Vote NO to Total War : Melbourne Indymedia

Global oil production is starting to peak with midpoint by 2008 and terminal decline becoming self-evident by 2010. Anglo democracies are on the march worldwide running full tilt towards the imminent energy descent and securing the Persian Gulf oil fields by military force.

Once oil depletion hits over the next 5 years, the terminal global economic decline that accompanies it will literally translate into oil for food for billions of us around the world. Our current government has completely aligned itself with the US administration and military to see us through this life and death struggle. They aim to survive by force of arms rather than international cooperation and the current oil wars have lit the fuse that could ignite World War 3: A global nuclear war.

The impending Australian federal election stands to provide Howard with an implicit mandate for this coming war to end all wars. The danger facing the Australian nation is extreme. The efforts we take to meet it may be just as extreme if we go down the path of global war. The time will come when the leaders will demand we remove our gloves and use our fists. Once energy depletion sets in we will no longer make only partial use of the war potential at home and throughout the Coalition of the Willing. We will be driven to use our full resources, as quickly and thoroughly as it is organizationally and practically possible for the leaders to bring this about. All concern for humanity and the rule of international law will become wholly out of place. The total war effort required to prevail over our energy competitors will become a matter of the entire Australian people. No one will be allowed any excuse for ignoring its demands.

The ideology driving this mad rush to total war resides at the highest levels of the current US Federal Government. As Richard Pearle bluntly states:

"This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there.... If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage a total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now".

The future of the Earth hangs on our military success or failure in the Middle East. Those of us who prefer peace over total war need a government of the day willing to pursue international cooperation to prepare for peak oil and an irreversible global economic decline that will force a massive, radical and sustained change in our way of life as we transition to alternative energy sources and the economic/political order they support.

I humbly suggest that we should all vote NO to global total war.