Mathematics, “Queen of the Sciences”, based on Arabic numbers, gift of Moslem scholars long ago, superseding Roman numerals, those too unwieldy for accurate calculation. Today, America’s resource wars against the ancient, founding civilizations whose work they are –Iraq destroyed, Iran targeted- the policies of Big Oil and the Israel Lobby.

Numbers speak and cast a shadow over the deceptions of the administration –an illegitimate presidency installed by a shamelessly partisan Supreme Court after the Bush loss of the popular vote. Our United States, once a beacon of democracy for the whole world, reduced to just another banana republic, subject only to the powerful few.

Numbers- days and years. Iraq is now America’s longest war. Understandable, since Iraq has one of the world’s largest oil reserves. Longer than the American Revolution in which we won our freedom and the Civil War that began the elimination of slavery, our nation’s shame; longer than World War II and the destruction of tyranny.

Casualty numbers- hard to really know these. Some 3,000 killed in Iraq, around 1,000 mercenaries in addition (hired guns, remember the Hessians?), probably another 1,000 in Afghanistan as well. Figures spun out reluctantly to the public, rarely heard on talk radio. Don’t show ‘em those coffins being unloaded at Andrews Air Force Base!

Here are more numbers: brave young women and men currently serving in the military constitute a third of one percent (1/3 of 1%) of those who would be eligible for recruitment if the draft hadn’t been abolished. Nineteen and twenty year olds killed for oil, the vast majority fitting one socio-economic profile (poor, to be exact).

One half mile, the distance many wounded veterans in wheelchairs -outpatients at rat-infested Walter Reed Hospital, military medicine’s “crown jewel”– have to travel to obtain their medication. Legs and arms blown off while patrolling the Army’s inadequately armoured vehicles.

Numbers here in Maine too. The recent, overwhelming re-election of Senator Snowe –Olympia!- the people’s representative who has never missed an opportunity to vote for a war or a weapons system. Patriot games- thousands upon thousands of “Support Our Troops” decals, but little support for bringing them home alive and well.

Eloquent numbers. Those massive profits of Big Oil and Halliburton, Vice President Cheney’s company. Israel’s decades-long slaughter of Palestinians (Lebanese, too) in their tens of thousands. War after war, and the Bush government apparently plans even more.