It is a mistake to think that wars only concern armies involved in active engagement. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The first engagement is for the mind. The real forces of power wage a psychological and financial war. The dark princes of debt finance have gained leverage over every important social, economic and political institution--including the health care delivery system. This was done by using the obscene profits primarily from the drug trade, but also in the trade of other fungible assets such as diamonds. AIDS, Opium, Diamonds and Empire draws the connections between free market strategies, the destruction of national sovereignty by the process of globalization, and AIDS as one of the health consequences of a neo-Darwinian philosophy. There is a medical-pharmaceutical-industrial complex that was taken over one hundred years ago by the titans of financial capitalism. Their aim was to create profit, not to conquer disease. The AIDS story starts with the British East India Company that created great wealth by pushing opium into China. It finds expression after the events of WWII in the creation of the Bretton Woods Agreement and Vietnam during which massive quantities of opiates found their way to the West. The decision by a state to sell opium and related drugs to its subjects always takes place in situations of political and economic decline. It was known for well over one hundred years that opium and its derivatives are immune suppressors. As the result of the prolongation of the Vietnam War, social upheavals occurred in the expression of sexuality and the acceptance of the casual use of both legal and illegal drugs. AIDS became the cover story for the drug toxicity and oxidative stress of young people in the West and the Bretton Woods Agreement created conditions for environmental degradation and social upheavals in Africa. - Nancy Banks