Not that I deem this essay so precious, but hey: some drops of life have been brewed in, so:
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In the beginning I was appalled and still I am, by the vastness of the arguments raised by the unbridgeable amplitude of the contradictions so blissfully harbored and by the unheeded ambiguity in whose mire they revel.
For certainly the task is well beyond my strengths, and if no Superior power would glide over me and upon my commitment in order to endow my dismal heart with higher consistency and provide my dim intellect with a brightest, ruddier light, I will never be able to interweave so many threads competently, all of them so clearly above my capacity and none the less so deep seated in the diresome immensity that's confronting me.
And since the only way to eat an elephant is to eat it a little piece by a little piece, I have resolved that the fittest way to cope with my subject is a modular approach.

And thenceforth little by little, paragraph by paragraph, I came to harbor the insane hope to be one day able to lead it to an end; and with the help of the Most High, if by Grace conceded, I hope that this stroll where the Nothing once again faces Creativity, will eventually lead to the vision that twinkles inside me.
Why you whimsical Gods at times make mortals peek or occasionally you put so much of your power in an engine and then nonchalantly you set it aside even before using it, to let it torture itself in the voidings of the Grand Impasse where you deserted, like a lusus created to prove your own ability for your own amusement, like a bird leashed by one leg to play with and mock at, saying to him: "Fly"?

Let the blind lead the blind: ten is the rope, eleven is the knot, twelve is the key, and thirteen is the hubris: I've witnessed a dim string of light shining upon me, tracing a path on the board. Let the blind lead the blind: one is the measurement, two is the tangle, three is the key, and four is the hubris: groping step by step, trip by trip, within this cathedral of darkness, may my logos dispatch the speech and my speech unbind the bundle, and eventually lead to the door that once again ushers to the light flooded meadows of knowledge which unlocks without cupio dissolvi; for «Life is so Short, the Art so Vast, Chances so quick, Experiments so ambiguous, and Judgement so uncertain».

I will ask the questions, and you will answer to me. For what follows is not properly geared to criticize the protagonists: it is geared to question the supporters.

When he slaughtered them in the market by landing on their heads the shells of the mortars and the bullets of the snipers, and for eleven years he went raiding in the whole of its own country, breaking asunder the very same boundaries of his own very same federation, targeting civilians not like an occasional mark but like a deliberately chosen objective, intercepting their aggregations not by an awry fortune but by a delightful predilection, and when he entered Kosovo exterminating muslims not because of gold or oil -for Kosovo has none, for it isn't but a sluggish courtyard of garbage and dusty alleys cranking in the woods- but he did it because of mere madness and folly and pure cruelty, and he started cutting the people into pieces asking serb kids to get in and watch how to do the job, using band sawing machines, and set ablaze all their villages shooting in the head whole families leaving only one woman alive so that after being raped she could wander and tell what happened, and when he went around removing the eyes from the sockets and making muslim women bear serb children letting them lay in their own blood after the ordeal and waving goodbye, where were you then pacifists? For no one saw you hitting the streets then, neither once, nor just a few among your ranks, nor by mistake.

But when after ten years of fruitless diplomatic warnings and peaceful efforts the NATO intervenes, confronts him who used the bombs to kill wholesale and in bulk with smart bombs in an attempt to kill by retail, and by the price of about ten smart bombs went askew, in two months it eventually puts the word end to the decade long conflict to the bewildering degree that after years of daily records of killings all of a sudden we didn't record any longer one single gunshot or victim in the area reported either by the media you don't read or by the media you do read, then I saw you rallying by the crowds, hitting the streets, more than once, not just a few among your ranks but at full regime, shouting about the want of peace and the need of diplomatic efforts and yelling alleged crime and unbearable felony and civil sufferings.

When after having got entire buildings crumpled at night, full of persons asleep so that they had to count their civilian and entirely non combatant victims by the hundreds, and they therefore determined they did had to react, and they entered Chechenya at first with 25,000 men and with the tanks and razed Grozny to the ground turning it into a ghost city where only the spectral dwelt, with all the walls riddled by explosive fastballs and -startling to be remembered- not even stray dogs or cats could be seen anywhere rummaging the desolated and abandoned streets, and the journalist was speaking as if he were lingering in no man's land indeed on the foreground of a background of pure nothingness and on the news you saw the officers ordering the soldiers to take the prisoner behind the corner and you heard the shot and you knew it was summary and without trial, and you saw the choppers and the blasts and the soldiers die on the minefields, where were you then pacifists? For no one saw you hitting the streets then, neither once, nor just a few among your ranks, nor by mistake.

But when after having entire buildings crumpled at daylight, full of clerks working at desk so that they had to count their civilian and entirely non combatant victims by the thousands, and they therefore determined they did had to react after years of tolerating attacks without hasty or reckless responses (Lebanon: 200 marines killed; Kenya: 200 civilians killed in two embassies; Yemen: 20 sailors killed; Somalia), and this time they eventually entered Afghanistan at first with 5,000 men, and in two months they wiped out a regime that buried alive homosexuals, that on the public square cut the throats of the women caught at the hairdresser and forced the parents to watch and the throats were cut so that the noise of the disemboweled stifling and choking woman could be the most disturbing one, and which denied instruction to women and to men as well and which cut the hands of thieves stealing because of famine, and although confronting with these folks they didn't make deserts out of cities where such valuable leaders dwelt, but conversely used smart bombs, at times even being misled by intentional local warlords tips, attempting to spare civilians and letting entire cities undisturbed and concentrating on Tora Bora, then I saw you rallying by the crowds, hitting the streets, more than once, not just a few among your ranks but at full regime, shouting about the want of peace and the need of diplomatic efforts and yelling alleged crime and unbearable felony and civil sufferings.

When he, by his own and free and unexpected initiative, entered in the "brother" country with an occupation Army, driving arrays of tanks by all the edges, and in three days he seized all of their oil wells and started pumping their oil into his own country and he ground the fingers of the kuwaitians who dared write against him on the street of their own capital Kuwait City, and he drew the freshly tortured bodies of the opponents throughout the halls of the uptown hotels to make sure everybody could see and get frightened and the trail of blood on the carpets would last some days, and he hanged from the ceiling by hooks inside the eyes all the opponents, or crumpled the backbones of non combatant civilians in several pieces on the Himmler's Chair, and he made sure that women get raped, houses of civilians get looted, and parents forced to watch their kids while they got tortured and the grown up sons receive in a box before their houses' doors the remains of their own parents severed into a variety of pieces and jammed together, and amidst the poverty he went on in the meanwhile building lavish palaces for himself, where were you then pacifists? For no one saw you hitting the streets then, neither once, nor just a few among your ranks, nor by mistake.

But when after months of warnings and after a UN Assembly (Assembly) resolution with only one vote against (guess who's) and one abstention (Cuba), an Army sweeps him out of there in two months, without hitting even one single civilian, and sets free the invaded country without setting any governor of the winner there, and terminates the onslaught in the invaded country and gives back to Kuwait its own oil wells, and all of this without invading one single city to the degree that in order to spare civilians the Army renounced to enter the Capital and the dictator was even allowed to stay in power as long as he wouldn't attempt an attack again, and he was permitted to spend the money he used for the lavish palaces to buy food -and he obviously enough decided not to do so-, then I saw you rallying by the crowds, hitting the streets, more than once, not just a few among your ranks but at full regime, shouting about the want of peace and the need of diplomatic efforts and yelling alleged crime and unbearable felony and civil sufferings.

When the Empire entered the neighboring country in order to conquer it, and bombed the cities, and never allowed the locals to govern themselves but it clearly and without any shame meant to rule with its own governors and racked in the country for 20 years going on, day after day, with military operations, where were you then pacifists? For no one saw you hitting the streets then, neither once, nor just a few among your ranks, nor by mistake.

But when the other Empire, after having provided the resistance of that very same country with logistic help and instead of getting a minimal acknowledgement for its logistic assistance that made the country free from the invader and free of setting up whatever autochthonous government it prefers, gets all of a sudden its non combatant civilians killed by those he gave logistic help to get free, and therefore decides to enter that country and doesn't bomb the cities to the degree the capital doesn't record one single bomb on it, and in two months overturns a government that was let undisturbed for it was autochthonous as long as it didn't attack those who help make it autochthonous, and doesn't choose to set a rule with its own governors but once again it opts in for an indigenous government and doesn't stay in with an occupation Army for 20 years but after 2 months it is already done and after 9 months it even asks other countries to replace and overtake its own already withdrawing forces for pacemaking purposes in a land clearly excruciated by warlording problems, then I saw you rallying by the crowds, hitting the streets, more than once, not just a few among your ranks but at full regime, shouting about the want of peace and the need of diplomatic efforts and yelling alleged crime and unbearable felony and civil sufferings.

I even saw and witnessed some of you celebrating. What?
I even heard some of you declaring they arranged parties; I even heard those who should have been grateful, proudly declare such a monstrosity: "delighted about what had happened to the United States and that he had attended parties held in celebration" [source]. May The Merciful be forgiving to this ungrateful inhumanity: first asking for help in time of distress, and then rejoicing for the distress of those who responded to your distress plea.
I even saw and witnessed some of you burning flags that occasionally weren't even those of your own country or of an enemy country: italian "ceremonial burning of the American flag (...) of course perfectly legitimate" [source: make a string search on search engines: I don't want to reward these monstrosities with a direct page hit], I heard you saying without hesitation; but I never saw you burning the flags of alternative empires. Why? When is the last time you've burnt an Iraqi flag, comrade? For sure, if such hideous a thing has to be done, the american flag deserved it more, doesn't it?
On my turn, I didn't burn either of them. How could I dare burn the flag of the Iraqi people, or of the american people? Who should I have assumed to be, in order to allow myself doing such a thing with the flag of the others? Does this make me worst than you?
I heard you singing a song that you should not sing: for the men that sang it, the partisan hymn chanted during WW2, fought for real freedom and payed in person coping with the most diresome Army the earth ever knew: the Wermacht, not Mac Donalds; and they did it without running into schools ol palaces where german unarmed civilians were, but confronting the armed soldiers and exclusively the armed soldiers: so "Not in your (secular) name" is fine to me, but as long as it is certainly acknowledged that as a valid alternative it cannot be "In their (holy) names".
Also, chanting "Allons enfant de la patrie" before rubber clubs is still a few patriotic steps under Danton, and while it doesn't dignify you, it certainly ridicules the hymn, and disparages a few memories.

When the board meets to discuss about oil prices and to arrange a production so that it makes sure to reap by it the highest possible amount of capitalist profit, namely when the OPEC gathers to discuss its respectable business, where were you then pacifists? For no one saw you hitting the streets then, neither once, nor just a few among your ranks, nor by mistake

But when a triflesome showcase like the G8 meets and idly discusses of dinner menus and of EU burea[e]u[ro]cratic politics, then I saw you rallying by the crowds, hitting the streets, more than once, not just a few among your ranks but at full regime, shouting about the want of peace and the need of diplomatic efforts and yelling alleged crime and unbearable felony and civil sufferings.
I saw you personally, for I was among you; which doesn't prevent me from being here against you, for it is clear that being with you and against you is by now one thing: for you do not either believe or live up to one of whatever word you utter, to one of whatever thought you profess. Woes to you indeed, hypocrites: Dictatorships never found more zealous quislings. And this, certainly, for «Those who seek in freedom something else than freedom, are meant to serve» [Tocqueville, a guy whom most certainly you never read or even heard of although the word «America» can be often plucked from your lips].

When Bush arrived in Berlin on may 2002 (read it right: Berlin) you where there, and you got your memorable icon.

Schroeder hails Bush on may 2002

 Maybe you recall that in the Tien An Men square there was he who fiercely exposed his chest to the approaching Beijing's tanks (read it right: tanks. And those are young fellows who can be respected if they were to criticize the americans on something: for they proved their good faith beyond dispute. But they had only one chance to demonstrate): the army of the People, presumptively such as long as it is unarmed, asked the relatives to pay for the amount of each bullet found in each body to have back the mortal remains of the loved ones.
The army of the capitalism and of the middle class imperialism, instead, is armed with hydrants: nonetheless, despite this disproportion (arguably and hopefully, a clear consequence of a "plutocratic-sionist-masonic plot" to quote Mussolini's words), the Berlin's days of revolt for freedom have got their image of grandeur, whopping emulation of the Tien An Men's one: a thick group of berliner boys (read it right: berliners) mock at the Police which is imbuing them with water, and with pompous and emphatic gestures, the drenched boys exhort the Police to insult on their bodies even further, martyrizing them with a shower:

«What dost you strike at, Marcus, with that knife? -

At that that I have killed my lord: a fly. -

Out on thee murderer! thou killest my heart;
mine eyes are cloyed with view of tyranny:
a deed of death done on the innocent
Becomes not Titus' brother. Get thee gone! -

Alas my lord: I have but killed a fly! -

But! How if that fly had a father and mother?
How would he hang his slender gilded wings,
and buzz lamenting doings in the air!
Poor harmless fly,
That with his pretty buzzing melody
Come here to make us merry, and thou hast killed him.

Pardon me, sir: it was a black ill-flavoured fly,
Like to the empress' Moor. Therefore I killed him.

Oh Oh Oh!
Then pardon me for reprehending thee,
for thou hast done a charitable deed.
Give me thy knife, I will insult on him.» [Shakespeare]

It is relieving to know that our democracies, offspring of the German political experience, can count on such stoical men, educated by Seneca and Gazzali lectures since they were 18 (by now they're about 20 and an half), and ready to everything, including the extreme sacrifice of getting the insult of the shower.

But we can understand that they are well cognizant not to risk too much, after all. We have to wish they do not believe there isn't much to fear about as a consequence of the social security parameters that their abnegation would have bolstered: for it would be heartless for the blatant narcissism and self esteem of these heroes of our time to have to reply that it's not exactly like that, and that freedom from fear, the habeas corpus (anglo-saxon quintessence), and the right not to be tortured anymore in Germany, have been bolstered by slightly nobler bricks, and that the water by which the mortar has been kneaded with was not that much transparent like the water that washes them in a mid-summer's night.

It seems that in Berlin these guys (guys that consider normal having round the corner hundreds of shops crammed with fresh bread, olive oil, sugar, and Nokia phone cards: all this is nothing short of normal) ignore that the show of "bravery" they are displaying, is something they can afford just because exactly those very same Usa have soundly defeated exactly that very same regime, which was born exactly in that very same country, which had its capital exactly in that very same city, that exactly for those very same action would have imprisoned up them all, making an half of them being eaten alive by Doberman dogs, and gathering the other half in headquarters where with the background of a ticking typing machine it would have pulled off their nails, removed their eyes from their sockets and consumed their genitals with oxyhydrogen torches.

Good job, guys: go on defending that freedom for which Berlin has done so much, against the invasions of the ultracorps and of the terrible Mc Donalds.

Eventually, one day we even had to listen to germans (read it right: germans) saying that an american President (regardless of the fact you can agree or disagree with his specific policies) is equivalent to "Hitler": curious remark by a national whose very same nation invented Hitler himself (should we argue this minister was hinting at the fact that her opinion is "competent"?), and whose authority to deliver such nonsense to the public entirely derives from the fact that they're ruling over an unified Germany they would have not been ruling upon at all if the Usa would have not delivered them by Nazism firstly, would have not rebuilt them from scratch allowing a foe becoming the main economic competitor of that very same Usa that defeated it secondly, and by defeating the Ussr prevented Germany from being conquered by Stalin thirdly, and then allowed Germany to be reunified under the rule of these politicians fourthly.

Should we be happy of the newly produced german pacifism? Better: why should we not? After all, Germany made only wars in its history: a belated pacifism learnt on two started, waged, and lost world wars should be welcomed with a sense of relief, shouldn't it? The reason we should not be happy is that this german pacifism is quite murky: are they pacifists insofar they learned the lesson (that the very US imparted them, laying an additional layer of contradiction) or are they pacifists exactly because they are still scorned by the lesson? I wonder, because it is the unilateralism of this pacifism what clearly compromises it, reveals its nature, strongly recommends the latter hypotesis, and with this makes this pacifism even more dangerous than warmongering itself.

And let's put this straight: I would have voted Gore if I would have been a Usa citizen. Or even better and preferably Hillary Clinton.
Simply, some contradictions are so blatant that you do have to wonder, and if I would have voted Gore harboring in myself such enormous contradictions, well yes: then I would have been fit to vote Hitler as well... The interchangeability is in the mind of the beholder.

It is certainly noteworthy that were freedom has already been

Romanians reach out to shake the hand of the U.S. President: Bush came to the Romanian capital to recognize the country's invitation this week join NATO.

conquered through significant and decisive a contribution of U.S. blood like in Germany and Italy and Berlin, and so liberty has been enjoyed since then, a Usa President gets hailed with protests by young men used to Nikes and Nokias (try took away one from them); and conversely wherever real dictatorships have been positively sensed and lived since a few years ago, a Usa President gets hailed with squares invaded by cheering crowds waving both national and Usa flags with vigorous enthusiasm (in Germany and Italy they burn them):

Romanians cheer as Bush welcomes new NATO ally
Lithuanians warmly welcome Bush, celebrate NATO invitation
Lithuanians Warmly Welcome Bush
President Bush enthusiastically addressed tens of thousands in Romania
No images, no contradictions could let us perceive better how much went rotten in the wealthy western realms of Denmark: a population that doesn't owe to the Usa any direct liberation, that suffered until yesterday the strongest hardships, and that is now being admitted into Nato, raises Usa flags and spontaneously rallies around a U.s.a. President; on the opposite side of the spectrum, populations that owe to the Usa every single inch of liberty they have been enjoying in the last 60 years, that have been suffering nothing but unprecedented affluence in the last 60 years, that none the less find reasons to invariably protest against the very same Nato that prevented them from experiencing what Romanians did, and whose callow youth dare burn Usa flags.
I don't understand. Perhaps one day Romania is to overtake the germany-focused euro leadership.

In this line, other similar incongruities have been developed. The following one deserves a mention on its own: it is as recent as the Bali blast that claimed the lives of 200 tourists, in a typical australian resort. Conflicting theories on Australia's role issued by one same attitude: is Australia being targeted for it is supportive or because it is non supportive of counter terrorism? Both theories stem from the same no global groups, mentality and brewing ground, and emerged at the same time:

• Theory 1: Australia is too supportive of the war on Terrorism: consequently the fundamentalists hit it even if such logics would have suggested hitting the Uk before dealing with a significantly militarily inferior country like Australia, and whose support has been so significantly inferior:
  "PRIME Minister John Howard was yesterday forced to confront growing anger among Australians that they are being exposed to terrorist attacks by his government's strident support for America's war on terror. Sensing the mood, Prime Minister Howard called a press conference at midday to label people who accused him of responsibility for the attacks as 'plain wrong'. He said: 'Terrorists murdered Australians in Bali. This idea - that you purchase immunity from attack by saying nothing - is morally bankrupt.'"
  Angry Australians link attacks to Howard's support for US war
• Theory 2: Australia is not supportive enough of the war on Terrorism, consequently the government or the secret services planned the Bali blast to win such support.
  "Photographic evidence proving the use of an unconventional weapon (...) Anyone doubting the nuclear identity of this weapon should (...) To suggest that Australian politicians actually caused the attack on their own citizens in Bali, and now have Australian blood on their hands would be technically inaccurate and probably unfair. But it is certainly fair to say that a limited number of politicians have led the American Zionists to believe they have the full support of Australia and its military forces, when this is demonstrably untrue. (...) To suggest that 'Al Qaeda' [or any Muslim group] would deliberately attack the citizens of countries where it has strong public support, is as absurd as claiming that 'Al Qaeda' has access to strictly regulated micro nuclear weapons of the kind detonated in Kuta Beach. This page will be updated as and when new photographs and/or additional data become available."
  By the way: has the guy brought along a geiger device? For nukes release one thing called radiation - "micro" nukes (whatever they might be) are no exception: emission and persistence of emission is not a matter of size.
  This is the kind of mentally disturbed men we have to cope with. I'm not going to provide the link to this for mental disturbance should not be awarded one single adjunctive page hit. None the less, this is precisely the type of mindset compatible with appeasing to autocracies, for it is strictly functional to them.

As far as why Australia has been targeted, I assume both sides above should better either cope with this or get a vacation to think over themselves before drafting (wrong) theories so off of the matter:
Terrorists say Australia an enemy of Islam because helped East Timor gain independence

And As far as both theories are concerned, I wonder whether these clearly, objectively unlearned, clearly and considerably slanted and biased conceptions objectively drifting so close to psychological sickness and none the less so widespread among our current youth, are cognizant of the situation in Indonesia as it has been unfolding since year 1999: muslim majority infighting, and muslims attacking the christian minority with a penchant for their vivisection (of people, not even of animals) - wondering therefore whether these young men are aware of what they're talking about when they declare such groups have got and gained a "strong public support in Australia":

" On the streets of Ambon, people describe what's happening in their homeland as perang--war. What was a bad situation last year has suddenly turned horrific. Hundreds of people have been killed in the past two weeks in Muslim-Christian clashes that have spread across the Moluccas. Mobs, newly armed with automatic weapons, roam the streets of Ambon, the capital city, sometimes dragging the decapitated bodies of their enemies around with them (...)
In Jakarta, (...) fanatics are trying to give the war a name of their own choosing. Last Friday some 100,000 rallied in the city's central Merdeka Square to call for a jihad, or holy war, against Christians in the Moluccas. Some prominent politicians attended, including Amien Rais, the speaker of the country's legislature, who incited the crowd by saying the fighting in the Moluccas was a bid to weaken Islam in Indonesia. "Our patience has limits," said Rais. One protester carried a cross with a dead rabbit smeared in blood; another held a banner that read: TOLERANCE IS NONSENSE, SLAUGHTER CHRISTIANS." [uppercase in original article/banners]

Indonesia, 1999

There has been an ample prolificacy of articles from both extremisms, none of them of our concern for they both testify the longstanding violence in the region and that the clashes are not a consequence of any alleged "Australian support to the Usa" for they were ignited years before the issue was even a suspected potential topic. Thus we can focus on reasonably reliable media; information on which those who claimed the theories outlined above didn't arguably focus even for one minute for I'm positive all this even sounds quite new and unheard of to their ears:

INDONESIA - Human Rights Watch, March 17, 1999
Indonesia arrests 37 to stifle Muslim-Christian strife - CNN March 13, 1999
Indonesia declares state of emergency in riot-torn Malukus - Agence France-Presse (AFP) 26 Jun 2000
Chaos in the Islands - TIME, JANUARY 17, 2000
The Battle Intensifies - Asia Week JANUARY 28, 2000
Indonesia hunts bomb suspects aimed at disrupting peace (4 victims) - 5 April, 2002
And, eventually:
Indonesia Admits for First Time, Al Qaeda Operating There - CBN October 15, 2002

The curious thing in all this is that muslims were accusing the indonesian army to protect the christians, whereas the christians were busy charging the same army of sidelining by the muslims.
A likewise set of conflicting accusations has recently been raised by Ivory Coast feuding groups, in regard to France's abstention from intervention:
"The army rebellion in Ivory Coast is putting severe pressure on France's new policy of non-military intervention in Africa. Rebel leaders and the government both complain that Paris' lack of action is helping the other side. (...)
'If [France] supports Laurent Gbagbo, then the North will criticize. If they do not support Laurent Gbagbo the south will criticize. And since it has not chosen a side, it is criticized from both sides'"
[source: Ivory Coast Conflict Becomes Major Test for French Diplomacy]
In shorter terms: woe to you if you back side A, woe to you if you back side B, woe to you if you don't back either, woe to you if you intervene and you set yourself against both, woe to you if you do not intervene and you do nothing against both.
Eventually, there is always only one to blame, and only one to justify: by enacting such consistent theories, an Eldorado of kantian permanent peace would raise in the offings, accordingly to these learned young men; and the true democracy would last forever.

We the people.
You the people?
You Karamazovs.
«...for nothing has ever been more unbearable for men than liberty. (...) Men are in search of miracles, not of God. (...) but once more You didn't want to subjugate men by force of miracles, but You were thirsty of a free faith, which were not founded upon prodigy. You were thirsty of a free love and not of the servile enthusiasms of slaves before the potency that forever crushed them and filled the ponds of their hearts with terror. But see, once again You were wrong; You were crediting them of too much; in fact men, although created rebel, surely are slaves (...) thus we will do, and they will be grateful to us and will adore us as benefactors (...) for we will deliver them of the burdensome annoyance of having to decide freely and personally; and they will be happy, millions of creature with the exception of a few leaders who will know the secret (...) peacefully they will demise in Your name, and beyond the grave they are to find but death (...), for, even if in the other world there would be something, certainly it has not be meant for this type of creatures. (...) they are never going to grow able to use their freedom, for out of miserable rebels you cannot make titans fit to bring to conclusion the tower, and it was not for such chicks that the Grand Idealist dreamt his vision.» [Dostoevskij]

By «those who use their faith as a disguise» [The Koran], isn't it adamantly clear when they do so? So, isn't it adamantly clear as well that if the leader is only able to follow, what is he the leader for, and whose cause is he leading by? And if the leader is only able to command & demand, what are his followers for? For you have to choose among a herd and a People: some spot no difference. But only one of them has a leadership. In fact to the former undoubtedly no leader whatsoever is available, but they'll rejoice in pursuing this: «You have a cloak: you shall be our leader; and this heap of ruins shall be under your rule!» [The Bible, Isaiah].
In such embraces even just causes perish: fancy unjust ones.

It is certainly remarkable and curious that admirers have argued: "I believe he has been ill advised in taking on Washington".
Gee, you think so?

A savvy leader must pay heed to his advisers: for lending advice and opinion is precisely their job, and is such as long as they are both able and allowed to express dissent from the impending course: in fact if the adviser cannot dissent, he is not an adviser but an echo. A puppet would be more apt to determine a better policy. The only thing an adviser cannot do is to undertake action, for the executive and decisional power is not in the adviser's hands. But decision making is.
But when a leader is guided astray so much by his own advisers and to such manifest a degree and into such catastrophic errors, he proved himself unfit to guide.
And if he is just sheltering himself behind the allegation a bad advice has corrupted him and therefore he covers the king's robe with the adviser's vest, he proved himself unworthy, not just unfit, to lead.
Lucky the cause that either doesn't raise such leaders, or raises a People capable of overturning them.

A leader unable to lead: see a few in Europe, and see how they are: for they are different from you, and they are different from me.

Romano Prodi

Maybe you know that an italian, mr. Romano Prodi, is currently the President of the European Commission. Conversely, maybe you don't know at all how comes that from Italy so triumphantly he entered Bruxelles; for until the day before he got appointed to the head of the European Commission, he was the ruling italian Premier: the premier who managed to make Italy meet the severe economic deadlines set by the Maastricht agreements, in order to enter the European Union with the first lot of countries due to constitute the Community as its founding bedrock; and by achieving such difficult a goal for a country beset by the highest western Europe debt, he eventually gained an overwhelming, sweeping consensus in the Country.

In fact: how comes you go away from a place where you've just won such great a consensus, namely Italy, to land in another country, namely Belgium, where you're unknown as a perfect stranger?
You should not, correct?
In fact you don't, and in fact he didn't: the only way is that you're sent away.
And in fact he was.

This is precisely what happened to mr. Prodi: victories can be deadly, and some armies can be so weak they can barely afford a success.
Winning too much is a highway to be hated by those who never won one thing, and consequently Prodi fell victim of an infighting within his own coalition; such trivial struggle ended up bringing about such significant absurdity: ousting from power the talented man that just conquered so remarkable a result at home, delivering him abroad by speedy air mail, so that he couldn't be any longer of clear and present danger within a coalition where, by then, he had attained un challengeable a stature and was outshining everybody else.
Some folks just happen to reason like that; and now don't tell me you never saw them: you often did.

The outcome? That coalition, quite predictably even to lesser intellects, lost the following national elections a couple of years later. Surprised?

No globals: Italy: a better world is possible, see Helsinki No globals: Davos: sacrifice for freedom against absolutism

Then, about three years later, the very same members of that coalition (by then constituting the valiant and courageous opposition) by then deprived of mr. Prodi leadership, had to vote to allow a fistful of Alpini, the italian Army department which carries out operations on mountains and peaks, overtake some british forces in Afghanistan which were about to be dispatched home. And, stirring a deluge of criticism, guess what: they voted against the resolution, echoing as their own self defense for this unpatriotic move the same type of dull anti american arguments cried aloud by the most ignorant segments of the so called no global movement, by them labeled "an important part of society": young men in their early 20s mostly devoted to pot smoking as the mainstream collective avenue to socialization, whose dictum is "A better world is possible" and that undoubtedly are portrayed in the pictures you can see here (unless these emboldened crowds cheering the avant garde were made of someone else); one of them recently showed how much it is: on october 11 2002 he killed 7 persons and injured 80 more at Helsinki, Finland, using terrorist refined techniques clearly learned somewhere and purchasing powerful explosive.
And by arguing those are simply disturbed, non representative members of the movement, never the movement comes to terms with its own wrong theories, with happenings like Berlin, and with the fact every statement it releases is regularly fully congruent with the embodiment of it performed by the interpretations of such "avant gardes". But undoubtedly, Finland made much harm to the cause of a better world, and what happened is certainly and eventually America's fault...
Now, can you guess why the opposition coalition performed such a move? Sure you can: to regain the lost votes by winking at that movement, and by resorting to the gift that every experienced politician really worth the title must have a flair for and must be fanatic at: hustling.
Sway those hips more, Shakti.

No globals: Davos: a better world is possible: fight the Macs, but never the Talibans

So, certainly it is a master strike worth of being mentioned in the manuals, worth of the most sophisticated political intelligence (some of the politicians that crafted these strategies have gained, for mysterious reasons, a reputation of being very, very shrewd and witty. No kidding.): making first a move that by all accounts is definitely going to subtract millions of votes to your side by sending away a great and learned leader, in order to make a second move meant to regain an half of those votes by taking in a worthless and highly unlearned movement (for Rifkin and Tobin have as much to share with it as Nietzsche had with fascisms: nothing except the tie).
Clap your hands, for it requires true political talent. True vision. And true leaderships. Political glory is made of such auspicious swappings.

The Palestinians: a just cause carried out by unlawful means.
The Israelis: an unjust cause carried out by lawful means.
And in both cases, never forget: we're still paying for the gigantic mistakes made by Adolf Hitler: we're still living with this made in Germany uber alles masterpiece, writhing in the whirlwind of his posthumous stream. Hitler lives on.
In the line of the leaders who miss a chance to lead but never miss one to follow, Arafat skillfully crafted to himself a place of his own, apparently. «See, he has become like one of us. And now he may reach out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.» [The Bible, Genesis].

The Clinton Administration spent eight full years in the restless effort to cut a deal between them. The last words that the much missed His Majesty the King of Jordan addressed to a political meeting, have been of admiration for the Clinton administration's relentless efforts.
Arafat was offered 96% of the requested land: unprecedented an offer in diplomatic history, not of the middle east, but of mankind. Never a statesman who wasn't defeated at any war, offered such comprehensive a fulfillment of the demands when confronting a counterpart: that was the victory.
The President of the United States of America was not there by chance, as a passer by. Would he have been there by chance, Arafat would have not said in 2001 "I now accept the Camp David deals": which is like saying to the just slayed second bride "my beloved friend, let's marry again", when the party is over and all the guests have deserted the ballroom, the intractable ghosts have all been duly summoned (if not paved the way to the electoral victory), and the dreary dusk looms, profiling bigger and bigger the shadow of the ultimate dismissal.

He split over Jerusalem: «The Arab leader who will yield on Jerusalem is not born yet», he snorted at the President: in other words, that 4% left out of the 96% offer, was located precisely in Jerusalem. Perhaps the Peace of Jerusalem has become second to Jerusalem? There cannot be peace without Jerusalem: but there will soon be no Jerusalem without Peace.

He surrendered to the demands of an unlearned base, the call of the wild, the cry of the violence, and he already had the intifada in his sleeve while he was bargaining for peace, for it started soon after his rejection; maybe he was even confident in the healing, thaumaturgic power of it: for when he had peace already within reach and almost slipping inside the other sleeve, he none the less was apparently saving violence without a clear plan in mind but waging it. Certainly, between 96% of the land plus Peace plus a full honorable life by then filled with glory -glory to deal over the remaining 4% completely peacefully, and let Barak save his face-, and no land plus no Jerusalem plus the daily extremities of the most savage violence, the leader appeases his people's demands by choosing the latter.

Now, following this tide, keeping your people unlearned instead of ennobling it and its sufferings by showing a higher result and goal, and following its worst inclinations even when Peace was at hand, what good has it done to your cause? A leader should never follow, rather should lead in these cases: otherwise what is he the leader for?
And if even a 96% deal didn't suffice, what would the next american Administration have been supposed to work day and night for and at? There is no other significance behind Bush's sentence "He has not gained my respect for he has been unable to lead his People": it is not a way to show contempt, because official declarations of great Nations are not released to show scorn: they are released to deliver meaning.

Or are we going to take it under a religious standpoint? Certainly we aren't, are we? For if there is a faith that should be at odds with the jews, which one would have been more indicated for that than the Christian, since it were jews who crucified Jesus, the Christian Prophet that The Prophet himself outwardly acknowledges and calls Apostle and ranks among the highest?
None the less, no christian shows any religious resentment towards the Jews.
Nor should the Arabs on alleged religious recommendations that do not exist.

In fact if The Prophet, by saying the «jews and the christians» must be adversed, would have meant that they are the real jews and christians who are to be adversed, then doubtlessly also the arabs have been prescribed to be hated even harder, for indeed even in the very same surahs The Prophet also labels them with the most definitive, unmistakable tag: «The desert arabs surpass others in unbelief and hypocrisy (...) Yet there are others among the desert arabs who believe in God and the Last Day (...) And some of the desert arabs around you are hypocrites, and so are the citizens of Madinah, who are indeed fanatical in their hypocrisy»: should we assume by this the arab believer has to reject the arabs themselves? Certainly not!

For not only the surah openly chastise fanaticism, but cannot be recommending to be hostile to your kinship; therefore and quite convincingly, if by the means it couldn't be saying you have to harbour hatred for your brothers, therefore by the very same means it couldn't be saying you must harbour it for the jews and/or for the christians.
Therefore what is this noble surah properly saying to those up to Heavenly and not earthly words? In fact the surahs are neither plain nor meant for the «not knowledgeable» nor for the «ignorant» man who reads them with they eyes of hate blinded by the uttersome absence of culture: a rate of 80% of analphabetic is neither a side effect, nor qualifies for exegetical competence or ethic compliance - provided the Quran is what it is indeed: depth of thought. «God never wrongs the people; it is the people who wrong their own souls.»: God doesn't need assassination. «To each community, a messenger is sent. After their messenger comes, they are judged equitably, without the least injustice.»: God doesn't need proselytism, for every people can have its own messengers. And God doesn't need earthly judges, for each community has its own Apostles, and He is The Only Judge.
So the noble surah is clearly expounding the blazing truth that the faithful and the unfaithful both and alike may be everywhere: and that certainly being a muslim doesn't hinder you at all from the possibility of being an unbeliever; and likewise certainly, being a jew or a christian doesn't prevent you at all from being an authentic believer; and all of this by The sublime Word of The Prophet Himself: he acknowledges bad men can be everywhere, and good men who believe in the Word and in the Last Day as well. For this is indeed His word:, not mine, not yours; and its clarity is so brigh that it is all-and-self-sufficient. If I say a and then I say b, undoubtedly I have said ab: I have not said either only a or b alone, and exclusively the combination relinquishes the actual meaning.

«Provoke the unbelievers» should then mean you have to cause casualties? Certainly not!
For the spiritual casualty is the one which reduces the number of the unbelievers, and the number of the unbelievers is reduced by provoking them: and how shall you do this: by light or by darkness? You will provoke them by your positive example: that is the provocation, for it is the light not the obscurity what provokes the apple of the eye and makes it react positively. Doing otherwise would simply determine a «cause which never prospers», and consequently provoke only defeat.
How could you think that reducing the unbelievers meant killing? God is Judge, not commissioner to men: «All Power Belongs To God. If GOD touches you with a hardship, none can relieve it except He. And when He blesses you, no force can prevent His grace. He bestows it upon whomever He chooses from among His servants. He is the Forgiver, Most Merciful». Be glory to The Prophet, and to all the Messengers sent by God, the Gracious, the Most Mercfiful.

So, after 70 years of war, time to rethink: don't you think so?
What would have been today your People if instead of letting him linger on the trail of hatred and toil on the track of war, you would have led his children on the path of knowledge and, at the price of tolerating that absurdity of the colonies which Israel should withdraw just without conditions for they are unfair for sure, you would have grown better men, learned and cultivated at the universities, amassed skills and professionalisms, with a bright future in their own hands instead that an uncertain one in their belts, a People full of ripeness and tempered by one secular difficulty, and none the less gaining a network of respect and money and clout and knowledge and one day you would have found that in order to remove the obstacle that a grim fate (today unfair to you like fate has often been unfair to many others over time) you need not to blast but just to breath respected words. You have been doubting you could ever have been able to do this, although you would have waged a war for 70 years: this you have doubted; but to date you have not been able doubting 70 years of pure violence would not make your cause prosper.
Why not rethinking it all? Why not? What's the point with it? Perhaps he people who waged violence for 70 years is uncapable of waging construction for 12 years?

«I call heaven and earth to witness this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose therefore life, that both thou and thy seed may live.» [The Bible, Deuteronomy].
Would you choose life, or would you really prefer the last leap into the feature appearing «when earth is rocked in her last convulsion and earth shakes off her burdens and man asks "What may this mean?" (...) coming in broken bands to be shown your labours: then whoever does an atom's weight of good shall see it, and whoever does an atom's weight of evil shall see it also»? [The Koran].

From Chuang Tzu [original. The textarea below only includes a whole and long quotation by him]:

Conspirationalism is the theory accordingly to which behind any ostensive reality there is a folded reality which is concealed, complexified and obvious at the same time, invariably monotonous in the explanatory pattern through which it manipulates the ostensive one, and whose access is granted to a highly refined elite of extremely sophisticated intellects only, 'nd whose very same perception is warranted to a chosen breed of vestals only. Never one doubt who visualizes it so conspicuous and so clear, does so for he/she belongs to such crafts likewise conspicuously and clearly.
It is somewhat difficult to refrain oneself from perceiving an hallucinatory flavour in conspirationalism and its self-sufficiency: whoever is not buried too hopelessly within his own psychology, senses it positively.

Like Habermas reminds us «the first act of wishing must have been an hallucinatory investment of the memory of a real fulfillment» [Habermas, Erkenntnis und Interesse]: which means this: once experienced the first satisfaction derived from the attainment of an actual goal, our paleoencephalic brain makes an effort to intensify and reproduce that accomplishment by an hallucinatory (fantastic) endeavour, with the hope to spawn by itself what it felt by inflating the feeling in an autocratic way, no longer dependant upon reality: it is a procedure to saturate our brain receptors for endorphines [Candace Pert: Molecules of Emotion], for to our most primitive cerebral sectors what matters is only and exclusively the feeling of pleasure which went with it, not the reality of the fact that generated it.
This is precisely what conspirationalism is: granting yourself the perpetuation of a sensation regarded or perceived as indispensable to your mental balance, by repeatedly, nearly obsessively stressing again and again its outlines.

We therefore hear the most curious remarks.
Crude in Kosovo...
"The" very mysterious "international pipeline for oil which is going to be constructed" in Afghanistan...
"The cruciality for oil trade of the yugoslavian area, which therefore must be invaded to gain a strategic centrality"...
The dramatic relevance of "oil trade in the Panama channel".
"The immense deposits of uranium and plutonium in Tanzania".
"The United States invest at least 60% of their GNP in armaments" whereas the correct figure is (obviously unbelievable when heard by the ignorance of these persons): less than 4%

• USA: 4%
• Russia: 11%
• Iraq 18%
• France: 3.5%
• Morocco: 4%
• Mexico: 1%
• Norway: 3%
• Syria: 8%
• Israel: 8%
• South Korea: 4%
• North Korea: 26%

Facts, not fantasy: which reveals in its full reality the fore mentioned hallucinatory nature of these illations.
Or other theories like:
"Let's tell the truth, it is all about diamonds for up there are diamonds! That's the truth! It is the DeBeers, let's be frank!"... (the only way the interlocutor has not to be labeled naive, is to nod - with some emphasis)

This latest remark is curious and deserves one integrative elaboration: it was said, and bolstered with fierceness, by an european actor at a popular european night time talk show.
This actor elicited generous claps from the public by cursing and battering against the hegemony of what he called "the star and stripes" cultural hegemony, which he haughtily rejected, haranguing the crowd.

Obviously, as an actor he's a man whose bank account includes six zeros, which automatically makes of him a privileged man in no such position as the one of the ascetic (how many DeBeers have you already bought to your whores?).
But, this is the bewildering point, maybe seven zeros: in fact, do you know why he is an actor and as such already fully integrated in the system he so strongly despises while cashing all its checks?
Because his father initiated him to the job and on his turn the former garnered for himself a wide fortune and a (deserved) reputation (both bequeathed to the latter: the grateful self-made son; less deservedly, it seems) as the most famous national dubber of american actors, lending for decades his profound and charming baritonal voice to Al Pacino, Robert de Niro, and Sylvester Stallone.
The crowd cheers the son of the dubber, in awe.
No one of them vomits.

The fact that when it comes to Kuwait or Iraq oil is certainly affected indeed, is of no avail: in fact the credibility has already been entirely compromised by those previous allegations, typically in bundle with the arguments we hear: oil is seen everywhere, so when it is seen where it actually is, should be regarded by no accounts like an acumen of the perception: in fact it is declared present with the same outcry and certainty even where neither one drop has been ever recorded.

So let's take a dive into this matter of oil: for it seems that if it is for oil, then either it is unfair and shameful a cause in itself, or it doesn't affect us all every time we switch on a bulb; and if it is for oil, it must involve only the interest of one side whereas the producers are altruistic and selfless; and as if oil would have been something we do not heavily pay for; and, finally, let's issue a coup de theatre: you say it is one part that does it all for oil: I have strong evidence it is the other part who started this all because of hydrogen.

Everybody needs oil: there is no single nation that can afford doing without it, and this has not been a "western" conspirational arrangement, but a scientific reality; even the Ussr, which certainly didn't partake in the so called "western" block and certainly had the funds to produce alternative sources of energy, not only did not give up its oil centered production model, but heavily relied on it, still has and still uses and sells immense deposits of crude, and as an alternative source of energy produced Chernobyl.
We can indulge as long as we prefer on the virtues of the so called alternative energies: but the matter with them is that the thermodynamic efficiency they allow for, is unfit for most uses and for most engines: if you have never taken an airplane maybe you can go on with your theory, but if you have been aboard at least once, rest assured you could not make that mammoth boost its turbines into take off, taking avail of solar panels. As we are to see, exactly the "west" has finally found a source of energy alternative to oil that can overtake it without efficiency losses and without releasing one bead of pollution.

So when it is said that certainly oil is payed, objecting that it is under payed would only show how diehard the conspirational approaches are.
In fact such an objection disavows everybody's reality, and not just the alleged western reality. The price of a barrel is by definition the same for every nation, not exclusively for the western ones; and if the barrel would have been under payed, this would have favoured the whole of the world community as well, and not uniquely its more industrialized segment: and you cannot blame the west for the same thing you would have been readily praising it (oh, if it just wouldn't have been the much hated "west") with regard to the clear concomitant advantage the less wealthy nations would have profited, to an even more significant degree, by such a situation.

The fact is: oil trade has never been a story of under payed or underestimated prices, but conversely it has always been the story of a dance swirling around the delicate balance between non producers and producers (most remarkably the OPEC, the board which counts in all the arab producers. Russia has recently declined the offer to follow such board's politics): the former attempting to get lower prices (what the ideological bias named "under payed") and the latter striving to win higher prices (what the very same ideological bias has never the consistency to name "overpraised"), both pursuing the obviousness of a most favorable cost.
The oil crisis record track, exactly traces the history of this longstanding commercial battle between two perfectly legitimate interest pitted the one against the other, and each intent to get something good out of the eventual bargain.

His Excellence Ahmed Zaki Yamani

OPEC members even struggle between themselves: in 1985 Saudi Arabia refused its role of swing producer, namely the OPEC member which should have curtailed its production to allow the other members raising or keeping steady theirs, and this exactly in order to avert deflactive busts of the prices. It just happens arabs like money. And I do not blame them for this. Do you? In your case, you should: for you never miss one occasion to blame the Usa...
It was Yamani, the Saudi minister for oil, who impersonated this policy and refused the swing producer status: by declining to curb its production, Saudi Arabia subtracted itself from a very deceitful scheming of its own very same OPEC partners who were (very capitalistically indeed, and very maliciously and geopolitically uncorrectly indeed, did you notice?) attempting to undermine the Saudis preeminence by crushing Arabia inside the clutches of such role. [more on the subject: Can Gulf Monarchies Survive the Oil Bust?]

It rapidly grew apparent that no one inside Opec could resist an economic war declared by Saudi Arabia on its partners: Saudi Arabia started increasing its production to unexpected hikes, and prices went downhill like a windfall: december 30, 1985: 30 US dollars a barrel; july 1986: 7 US dollars a barrel. Immediately it raised a fear within the OPEC itself that this situation might be going to favour the world economy too much, and so guess what: Yamani, on the accusation of being too much of a pro westerner (something he has never been, considering his wordings in many of his interviews and his personal biography), was forced to resign.

The infighting was clear to everybody. But the most surprising thing is that the lowered prices (that anyway lasted for a very short time) generated negative counterblows for the economies of the non producers: for instance, dealers like Roberto Batres, chairman of an office of the D.Little company in Mexico, started complaining about the following: "Loans were made on the presumption oil was a precious commodity. All of a sudden it is such no more, and both debtors and lenders have to face dire consequences".
On his hand, Japan was deeply troubled by the possibility that the low prices might send skyrocketing the surplus of the commercial balance, which would have immediately triggered protective measures against exported japanese goods by a variety of other countries. Jupan then was in no crisis, you see, and it was used to export a lot.
See: an "underpaied" price for oil is in the interest of an alleged "west" only in the eyes of those who have reasons enough to believe in the conspiration that best suits their thoroughgoing ignorance. After all, I concede you can't expect no globals in their 20s and so concerned with... McDonalds, to understand something more sophisticated and learned than the propaganda which feudalist and anti modern backward realities target them with.

They always complain with the Usa, a country of immigrants: therefore a country made of men and women who could not find either a job or a satisfactory future in their own homelands; differently, why deserting your own country at the price of leaving behind a whole family of feelings, of love, and of biographies?
And notwithstanding, the Usa did not collect garbage but reaped the most determined, attracted the most adventurous, seduced the less biased persons: even the most recent Nobel prize for physics declared that, after having been living in the Usa for 20 years (original from Italy), he was not going to come back to Italy: and this not because research in the Usa would have been favoured by a more remarkable amount of funds: "the economical factor is certainly important, but the real reason behind my choice not to come back is not the economical, but the sociological asset and mentality I can enjoy in this country". Rest assured the no globals belong to such implied opposed mentality along with the implied bureaucrats: the latter choke the state, the former stifle fantasy, for nothing is more mentally rigid than them.
The Usa built their greatness out of the structural, original and unbridgeable weakness of other countries so deeply unable to reform themselves: Usa towers are an obsession only for those who feel like dwarfs before them, it has been argued by some non american: thus, insofar other countries are weak and incapable of giving to themselves a satisfactory social contract, they find their foil in the greatness of the Usa. The Usa are precisely as grand, as much and as far as other countries are visionless and squalid enclaves of spite and begrudge.

Now crude is about to finish.
You can listen to Rifkin, a genius that noglobals enjoy pretending he's one of them (like a refined italian leftist politician and previous Premier, Giuliano Amato, stated on an analogous topic: «Between cachemire and the sheep there is only a very, very remote relation: the former is educated, the latter is in the natural state»)

«The panic of the oil crisis days of the 1970s is long over, but we are still using far more oil than the Earth can replace. Author Jeremy Rifkin says there's a solution within our grasp: hydrogen.
Hydrogen is an abundant element found everywhere on Earth, including in air and water. It can be transformed into a potentially limitless form of clean burning fuel. And when it's burned, its only waste product is pure water.
If hydrogen could replace oil and gas, not only could we decrease emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that contribute to global warming, we would curb the pollution generated by extracting and processing fossil fuels.
In his book, The Hydrogen Economy, Rifkin says he believes development of hydrogen would revolutionize the way people access energy. There would be no need for citizens to rely on utility companies to provide their energy. Every home could have the potential to create its own energy; it's something Rifkin calls the "democratized energy web".»

Details at:
Power for everyone
Author envisions an economy based on hydrogen
High level group on hydrogen will be 'more than a talking shop'
Yakushima to lead world in hydrogen energy use
DaimlerChrysler to offer hydrogen-powered cars in 2003
Toyota to launch hydrogen car in Japan Dec. 2
Toyota to release first hydrogen car by 2003
Africa: Hydrogen-powered cars on the cards
Vegas energy station will promote hydrogen fuel
EU in Brussels on 14 October: Iceland a 'hydrogen society'
Hydrogen Project Slated for Europe
General Motors, DaimlerChrysler, Japanese: Driving with gas; hydrogen, that is
MesoFuel Inc. converts surrogate military fuel into hydrogen
BASF Rolls Out 'Nanocubes' for Hydrogen Storage
[it is important to note that I was writing all this months before President Bush issued his 2003 speech were he mentioned hydrogen for the first time! - one more reason to consider my humble obscure and personal analysis like something made with some talent indeed!]

Anyway let me take this chance to summarize one strange thing in a few intellectuals' behaviours and reasonings.
In order to criticize President Bush (in itself perfectly legitimate: it is the arguments that are funny, as we're to see. I suppose that if you really want to criticize someone either you have a good reason to do so, or if you have not, at least you choose your arguments with some guile. In this context, let me add I deem that the second gulf war is a grievous mistake), Mr. Rifkin has alleged in an interview [Italy, La Repubblica - october 23, 2002] that "the americans do not know that Iraq is the second producer of oil" and therefore are being fooled by the Bush administration.
Forgive me, mr. Rifkin: you are ready, sir, to argue there is a scheming behind the Usa politics, but you're not ready at all to argue (and the evidence is this: that you don't do it) that there could be a likewise minacious scheming behind the policies of some arab countries (notorious champions of fair gaměng).
You're quite willingly, sir, to argue against the evidence of those facts that showed to us a group of arabs claiming an unsolicited responsibility for the 9/11 attacks (even observing the anniversary!), that by these facts we should deduce the schemings we'd go after are those of who has been the passive side instead than those of who has been the active side of the event.
You're quite willingly, sir, to argue that the american people should be non cognizant of what even kids with a lollipop know, namely that Iraq has a darn great deal of oil; none the less, you're not prompt at all to argue that what currently americans might realistically be unaware of is exactly what you and me are aware of: hydrogen, not oil. For oil is before everybody's eyes, not only yours sir; but conversely hydrogen is not (yet).
By all this you deduce a scheming by Bush, but you sit mum before what facts really suggest.
May I tell you mr. Rifkin that when it comes to politics you reason in a singular way indeed, and that we're all very lucky that you chose to undertake a scientific and not a forensic career? For the former I deeply respect you, but for the latter do not take offence if I thank God.

Some of Rifkin's arguments look like, to my eyes, those brought forth by who argues Iraq has been suffering in an unbelievable way after the gulf war (started by whom?), and after the sanctions (U plus N); and that in the following line declares that there are not data on the entity of these sufferings.
All this surprises my obviously inferior intellect: not in the sense what is declared may be not: it may well be.
But in the sense that in my dim and drab intellectual stature it could never go in the same line one sentence that declares one thing to declare which I need the data, and another sentence that in order to explain how comes I do not provide the data to justify the conclusion I just so confidently drew, I say that it is because I have not such data.
Picturesque.

Or if you don't believe Rifkin, you can listen to mr. Yamani himself, who arguably knows something more about oil than me or than the conspirationalist no globals oh blame America first oh blame America soon: America America America...:
«For the former Saudi oil minister, the return to $30 a barrel crude has only hastened the day when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will be left staring at untouched fuel reserves, marking the end of the oil era.
"OPEC has a very short memory. It will pay a heavy price for not acting in 1999 to control oil prices. Now it is too late," he said in an interview with Reuters.
"The Stone Age came to an end not for a lack of stones and the oil age will end, but not for a lack of oil."
"Technology is a real enemy for OPEC. Technology will reduce consumption and increase production from areas outside OPEC."
"The real victims will be countries like Saudi Arabia with huge reserves"»
Original version of this interview at: INTERVIEW - Yamani says OPEC accelerating end of the oil era
 
You may also arguably know the turmoil that a RAND Corporation document stimulated: some analysts believe behind the 9/11 attacks are the Saudis: they have been disavowed by the Usa government, but if you are curious about their analysis and the included relatively mysterious remark «Iraq is the tactic pivot, Saudi Arabia is the strategic pivot, Egypt is the prize to pay», it is at: "The Kernel of Evil"? The PowerPoint That Rocked the Pentagon
For more on the possible "saudi connection" issue:
Saudi groups filling Al-Qaeda's coffers
Saudi Arabia: Charities Back Al Qaeda
Saudi link to Bali blast, says al-Qaeda prisoner
Saudis financing terror: report
Giuliani turns down $10 million from Saudi Prince
U.S. targets Saudi 'terrorist financiers'
FBI probes possible Saudi, 9/11 money ties
Saudi Princess' money used to finance 9/11 hijackers

Past: Twilight of the oil well?

Future: Refueling hydrogen cars with water?

I don't know who's correct and who's wrong (not even I am interested in suggesting Saudi Arabia has something to do with it: I just record the apparent fact some clues/data that a variety of sources print around seem to lead in that direction too), although I can confidently challenge more than one no global teenager with his pathetic blame America soon, to articulate his theory better than the facts slightly momentously exposed here: for «Nec PLuribus Impar»: not inferior to a few.
But what I want to say is that certainly mr. Yamani has nothing to do with it, and his remarkable, learned interview simply concurs to confirm a time of looming difficulties, and to depict their nature.

So, once cleared all the above, this is what I want to tell you: this sudden insurgence, this sudden upheaval of populations that curiously enough are all located in countries that invariably are oil producers (from Philippines to Indonesia to Middle East), this whole unexpected intense stirring of theirs in these latest years, all those involved folks who were born in oil producing countries and had stakes at that, all this is certainly curious: and it may well be that there is a Usa conspiration to get some oil and perpetuate the injustice that the Usa, in your opinion, do; injustice that other countries -all, absolutely all, much much better than the Usa- never do. Who knows.

But next time some guys get the initiative to fling planes into your office where you work along with hundreds of entirely non combatant civilians, remember that the reason you're dying is neither Iraq nor Palestine nor presumed American arrogance: but it is hydrogen, it's the ditto "buy our oil to the last drop or worse (for both... I suppose)": the oil age is really at its endgame, buddies. We all knew it was bound to happen, and now it is happening. Were you an oil producer used to a wage of a couple of billions per hour and you never succeeded in building a modern society that could thrive also independently of crude resources, and suppose you know in 15 years you won't get one single penny anymore, what would you do? Yeah, I'd go to the Bahamas, to sip Martinis play Golf and with a host of whores; but you know, some guys are addicted to money for money, whatever part of the world they may be born. It is the talibans who said "A barrel of oil should cost $144 and the Usa owe us $36 trillions(...) it is $30,000 for each inhabitant of all the muslim countries"... which means $15,000 out of the pockets of each inhabitant of planet earth - and this to start with, obviously; and what such clearly overrated, utterly irrational a price is for if not for hoarding as much as possible in the prevision of a sudden and imminent interruption of cash flow? and what such hoarding derives from if not from the opposite of a capitalist mindset which does produce, namely from a beduin mindset which ransacks before moving on?

It is all about hydrogen: the invisible soldier that frightens the hosts, which yesterday made the bomb, and which tomorrow will make clean energy for everybody: and in the meanwhile, you innocent unarmed civilian already besieged by life, will you play the lightning rod of the dwindling oil age too, being eaten alive by sharks who would hurt even their mothers without remorse?

«O you who believe, do not be like those who hurt Moses. GOD redeems the believing men and the believing women. GOD is Forgiver, Most Merciful.» [The Quran].