More from the DV archive never before seen online. This is from September 2002.
The Winter of Burning Cars.
As that Autumn of 2002 came around, we had no idea what lay ahead.
No idea that the war would be over without a shot fired. No idea that we would lose.
September came and went in a blaze of sunshine.
October gales plucked leaves from the trees, scattering them over the earth.
Talk of war seemed almost safe, remote.
‘Everything’s going to be alright’ I told myself.
We’d heard it all before. Same old macho politicians posturing and pratting around the planet, desperate to try out some strategic nuclear weapons in the field of battle.
Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice droned on and on, just like Daddy Bush back in ‘92.
“Blah blah U.N. resolutions, blah blah weapons inspectors, blah blah Saddam must go.”
Same-old same-old.
With the coming of a cold November, my first coal fire of the season was lit. More talk on the news about the protection of freedoms, limited strikes, and somehow, there’d been so many far-off wars I’d grown immune.
Of course it was a terrible thing and all that, but rain was still going to fall on Ireland’s fields. Still does.
Now I know how complacent I was.
This is the Winter of Burning Cars.
It happened so quickly. That was what shocked everyone.
We all felt so deep-down secure in our western civilisation. Whatever atrocities were visited upon distant villagers in crumbling stone desert huts, it wouldn’t really stop us living our day-to-day lives.
How could it?
One interview, that was what did it in the end.
The US and UK forces were building up on the Iraqi borders, trying their best to provoke Saddam into attacking first. They desperately wanted war, but all they got was entrenched defiance, and then Condoleeza Rice gave ‘that’ interview to CNN.
“So Condie, can I call you Condie? So, Condie, how is this war on Iraq going to help the USA’s war on terrorism?”
“Well, I see this chapter as part of a greater book. George Bush is a great man, a good man, and his policies will make the world a safer place. After the Taliban and Saddam’s regime have been replaced by democracies, the US can turn its attention to Iran, and then Saudi Arabia.”
“But the Saudis are our allies. Does this mean a shift in policy toward the Saudis?”
“Well, it has to be said that theirs is not a very attractive society.”
“So is it now US policy to gradually replace all Middle-Eastern regimes with the American-Israeli democratic model?”
“If you put it like that, yes, that’s a dream I hold dear. What’s so bad about a world where elections give everyone the leaders they want?”
“But what if they elect leaders who are anti-American?”
I missed Condie’s answer. My spuds had to come to the boil.
As I ate my dinner, reports were coming in about the beginning of the end. Condoleeza’s interview had provoked an immediate and massive response from a belt of countries from Libya to Pakistan. Sunni and Shia together for the first time: a consensus of outrage and direction.
No more oil. That’s what they decided.
Rather than sit and watch their own civilisations fall foul of the infidel predator, the western war machine was going to be starved of oil.
Middle-Eastern populations were already living with the threat of a costly deadly war with the US, which would leave their countries destroyed, the survivors condemned to slow deaths from depleted uranium.
The prospect of abject poverty was not too hard a sacrifice.
The US had stockpiled their Texan oil, and started to intercept (pirate) any tankers that sailed the Atlantic from the Venezuelan oil-fields.
The Russians managed to secure supplies from Azerbaijan, but for Western Europe, the brakes came on unbelievably quickly.
By the time European governments realised what was going on, it was too late.
The Americans shut up shop, becoming instantly uncooperative. They were plain doolally terrified that their combustion-engined world was going to dry up, and when your back’s up against the wall, you don’t look out for your mates.
Well, they didn’t, anyway.
Petrol stations and civil liberties are, naturally, the first to go.
All Ireland’s manufacturing industries are shut down in the first two weeks, but it doesn’t matter. People can’t get to work even if their jobs still exist, because their cars don’t run on air.
They turn our electricity off at 22:00 each night, while the military convoys escort road tankers from the docks to oil depots.
Riots swarm over Europe’s capitals as mould on an old loaf.
After a month, income as we know it is a thing of the past. We cycle, walk, beg, borrow and steal to get through this fierce cold winter.
And finally, as an expression of our pain, We The People push our cars out into the city streets. We build huge towers of our wrecked, impotent, pointless cars.
Tens of thousands of angry Celtic Tiger Cubs, who'd seen their brand new 99 and 00 reg cars as shiny proud membership badges of the club of new-found affluence: now nothing more than pathetic lumps of metal, as cheap as the 'high-flying economy' in which they were built.
We pile them high, and they burn beautifully; massive bonfires all over the land.
Drifting into the freedom of anarchy, the people of Europe finally grasp our chance to stand as one.
We stand together as we watch the flames of our burning cars.
©Charlie Adley 24.04.2026
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