only a couple of days to go...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Oil_Bourse

I have the solution.We make Bill Cliton the ambassador to Australia and have Moanica Lewdinski as his secretary,then George Dubwuya can look for weapons of mass seduction down at Kings Cross.

The anwser has been there all the time.There is no need for Condeleeza to invade Australia looking for the new "black gold" uranium.

George could simply use our new radiating condoms that glow in the dark,and simply make love,not war.

Now did I spell all the names correctly?

Sorry Gitmo Guy,

I don't agree.

It's not a religious war - it's a political and economic war that uses religion to legitimise itself.

I think you will find all wars are based on this premise.

Religion is the tool those in authority use to make people do things they wouldn't rationally do.

The original crusades were more about real estate and plunder than following God's Will. This war is no different.

Crusades a religious war, Gitmo Guy?

Thereby hangs a rather cute tale. From http://economist.com/diversions/displayStory.cfm?story_id=5543675 :

QUOTE
The most daring but successful prank in history was carried out by Doge Dandolo [of Venice] in 1203/4, when he first derailed, then hijacked, the Fourth Crusade, tricking the Crusaders into doing the exact opposite of what they were supposed to do. The crusade was supposed to conquer Egypt first, and then take back Jerusalem. Venice was contracted a year earlier to provide the ships to carry a sizeable army across the Mediterranean. When the crusaders arrived, their numbers were lower than anticipated, and they were unable to pay the agreed amount for the vast armada that had been assembled in Venice.

The aged Doge Dandolo, seeing an opportunity to hoodwink the crusaders, made a big show of "taking the cross" himself, and offered to forgive their debt if they would come with him on a short detour first. This was agreed, and together they first sailed to and sacked Zara, a Christian city that Venice had recently lost to Hungary, and then sailed on and sacked Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire-with Dandolo making sure that most of the crusaders never knew that Pope Innocent III was threatening them with excommunication if they did so.

There is a wonderful irony in the fact that a blind octogenarian not only managed to con the gullible crusaders out of recapturing Jerusalem for Christ, which was their primary goal, but also tricked them into sacking the main centre of Christianity in the east instead.
END QUOTE

You would be naive to believe that wars are driven primarily by religion.

It takes time to develop a historical perspective, but I think the second most daring and successful prank in history may have been Ahmad Chalabi's success in persuading Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of the Washington chickenhawks that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and that, if they invaded Iraq, Iraqis would welcome them with flowers and candy.

As practical jokes go, I can't think of one that was ever like it.

As recently as last October, in http://www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,1121966,00.html it was being reported that:

QUOTE
... Chalabi will have potentially more significant meetings with National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and perhaps Condoleezza Rice, both of whom — according to high-ranking Administration officials — believe that he is a plausible and acceptable candidate to be the next Prime Minister of Iraq when that nation votes, yet again, for a new government on Dec. 15.

It is the latest signpost in the Bush Administration's hegira from lunatic idealism to utter desperation in Iraq...
END QUOTE

Somehow, although the Time article goes on to call Chalabi "a supremely oleaginous political thug", you gotta admire the guy for playing the most powerful country in world history for blundering idiots.

Although I think the yanks need be brought down a notch or two,the free world still needs them.

The more fundamentalists lunatics like Iran that get nuclear weapons,the more likely that they will pass thase weapons onto lunatic fringe dwellers who will use them regardless of the consequences.Religion and logic seem to be diametrically opposed and Israel has a lot to worry about.