Oils ain't just oils, they're to die for - Margo Kingston: "Most Europeans have never been in doubt that Iraq is an oil war. As the latest ludicrous excuse for the war lies in ruins - that it is a selfless American crusade to civilise the Middle East - perhaps we can finally start to think about the real issues and what our 'leaders' are doing about them in our name.... Cheney's war plan to put Iraq's oil in the hands of American companies was counterproductive - the mind bogglingly incompetent Anglo imperial war now threatens to drive US business out of the Middle East altogether.

"At a conference on oil depletion in Berlin this year, Colin Campbell, a world-renowned geologist and founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, said: "There are vested interests on all sides hoping somehow to evade the grip of oil depletion, or at least to put it off until after the next election or until they can develop some strategy for their personal or corporate survival. As the moment of truth approaches, so does the heat, the deceptions, the half truth and the flat lies." The biggest of the flat lies so far is the Iraq war, where Bush was prepared to increase recruitment to terrorist organisations and increase the risk of terrorist attacks to secure oil."

"What to do? Enslave the people of oil-producing nations to keep living how we live and abandon our values for the purpose? Have a world war? That's where we're heading. How about spending our money not on oil wars, which make the world a much more dangerous place for ordinary people, but on a war against the need for so much oil? How about spending billions on alternative energy? How about telling citizens the truth about the realities we face, and bring us in on the conversation of how we might be prepared to change our lifestyle and the way our cities are organised to meet the threat through peace, not war?

"You know how much the Australian Government spent in the budget to promote renewal energy research? Nothing, effectively. More incentives for oil exploration, of course, but it hasn't even spent the small amounts it had already allocated for greenhouse abatement to stop our world warming up - partly due to our over-reliance on oil. And shouldn't we be spending billions on city and country trains, not more road tunnels? The world can descend into hell to fight over oil, or we can start now in reducing our reliance on it. We can live in peace with less oil, or we can die in war to try to maintain our lifestyle for a little while longer at the expense of our core values."

Oils ain't just oils, they're to die for - Margo Kingston: "Most Europeans have never been in doubt that Iraq is an oil war. As the latest ludicrous excuse for the war lies in ruins - that it is a selfless American crusade to civilise the Middle East - perhaps we can finally start to think about the real issues and what our 'leaders' are doing about them in our name.... Cheney's war plan to put Iraq's oil in the hands of American companies was counterproductive - the mind bogglingly incompetent Anglo imperial war now threatens to drive US business out of the Middle East altogether.

"At a conference on oil depletion in Berlin this year, Colin Campbell, a world-renowned geologist and founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, said: "There are vested interests on all sides hoping somehow to evade the grip of oil depletion, or at least to put it off until after the next election or until they can develop some strategy for their personal or corporate survival. As the moment of truth approaches, so does the heat, the deceptions, the half truth and the flat lies." The biggest of the flat lies so far is the Iraq war, where Bush was prepared to increase recruitment to terrorist organisations and increase the risk of terrorist attacks to secure oil."

"What to do? Enslave the people of oil-producing nations to keep living how we live and abandon our values for the purpose? Have a world war? That's where we're heading. How about spending our money not on oil wars, which make the world a much more dangerous place for ordinary people, but on a war against the need for so much oil? How about spending billions on alternative energy? How about telling citizens the truth about the realities we face, and bring us in on the conversation of how we might be prepared to change our lifestyle and the way our cities are organised to meet the threat through peace, not war?

"You know how much the Australian Government spent in the budget to promote renewal energy research? Nothing, effectively. More incentives for oil exploration, of course, but it hasn't even spent the small amounts it had already allocated for greenhouse abatement to stop our world warming up - partly due to our over-reliance on oil. And shouldn't we be spending billions on city and country trains, not more road tunnels? The world can descend into hell to fight over oil, or we can start now in reducing our reliance on it. We can live in peace with less oil, or we can die in war to try to maintain our lifestyle for a little while longer at the expense of our core values."