"The financial equivalent of a nuclear strike," says one analyst. We do wish he would refrain from that particular analogy. The whole showdown over Iran--with Washington apparently threatening to use nuclear weapons in the name of protecting the world from nuclear weapons--may actually have more to do with maintaining global hegemony of the petro-dollar. From AP, May 5:

The Bush administration has just upped the ante on turning federally-administrated public lands over to corporate interests. Previously, they had just pushed to expand timber, oil and mineral lease rights, citing the energy crunch and need for "energy independence" due to Middle East instability. Now they are talking about an unprecedented direct sell-off--in the name of closing budget deficits themselves created by the Iraq adventure. From Montana's Great Falls Tribune, May 8:

Washington's closest South American ally plays the wimp-baiting and commie menace cards in his bid to become president for life. Sadly, the polls indicate it is working. From Reuters, May 6:

BOGOTA - Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, expected to win re-election later this month, turned up the heat of the campaign on Friday by suggesting his opponents would hand the country over to leftists rebels.

It was heartening to see a picture of Subcommander Marcos in the New York Times May 10, even if it was on page 12. The masked Zapatista leader sat down in a Televisa studio for a nationally-broadcast interview May 9, as the political crisis sparked by violence at the village of San Salvador Atenco, just outside the capital, continued to escalate. Politicians of all stripes are baiting the rebel leader as a demagogue and extremist, even as the press continues to portray him as a washed-out has-been. Pretty funny. An excerpt from the Times story:

Samir Adil, president of the Iraqi Freedom Congress, is on a tour of the United States sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee. He most recently spoke in Barre, VT. The following May 5 account from Vermont's Rutland Herald is misleadingly headlined: Adil and the IFC are not seeking support from the US government, but from anti-war activists, trade unionists and other grassroots progressive forces in the US.

Gee, what reason would these people have to be so angry? Note that the refugees accuse the guerilla leader who signed the peace deal of being a traitor. Note that they are very eager for Western, and especially American intervention. Once again, the case against Western intervention in Darfur may be a good one, but if the anti-war forces are going to make it, they had better be prepared to offer some other meaningful solidarity to the refugees--instead of loaning succor to their oppressors, as the idiot left did in the case of Kosova. From the New York Times, May 9 (emphasis added):

There's oil in Cuba! Can the invasion be far behind? Actually, the fact that this story (complete with maps of the divided offshore zone and the exploration blocs) appears on the front page of today's New York Times indicates that maybe more pragmatic elements of the US ruling elites would like to get in on the action and view this embargo jazz as a Cold War anachronism. Maybe these elements constitute enough of a critical mass to indefinitely forestall any military designs on the island. We hope.

This sort of thing has become so common in Iraq that it rarely makes headlines any more. But this one inconveniently happened just as a break has been announced in the deadlock over forming a new government. This obvious escalation contradicts Bush's facile claim that the US "strategy is working." On the contrary, the war is spreading. From Bloomberg, May 9: