Not long ago the price of oil was about a quarter of what it is today. But soon after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq the price of oil began to escalate in tandem with the escalation of war and political turbulence in the Middle East... Not only are the raging wars in the Middle East responsible for energy price inflation, they are also responsible for price inflation of many other commodities, especially grains and other foodstuff, whose production and transportation depend on fuel. According to the World Bank, food prices have more than doubled over the past three years...

This shows that the disastrous consequences of U.S. wars of choice go beyond Iraq, Afghanistan, and the United States. The skyrocketing costs of fuel and food tend to plunge many of the world economies into a 1970s-style stagflation (a combination of stagnation and inflation) that threatens many lives and/or livelihoods around the globe. [More] . . read more

Naturally, every politician inside the American Beltway misses the aforementioned contradiction and agrees with Dick Cheney that the Russians must not be allowed to have their way. After all, it is Washington's world now and, even if there is hardly a horse's hair worth of difference between the governments in Washington and Moscow, Moscow can not be allowed to think that it can be Washington's equal on the world stage.

It is in historical moments like this that the citizen can truly see how little they matter. We have two powerful regimes trifling over a piece of territory that most of the world could care less about. Both of these regimes have proven that they are more than willing to kill thousands of people, destroy hundreds of square miles of land and water, and waste billions of dollars in doing so just so they can establish their position in their battle to control their world. It is their world because no matter how it turns out they will profit and we will pay. [More] . . read more

A Rudd Government would likely sanction a U.S.-led strike against Iran. Perhaps covertly, but Rudd has offered no assurances that he believes the Bush Administration should not be trusted over its Iran policy. Besides, arguing against the Iraq invasion is a luxury that Rudd would never indulge in power. Not unlike Howard and a host of past Labor Prime Ministers, Washington’s call is one that Australian leaders find impossible to resist...

A likely Rudd Government may be forced to make a decision on this matter within months of assuming office. Silence is not an option. If Rudd, like Howard, joins America in an unprovoked attack against a Middle Eastern nation, he will be as worthy of contempt as our current prime minister.  . . read more

In Pakistan last weekend's grim pictures of 47 people killed by a suicide bomber in Parachinar have been followed by clips of nervous people at the election booths voting in these critical elections amid the threat of violence. Did I say people? I should have said 'men'.

The politics of cultural despair whether being acted out in Islamabad or the Lebanon, in Baghdad or in Kandahar, in Dili or in Gaza is the province of men. Look carefully at these newsclips and find even one woman acting as protagonist or antagonist; even one woman at all, and you'll see what I mean. Tell the men the women are missing!

Perhaps it is time for the mythological Greek, Lysistrata, to reassert herself and to engage with other women to withhold sex from men until they agree to give up war and war-like behaviour?  . . read more

The Office of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney is reportedly in favor of military strikes against Iran, and President Bush has repeatedly described an attack as an "option" that he is keeping "on the table". Leading officials and military experts at the Pentagon, on the other hand, have reportedly been opposed to attacking Iran, and the State Department is said to favor a diplomatic approach...

Iran has repeatedly called on Washington to engage in discussions not only about its nuclear program, but on working towards a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, calls which have been rebuffed by the U.S., probably in no small part because any such talks would inevitably include a focus on Israel, the only nation in the region armed with nuclear weapons. [More] . . read more

Australia's chummy new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, continues his predecessor's policy of aligning our future and our military hardware with the goals of the Pentagon. We buy their planes, close our eyes and shut our mouth. Rupert Murdoch keeps his Aussie organs pro war. A Sydney Morning Herald executive says Iraq will never make the front page because "it doesn't sell papers". You get the picture. But in the American heartland, things are changing. The comments section of major U.S news outlets are often dominated by voices opposing the war(s) and even calling for the impeachment of George Bush, Cheney and other Washington crims.

Now is the time for Australia's politicians and military leaders to overcome their weird fears of a pre-emptive Indonesian Jihad on Aussie suburbia ­- the alleged justification for the alliance. Now is the time to disengage our troops from the American killing machine. This will take moral courage. But we can no longer consort with gangsters and hold our head high.  . . read more

When the Argentine junta was basking in public approval for its bloodless recovery of Las Malvinas, Henry Kissinger anticipated Britain's widely unexpected military response with the comment: "No great power retreats for ever." Maybe Russia has stopped the long retreat to Moscow which started under Gorbachev... Unlike in eastern Europe, today in breakaway states such as South Ossetia or Abkhazia, Russian troops are popular. Vladimir Putin's picture is more widely displayed than that of the South Ossetian president, the former Soviet wrestling champion Eduard Kokoity. The Russians are seen as protectors against a repeat of ethnic cleansing by Georgians...

Given its extraordinary ethnic complexity, Georgia is a post-Soviet Union in miniature. If westerners readily conceded non-Russian republics' right to secede from the USSR in 1991, what is the logic of insisting that non-Georgians must remain inside a microempire which happens to be pro-western? Other people's nationalisms are like other people's love affairs, or, indeed, like dog fights. These are things wise people don't get involved in. A war in the Caucasus is never a straightforward moral crusade - but then, how many wars are? [More] . . read more