the first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on active duty.
.. over 60,000 Iraqis now provide security to their fellow citizens.

... nearly all of Iraq's 400 courts are functioning.

... the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.

... on Monday, October 6 power generation hit 4,518 megawatts-exceeding the prewar average.

... all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.

... by 1 October (2003), Coalition forces had rehab-ed over 1,500 schools - 500 more than scheduled.

... teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries.

... all 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.

... doctors' salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam.

.. pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing to 700 tons in May to a current total of 12,000 tons.

.. the Coalition has helped administer over 22 million vaccinations to Iraq's children.

... a Coalition program has cleared over 14,000 kilometers of Iraq's 27,000 kilometers of weed-choked canals which now irrigate tens of thousands of farms. This project has created jobs for more than 100,000 Iraqi men and women.

... we have restored over three-quarters of prewar telephone services and over two-thirds of the potable water production.

.. there are 4,900 full-service telephone connections. We expect 50,000 by year-end.

... the wheels of commerce are turning. From bicycles to satellite dishes to cars and trucks, businesses are coming to life in all major cities and towns.

... 95 percent of all prewar bank customers have service and first-time customers are opening accounts daily.

... Iraqi banks are making loans to finance businesses.

... the central bank is fully independent.

... Iraq has one of the world's most growth-oriented investment and banking laws.

... Iraq has a single, unified currency for the first time in 15 years.

... satellite TV dishes are legal.

... foreign journalists aren't on 10-day visas paying mandatory and extortionate fees to the Ministry of Information for "minders" and other government spies.

... there is no Ministry of Information.

... there are more than 170 newspapers.

... you can buy satellite dishes on what seems like every street corner.

.. foreign journalists (and everyone else) are free to come and go.

... a nation that had not one single element - legislative, judicial or executive - of a representative government, now does.

... in Baghdad alone residents have selected 88 advisory councils. Baghdad's first democratic transfer of power in 35 years happened when the city council elected its new chairman.

... today in Iraq chambers of commerce, business, school and professional organizations are electing their leaders all over the country.

... 25 ministers, selected by the most representative governing body in Iraq's history, run the day-to-day business of government.

.. the Iraqi government regularly participates in international events. Since July the Iraqi government has been represented in over two dozen international meetings, including those of the UN General Assembly, the Arab League, the World Bank and IMF and, today, the Islamic Conference Summit. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs today announced that it is reopening over 30 Iraqi embassies around the world.

... Shia religious festivals that were all but banned, aren't.

.. for the first time in 35 years, in Karbala thousands of Shiites celebrate the pilgrimage of the 12th Imam.

... the Coalition has completed over 13,000 reconstruction projects, large and small, as part of a strategic plan for the reconstruction of Iraq.

... Uday and Queasy are dead - and no longer feeding innocent Iraqis to the zoo lions, raping the young daughters of local leaders to force cooperation, torturing Iraq's soccer players for losing games, or murdering critics.

... children aren't imprisoned or murdered when their parents disagree with the government.

... political opponents aren't imprisoned, tortured, executed, maimed, or are forced to watch their families die for disagreeing with Saddam.

... millions of longsuffering Iraqis no longer live in perpetual terror.

... Saudis will hold municipal elections.

... Qatar is reforming education to give more choices to parents.

... Jordan is accelerating market economic reforms.

... the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for the first time to an Iranian -- a Muslim woman who speaks out with courage for human rights, for democracy and for peace.

... Saddam is gone. ... Iraq is free. ... President Bush has not faltered or failed.

... Yet, little or none of this information has been published by the Press corps that prides itself on bringing you all the news that's important.

Iraq under US lead control has come further in six months than Germany did in seven years or Japan did in nine years following WWII. Military deaths from fanatic Nazi's, and Japanese numbered in the thousands and continued for over three years after WWII victory was declared.

It took the US over four months to clear away the twin tower debris, let alone attempt to build something else in its place.

Now, take into account that Congress fought President Bush on every aspect of his handling of this country's war and the post-war reconstruction; and that they continue to claim on a daily basis on national TV that this conflict has been a failure.

Taking everything into consideration, even the unfortunate loss of our brothers and sisters in this conflict, do you think anyone else in the world could have accomplished as much as the United States and the Bush administration in so short a period of time?

These are things worth writing about. Get the word out. Write to someone you think may be able to influence our Congress or the press to tell the story.

Above all, be proud that you are a part of this historical precedent.
(Ending "unsigned" as above - Ed)

US irrationality in Iraq: About January 2004, US military authorities begin to delve into conditions at prison. Head investigator is Lt.-General Ricardo Sanchez, the US' senior officer in Iraq. A report written by Major-General Antonio M. Taguba and not meant for public release is completed by late February.
Some of this item is based on an extracted article from The New Yorker by US investigative journalist Seymour M. Hersh in Sydney Morning Herald on 8-9 May 2004. Hersh was the US journalist who exposed the My Lai massacre (March 1968) of the Vietnam War. Check website: www.newyorker.com.

First investigation for International Criminal Court: Ugandan rebel leaders who have exploited thousands of kidnapped children as soldiers or sex slaves are to be targeted in a first investigation by International Criminal Court. Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni (a southerner) has asked the Hague-based court, operating since 2002, to investigate possible criminal matters. Perhaps 20,000 children aged 11-15 are involved. The rebel group involved is led by northerner Joseph Kony, who claims to have spiritual powers.(Reported in Weekend Australian 31 Jan-1 Feb 2004)

(The strongest view this website has so far seen on the question - Ed) US President's Mental Health: There is something psychopathic about George Bush - a problem of personality disorder. What the US needs is a good clinical psychologist to treat their president. How safe is the US when the red button is in the hands of a person whose mental normality is under question? Arundhati Roy [the first Indian to win the Booker Prize] has suggested the trial of Bush; we suggest only a doctor. (Quoted in Weekend Sydney Morning Herald 31 Jan-1 Feb 2004 from The Bangladesh Today newspaper)

Great Wall of China cannibalised - Tourism, neglect and development have eaten into one of,the seven wonders of the world, China's Great Wall. The Press Trust of India reported that the wall was now just one third of its original 6350km length. Building on the wall commenced during the Qin dynasty (221-206BC) as a major defensive project and it was rebuilt in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). It was listed as a world cultural heritage site in 1987 by the UNESCO. But it seems many farmers living along the wall were unaware it was protected. Bricks and blocks can be found in farmhouses, used in courtyard walls and even pig pens in some remote areas. Xinhua news agency reported the most recent case of damage occurred last December in Hebei province, North China. A survey team found a 14m breach at the 600-year-old Hongyukou section where blocks had been removed, set aside and a concrete wall erected in its place. An investigation showed that the blocks were scavenged for a villa project, which was not authorised by any cultural relic department. (Verbatim, Reported 31 January 2004)

22 January 2004: UK parliamentarian Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrats Party) has sparked outrage having said that she has empathy with Palestinians to the extent that if she were a Palestinian woman, she might consider becoming a suicide bomber. She says she does not condone such actions but she can understand why desperate people might consider such actions.

22 January 2004: A top Shi'ite cleric in Iraq (Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani) threatens civil war and a senior US commander warns of looming threats from nationalist and foreign fighters at work in the country. Sistani disagrees with US plans to select a new provisional legislature via 18 regional caucuses and prefers direct elections.

22 January 2004: The Times, UK reports that speakers at a World Economic Forum meeting in Switzerland suggest that the Arab World needs to stop blaming others for its woes and start accepting responsibilities for its situations. Many Arab governments are said to be "in denial" about needs for real political reform. The speakers have also blasted Islamic militants who blame the West for problems of the Arab world. "Arab governments need to rethink their models of development" says a delegate from Jordan. There have been calls for Arabs (amid problems such as poverty, high unemployment, lack of democracy, oppression of women and abuse of human rights) to rethink their ideas on their "state of victimhood", and drop their barriers to trade and to ideas, to rethink their views on conformity to some social norms, to stop strangling innovation and entrepreneurship. (From Weekend Australian, 24-25 January 2004). Meanwhile, Paul Sheean writing in Weekend Sydney Morning Herald (17-18 January 2004) tackles questions arising from US attitudes to the House of Saud. US Democratic front-runner for the November 2004 US presidential election, Howard Dean, thinks that Saudi Arabia uses US oil money to train the next generation of suicide bombers. Sheean writes that Saudi Arabia is "the world's leading financier of religious bigotry, militant mediaevalism, sectarian violence and the subjugation of women. It is the Taliban with money. Its financing of the most malignant form of Islamism has extended to Australia. And if the House of Saud falls, the prodigious oil wealth of the Arabian peninsula will likely fall to the (Sunni) Wahhabist branch of Islam, which promotes jihad, religious war against idolators, especially the West, especially America." Dean has been an opponent of the US invasion of Iraq.
Sheean cites other sources who feel that the elite of Saudi Arabia are experiencing a "profound cultural schizophrenia" preventing them from undertaking useful reforms.

More Woolly Mammoth: Southern England: Discovery in a gravel pit of complete skull of a Woolly Mammoth. Will it help assist research on how/why Mammoths died out in England? (TV news of 21 January 2004)

The Voynich Manuscript: Elizabethan "entrepreneur Edward Kelley, associate of mystic John Dee, once made a fortune by selling a 200-page book of strange figures, symbols and "encrypted" writing to Emperor Rudolph II of Bohemia. No one could decipher it. It disappeared for hundreds of years till found in Italy by a Russian antiquarian Wilfred Voynich, and so it became known as the Voynich Manuscript. It still defied attempts to decrypt it, till now, when a computer expert had found that the book is entirely - gibberish. Precisely the reason no one has ever been able to decipher what Kelley had sold an Emperor. (Item, The Observer, before 21 January 2004)

Mongols and alcohol: The men fighting for Mongol overlord Genghis Khan had a genetic predisposition, as compared to Caucasian Europeans, to absorb alcohol more quickly into their bloodstream, and to break it down more slowly. This might mean that descendants of Mongols in Russia get "more drunk" and have worse hangovers than Europeans. The same characteristic is shared by Koreans, Japanese and Chinese people. The explanation may lie with aspects of human evolution. The nomadic Mongols' only source of alcohol was fermented mare's milk. So they evolved with an enzyme different to that used by settled Europeans, who used alcohol from grapes or grain products. The findings may help explain the high incidence of alcoholism in Russia and perhaps, rates of depression/aggression associated with high vodka intake in Russian society. Mongols ruled Russia for two centuries and left many descendants there. Up to 50 per cent of Muscovites are descended from Mongols. The researchers on this project included Vladimir Nuzhny of the Russian Health Ministry's National Narcology Centre. (From story by Jeremy Page in The Australian, 20 January 2004)

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How old can remains be of Australian Aboriginals?: Discussion has resurged on this contentious topic, regarding remains found at Kow Swamp, Northern Victoria. Geo-chronologists Tim Stone and Mathew Cupper of Melbourne University (using optically-stimulated luminescence) have assessed sand in which humans were buried and suggest it is older than previously thought. The sand seems to be 19,000-22,000 years-old, not 9000-15,000 as thought. Their critics including Australian National University anthropologist Alan Thorne, who excavated the remains in 1968 and 1972, disputes there need be a direct correlation between the age of the remains, and/or of the sand. The Kow Swamp remains are of humans who had developed heavyset "robust" features as part-response to severe ice-age conditions up to 22,000 years ago, and they disappeared when the cold retreated. Thorne says a similar robusticity exists today in people of Central Australia, the Murray River Valley and Arnhem Land. Also, it is thought that several groups of physically-different people originally settled Australia in waves. (Australian, 9 January 2004) See recent issue of Journal of Human Evolution.

Pope wants New World Order: Apparently unimpressed by the New World Order noted as existing from 1989 by US President Bush Senior, Pope John Paul II begins the New Year by calling for a new international order to replace whatever arose after World War Two. The Pope, speaking at Catholic Church World Day of Peace, celebrated 1 January, has also caused a stir by virtually referring to the United Nations in the past tense. His view is that a suitable new world order "would be able to provide adequate solutions to the problems of today". He also sees current international law(s) as unsuited to dealing with rebels and/or terrorists, and wants new treaties and also reform of the UN. (Reported 3 January 2004 from The Guardian)

2-3 January 2004: Croc-credibility erosion in Australia: Australia's "crocodile tamer", Steve Irwin, with remarkable speed around the world has been roundly criticised in media - including on international network TV feeds - for feeding a crocodile in an enclosure while cradling his one-month old baby boy in his left arm. Criticism has come from parents' groups world-wide. Irwin has also been quickly reprimanded by a Queensland state government department concerned with child care. Mr Irwin has responded on TV to the criticism by saying he is as hurt as he can be.
(Diddums. It does not seem to have occurred yet to Irwin that the world has already had practice at criticising stupid parents after an earlier sighting of Michael Jackson holding a baby over a balcony in Germany. If croc-tamer Irwin is entering Wacko Jacko territory already, his career might soon suffer from the kind of media scepticism lately being visited on Jacko? Feeding a croc in an enclosure is one thing. Feeding the world media industry - which doesn't have an enclosure - with idiot storylines is quite another matter! What a nutty way to begin the year! - Ed)

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Stop Press: For late entries

On Tuesday, 10 August, 2004 at 08:29:27PM +1000, " > "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never > stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and > neither do we." > -- George W. Bush - a recent remark, and per email on 10-8-2004 circulating enthusiastically on the Net in Australia.

Opinion: "I don't think the Americans are making any sense any more. Are they asking the Iraqis whose houses are raided, whose sons are either killed or taken prisoner and whose places of worship are either defiled or bombarded to show gratitude and appreciation? They [the US] demolished the infrastructure of the country, displaced its people and fomented sectarian and separatist tendencies among its multi-ethnic populations, and now expect Iraqis to grin and bear it? I call on them to stop this colonial gibberish. I can only compare them to cowboys and vagabonds who thrive on infringing on other people's privacy and are not regulated by any moral values in their scramble for loot." From Sameh Abdil-Galil, Al-Hasa, Saudi Arabia, Al-Ahram Weekly, Cairo, 19 June, 2004.

"Iraqi leader shot inmates in cold blood, say witnesses. (Front page, referring to Iyad Allawi) (Reported 17-18 July 2004: Sydney Morning Herald W/end edition)

Europe's space chiefs are backing a mission that will launch a spacecraft into a head-on collision with an approaching asteroid. Is it possible to get rid of or change the path of an approaching dangerous asteroid? The mission is to be called Don Quixote (tilting at windmills). (Reported world press, 17 July 2004)

Los Alamos, Arizona: Key US centre for nuclear weapons research, National Laboratory, now reports it halts all classified work after "vital data" has gone missing (two lost data storage discs). 12,000 staff (Reported 17 July 2004 in world press)

Reported 10 July 2004: Al-Qa'ida are reportedly developing plans to launch terrorist attacks on US prior to 2 November presidential elections. No details have been discovered of such plans yet, however.

15 May 2004: Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Natural History unveils what it claims is most complete skull of Tyrannosaurus rex known. It is undistorted and nearly complete; most such skulls world-wide are incomplete,distorted by fossilisation.

15 May 2004: Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Natural History unveils what it claims is most complete skull of Tyrannosaurus rex known. It is undistorted and nearly complete; most such skulls world-wide are incomplete,distorted by fossilisation.

Still unclear about free speech in the US?: A media company that has tried to censor an anti-war group's billboard message in Times Square, New York, has come to an agreement with the group, Project Billboard, to carry a sign bearing the message, "Democracy is best taught by example, not by war." The company, Clear Channel, had tried to have the reference to the invasion of Iraq eliminated. (Reported 17 July 2004 in Sydney Morning Herald)

Iraqi Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin is to look into claims that PM Iyad Allawi shot six handcuffed prisoners about three weeks before he took office. (20 July 2004: Sydney Morning Herald)

Reported 10 July 2004 in world press: Militants from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terrorist group in Iraq threaten to kill two Bulgarian hostages within 24 hours unless US-led forces free all Iraqi prisoners.

Reported 10 July 2004: China is once again cracking down on Tibetan Buddhism, trying to control the monasteries, says a new 122-page report prepared by International Campaign for Tibet.

World Court is predicted to rule that Israel's West Bank barrier against Palestine/Palestinians be torn down. (Reported 10 July 2004 in world press)

Still unclear about free speech in the US?: A media company that has tried to censor an anti-war group's billboard message in Times Square, New York, has come to an agreement with the group, Project Billboard, to carry a sign bearing the message, "Democracy is best taught by example, not by war." The company, Clear Channel, had tried to have the reference to the invasion of Iraq eliminated. (Reported 17 July 2004 in Sydney Morning Herald)

Iraqi Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin is to look into claims that PM Iyad Allawi shot six handcuffed prisoners about three weeks before he took office. (20 July 2004: Sydney Morning Herald)

"Iraqi leader shot inmates in cold blood, say witnesses. (Front page, referring to Iyad Allawi) (Reported 17-18 July 2004: Sydney Morning Herald W/end edition)

Europe's space chiefs are backing a mission that will launch a spacecraft into a head-on collision with an approaching asteroid. Is it possible to get rid of or change the path of an approaching dangerous asteroid? The mission is to be called Don Quixote (tilting at windmills). (Reported world press, 17 July 2004)

Los Alamos, Arizona: Key US centre for nuclear weapons research, National Laboratory, now reports it halts all classified work after "vital data" has gone missing (two lost data storage discs). 12,000 staff (Reported 17 July 2004 in world press)

The US general in charge of Abu Ghraib prison said she was once told by a superior to treat Iraqi prisoners like dogs. (Reported Sydney Morning Herald, 16 June 2004)

2004: "I have to accept, as the months have passed, it seems increasingly clear that at the time of the [Iraq] invasion, Saddam did not have stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons ready to deploy." (British PM Tony Blair)

Reported 10 July 2004 in world press: Militants from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terrorist group in Iraq threaten to kill two Bulgarian hostages within 24 hours unless US-led forces free all Iraqi prisoners.

Reported 10 July 2004: China is once again cracking down on Tibetan Buddhism, trying to control the monasteries, says a new 122-page report prepared by International Campaign for Tibet.

World Court is predicted to rule that Israel's West Bank barrier against Palestine/Palestinians be torn down. (Reported 10 July 2004 in world press)

Reported 10 July 2004: Al-Qa'ida are reportedly developing plans to launch terrorist attacks on US prior to 2 November presidential elections. No details have been discovered of such plans yet, however.

History wars in India. Reported 28 June 2004. Accusations are that the previous Hindu administration in India allowed pro-Hindu bias to creep into history books, so now steps are being taken to correct this. Hundreds of thousands of textbooks may be dropped. The new Indian government is Congress-led, and will delete "saffronisation of history" references to India's Muslim rulers as barbarous invaders and the medieval period as "a dark age of Islamic colonial rule that snuffed out the glories of the Hindu empire that preceded it". In one book, "History of India, by historian Ms Romila Thapar, it is said that the Aryans venerated by the Hindu right as indigenous geniuses who created the Indus River civilisation were really nomadic tribes spreading from the Middle East. Thapar's book was removed from lists by the incoming Hindu government in 1999. There is also concern about references to India's caste system being mishandled in history books. Right-wing Hindus are now furious about "Leftists" and "Marxists" fiddling with Hindu history.

“The emergence of the new global anti-Semitism has signalled the end of the post-Holocaust respite, where Jew-hatred as a mobilising force was put on the shelf. Last week's conference was indication of the growing indecency enveloping the undemocratic leadership of many Islamic countries.” (Reported 28 October 2003 in Australia, from Dr Charles Jacobs, Israel Insider, 26 October 2003)

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