aides sold political favours to sworn enemies of the US: most significantly, Red China.

In particular foreign agents of influence were given unbelievable access to America’s most sensitive and advanced missile and defence computer technology. It was these illegal missile technology transfers which were to set off the nuclear arms race in South Asia.

Old stuff? Okay. For those who still think Clinton is a wonderful president and it doesn’t matter that he lies, cheats and denigrates the White House: how about this sampling of what he has been up to that has nothing to do with sex?

The US, under Clinton, is in danger of becoming just another UN state with no more power than Haiti or Lesotho. Clinton and Al Gore came of age in the socialist Sixties. Both are great promoters of One World government. Both are giving away US independence and freedom with both hands:

· In Europe, US soldiers are being forced at gunpoint to wear the blue beret of the UN Army. These soldiers no longer answer to America. They are under the command of foreign generals. There are also UN soldiers training right now in America. That is unconstitutional, un-American and done without a vote from Congress. That’s not all, by a long shot.

· Under the UN’s World Heritage and Biospheres Programmes, the world body has unilaterally taken jurisdiction over millions of acres of US national parks - including the Yellowstone National Park, the Grand Canyon and the Everglades - as biosphere reserves, while some of America’s most revered monuments, including the Statue of Liberty, have been designated "World Heritage sites" by the UN. As at the end of last year, a total of 67 American parks, monuments and nature reserves carried the UN label. All this has been done in great secrecy, and as an important part of the march to global government.

· If the Senate approves the new Kyoto Protocol Treaty, the UN will have charge over US energy use. This is not an environmental treaty. It is a plan to bring the US to its knees. UN inspectors will decide how much electricity or heating oil householders, business and industry can use: in the name of "saving the environment." They will have the authority to shut off power if they believe it to be wastefully used. China, Russia, Iran and other countries will not be subject to this treaty and can use all the energy they want.

· Hillary Clinton, the "Lady MacBeth of Little Rock, Arkansas," recently flew to Sweden to help work out a plan whereby US taxpayers would also pay a UN tax.

". . . what someone does in his/her personal life is no business of the public."

That about-face on sodomy struck at the very heart of US defence and security: but worse was to come. Though largely hidden from public view, damage to US national defence structures has been substantial. In a period of great and growing threat, seldom before have the US military forces been so anorexic. From 50% of the national budget in the 1960s, defence draws well under 20% today.

Thanks largely to Clinton, the Navy has mothballed more than 170 ships, 34% of its seagoing strength. Naval support ships, critical for overseas operations, have been slashed by 61% since 1990. The Air Force has lost ten active combat air wings, plus 498 pilots lost since 1996, nearly 700 last year, with a predicted shortfall of 1 000 pilots at this year’s end. The Army has lost seven active divisions.

US generals have warned the US senate that, failing much increased defence allocations, the "world’s last Superpower" would soon face "a readiness train wreck." Five generals from the 11 Marine Expedition Force at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, testified they are operating with outdated helicopters, trucks and humvee multipurpose vehicles. Marines are cannibalising parts from Vietnam-era CH-46 helicopters to keep the choppers flying, while mechanics work 14 hours a day to maintain ageing, saltwater-damaged vehicles, they said. "The military has been stretched to the limit of readiness and is on the verge of collapse."

In August the outgoing Chief of Army Command, General David Bramlett, warned that 200 000 Army troops stationed in the US are "not ready to go to war." Major-General William Nyland, chief of the 2^nd Marine Aircraft Wing at Camp Lejeune, said pilots are flying 30-year old CH-46’s and C-130 cargo planes used in Vietnam. Mechanics, he said, "are trying to patch together aircraft that perhaps their fathers flew."

At the same time Russia, allegedly suffering "catastrophic military decline," continues to pour enormous sums into its strategic force and weapons programmes. It recently deployed the new mobile Topol-M ICBM, streets ahead of anything in the US missile programme. This year it commissioned a powerful new nuclear battle cruiser, Peter the Great. An improved Udalov class destroyer, the Admiral Chebanenka, has either just joined the fleet or is about to do so.

All Typhoon-class ballistic missile submarines (the world’s largest) are being refitted and will have the capability to launch improved SS-N-24/26 ballistic missiles. It has also built a fifth generation Borei class ballistic submarine and begun a Stealth-fighter programme. If the IMF wants to know what happened to its latest US$10 billion Russian bailout, they might usefully look in Moscow’s defence direction.