9 Aug 2007

Nothing To Do With Me, Says Howard

Exhibit 1 - Sol Trujillo's pay rise:
"It doesn't help the capitalist system, which I believe in very passionately by the way, that some people appear to abuse it."
Never mind your own obscene pay packet, John. Hypocrite.

Exhibit 2 - Iraq:
Two more British soldiers were killed in southern Iraq yesterday, raising the death toll in the UK's least successful military campaign since Suez in 1956...

British losses have increased as they prepare to abandon their last base in Basra city and retreat to their frequently attacked air base on the outskirts of the city. Here the contingent of 5,500 troops has been hit by mortars and rockets more than 600 times in the past four months.

"Basra's residents and militiamen view this not as an orderly withdrawal but rather as an ignominious defeat," according to a report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) on Basra published in June. "Today, the city is controlled by militias, seemingly more powerful and unconstrained than before."

British officials have privately echoed American claims that the Shia militias in Basra and in the rest of Iraq are being manipulated and supplied by Iran. But the three main Shia groupings in Basra, the Mehdi Army, the Badr Organisation and Fadhila, would control most of southern Iraq with or without Iranian aid.

"The British have basically been defeated in the south," a senior US intelligence official was quoted as saying in Baghdad.
Remember how the clever Brits were teaching the IRaqis how to love their occupying presence?

Exhibit 3 - East Timor:
East Timor is facing a new humanitarian emergency, with hundreds of houses burnt in the country's east and more than 1,000 villagers fleeing to the mountains.
Lucky we stole their oil while we had the chance. Now if our pro-Western puppet government doesn't do the job, we just blame them and replace them with more ADF staffers.

Exhibit 4 - The economy. Say no more.

Can you say "death throes", kids?