Point

-----
Point: Cheney and the "good 'ole boys" (aka texas oil investors) had a deal to which Cheney's personal construction corporation would construct an oil pipeline (THE pipeline, india to afganastan, remember this term) and took office primarily to help policies bend to meet his personal needs - among other corporate scandals (i.e. enron). Afganistan didn't go for it. Cheney was pissed.
Point: Heroin (opium poppies) are the largest export in that country. The money is used/laundered internationally. Previously, it was laundered through the american stock market (we're talking billions of dollars here kids), and extreamist groups made sure more recently to launder it elsewhere. Our stock market felt the loss of that money. Bush was pissed.
Wag the dog: The media must 1) Gather all information about these scandles 2) Break it in such a way and at such a time that the American people put 2 and 2 together and Bush is screwed. The "pipeline" story will, mark my words, break before the elections in 2004. Although it will casue tremendous national embarassment, we will be able to accept what happened as part of dirty politics and move on to more important issues like making the country self sufficient so we dont have to through all this for oil in the first place. (intro: eco-diesel)
----
Our thirst for oil (stemming from our [US] overconsumption and manifest-destiny mentality) caused us (i.e. our government) to promote, contribute and allow the political condemnation of countries in the middle east becasue of their oil supply. If all the worlds oil was in Australia, then they would be the target of our take overs and UN policies, and most likely would be the the retaliators.
When a country believes it has the right to take whatever it wants simply becasue it has more capitalist control over the global economy, the results are oppression of the most common poeple of the targeted countries. They are the ones that have suffered long before the gulf war for our hunger for oil. Hense the mataphor; when you beat the dog relentlessly, you would be a fool to kill it for finally biting back.
The answer here is not to declare war on everyone that finally retaliates, the answer is to make our country as SELF SUFFICIENT as possible. Bush has cut the funding on oil alternative research while funding a war for oil. Thus they "hate" us for our gross overconsumption and arrogance, not simply becasue we are american.

Here's an idea, let's all get together and attack america! see how they like it. Then we can all use our military might to blackmail them into giving us all their corn or watever the US's biggest export is, then build corn pipelines all over the place. Then we can pay different states to fight eachother, and go running to NATO when they turn against us

Sigh! Go ahead...

In the field of politics, it's only "business as usual" to do so.

But then, by emulating thier tactics, you're only *supporting* the politicians who cause these problems in the first place...