War Sucks. Soldiers Suck

Viva Ted Rall:

The war sucks. On that point, the millions of Americans who were against it from the start (and the many millions more who've come around to agreeing with us) agree with the soldiers serving in it. Forced re-enlistment through the "stop-loss" loophole is placing thousands of lives in suspended animation, destroying marriages and small businesses. Troops aren't getting enough protective gear.

It's also true that Americans have stopped paying attention. I'm a news junkie. And even I flip the page past the same old "2 Dead, 7 Wounded in IED Blast" headline.

But hey, soldier, you volunteered. If not for you, there wouldn't be a war in the first place.

It's A Set-Back For Your Pa-a-arty

But will it really make a difference?

"One of Kevin Rudd's senior frontbenchers, in an impromptu but nevertheless on-the-record discussion with me, face to face this morning, said that the 'me too' tag will not matter if Labor wins the election because, quote, 'once we get in we'll just change it all'," Mr Price told Southern Cross Broadcasting.

"The frontbencher is Peter Garrett."

Garrett says it was "a short, jocular conversation", implying that he did not mean it. Richard Wilkins confirms that he was just joking.

I recently commented on LP that leftwing critics are probably underestimating Garrett, and that many Labor voters will be secretly hoping that Rudd is NOT going to be a Howard-lite PM (as the Libs now paint him). And it IS late Friday afternoon... So maybe this blooper will actually work in Labor's favour?

Let's see what the media make of it.

One thing to keep in mind: if Labor don't win both houses, they will need to compromise with the Libs to get their laws passed. So maybe it WOULD be a Howard-lite government. Unless the Greens win the Senate, in which case they really WOULD have to dump all the Howard-style policies. Vote Green for the Senate!

It's Time For Murdoch To Sack Andrew Bolt

I have said before that I never - ever - read Andrew Bolt. But in this case I clicked through unknowingly from Antony Loewensteins' blog. And loathe as I am to give Bolt's unadulterated crap the oxygen of publicity, this bullshit should be the last column he ever writes.

The battle is actually over. Iraq has been won...

Bolt pretends only 100,000 Iraqis have died, then estimates that Saddam killed 400,000, which means the war was "worth it".

Before you start adding your two cents to the readers' comments (already jam-packed with well-deserved criticism), consider who pays him to write this stuff, who benefits commercially from the online hits his self-generated controversy invites (advertisers love it), and who is the great, unspoken cheerleader of this horrific, illegal war.

Murdoch should sack Bolt for this, and Teh Oz should be inundated with letters to the editor (not comments to Bolt). But there must also be a reckoning for Murdoch, the blood-soaked warmonger behind the wingnut wordsmiths.

Baby Blogging

"Which finger is for John Howard, mummy?"




"Wake me when the election is over."




"I'm so glad I won't have to see that man's face on TV any more."




"Look at me Daddy! I'm an Islamofascist!"




"Do I still get a Right To Life if I'm born in Iran?"




"When is Mr Howard going to ask mummy to release me?"

Kerry Nettle Comes Out...

... swinging!

Senator Nettle says if he [Kevin Andrews] will not resign, the Prime Minister needs to sack him.

"The evidence points to him conspiring to subvert the court's decision to release Dr Haneef," she said.

"We can not have a minister in this Government that operates in that way to try to undermine the processes that are going on in our courts."

Labour is just calling for an enquiry - rather lame, IMHO.

Kein Geld Fur Die Untermenschen!

Follow the logic... Thanks to John Howard's legendary economic management, the government now has billions of my taxpayer dollars to throw away in this campaign. But when it comes to money for Foreign Aid, Howard suddenly cannot make any promises. Why not?

Mr Howard says he will assess the country's domestic financial position before making aid commitments beyond 2010...

Labor's policy, launched in July, is to raise foreign aid to [a miserly] 0.5 per cent of gross domestic product by 2015-2016, up from 0.35 in 2010-2011. The Coalition has so far refused to match the policy.

And of course, he's not going to match the Labor target, is he? Because the Libs are busy accusing Labor of stealing all their policies. So he just lies:

"We have significantly increased our foreign aid, we've doubled it, and it's working."

And once again - twice in a day! - congratulations to whoever at News Ltd let this get past the editorial team:

However, it was revealed in May that $644 million of aid earmarked for Iraq in 2006-07 never left Australia, and that the Government included funding for the so-called Pacific Solution and the AWB inquiry's legal bill in it's foreign aid figures.

Speaking of dodgy logic, Howard says he will be handing over to Treasurer Peter Costello "well into the next term":

"The average Australian understands exactly what I am saying and they accept it," he said.

"They know at some point everybody has to be part of a transition - it happens to everybody, it happens to Australian cricket captains.

"So if it happens to them it has got to happen to the prime minister."

Well, Australian cricket captains also get hit in the groin quite regularly...

Howard Accepts The Blame For One Million Dead Iraqis

NOT:

"I think about it a lot because I'm the person in the end who sends men and women into battle," Mr Howard told Sky News.

"I feel a very direct responsibility for any death or injury that occurs on the field of battle and it's the greatest burden that anybody has to carry and discharge."

Obviously, it's only Australian casualties that matter. Let's not even bother counting the untermenschen.

Meanwhile, buried inside Bush's latest request for many more billions of dollars in war funding was a little US Department of Defence request for special bomb racks:

The new Big Blu bomb is 20ft long, weighs 30,000lb and carries 6000lb of high explosives. It is designed to go deeper than even existing nuclear bunker-busting weapons.

The bomb is designed to be dropped from as great a height as possible to achieve maximum velocity and penetrating power, guided on to target by satellite and accurate to within a few feet.

Each B2 bomber would be able to carry only one weapon because of its weight. The B2s, normally based at Barksdale, Missouri, flew round-trip strikes against Baghdad in 2003, but would ideally be positioned closer to its targets for missions against Iran.

Airplane hangars on the CIA prison gulag island of Diego Garcia are already being renovated to accommodate the new bombs.

And don't get me started about Diego Garcia... I was up at 3:30 am today reading a chapter on the Chagos islanders' long struggle, in John Pilger's book, Tell Me No Lies. If you are in the mood, check out these satellite images, showing tennis courts and swimming pools for US soldiers on an island the Blair government once tried to pretend was uninhabitable.

Wanker Of The Day

A minister's resignation is just what John Howard's lacklustre campaign needs right now, isn't it? Today Kevin Bloody Andrews goes into hiding and lets a spokeswoman invoke the old John Howard Defence on his behalf:

"He didn't see the emails. He hasn't seen the emails. Never heard of the police officer (mentioned)," the spokeswoman told AAP today.

She said Mr White could have received the email and failed to hand it on to the minister, but maintained the minister had a healthy relationship with the department.

"Absolutely, a relationship that any minister would have with his department.

"But there would be no reason for the minister to be seeing such (emails) because they are completely unrelated to his actual decision."

Mr Andrews first considered revoking Dr Haneef's visa on Monday July 16 and that was the only time he considered detaining the doctor, she said.

"The visa cancellation was entirely unrelated to the criminal proceedings and the bail hearing.

"I mean the cancellation of the visa is entirely a matter for the minister. It's only something that the minister can decide so there is no way that anyone could have known what the minister would decide."

That last bit is the Condi Rice and George W. Bush defence, BTW.

This is from the email in question:

"Contingencies for containing Mr Haneef and detaining him under the Migration Act, if it was the case he was granted bail on Monday, were in place as per arrangements today," the email said.

Written by Brisbane-based counter-terrorism coordinator David Craig to commanders of the AFP's counter-terrorism unit on Saturday July 14, the email was then forwarded to immigration department public servant Peter White the following Monday.

Two days later, Haneef was granted bail. Kevin Andrews immediately revoked his visa.

Resign.

Now.

You.

Bastard.

UPDATE: Lest we forget:

JOURNALIST: Were doubts raised in the meeting, did anyone…..

PRIME MINISTER: No the meeting I had at the Lodge nobody on my staff mentioned to me, nobody on my staff has ever raised at the relevant times doubts about the photographs no.

JOURNALIST: What do you mean when you say “relevant time”?

PRIME MINISTER: I mean relevant time, I mean before the election and I mean up until right now. I mean I’ve got to be careful that I don’t say nobody’s ever said anything to me about the photographs because unless I fix that in time that might be sort of taken out of context.

JOURNALIST: Can you fix at a date?

PRIME MINISTER: In relation to my staff I don’t think….I mean I probably would have had some discussions with them generally after I decided to commission the inquiry, generally some discussion with them perhaps late in November and they were, I mean to the best of my recollection I’d really have to go back and check and, hang on can I just finish answering Glenn, I’ll go back and check that, otherwise I might give an inaccurate recollection.

UPDATE 2: Crikey's email today asks some good questions:

Firstly, did Mr Prendergast, a senor AFP officer, brief his Commissioner Mick Keelty on the plan to detain Dr Haneef if the bail application was successful?

Secondly, did the DPP’s lawyers know of the plan when they were arguing against bail being granted on Saturday 14 July, and if they did, why didn’t they tell Dr Haneef’s lawyers?

Thirdly, is Mr Andrews’ statement today that he knew nothing of the plan credible given that he is the Minister for Immigration and there would be no point putting a plan to detain Dr Haneef in place without knowing that the Minister, the only one who could approve such a detention, was going to play ball?

Finally, how credible is Mick Keelty’s claim to The Bulletin a fortnight ago that he told the DPP that there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Haneef when his own officers are hatching a plan to use the Migration Act to detain Haneef if he got bail?

Crikey also has this interesting analysis from Jeff Sparrow:

The leaked emails essentially vindicate the position taken in that case by the Australian Greens, at a time when Labor marched arm-in-arm with Kevin Andrews – yet the story appears alongside a poll showing a slump in Green support.
It’s one of the bizarre ironies of this campaign: even as the issues they own become more and more mainstream, Bob Brown’s mob seems to be becoming more marginal.
You’d think the changing political climate over global warming would, in and of itself, propel the Greens into double figures, given that Bob Brown was campaigning about it back when John Howard denied it even existed (oh, hang on – that’s still going on. But, no – as The Age says, the Greens were "polling 8 per cent in early October, but have been on 6 per cent since the campaign began."
The Greens have been vindicated in their opposition to the Iraq war, and their position on WorkChoices reflects the visceral hatred about the IR laws revealed in all the surveys, much more so than Labor’s wishy-washy stance. Yet none of it seems to have done them much good.
Quite simply, people want the Liberals out. And, for most of them, that means a Labor vote. Yes, we all know about preferential voting but, somehow, it doesn’t quite seem real. You want rid of Howard, so you vote for the other bloke. You don’t mess about with 1s and 2s and 3s.
It’s not much consolation for this election but one suspects that, like John Howard in the nineties, Bob Brown will be able to say of the next decade: "The times will suit me."
If the anyone-but-Howard mood leaves little space for a third party, consider the landscape after a Rudd victory. The Liberals will be so preoccupied with fratricidal bloodletting that traditional Toryism will be off the agenda for some time, even as a Blairite Labor Party reveals that economic conservatism coupled with social conservatism equals something pretty damn conservative. In those circumstances, one could easily imagine Brown becoming a focal point for disappointed Rudd voters.

Snowflakes From Hell

WaPo picks through Donald Rumsfeld's emails:

In a series of internal musings and memos to his staff, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld argued that Muslims avoid "physical labor" and wrote of the need to "keep elevating the threat," "link Iraq to Iran" and develop "bumper sticker statements" to rally public support for an increasingly unpopular war...

Under siege in April 2006, when a series of retired generals denounced him and called for his resignation in newspaper op-ed pieces, Rumsfeld produced a memo after a conference call with military analysts. "Talk about Somalia, the Philippines, etc. Make the American people realize they are surrounded in the world by violent extremists," he wrote.

People will "rally" to sacrifice, he noted after the meeting. "They are looking for leadership. Sacrifice = Victory."

... He also lamented that oil wealth has at times detached Muslims "from the reality of the work, effort and investment that leads to wealth for the rest of the world. Too often Muslims are against physical labor, so they bring in Koreans and Pakistanis while their young people remain unemployed," he wrote. "An unemployed population is easy to recruit to radicalism."

Well, that might explain John Howard's latest policy.

My Head Hurts

It's always a bit confusing when you find yourself agreeing with opinion articles in Teh Oz. The fact that this piece by Michael Costello even got published (at least without much heavier editing) tells you as much as today's AC Nielsen poll about where this election is headed:

It was always completely bogus to argue that Labor's association with the trade union movement would lead to economic cataclysm.

Consider these numbers. When the Fraser government, of which Howard was the long-running treasurer, fell in March 1983, GDP growth was running at -2.5 per cent a year, inflation was 11.4 per cent, unemployment 9.9 per cent, cash rates 16.7per cent and housing interest rates 12.5 per cent. The profit share was 18.1 per cent and the wages share was 61.1 per cent.

When the Keating government fell in March 1996, GDP growth was running at 4.9 per cent, inflation at 3.7 per cent, unemployment at 8.2per cent, cash rates at 7.52 and housing interest rates at 10.5 per cent. The profit share was 23.2 per cent and the wages share was 55.4per cent.

The numbers tell the story. The Hawke and Keating governments, with the active and constructive engagement of Australia's trade union leadership and membership, rebuilt the economy from the steaming wreckage left by the Fraser government into the powerhouse it still is, despite the dumbed-down policies of the Howard Government. Howard's trade-union bogy is bogus: always was, still is.

To the extent that Abbott's performance this week unpicks the first stitch in the tale Howard is trying to weave on Labor, unions and the economy, it could be one of those memorable moments that campaigns turn [*] on.

And that's in a Murdoch paper, right?

What next? Right-wing US bloggers taking on FOX News? Ouch! The pain...!

[* or "don't turn", more to the point. The rock-solid stasis of the polls over the last year suggests to me that Australian voters have already "locked in" their decision on Howard.]

Conspiracy

So is it time for Kevin Andrews to resign yet? And Mick Keelty too?

It's NOT About The Kids

Why do the Liberals keep harrassing Gold Coast schools?

Pacific Pines High School principal Bob Copeland nervously allowed the Liberal candidate for Fadden, Stuart Robert, on site yesterday...

Ms Bishop said when she got to Pacific Pines she was told by the school principal he had no prior knowledge of the visit.

While the principal was 'rather flustered' by the unexpected visit, he eventually let Ms Bishop and her entourage into the school grounds...

At Southport State High School about 30 minutes after the Pacific Pines visit, Moncrieff Liberal MP Steve Ciobo faced a similarly nervous school management...

It's not that long ago that Malcolm Turnbull and Steve Ciobo were causing similar problems:

"I'm here for the kids, I'm here to talk to the kids." - Malcolm Turnbull, yesterday.

Last I knew, kids under the age of eighteen did not have the right to vote. So why are our local politicians harrassing these kids and distracting their teachers from their work?

Bastards. Wankers. Etc.

Teh Horror

Why are all our gallant war heroes from Iraq and Afghanistan killing themselves? The Australian rate of suicide seems to be on a par with the high US rate. And that's on the military's own figures, which only a true-blue A.J. would trust.

The irony is that the people responsible for inducing this wanton self-destruction are themselves suicide bombers...

Who Cares???!!!

Family First implodes:

The Family First candidate in the far north Queensland seat of Leichhardt says voters have a right to know the sexual preference of all candidates contesting the federal election.

Family First's Ben Jacobsen is obviously just trying to score points against his opponent, Charlie McKillop, who (rather interestingly) is not just a woman but also a Liberal (as if the name "Charlie" was not a giveaway). Jacobsen foolishly insists he is speaking generally about every candidate: get ready for another disendoresement, folks.

By sheer coincidence, Peter Costello just happens to be campaigning in the area today. So this is really a case of media-whoring B.S. Those who live by the sword, etc.

Watching Me Watching You

Hmmn. Why on earth would somebody at The World Bank run a Google search on:

crikey "steven ciobo"

Whoever did it hit this site. Are world financial markets are trembling at the thought of Stephen Mayne's decision to challenge Peter Costello in Higgins? But what's that got to do with my local MP, Steven Ciobo? Stay tuned...

UPDATE: Could it be related to this old Crikey story on ID cards? Ciobo made a rather strange trip to London and Washington back in January, ostensibly as part of a backbench revolt against Joe Hockey's ID Card proposals. The Brisbane Sunday Mail blamed Hockey for blowing the whistle on Ciobo's trip. And the whole sorry episode apparently sank Ciobo's chances of a promotion to parliamentary secretary.

I'm wondering if Ciobo was REALLY investigating ID Cards on that trip...

Volatility Sells Newspapers

But Bob Ellis is unimpressed:

Newspoll is not called 'the Fox News of statistics' for nothing. Like Fox News, it serves Rupert Murdoch. Like Bill O'Reilly, it tells him what he wants to hear. And what does Rupert Murdoch want to hear? Well, that the voters are very volatile, for one thing. The Labor numbers go up to 58 before the Great Debate, then down to 54 after it. On the weekend when, in the greatest gatherings in human history, the West protests against the Iraq war, and it's known that most Australians oppose it, the vote for Howard goes up. When he's found to have lied about Children Overboard, the vote for Howard goes up. When Howard seems on his last legs, he gets the good news he needs. From Newspoll, the preferred Murdoch pollster.

(h/t nahum)

Rupert Goes To Georgia

Murdoch has just done a very interesting deal with Georgian media tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili. News Corp will take over Patarkatsishvili's highly influential media group, Imedi, for one year, while he concentrates on bringing down the government.

"There were a lot of accusations that Imedi was an opposition channel and we thought it would be very difficult for journalists to stay neutral in such a situation," Irakly Rukhadze, a representative of the private equity Salford Fund which look's after Patarkatsishvili's stake in Imedi. "So, the final decision was made and the Georgian side handed over its shares to its American partners into management."

Oh yes, bringing down the government looks ever so much more respectable when Rupert Murdoch controls the media, doesn't it?

NB: Georgia just happens to host a pipeline pumping oil from the Caspian Sea to Europe. It is a major "soft power" battleground in the New Cold War.

BushWorld: GWOT A Bloody Mess

Come fly with me... As oil breaks the $100/barrel mark, let's go first to Poland:

Polish Prime Minister-designate Donald Tusk said his future government would seek to end the nation's military mission in Iraq next year.

Poland has 900 troops in southern Iraq. 81 percent of Poles oppose the military mission in Iraq. A US military base in Poland is a critical part of the Star Wars missile shield.

Next, Japan, which is terminating its support role in Afghanistan:

Over the six years of its engagement, Japan's Maritime Self Defence Force tankers have provided more than Y22 billion ($208 million) worth of fuel, mainly to US ships.

But recently the fuel has all gone to the Pakistan navy - in effect, an operational subsidy to keep the Pakistanis involved.

Portugal is also cutting its military presence in Afghanistan by 90% next year. They will leave 15 soldiers and a transport plane.

Meanwhile, the Taliban are set to re-take Kandahar. Turkey has launched attacks inside Iraq. The Iraqis are closing down power plants due to lack of fuel. Israel is cutting off fuel supplies to Gaza and preparing for another major incursion...

Who is responsible for this parlous state of affairs?

A new Zogby poll shows that 52% of likely voters in the United States would support a U.S. military strike against Iran. 53% believe it is likely that the U.S. will be involved in a military strike against Iran before the next presidential election.

Meanwhile, the new candidate for US Attorney General refuses to condemn water-boarding as torture, and the head of the CIA still insists that renditions and torture are important weapons in the long war against, well... whatever.

I'm glad I don't follow US politics as closely as I used to, because it is infinitely depressing. The problem is, the rest of the world pays the price for their greed, stupidity and ignorance. Hey, why did we invade Iraq anyway?

Let's end our little trip - fittingly - in Washington, where Karen Hughes, a long-time Bush insider, is quitting her job. And what was that job? Ah yes:

Bush and Rice had picked Hughes two years ago to retool the way the United States sells its policies, ideals and views overseas. A former television reporter and media adviser, Hughes' focus has been to change the way the United States engages and responds to criticism or misinformation in the Muslim world...

Polls show no improvement in the world's view of the U.S. since Hughes took over.

A Question For Mister Rudd

After a little prompting, 49% of my readers have agreed with me that John W. Howard is a War Criminal. Another 45% politely describe him as just "a chronic liar, and a Big Business patsy". Which prompts me to offer the following question(s) for Mister Rudd:

Will a Rudd Labor government open investigations into the Howard government's criminal activities over the past eleven years, including the cherry-picking and fabrication of intelligence used to justify our involvement in the war in Iraq? If Mr Howard's own role in this decision is determined to be in contravention of international law, will you hand him over to the International Criminal Court for prosecution?

Will you also re-open the AWB enquiry, and give a new independent commissioner complete freedom to pursue all areas and persons of interest? Will you bring criminal charges against any ex-government ministers who have used their positions to block public access to scientific evidence on critically important issues such as terrorism and climate change?

Maybe a good question for a journalist if we get another TV debate?

Wanker Of The Day

Tony Abbott turns up late to his National Press Club debate:

Ms Roxon finished her address and had fielded several questions from journalists by the time Mr Abbott arrived...

Mr Abbott says he had to be at a policy announcement this morning, and was not able to get to the debate any faster.

Check out the reaction from viewers at LP.

That is just contempt for the public. That's the reason the Libs are going to lose this election, and it's also the reason why our nation's public hospitals are in such a bloody horrible state.

Abdullah Goes To London

The state visit to Britain by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is turning into a PR nightmare. If it is possible to vomit words onto paper, then Robert Fisk surely comes close:

The sad, awful truth is that we fete these people, we fawn on them, we supply them with fighter jets, whisky and whores. No, of course, there will be no visas for this reporter because Saudi Arabia is no democracy. Yet how many times have we been encouraged to think otherwise about a state that will not even allow its women to drive? Kim Howells, the Foreign Office minister, was telling us again yesterday that we should work more closely with the Saudis, because we "share values" with them. And what values precisely would they be, I might ask?

The one obvious story that Fisk does not mention is Osama Bin Laden, who embraced terrorism as a direct result of his contempt of this cosy Saudi-US-UK relationships. This is an area where dialogue with Al Quaeda is clearly possible, if we are prepared to embrace the idea. It is our governments and our business leaders - not we, the people - who have a vested interest in perpetuating this obscene arms, oil and cash merry-go-round.

This is from The Guardian's leader:

Morality clearly lies with the protesters expected to gather in London today, whose criticism of Saudi Arabia's human rights record is well placed. The Foreign Office itself does not question it, listing concern at "aspects of the judicial system; corporal and capital punishment; torture; discrimination against women and non-Muslims; and restrictions on freedom of movement, expression, assembly and worship". This week, it says, is not the time to discuss such issues...

The government is sticking to a policy sustained since the 1980s: "Do nothing to upset the Saudi royal family." It must go down as one of Britain's most dubious but most long-lived goals. It has not done much to help the people of Saudi Arabia and nor has it prevented the spread of terrorism: Osama bin Laden is Saudi; so were 15 of the suicide bombers on September 11 2001. Realpolitik is supposed to produce benefits. As Britain's royal and political elite pay homage to the ruler of an intolerant, brutal and theocratic regime, it is worth asking exactly what those benefits are.

UK public opinion has turned decisively against the Saudis (and the Labor government) since a series of damning revelations about cosy deals involving BAE Systems:

Last month the company completed a deal to sell 72 Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft to Saudi Arabia for £4.43bn. That followed the attorney general's notorious decision to call off a fraud investigation into BAE's previous al-Yamamah contract, declaring that "it has been necessary to balance the need to maintain the rule of law against the wider public interest". This summer the Guardian reported, too, that BAE Systems had paid hundreds of millions of pounds to Prince Bandar bin Sultan, now King Abdullah's security adviser.

Meanwhile, here in Oz, we barely raise an eyebrow when Defence Minister Brendan Nelson awards no-bid contracts for even more useless military hardware.

GI Joe Goes To Brussels

Don't laugh. GI Joe is quitting the US military:

Paramount Pictures and Hasbro, which makes GI Joe toys, have reportedly discussed the challenges of marketing a film about the US military at a time when the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have sunk America's standing in foreign opinion polls. In a move that has horrified an unlikely alliance of comic book fans and conservative commentators, GI Joe is now to become an acronym for "Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity", with its star representing a multinational force. Paramount has even mooted basing GI Joe at a headquarters in Brussels.

Hoo boy! I'm sure Iraqi audiences will lap it up.

The photo above shows GI Joe on his last tour of duty in Falluja.

John Howard IS A War Criminal

So is John Howard a War Criminal? I'm surprised to see that a small majority of my readers disagree with me on this. With less than 24 hours left to vote in my online poll, most readers seem to think that Howard is just "a chronic liar and a Big Business patsy".

So for anyone still not sure, or wanting to change their vote, let me spell it out for you.

At the end of WWII, the civilised nations of this earth - including Australia - signed off on a bunch of international laws which were intended to ensure that nobody would ever again be able to invade another soveriegn nation with impunity. Four and a half years ago, however, Australian troops were on the ground in Iraq before war had even been formally declared. We supported George W. Bush's criminal invasion of Iraq based on fabricated WMD evidence that was deliberately "fixed around the policy" of invasion.

That is a War Crime. It really is that simple.

There were also international postwar laws agreed on the treatment of prisoners. I would argue that the whole concept of this bogus "war" on terror is a legal and linguistic farce, but given that our government has embraced it wholeheartedly, they ought to have given proper protection, in accordance with these laws, to any and all alleged prisoners of war, including David Hicks and Mahmoud Habib. According to the Howard government's own logic, and the laws to which our nation is a signatory, not to have done so is a War Crime.

Nobody is asking Kevin Rudd if he will open investigations into these matters, if and when he wins government, because nobody seriously expects him to answer the question honestly. Furthermore, the invasion of Iraq was largely orchestrated by the US industrial-military complex to which Kevin Rudd PM will also be beholden. But you can be damned sure that many of us - myself included - will continue pushing for justice on these matters.

This is an issue that will follow John Howard all the way to the grave.

Tell Me Who I'm Voting For Again

Costello can't say, won't say:

Mr Howard told ABC TV on Monday night that he and Mr Costello had an "agreed agreement" on the transition but refused to say how far into the next term it would happen.

Mr Costello on Tuesday also declined to detail the agreement or whether he would challenge for the leadership within 18 months after the November 24 federal election.

The Long Campaign

As the humble Aussie dollar soars towards parity with the greenback, and oil nudges even closer to US$100 a barrel, it's becoming increasingly likely that a global financial "tsunami" (of the sort Peter Costello predicted) could yet swing the election. Still four weeks to go, and the warning beacons are already going off.

Iran could well be the key. Max Hastings today has some good analysis of the latest US scare-mongering:

The Iranians have oil, which the world wants to buy. The EU is eager to build a gas pipeline there, to diminish its dependence on Russian energy. Beijing and Moscow show no interest in helping Bush face down the Iranians...

Few strategists dispute either that Iranian revolutionaries are playing a prominent role in frustrating the stabilisation of Iraq, or that Iran is doing its utmost to build nuclear weapons. Doubts focus on what can be done about these things. Europeans will continue to support diplomatic and economic measures adopted by the UN, designed to exhibit the world's dismay at Iran's behaviour. There is chronic scepticism, however, about such initiatives. Next month the UN will debate further sanctions, but neither Russia nor China will support tough action.

President Vladimir Putin last week compared Bush's behaviour towards Iran with that of a madman "running about with a razor blade in his hand". Not many Europeans suppose that it is desirable for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. Yet most think this almost inevitable, and preferable to the ghastly geopolitical consequences of adopting military action to stop it.

The seven years of the Bush presidency have witnessed a haemorrhage of American moral authority of a kind quite unknown in the 20th century. Even in the darkest days of the cold war, and indeed in the Cuban missile crisis, most people around the world retained a faith in the fundamental benign nature of American purposes. This has been lost in Iraq...

Ahmadinejad and the Revolutionary Guard need US enemies to justify their idiocies at home and mischief-making in Iraq. At every turn the Bush administration obliges them, by seeming to welcome confrontation. The rival governments in Tehran and Washington deserve each other. It is another matter as to whether their peoples, and the world, do so. But relations between Iran and the US are likely to get much worse before either nation changes leadership and gives peace a chance.

At ICH, Michael S. Rozeff spells out the nightmare scenario we now face:

The U.S. encourages Israel to bomb the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran. Russia attempts to restrain an Iranian response but fails. Iran responds in any of many ways, such as launching missiles on Israel, firing on shipping in the Straits of Hormuz, mining the Straits of Hormuz, sending troops into Iraq, or allying its military with Hezbollah and attacking Israel from Lebanon.

The U.S., citing Iran’s aggressions (that will be the story), launches a full-scale attack on Iran designed to devastate the country. This attack has actually been planned by the U.S. for years. Syria is unable to maintain neutrality and quickly becomes a battleground between Iran and Israel.

The price of oil by this point has already soared to $200 a barrel. The U.S. begins to use its strategic reserve and to divert Iraqi production. Russia responds by taking steps to prevent its oil production from reaching the U.S. China responds by cutting off its support of the U.S. Treasury market. Venezuela halts oil shipments to the U.S. The first stages of WWIII are economic warfare designed to cripple the U.S. and halt its war-making capacity.

The U.S., unable to finance its deficits and fund its sovereign debt, is forced into raising interest rates drastically in order to borrow. The Fed is forced to print money. An inflationary spiral occurs. Meanwhile the high interest rates and high oil prices, not to mention the shock of a spreading conflict, drive the U.S. economy into severe decline. The U.S. attempts to raise taxes in order to fund itself, further crippling the economy. Gold soars to $1,500–$2,000 an ounce.

The U.S. attempts to bolster its military forces. The draft is reinstated. The severity of the emergency allows Bush and Cheney to assume emergency powers and begin a dictatorship. Elections are postponed.

The U.S. collapses.

Who Are The Real "Terrorists"?

Francois Furstenberg provides a little history lesson for the Howardistas:

They divided the world between pro- and anti-Revolutionaries - the defenders of liberty versus its enemies. The French Revolution, as they understood it, was the great event that would determine whether liberty was to prevail on the planet or whether the world would fall back into tyranny and despotism.

The stakes could not be higher, and on these matters there could be no nuance or hesitation. One was either for the Revolution or for tyranny.

By 1792, France was confronting the hostility of neighboring countries, debating how to react. The Jacobins were divided. On one side stood the journalist and political leader Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville, who argued for war.

Brissot understood the war as preventive - "une guerre offensive," he called it - to defeat the despotic powers of Europe before they could organize their counter-Revolutionary strike. It would not be a war of conquest, as Brissot saw it, but a war "between liberty and tyranny."

Pro-war Jacobins believed theirs was a mission not for a single nation or even for a single continent. It was, in Brissot's words, "a crusade for universal liberty."

Brissot's opponents were skeptical. "No one likes armed missionaries," declared Robespierre, with words as apt then as they remain today...

Confronted by a monarchical Europe united in opposition to revolutionary France - old Europe, they might have called it - the Jacobins rooted out domestic political dissent. It was the beginning of the period that would become infamous as the Terror.

Among the Jacobins' greatest triumphs was their ability to appropriate the rhetoric of patriotism - Le Patriote Français was the title of Brissot's newspaper - and to promote their political program through a tightly coordinated network of newspapers, political hacks, pamphleteers and political clubs...

Though it has been a topic of much attention in recent years, the origin of the term "terrorist" has gone largely unnoticed by politicians and pundits alike. The word was an invention of the French Revolution, and it referred not to those who hated freedom, nor to non-state actors, nor of course to "Islamofascism."

A terroriste was, in its original meaning, a Jacobin leader who ruled France during la Terreur.

Gandhi About Town

What Would Dubya Do?

This should be good for a laugh, if nothing else: Alexander Downer is going to debate Robert McClelland on Nov 15th. A pity Bob Brown won't be on screen to highlight the screaming deficiencies in our US-dictated foreign policy:

"We ought not be in Afghanistan because the Bush administration backed by John Howard made a huge strategic error there at the start of this decade when they withdrew troops from Afghanistan, having taken over the country, got rid of the Taliban and went to the invasion of Iraq...

"And 50 per cent of Australians, according to one recent opinion poll, also want to see Australian troops withdrawn from Afghanistan and deployed in our own region where we have got our own problems and our own instabilities, not under the direction of the Bush administration which has made such a mess of international strategy in the last decade."

It's The (Lack Of) Morality, Stupid

It's not often Paul Sheehan does film reviews. But this is different:

Clooney has embarked on a finely calibrated campaign to offset the damage done to America's ideals and reputation by its President, George Bush...

As US policy in the Middle East reveals itself as an unfolding failure of common sense, it is fair to argue that in the global marketplace of ideas George Clooney, a mere actor, has developed more moral authority than the occupant of the White House.

There is a lesson here for Australia. In terms of governance there is no obvious reason to throw out the government on November 24. Employment is high, the economy buoyant, inflation low, the budget in surplus, taxes modest, personal wealth rising. Apparently that is not enough. It appears to be the realm of moral leadership where politics in this country has become dangerously interesting for the Government, especially for the Prime Minister, whose best friend in the wider world happens to be George Bush.

Or as Charles Sullivan puts it today, in a long rant against the MSM:

Truth is simple and uncomplicated, whereas lies and distortions are complex. Truth stands strong and unwavering without artificial support; lies and propaganda require elaborate schemes and constant propping up, the mask of deception.

More of us must learn the language of truth; we must be its faithful guardians, if we are to be valuable citizens in this world, rather than the useful idiots of empire. By holding truth and justice in the highest regard, we demonstrate that another world is not only possible, but highly probable.

And on the subject of truth and other worlds, let me just remind any Christian rightwingers that Jesus said:

I am the way, the truth and the light.

Dick Cheney Knows Where You Live

Who would be a whistle-blower in Bush's USA? The House Judiciary Committee set up a project encouraging Department of Justice staffers to come forward with their stories about the Bush administration. Then they sent all their informants an email, explaining the careful security measures which were in place to safeguard their anonymity. Problem was, they CC'd everybody on the list instead of BCC'ing them! But that's not all - included on the list of over 150 email addresses was... vice_president@whitehouse.gov!

Accident? I think not.