OK - I'll fire my second bullet too.

For those with a little bandwidth, here's a new Google video that takes more than the usual trouble to explain how the CIA and National Security Council was set up to be a government within a government. It's quite fascinating, and not a little depressing.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7677940272773278216&q=9%2F11+duration%3Along

(Health warning: It's 2 hours long, so break out the Coke and the popcorn)

Cheers

Carl,
"Think about it, mhaze, if Australia were to discover massive oil reserves, and we made a democratically endorsed decision to sell it all to China, do you really think America would sit back and say 'oh, we'll leave them alone, because they are a democracy', not bloody likely."

1. We wouldn't make a decision to sell to China, we'd make a decision to sell to the highest bidder.
2. The US wouldn't leave us alone because we were a democracy, they'd leave us alone to make that decision because it would be ours to make. Is the US stepping in to stop us selling gas to China? When we were a nett exporter of oil, did the US seek to inhibit us then?

I think you fundamentally misunderstand globalisation

Dont over complecate war. in happens in all life forms! as a group of humans 150 000 years ago fought another group, for a better territory with food & water etc. As did humans go to battle against another group 10, 000 yr's ago, once again for food and water, to protect themselves, they also took there tools etc, improving thier own lives family and friends, and help with thier survival. As it is still in the modern day, that people go to war to improve thier lives "safety, economically etc." no matter what you may think, fighting & (mass battles) take place in evry species(ants, lions, bacteria) each and evryday from the the beginning of time to the present, to the future, and those who think that human spirituality and soul will overcome these INSTINCTS, are the ones whos own way of life and survival will be most at risk!

At the risk of sounding anti-American (and thus un-Australian) and in case you missed it, the United States assisted militarists in overthrowing DEMOCRATIC governments in Greece, Uruguay, Bolivia, Pakistan, Thailand, and Turkey.

The U.S. was also instrumental in the overthrow of popular reformist leaders such as Arbenz in Guatemala, Jagan in Guyana, Mossadegh in Iran, Bosch in the Dominican Republic, Sukarno in Indonesia, Goulart in Brazil, and Allende in Chile.

They have also supported some of the worst butchers in the world: Batista in Cuba, Somoza in Nicaragua, the Shah in Iran, Salazar in Portugal, Marcos in the Philippines, Pinochet in Chile, Zia in Pakistan, Evren in Turkey, Pol Pot in Cambodia, not to mention Hussein in Iraq.

This was done by the USA , not because of a real threat to themselves but to further their own global interests.

They refused our request to provide troops to assist in the East Timor independence efforts because they preferred to maintain their relationship with Indonesia over the option of helping create a new democratic state.

Don't fool yourself - they will always act in their own interests (as they should).

The thousands who died as a result of these events didn’t get the chance to make their own decisions.

I wrote about this on another forum, but since it seems very relevant to me, i will briefly summarize it here:
As I see, there are three groups of humans on this planet and we somehow belong to one of them. 1st group of people is the richest, wealthiest group with a lot of human, physical and financial resources at their disposal. Additionally, they have institutions serving them, ranging from media to Hollywood and from universities to the bretton woods institutions, not to forget the UN and WTO. Second group of people includes the opinion leaders, politicians, think tanks and intellectuals, writers, celebrities, scientists and so on, who work, for money or for other reasons, for the first group. Researches carried out, opinions being promoted and lifestyles being developed by this group 2 all serve the first group. Third is the group of ordinary people who just follow whatever is going on. This group strives hard to earn bread and butter and to chase the false dreams shown to them by the second group. They die empty-handed and lead a life without much thought about what's going on in the broader world beyond theirs.
I hope I have kept it pretty simple.
Besides, I believe humans are programmed to work under two instincts: the incentive for reward or (dis)incentive for punishment. Since the former has limitations, the later has not. I can go to any limits to fight my (unforeseen) fears. Thats exactly what wars achieve. When the Group 1 feels people are not spending enough under the reward incentive (the law of diminishing marginal utility of course), they get it done through fear- of terrorism, of insecure futures, of Islam or Communism or any other "ism", of abolished civil liberties and so on. Millions of tax dollars are the result.

Faisal, that was a great summary. Yes, we "get it".

What a topsy-turvy world we live in. Yet all it takes is a few well chosen words to put it the right way up again. Pity that's a scarce talent.

If you can work it up into an article, we would be glad to add to the comments mate.