The Bush Administration intends to wage an Imperial war of conquest on Iraq, take control of the oil fields, ensure the crushing of Kurdish self rule by the occupation of Northern Iraq by the Turkish Generals and appoint a US military ruler in Iraq. At a later stage it will allow a puppet US supporting Administration to take nominal control but the US will hold "in trust" the oil fields of Iraq. It intends to ensure the military domination of the region by Israel and the US to consolidate their control over the oil and water resources of the Middle East. Bush is willing to wade through the blood of Iraqi children to do so. Bush, since he has described Iran as a state which is part of "the axis of evil" and Syria as a "rogue state" probably intends to invade Iran and Syria as well, organizing "regime change" in these states as well. Control of the oil of the Middle East will mean that China and Europe, which import oil, will in the future not be a threat to US domination.

Their ally, Sharon has already called for the invasion of Iran. Israel, which has defied over 50 UN Security Council resolutions and is already armed with nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, will use the opportunity to expel or kill Arafat and expand the size of their state at the expense of even greater suffering of the people of Palestine.

The Imperial nature of the US state is not new, it reflexes the nature of the formation of the state.

George Washington was a terrorist. He led an armed struggle for national Independence against the then legally established order, the British Empire. The long and bitter struggle resulted in the establishment of an Independent Republic, the United States of America. Like all struggles for National Independence, it brought together a wide range of social classes and a variety of ideologies. Some US army officers, for example, sought to convince Washington that he should become King of the new state.

What emerged in the process of the constitutional formation of the new state, however, was a Democracy, which in the context of it time, was progressive. But the new state, which grew and expanded through land purchase, and wars of genocide against the native Indians, as well as wars with Mexico and Spain, became, in the process, an Imperial state, occupying the Philippines and Cuba at end of the 19th century.

However there were always those who opposed this imperial tradition and sought to develop their democracy. Lincoln opposed the war against Mexico, and abolished slavery. Connolly sought to help organise the American working class, Eleanor Roosevelt was an inspirational force in the establishment of the United Nations, and the US anti-Vietnam war movement changed history, helping in the defeating the US Imperial tradition by the people of Vietnam. The Democratic Party in the US Congress have recently elected as their leader a person who voted against Bush's war, a reflection of the rapidly growing number of Americans opposed to Bush's oil war. It was these democratic values, which were, and remain, part of the nature of the United States, values that ensured that the US Empire never sunk to the levels of the opposing Empires, such as Nazi Germany, Japan or the Soviet Union. An indication of the continuation of those democratic values is seen in the growing anti war movement throughout the United States against Bush's oil war on Iraq. Look at the web site. www.unitedforpeace.org Indeed millions of American citizens oppose the policies of the Bush Administration.

Therefore, it is not an option to be anti-American, because very many Americans also seek a more democratic and just world. The division on this war is not between Americans and Irish, or between Muslims and Christians.

The division is between those who meet together in Seattle, Port Alegre or Florence, and on the 15th of February those who marched in Dublin, Belfast and in over 600 cities throughout the world, and on the other side, those that serve the interests of the rich and powerful, the major corporations, in the US, and Ireland, or other parts of the globe, especially those in the arms industry, that seek and need enemies in order to boost their profits and their power. Bush is there to serve the interests of the Enron's of this world, the oil and arms industries that paid for his election, not the interests of the American people. It is Bush and his corporate backers that want to own and control the $3 trillion worth of oil reserves in Iraq.

We recently had a referendum to endorse the Nice Treaty, a key aspect of which was to consolidate the militarisation of the EU by the establishment of a European Army, the European Rapid Reaction Force. The entire political elite, funded by the Irish corporate sector spent millions of euro to win. It was a taste of the emerging corporate power in Ireland that the American people are used to.

As President Chirac said at Nice on the 9/12/02 in reference to the ERRF;
" We have now set up the military means and the capabilities for the European Union to do what is necessary to defend its interests"

The European Rapid Reaction Force is a European Army to be used to impose the military will of the EU political elite. That this army is to be used in war is clear and obvious from the military equipment being allocated to it by the states of the EU. It has established strong institutional links with the US dominated nuclear-armed military alliance NATO. A NATO Admiral has just been appointed to oversee its first military action in Macedonia.

This link will become even stronger with the entry of the eastern European states into the EU as most of them are already in, or intend to join, NATO. The ERRF is an extension of NATO, it cannot function without NATO, and NATO is an extension of US Imperial power. Most of the elites of the new states who have recently joined NATO support the US in the current divisions in NATO and oppose the Franco-German position on Iraq, who seek to ensure the emerging EU Federal state is not subservient to the US Empire. The people in applicant states however, like the people in Britain, Spain and Italy, and Ireland, whose governments support the US, like people throughout the world, do not support the Bush oil war. Their governments like that of Britain, Spain and Italy do not speak for their people.