AUSTRALIA PREPARES TO WITHDRAW MOST TROOPS FROM IRAQ BY JUNE, 2007

RUMSFELD REQUEST FOR AUSTRALIAN TROOPS TO BE EMBEDDED WITH IRAQI MILITARY REJECTED TWICE

The Australian Defence department, and the Minister for Defence, vetoed plans by Donald Rumsfeld for Australian troops to be embedded with Iraqi Army units.

A core part of why the request was rejected is Australia does not intend to have the majority of its current 750 troops stationed in Iraq through the second half of 2007.

The Australian newspaper reports that "the safety and security of small numbers of Australian troops who may serve with Iraqi units" was a core reason why the Government responded in the negative.

According to an interview given today by Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer, Australia's key military contribution to coalition forces in Iraq at the moment is, "...we do training, we do mentoring for Iraqis and we provide an overwatch operation."

"We don't do day to day combat work," Downer said, on the ABC's 7.30 Report.

"Where we operate in Dikar and al Muthanna provinces, we are there to provide additional support to the Iraqi security forces if they get into trouble and can't help themselves out. But on the other hand, a lot of the day to day work is the training and mentoring job..."

The original request from Rumsfeld for Australian troops to move from training, mentoring and oversight to actually being embedded with Iraqi units involved in patrols and combat operations is believed to have been made in September this year.

Shortly before he resigned as defence secretary, Rumsfeld again asked the Australian Defence Minister for a renewed commitment to allow Australian troops to be placed inside the Iraq military.

This second request was also denied.

Downer confirmed that "we've been speaking to (the Americans) a lot in recent times" about the embedding of coalition forces with Iraqi military units.

Prime Minister John Howard is already moving into re-election mode, and is set to begin preliminary campaigning after the Christmas break. The new Opposition leader, Kevin Rudd, is going to promote the security of the region as a core issue of his election campaign while also promising to 'bring the troops home'.

But John Howard is set to trump Rudd on both issues, two of the most important to Australians, according to recent polls.

By withdrawing the majority of Australia's troops from Iraq in mid-2007, and announcing major increases to the size of the Australian Army, John Howard is expected to use the relative success of Australia's mission in Iraq as a launch pad for re-election on securing the region, and fighting terrorism closer to home.


The Australian Defence Department has recognised, in recent months, that the deployment of 750 Australian troops on six month rotations in Iraq has cut back its capacity to deal with outbreaks of violence, coups and rioting in the so-called 'Arc Of Instability', including East Timor, the Solomon Islands, Tonga and now Fiji.

Australia withdrew its remaining Special Forces troops from Afghanistan in October this year. A move that angered many members of the SAS, who believed that their mission in Afghanistan had not been completed.

The decision not to allow Australian troops to be placed within Iraq's Army is expected to be recognised by the defence minister as a preparatory step in anticipation of the withdrawal of most Australian troops from Iraq beginning in June, 2007.

From 'The Australian' :

The future of the US-led coalition's presence in Iraq will be a key issue at next week's annual AUSMIN defence talks in Washington.

Dr Nelson and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer will meet their counterparts, incoming US defence secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on Tuesday, together with their respective defence chiefs and top officials.

With security conditions relatively stable in southern Iraq and the British Government already canvassing troop drawdowns next year, there is a good prospect that Australia's 500-strong overwatch taskgroup based in Dhi Qar province could be phased down from mid-year.

Such a phase down will allow John Howard to go into the 2007 federal election claiming a successful mission in Iraq, while announcing plans to secure Australian interests in the Pacific realm alongside a major increase to the size of Australia's defence forces and operational capabilities :

The Howard cabinet's national security committee this week also approved the first stage of the plan to increase the size of the army, including the purchase of 34 extra Bushmaster infantry mobility vehicles.

The first stage of the army build-up will see the recruitment of an extra battalion next year, which will be deployable by 2010.

The total strength of the regular army is set to grow by an extra 2600 personnel to about 30,000 by 2012.

The expanded force will comprise eight battalions consisting of two mechanised, five light and one commando battalion equipped with more than 400 Bushmaster vehicles, as well astanks and light armoured transport.

Australian Defence Forces "Duped" By Prime Minister's Rush To War On Iraq

FLASHBACK : Australian Troops Kill Five As 60 Strong Insurgent Force Attacks

FLASHBACK : Australian Commandoes Fought Off Hundreds Of Taliban Fighters During Ten Day Long Battle

October, 2006 Poll : 80% Of Australians Think The 'War On Terror' Has Failed

Despite The Hype, Australians Don't Fear Terror

AUSTRALIA CALLS FOR FIJIANS TO STAGE RESISTANCE AGAINST MILITARY DICTATORSHIP

MILITARY HAS VOWED TO CRUSH ANY OPPOSITION

Despite explicit warnings from the military leaders now in control of Fiji not to interfere, Australia's Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, has again urged unarmed Fijians to engage in a resistance against the military.

He told the ABC's 7.30 Report that resisting the coup was "wise", even if the military reacted violently :

Q: Mr Downer, you've urged Fijians to engage in passive resistance against the military and post coup regime. Is that kind of advice wise if it leads to a violent response by the military, which has been threatened by Bainimarama, and people are hurt?

Downer : It is wise....Of course it's difficult for them and my heart goes out to a lot of them.

Downer's calls for resistance, aired also for a third day in federal Parliment, follow warnings from Commodore Frank Bainimarama that "...should we be forced to use force, let me state that we will do so very quickly."

Fiji's Great Council of Chiefs are also urging resistance and refuse to recognise the authority of Commodore Bainimarama, or the man installed to act as Fiji's interim prime minister, Dr Jona Senilagakali.

Commodore Bainimarama said elections to choose a new government could be up to two years away.

Residents of villages in the province of Ba, in western Fiji, are now voicing dissent and villagers from the region are intending to escort their tribal high chief Ratu Josefa Iloilo to the capital in the coming days.

Military checkpoints now going up around the capital and, in towns and villages across the islands, are causing anger amongst the locals, who are said to be trying to dismantle the blockades.

Declaring a state of emergency yesterday, Commodore Bainimarama explained why he felt the coup was necessary.

"We have reasonable grounds to believe that the life of the state is being threatened," he said.

"For those who do not agree with what we are doing, we respect your opinion, but do not interfere with the process that is currently underway."

He claimed that he was fighting against institutional corruption within the government, and said new staff would be hired in the coming days to go through the books and gather evidence for proposed trials of senior government ministers.

He said Fiji needed "a different kind of democracy."

The new prime minsiter, Dr Jona Senilagakali, has recognised the coup is "illegal," but said it was necessary as the previous government was "corrupt". He also issued a warning to Fiji's neighbours.

"I warn the Australian and New Zealand prime ministers to stay out of our business and to respect the sovereignty of the Fiji islands," he said.

"It's an illegal takeover to clean up the mess of a much bigger illegal activity of the previous government," Mr Senilagakali told Australia's ABC network.

Dr Senilagakali claimed that the coup had been in the planning for some time and the army had warned the democratically-elected Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase to clean up the government and deal with the controversial Australian police chief, Andrew Hughes, who he claims was promoting "the Australian foreign policy".

From the Fji Times :

He accepted that they had removed a democratically-elected government because "if we can put in an illegal government which is going to improve the life of the people that is a better and much higher calling than to continue the democracy which is not helping the people".

"And that is the question that I'm trying to ask myself and find solutions and I'm going to do it."

He was not worried if he ended up in jail for the takeover.

"If I end up in prison because I fought for a just cause in life, I'll be happy to do that. I will not resist."

Australia has refused calls from the deposed leaders of Fiji to send troops, as has New Zealand, although the Australian SAS are believed to be actively operating within the islands of the archipelago.

Australia has also positioned three warships off Fiji, claiming the ships are only there in order to evacuate hundreds of Australians should the situation deteriorate into open revolt, or a violent military clampdown.

Should Fijians opposed to the coup engage the military during a resistance, and the military begins killing civilians and/or actively threatening Australia's interests on the archipelago, it would then seem likely that Australia would send in troops.

Until the military takes such actions, however, Australia is unable to deploy its forces without causing an international incident, with an impact that may reach beyond the opposition raised so far by the coup.

The bloodless coup, which was delayed over the weekend for sporting matches, is Fiji's fourth military takeover in the past two decades. It was completed on Tuesday.

American television show Survivor is currently filming a new series in Fiji, but the show was not delayed by the coup.

While the Australian government has condemned what it called a crackdown on media and press freedoms in Fiji, the main newspaper, the Fiji Times, was back in production and online yesterday afternoon after initially closing down when the editors refused to submit to censorship by the coup leaders.

From the Fiji Times :

The head of Fiji's military regime, Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama, has assured the media industry that his government will uphold media freedom.

At a press conference this afternoon Commodore Bainimarama said armed guards posted at several media outlets had been withdrawn.

"We did not totally gag the media but we were only trying to stop people from taking advantage of the situation and using the media to incite people to disturb the peace that currently prevails," he said.

You can read the latest news from the Fiji Times here.


Fiji's Military Leader Declares State Of Emergency

New Leader Tells Australia And New Zealand To Keep Out Of Fiji's Affairs

Commodore Orders Doctor To Take Position Of Prime Minister Who Then Claims He Has "Divine Authority"

Regime Claims It Will Uphold Freedoms Of Fiji's Military

Downer Warns Military Leader Becoming More Aggressive

New Zealand Urged To Ban Fiji From Competing In International Rugby Tournament

Prime Minister, Defence Minister Snub Funeral Off Black Hawk Pilot Killed During Training Mission Near Fiji

Hundreds Of Australians Cancel Fiji Holidays - Tourism Makes Up 25% Of Fiji Economy

AUSTRALIANS TOLD TO GET USED TO ONLY THREE SHOWERS A WEEK

60 SECONDS IS "IDEAL LENGTH" FOR A SHOWER

Australia is suffering through the worst drought on record, and numerous towns and cities are close to running out of fresh water.

Outside of the towns and cities in the upper Northern Territory and far north Queensland that is, where rainfalls of two to three metres a year are not exceptional.

But for massive sprawls of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, water restrictions and recycling measures are set to become the year round norm.

One proposed solution to stopping the waste of fresh water pouring down the drain is an effort to convince Australians they have to cut back on their showers.

A dermatologist has claimed that daily showers are luxuries we can no longer afford, and that we can get by with only three or less a week, with a duration of only 60 seconds or so.

The national average time for the daily shower is supposed to be seven minutes. An average family is estimated to "waste" some 60,000 litres of water each year, straight down the drain.

The Victorian government is planning an awareness campaign to get people to cut their shower times in half.

Another awareness campaign.

Don't smoke, don't drink and drive, don't speed, don't eat shit food, get more exercise, remember to vote, don't run down motorcyclists who get in your way, be nice to old people, don't abuse alcohol, eat more vegetables, don't abuse drugs, watch your cholestorol, watch out for arse cancer.

For fuck's sake, Get Off Our Backs!

Whatever happened to towing icebergs in from the Antartic? Massive ice shelves are supposed to be breaking up, huge bergs drifting into shipping lanes. Lasoo some of those ice blocks and bring them to the coastlines and carve those suckers up.

The 'three-showers-a-week' dermatologist also suggested we could get by with no showers at all.

He clearly has not been stuck on a crowded city locked in a traffic jam in the peak of a deodorant destroying summer heat wave.

No showers at all?

What are we supposed to do to keep clean then?

Get the dog to lick our armpits until they're sweat-free? Bathe only in the ocean and get used to living with a salt-encrusted exterior? Carry a bar of soap at all times and quickly strip off in the street at the first sight of a rain cloud?

We could always go back to the pre-World War II bath-only days, I suppose, which Elton John (I think) once likened to "sitting around in a tepid pool of your own filth."

Of course, some tepid pools are filfthier than others.

From TheAge.com.au :

Dr Stephen Schumack of the Australasian College of Dermatologists, says..."I always tell people 'God did not give us caves with hot running water'.

"So from the purely anthropological view, we weren't meant to have showers or wash our skin. It's really only been in the past two generations — the past 50 years — that people have been having regular showers.

"Up until the 1950s, bathrooms were not common and people would have a weekly rinse in the tub in front of the fire. So the skin is fine without having a shower in most circumstances."

Dr Schumack notes that from "a medical point of view" there is really no need to have a shower longer than 60 seconds.

"I used to advise my patients to keep their showers to two or three minutes, but 60 seconds is the ideal. You can do everything that needs to be done in that time."

Everything? For some people, the shower is the only privacy they get all day.

This doctor is captain fun-kill. Not only does he favour no showers, he insists that if you are so rampantly tempted to stand under flowing water in the privacy of your own home, you should try and take cold showers.

He doesn't see a need see a need for a full-body soaping either.

"You really only need to use soap where you produce body odour — only the armpits and the groin. You shouldn't soap the rest of your skin."

Yeah, he's right. Why bother washing your feet?

Or your arse for that matter?

A good long, hot shower is apparently our "national obsession".

Maybe, but only if you can see the cricket on the tele from under that hot torrent of water.

"....they've become a national obsession in very recent times," says Professor McCalman.

"If you went back before World War II, there were a lot of people in Melbourne who didn't have a shower at all. They washed only under a tap in the back garden. We probably wash too much: a lot of doctors would say that we do. It's not necessarily good for the skin. The thing about showering is that a lot of people find it relaxing, rather than cleansing."

Right. Who needs to relax?

Washing off the daily scum under piping hot sprays of water was not the done thing five or six decades ago. And it was a concept beyond all comprehension in the 19th century.

The Professor claimed that a century ago, "a lot of people in Europe" made do with only two good washes in the course of their whole lifetime. At birth and at death.

He also had some cruel and nasty things to say about Melbournians.

"There were still a lot of very dirty people in Melbourne into the 1930s and into the 1940s because they didn't have a bathroom or a change of underwear."

Some things never change.

The Shocking Truth About The Big Dry's Impact On Australia's Farmers And The Economy - Food Crops Disappearing, Gardens Dying Out, Almost Two Thirds Of Wheat Crops Failed, 72,ooo Farmers On Welfare & Subsidies, Grocery Prices Climbing Steadily

DAVID HICKS : UNCONVICTED, TORTURED, BROKEN

THE LONGEST SERVING PRISONER OF GUANTANAMO BAY IS STILL WAITING FOR JUSTICE

This weekend, Australian citizen David Hicks will have spent five years in the torture hellhole that is Guantanamo Bay. Five years, and he still hasn't faced a court to answer the charges levelled against him. Nor is he likely to in the next twelve months.

He remains entombed in a room so small you could barely extend your arms without touching the walls. The lights are never turned off, there is constant surveillance and standing in direct sunlight is all but a memory.

Five years this has gone on for now.

Five years during which the name David Hicks has become recognisable to just about every Australian who reads newspapers or listens to the news.

He is one of the most famous Australians in recent decades, but not for being a terrorist, or even an enemy of America.

He is notorious for being the man John Howard wants to pretend doesn't actually exist. The man whose name makes the Attorney General visibly bristle and blink quickly.

This fiasco has dragged on for so long that even children not born when he was locked away inside Guantanamo Bay know his name and ask their parents why he can't come home.

But most Australians no longer even remember what he is supposed to have done in Afghanistan back in late 2001.

They only know, like their children know, that David Hicks is George W. Bush's prisoner, and because he is the president's prisoner, Hicks is tortured, beaten and broken. Over and over again.


If the Australian government thinks it can breeze through yet another anniversary of David Hicks imprisonment in an American military hellhole, they are going to brutally surprised.

Australian bishops, leaders of the Jewish and Muslim communities, former prime ministers, law experts, television hosts, major media players, nuns, charity workers, musicians, actors, priests, scores of Opposition ministers and MPs and even key figures in Howard's own government are preparing to put the prime minister and his attorney general in the line of fire as never before over why this Australian citizen remains an unconvicted prisoner of George W. Bush.

They will demand only one thing : Bring Him Home.

Prime Minister John Howard likes to portray the case of David Hicks as being something the Americans are responsible for finishing up, and cleaning up, but the US government offered Hicks back to Australia years ago.

Howard refused to allow Hicks back into Australia because there are no laws under which Hicks can be charged. The prime minister is clearly scared of what will happen when Hicks is back in Australia and tells his story, of what he did and what has been done to him.

There was no legally sanctioned 'War On Terror' when David Hicks was sold as a bounty to American soldiers by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in late 2001. He was never classified as a prisoner-of-war because Bush Co. made sure that Geneva Convention-sanctioned status would not apply to those they deemed to be 'enemy combatants'.

This allowed prisoners like Hicks to be tossed into a legal Twilight Zone, left to rot away in Guantanamo Bay until their birth country decided to take them back.

Both the President and the former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld branded Hicks (and every other prisoner of Gitmo) "the worst of the worst", "terrorists" and smeared them with the Bush classic braindead line "they're killers who kill".

The New York Times ran a detailed story yesterday of the shameful, sickening torture of American citizen Jose Padilla, another so-called 'enemy combatant' who has been held in military prisons for years, and in conditions very similar to David Hicks.

Like Hicks, Padilla has endured hundreds of hours of Rumsfeld-approved toture-interrogations.

Recently, Padilla was finally charged, but not with any offenses related to terrorism.

'Your New Reality' blog has more on Hicks, what these ghastly Guantanamo Bay imprisonments have done to America's reputation for freedom and justice around the world, and details from the New York Times feature on the savage torture of Jose Padilla.

When you read the story, remember that what has been done to Jose Padilla, has also been done to David Hicks, all in the name, supposedly, of fighting the 'War On Terror'.

The war that was supposed to stop our enemies from taking away our freedoms, but has instead poisoned the very meaning of the word for generations to come.

Go Here For The Full Story

Go Here For Two Explanations - one unhinged, one rational - as to why Australians and Americans detained by the US military, under the orders of President Bush, are forced to wear blackout goggles during transportation.

CRONULLA RIOTS ANNIVERSARY WILL SEE SYDNEY BEACH IN VIRTUAL POLICE "LOCKDOWN"

BIKINI PROTEST TO BE HELD OUTSIDE AUSTRALIA'S LARGEST MOSQUE



Hundreds of beat police, riot squad officers, dog squad handlers, Middle East gang cops and undercover detectives will swamp Cronulla beach this weekend, one year on from the riots that shocked Australia, and caused immeasurably damage to Australia's international reputation after video was looped on news channels across the globe.

There is already talk of the entire area being '"locked down" at the first signs of trouble.

It remains to be seen how big the 'Bikini Protest' to be held outside Lakemba Mosque will turn out to be, if it goes forward at all. But since the below story ran in the Sydney Morning Herald, a number of blogs and websites promoting the protests have been blocked or taken down.

A spokesman for the Lebanese Muslim Association described the idea of a bikini march as "funny and hilarious..."

From the smh.com.au :

Police have been asked to protect Australia's largest mosque next weekend because of concerns that a bikini march staged to coincide with the anniversary of the Cronulla riots may get out of control.

The caretaker of Lakemba Mosque, the Lebanese Muslim Association, says it is taking no risks, requesting at least 32 police officers to protect the place of worship on Saturday and Sunday.

The organiser, Melbourne grandmother Christine Hawkins, has asked women nationally to dress in bikinis and colourful beachwear and rally outside large mosques to show their disgust at comments by leading Muslim cleric, Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly, who likened women to "uncovered meat".

The Australian media, so far, are keeping pretty quiet about this weekend's first anniversary of the Cronulla Riots, when thousands of mostly white Australian youth chanted "Lebs out!" and beat innocent people senseless on a train, physically abused young women on the beacch, before attacking police and ambulance crews trying to protect and treat the victims of the ghastly violence.

The violent rioting that broke out around Cronulla Beach on December 11, 2005, followed a week of astounding front page tabloid headlines and talkback radio comment and incitement, detailed in a five volume police investigation into the riots, which showed that at least three talkback radio show hosts not only actively encouraged the violence that was to come, they endorsed it, and at least one host, Alan Jones, a personal friend of the Australian prime minister, came up with the idea of holding a mass protest in the first place.

The “shock-jocks” provided the immediate catalyst. By creating the initial media storm, they consciously set larger events into motion.

As Alan Jones himself exclaimed on radio 2GB on December 8, 2005: “I’m the person that’s led this charge here. Nobody wanted to know about North Cronulla; now it’s gathered to this.”

From ABC's Four Corners, a comprehensive documentary on the events leading up to the riots, the violence on the day and the waves of fallout :

One Sunday last December, 5000 Australians gathered at Cronulla, singing and waving the national flag as they "reclaimed" the beach. Fuelled by drink, the crowd became a mob, hunting down and beating anyone who looked Middle Eastern.

That night and the next, carloads of hundreds of young men of Middle Eastern descent headed for the beach suburbs to launch similarly random and savage acts of revenge.

The Sydney Bikini March appears to be a spin-off of to a similar march planned for December 9 in Melbourne.

NeoNazis StormFront think the Bikini March is a great idea

The Cronulla Riots have also been turned into a pretty pathetic boardgame

NSW Police Minister Tried To Cover Up Findings Of Cronulla Riot Report

December 11, 2005 : Violence Engulfs Cronulla Beach As White Mobs Attack Anyone With Brown Skin

HOWARD & CO. NERVOUS AS THEY FACE NEW, YOUTHFUL LABOR PARTY LEADERSHIP

RUDD & GILLARD HEAD INTO 2007 ELECTION AS HOWARD BEATERS

The Australian Labor Party has a new leadership, and it's one that has a good shot at knocking the Howard government out of office after more than a decade.

Polls today reveal that the Labor Party has stormed ahead of the Liberal Party as the preferred government. The foul corruption of the AWB scandal and the calvacade of outright lies and distortions that fuelled Australia's involvement in the 'War On Iraq' are clearly taking hold of Australia's conscience.

Kevin Rudd & Julia Gillard are being hyped by Labor's spin machine as "youthful" "energetic" and "fresh". It's a positive change from The Fear surrounding terrorism pushed by the warpig conservatives.

Howard's notoriously negative media machine will hit back hard at Rudd & Gillard claiming they are inexperienced, that the Labor Party is split over the new leadership and that the radical Left has quietly gained control of Opposition.

The problem for Howard & Co is that most Australian voters appear to think that Rudd & Gillard are winners regardless.

It's not been a good year for the Howard Government.

Even though they were cleared, by proxy, of criminal neglect over their failure to notice that the Australian Wheat Board had been packing suitcases full of cash off to Saddam Hussein's regime for years, the stench of corruption has been hard to disperse.

Meanwhile, back in Iraq, events on the ground have grown only more bloody and brutal, with the body count of the civilians the war was meant to liberate growing each and every week since mid-year.

Prime Minister John Howard and his government have been failing to gain ground in more than a year's worth of polls, on the back of the horrific failure to calm down post-war Iraq, incredibly controversial reforms to the working lives of most Australians and Howard's failure to notice, or blind disregard towards, the worst corruption scandal in Australia's history as the AWB kickbacked $280 million to Saddam and his cronies, even though the United Nations, American senators, Australian soldiers and the New York Times knew what was going on.

More than 88 percent of all Australians now believe that Howard & Co lied about whether or not they knew an Australian company was bribing the genocidal Hussein regime, even as Australian troops went into Iraq to remove him from power.

According to new polls, today's elected leader of the Labor Party, Kevin Rudd, and deputy leader, Julia Gillard, have the makings of an election winning team. And by a substantial margin.

Propelling former Midnight Oil frontman, Peter Garrett, to head the Labor Party's environment and anti-global warming portfolio will only add to the opposition party's popularity.

But there is a deeper, more essential groundswell developing which centres around the immediate future of Australia as it finds its place in a world where the power and influence of the United States is crashing and burning, and China and Indonesia are soaring.

It is in China, and South East Asia, that Kevin Rudd has a handful of winning cards.

John Howard is tolerated by Chinese and South East Asian leaders, they don't particularly like him, nor do they respect him, but Australia has what they want - plenty of coal, good universities and, in the future, more uranium mines to fire their nuclear reactors.

But Howard's Foreign Affairs minister, Alexander Downer, is despised across the region, viewed generally as a wuss, an arrogant remnant of the colonial past and a flat-out liar.

Rudd & Gillard, meanwhile, have found their profiles rising steadily in China and SE Asia over the past few years, where they are generally viewed as positives for Australia's future, and do not have the stigma of being seen as closely aligned to the Bush's America as Howard & Co.

This perception will no doubt work to their advantage with Australian voters as well, where anti-Bushism is spreading like wildfire as every week brings new revelations of the lies that led to war and the shocking corruption and death tolls that have since followed.

China, Indonesia and South East Asia in general is waiting for Australia to sweep away the heavy arm of the United States from its shoulder and embrace its place in the world's new power centre.

Kevin Rudd as leader of the Opposition will be able to repair some of the damage done to Australia's image amongst our Asian neighbours by our involvement in the Iraq War, the sickening, brutal spectacle of the Cronulla Riots and the heavy-handed face smacking Australia has been dealing out to East Timor, the Solomon Islands and Fiji ; all countries where China is building new industry, new business and new influence at a rate that we can only gape at, dumbfounded.

However, it remains to be seen exactly what Rudd & Gillard, and Peter Garrett, are planning to do to transform Australia in the years ahead (should they win power). For now the talk of "fresh", "new" and "energetic" will buy some time, but not much.

Australians are growing increasingly nervous about their workplace futures, the effects of global warming, how the 'War On Iraq' will end, the monstrous drought and looming water and food shortages.

Rudd & Gillard have been given a vaulting shot at positive change and transformation, but Australians will only be so patient.

Now they have to deliver.


Meanwhile, ousted Opposition leader Kim Beazley was surprisingly chipper in his goodbye as leader. As sad as he may have been to not lead Labor into the next election, it was hard for him to hide the relief that he did not have to play the shallow, gut-knotting game of Liberal-centric politics for much longer.

In an emotional farewell, Beazley thanked his wife and family and then paused for almost ten seconds as he struggled to hold back sobs. Shortly after the vote that ended his career, Beazley was told his brother had died of a suspected heart attack.

Taking questions, Beazley was asked if he had any regrets after his long career in politics.

Beazley laughed, seemingly dumbstruck by the question.

"Regrets after 25 years in politics? Only about 4322 of them!"

Where that figure comes from, who knows?

For Beazley, retirement is set to be sweet. He can look forward to some choice defence industry board roles, and kicking back in Perth, the new boom city. It's been some hard-mucking years for Beazley (before and after his short break a few years back). He picked up the pieces after the Keating government's hammering at the 1996 election when John Howard was swept to power, and he was back mopping up the mess again after Mark Latham failed to oust Howard at the 2004 elections.

For now, at least as far as the message and comment boards go on Australia's major media websites, there is an overwhelming feeling of excitement and expectation at the Rudd & Gillard leadership of the Opposition, and their chances of winning the 2007 federal election.


More from Tim Dunlop's Blogogracy

Kim Beazley's Black Monday - Loses Leadership And His Brother

Australia's Labor Party Elects New Leader

Liberal Party Name Calling : Gillard & Rudd Are 'Mongoose And The Cobra'

NEW THEORY CLAIMS MEETING OF ANCIENT INDONESIANS AND PAPUA NEW GUINEANS GAVE RISE TO AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES

For scientists, it has long remained a mystery how Australian Aborigines came to colonise the world's largest island.

But a controversial new theory from molecular anthropologist, Dr Sheila van Holst Pellekan, suggests that indigenous Australians may be the result of the meeting of ancients migrating from Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

From abc.net.au :

Previous genetic analysis shows that modern humans took two migration routes out of Africa 100,000 to 150,000 years ago, she says.

One group went north into Europe and Northern Eurasia, the other along the coast via Saudi Arabia, India and South-East Asia.

Dr van Holst Pellekaan analysed mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from Aboriginal people in western New South Wales and Central Australia.

She says she found evidence of two ancient genetic groups that appear to be linked to these two migration routes.

Dr van Holst Pellekaan says some archaeologists argue there was more than one founding population of Australia, and her research is the first genetic evidence that could be used to support this.

It is possible that some Australians came in from the north via Papua New Guinea and the other took a more southerly route via Indonesia, she says.

Archaeologist Dr Colin Pardoe, who is speaking at the conference on a related topic, disagrees.

He believes the diversity of early Australians could have arisen from one group that came in from South-East Asia and then diversified as it adapted to different environments.

"The idea of two founding populations is speculative," she says. "I can't prove it either way."

Dr Van Holst Pellekaan says despite the links with the global lineages that came out of Africa, the Australian groups are quite different from those shown in samples from Papua New Guinea, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Malaysia.

"[People] have to have been in Australia for a very long time for that diversity to generate. We're saying at least 40,000 years," she says.

TOP SAS MAJOR SAYS AUSTRALIA'S INVASION OF IRAQ GAVE TERRORISTS "A LIVE TRAINING RANGE" TO PREPARE FOR ATTACKS ON COALITION ALLIES

CLAIMS 'WAR ON IRAQ' "HELPED OUT TERRORISTS"

One of the fiercest, most informed critics of the Howard government's involvement in the 'War On Iraq' has turned out to be the SAS major who helped plan the first insertions of Australian special forces into Iraq and Afghanistan.

He is quietly furious that prime minister John Howard broke a "moral contract" with Australia's defence forces, betraying them in so many words, by pushing the Bush Co. mantra for war on Iraq before proof of the existence of WMDs was fully established.

"I think the reasons that we went to war in Iraq were baseless," said ex-SAS major Peter Tinley.

"The Government sent us there under the idea of looking for weapons of mass destruction and they gave us the impression that there was a clear and imminent danger of them being used. We now know through our own tactical search on the ground in Iraq and certainly from the Iraq Survey Group, that that was not true at all."

Tinley is one of only a few senior key Australian planners of the 'War On Iraq' to now demand the withdrawal of Australian troops from the war zone.

"We've had three years of occupation in Iraq and we've got....an estimated 50,000 Iraqi dead," Tinley said on ABC's Lateline.

"We have some sort of moral connection to those deaths and we really need to take a hard look at ourselves and consider what our strategy should be from here."

Major Tinley dismisses the Howard mantras of "We won't Cut & Run from Iraq", saying the withdrawal of Australian forces should be done so that they can establish comprehensive Army and police and emergency services training bases in countries like Jordan, so Iraqis can complete detailed training regimes free from the threat of suicide bombings and the civil war.

"I don't believe that some approximately 500 troops in the south, under British command, are actually the best type of contribution we can make to Iraq," he said.

"Instead of Iraqis getting blown up in queues, looking for a job to serve their country in things such as the police force and the military, we can provide an outstanding service there. That's a good example for what I'm saying about expanding the way we view it....I’m advocating a change of policy which includes the immediate withdrawal of our troops."

Tinley also criticised the near absolute lack of debate in Australia as to what the long-term strategy is for Australia's involvement in Iraq.

"It was morally bankrupt, the whole notion of us being there, so the pretext is wrong. If that's the case, then we need to take good, hard, courageous decisions now to get out and get out whilst we can. This war will drag us in further and further. It's a civil war and the power vacuum that was created as a result of this invasion is clearly at the feet of this Government."

He also believes that an Australian contribution of only 500 troops, when there are 140,000 American troops on the ground in Iraq, is "purely token".

"(500 Australian troops) aren't going to make any difference whatsoever," he said.

Tinley also rejected prime minister John Howard's claims that a withdrawal from Iraq would mean "victory for the terrorists" and would embolden them to attack coalition targets.

"...we created the honey pot, if you like, from which the terrorist organisations from all around that particular region...get their training. We've provided them with a live training range.

"The fact that we have done that, we've in fact helped out the terrorist organisations that would do harm to any of our coalition partners by giving them that opportunity."

But it was on questions regarding the morality of the War On Iraq that Tinley hit the government the hardest, levelling legitimate claims that Australia's defence forces were betrayed by Howard's rush to war, before weapons inspectors had finished their job.

"I think if you set the premise for your pre-emption - and this is what this is, a pre emptive strike on another sovereign nation, regardless of what you think of the despot that led it. If you set that as the premise, then you want to make sure it's conclusive

"In this case I saw no direct actionable intelligence in the areas that we were looking at from Baghdad west all the way through to the Jordanian border and the Syrian and Saudi border. If that was the basis of it then it was wrong."

Major Tinley began planning the insertion of Australian SAS troops into Afghanistan within days of the attacks on New York and Washington DC on September 11, 2001. But he was then pulled off these duties to begin planning for the 'War On Iraq', before the job was finished in Afghanistan.

He said special forces planners that he worked with from the US and the UK all questioned the sparse intelligence for Iraqi WMDs they were given. Not only was there no verifiable, quality intelligence on WMD programs, but they couldn't even find proof that Saddam Hussein still had a quantity of Scud missiles and Scud missile launching platforms.

"I never saw anything that was newer than 1996 in terms of photographic imagery in relation to Scud missiles...We made the assumption, all the planners did, that there must be something more conclusive and there must be something somebody else knows about that doesn't need to concern us and the rest of country. We know for a fact now that the Iraq Survey Group and our own searches found absolutely nothing throughout the country."

Tinley said he didn't question the lack of intelligence because "as a soldier I was sent to do the planning. Like any good soldier I just did what I was told and I did it enthusiastically."

He described the betrayal of Australia's defence forces by the Howard government as "moral corruption" and said when Australians sign up to the Defence Force, "you put your hand in the air and you make an oath that you will go where your Government sends you. You therefore confer in some way, a moral responsibility for the Government to make sure they send you to a just war."

Tinley said that when SAS troops entered Iraq, there were clear doubts amongst the elite soldiers about the moral case for the war they were about to begin fighting.

"...I did have some quiet conversations in dark corners of tents with young men who were quite unsure about the war they were going into. It was beyond the normal fear that men have when they go into harm's way but we rationalised it. Those men again relied on the moral contract with the Government. They said their moral objection was far outweighed by the fact that they put their hand in the air and they said they would go where they were told to go."

Most members of the Australian Defence Forces now regard Afghanistan as the moral, justifiable war, while viewing the Iraq War as something much less. Even Prime Minister John Howard admitted in Parliment yesterday that "many" in the ADF did not agree with him about the need to first fight the war on Iraq, or to continue it.

"I think we can make a very clear case for Afghanistan," Tinley said.

"If you have a look at it, we did actually leave Afghanistan in undue haste, in my personal view. Evidence of that fact was the fact that we had to reinsert the SAS to help, along with the coalition partners, stabilise the security of the country."

Those comments are key as to why there is growing anger and frustration in Australia's defence forces, and in particular within the special forces.

The Australian SAS is regarded amongst allies as simply the best special forces teams in the world. The swift initial victory in Afghanistan in October-November, 2001, was largely due to the actions of Australian SAS members, who saved the lives of American and British troops on numerous occasions, clocking up hundreds of closely fought battles with Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters.

But they weren't allowed to stay and finish the job, Key war planners, like Tinley, along with hundreds of highly experienced SAS and Australian Army troops were hauled out of Afghanistan to go to work in Iraq by mid-2002.

The decision to back the United States in the 'War On Iraq', and thereby seeing Australian SAS pulled out of Afghanistan before security and a new government was established, is seen widely in military circles as having tarnished the impecable reputation of the Australian SAS, and the Army in general.

They didn't finish the job, and Afghanistan is now beset by thousands of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, who have re-armed, re-trained and re-grouped when coalition forces pulled out in preparation for the 'War On Iraq'.

"...when you go into a country like that (Afghanistan) and you take out the regime," Tinley said, "you really need to commit yourself to a longer course to actually sustain and get that back on its feet. You don't take on another job like this and expect to be welcomed as the great liberators as they did in Iraq."


Go Here For The Full Interview From Lateline

Earlier Coverage On This Story

FRESH WATER NOW BEING STOLEN FROM AUSTRALIAN FARMS

"WATER IS GOLD NOW"

So just how bad has the half-decade long drought become in some farming districts of country Australia?

Beyond Belief.

Thieves are now stealing water, along with deisel fuel and cattle.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

Water has become so precious in drought-stricken NSW that thieves are siphoning off thousands of litres from farm dams and rainwater tanks.

The dramatic rise in water theft comes after a black market boom in diesel fuel and stolen livestock.

"Water theft is definitely on the increase," said NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Steve Bradshaw.

"These are desperate times and there are opportunists who are taking desperate measures."

Two months ago, water theft barely rated a mention in police crime statistics. But Mr Bradshaw, whose command covers two-thirds of the state, said drought has hit so hard many families are struggling to make ends meet.

Last month thieves got away with 20,000 litres of water from a farm in Manildra, near Orange.

...police intelligence officers believe water is being siphoned from dams in unlocked paddocks and tapped from rainwater tanks that were visible from roads.

University of New England rural crime researcher Elaine Barclay said irrigation companies had established teams to investigate water theft.

"Demand creates crime," she said. "Fuel theft on farms has been on the rise since the prices went up. Water is gold now, so it stands to reason."

Central Bank Says Drought Will Slow Australia's Economy

Drought Horror Changing Australians' Views On Global Warming Reality

AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE FORCES "DUPED" BY PRIME MINISTER'S RUSH TO GO TO WAR IN IRAQ

PRE-EMPTIVE WAR A "BETRAYAL OF THE AUSTRALIAN WAY"

HOWARD BROKE "MORAL CONTRACT" WITH AUSTRALIA'S SOLDIERS

The truth-telling from Australia's betrayed, furious defence forces now begins.

One of Australia's most respected SAS officers has revealed that teams searching for Saddam's WMDs' regarded their mission as a "standing joke", knowing full well that there was unlikely to be any stockpiles of consequence to be found, and that in the months before the war, the proof of WMDs was virtually non-existent.

There are literally hundreds of Australian defence force personnel who want to tell the truth about what they know of the lies and deceptions spun out by the Howard government to con the Australian public, politicians and defence force leaders into backing the illegal 'War On Iraq'.

You can expect many more Australian defence personnel to know come forward and tell the truth of what they know, and how betrayed many of our soldiers feel about the war.

From the Australian :

The former SAS officer who devised and executed the Iraq war plan for Australia's special forces says that the nation's involvement has been a strategic and moral blunder.

Peter Tinley, who was decorated for his military service in Afghanistan and Iraq, has broken ranks to condemn the Howard Government over its handling of the war and has called for an immediate withdrawal of Australian troops.

"It was a cynical use of the Australian Defence Force by the Government," the ex-SAS operations officer told The Weekend Australian yesterday.

"This war duped the Australian Defence Force and the Australian people in terms of thinking it was in some way legitimate."

As the lead tactical planner for Australia's special forces in the US in late 2002, Mr Tinley was in a unique position to observe intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program and the coalition's military preparations in the lead-up to the war.

In Iraq in 2003, Mr Tinley served as deputy commander for the 550-strong joint special forces task group that took control of western Iraq.

Part of his command was 1 SAS Squadron, which was awarded a US Meritorious Unit citation for its "sustained gallantry", contributing to a comprehensive success for coalition forces in Iraq.

During war planning with US and British special forces at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in 2002, Mr Tinley says he never saw any hard intelligence that Saddam Hussein's regime possessed weapons of mass destruction.

"When I pressed them (US intelligence) for more specific imagery or information regarding locations or likely locations of WMD they confessed, off the record, that there had not been any tangible sighting of any WMD or WMD enabling equipment for some years," he said.

"It was all shadows and inferenced conversations between Iraqis. There was an overwhelming desire for all of the planning staff to simply believe that the Iraqis had learned how to conceal their WMD assets away from the US (surveillance) assets."

Coalition special forces troops were charged with hunting down Scud missiles and Saddam's suspected WMD arsenals, operating from just west of Baghdad all the way through to the Jordanian border, and between the Syrian and Saudi frontiers.

After the initial invasion, the search for WMD became something of a "standing joke" with neither coalition troops nor the Iraq Survey Group turning up anything of consequence.

"The notion that pre-emption is a legitimate strategy in the face of such unconvincing intelligence is a betrayal of the Australian way," he said.

He said the Government had broken a moral contract with its defence force in sending it to an "immoral war".

The Government's stance on Iraq and later on issues such as the Tampa had gradually allowed fear to become a motivating factor in the electorate, he said.

Mr Tinley said the Howard Government had failed to be honest with Australians about Iraq and "you can't separate the sentiment of the defence force from that of the people".

Australia's soldiers have a job to defend the people of Australia, the Australian way of life and Australia's honour and respect on the world stage. It is not their job to cover-up or to keep silent about the ways the Howard government decieved the Australian people, and their fellow soldiers into becoming involved in this war.

It is now their duty to come forward and tell the truth. They will lose no honour, nor respect, from the Australian people for doing what they know they must.

Go To The 'Fourth World War' Blog For A RoundUp Of The Latest 'War On Iraq' News


Australian Troops Are Being Sucked Into Iraq's Civil War

Australian Diplomat, Businessmen Knew Australian Was Going To War On Iraq More Than A Year Before Prime Minister Claimed He Decided To Commit Troops

Iraq Mosques Torched, Worshippers Burned Alive

Howard Has No Regrets About Iraq War - Says He Wouldn't Admit It Even If He Did

US Helicopters Shoot Up Funeral Procession In Iraq

30 Slaughtered As Gunmen Rampage Through Baghdad

Howard Continues The Spin - Withdrawal From Iraq Would Be Victory For Terrorists

AUSTRALIA LEFT BEGGING TO BE AT THE BIG TABLE ON FIGHT TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING

THE RUSH TO GET IN ON THE ACTION OF THE FUTURE WORLD CURRENCY - CARBON TRADING CREDITS

The Australian treasurer, Peter Costello, has sheepishly, but finally, admitted that Australian will join the Kyoto Protocol.

They won't sign up, of course, but they will take part, they will ensure carbon emissions meet Kyoto targets and they will officially acknowledge that carbon emissions are adding to the effects of the climate change inducing reality of global warming.

Only hours before the announcement by the treasurer on ABC's Lateline, Australian prime minister, John Howard was still pretending that he was one tough negotiator when it came to this global warming business, and it was in fact he that was insisting that rapidly growing, mass-industrialised nations like India and China do something about their emissions for the sake of future generations.

It was all pure Howard theatre. China was one of the first countries in the world to join a then experimental carbon credit trading system, more than four years, when Howard was still smirking and snorting about environmentalists and the dreaded Greeeennnsss, mocking them all for having panic fits about something called global warming.

After years of insulting the Europeans over their insistence that the Kyoto Protocol must be taken seriously, and that countries like Australia need to get on board, the harsh reality has well and truly dawned on the money men of the Australian government that they are about to miss out, bigstyle, on becoming part of the new unofficial world currency known as 'carbon trading credits'.

It doesn't even matter anymore whether John Howard believes global warming is a reality, or if he acknowledges that rapid industrialisation using coal as a key energy source (Australia's leading export industry) is adding to the problems. Most of the rest of the world has well and truly left skeptics like Howard far, far behind.

Which is why Howard, five to eight years late, is rushing to catch up.


Australian environmentalists, and climate scientists, are still shaking their heads in disbelief that John Howard has so quickly taken up the mantra of "Something must be done about global warming".

All this comes, of course, after the Howard government spent years trying to block the truth from emerging out of Australia's leading scientific body, the CSIRO, about climate change and the dire long-term environmental, and economic, effects of global warming.

Howard has an agenda, and that agenda is using the reality of global warming to push for the rapid and massive expansion of nuclear power as an alternative energy source.

Australia is already one of the world's leaders when it comes to mining uranium. Howard wants Australia to become the world leader for uranium exports. a market worth, literally, hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade.


Austraila's reputation as an international pariah, thanks to a decade of near inactivity on the key issues of climate change, will take many years, and probably a change of government, to shake off.

Short of two or three Australians cities getting bombed, global warming will be a far more important issue at the 2007 federal elections than international terrorism, or the 'War On Iraq'. Howard knows this, of course. He will flog global warming to death, regardless of whether or not he believes it is an economy shredding reality. Most Australians believe, so Howard does too. Now.

Go To Your New Reality For The Full Story


China Blasts Australia Over For Emissions Criticism, Says By Population Comparison Australia Emits Far More Greenhouse Gases Than China

PM 'Not Credible' On Global Warming And Climate Change At APEC Conference

Climate Change Threat As Serious As Weapons Of Mass Destruction

Debunking The Vast Left Wing United Nations Conspiracy Called Global Warming

John Howard To Embrace Carbon Trading At APEC

Bush Loses Australia As Key Player In Opposition To Kyoto And Reality Of Global Warming

NOW AND THEN - JOHN HOWARD ON THE IRAQ WAR

The Australian prime minister, John Howard, once said we had to go war against Iraq to stop Saddam Hussein using weapons of mass destruction and to stop him giving such weapons to terrorists.

Now Howard says we have to stay in Iraq....so the United States doesn't look bad.

...my policy is to be part of a coalition that does not leave Iraq in circumstances where it is seen as a defeat for the West and a boost for the terrorists. That is the most important responsibility I have at the present time.

So what is the 'War On Iraq' now then? Some frigging marketing campaign?

When more than 500,000 Australians (out of a population of 20 million) marched in opposition to the (then upcoming) illegal invasion of Iraq in early 2003, Howard infamously said all these people - including thousands of World War 2, Korea and Vietnam War veterans - were giving "comfort to Saddam".

We know now, of course, that at the same time as Howard was making these despicable comments, he was ignoring repeated warnings from Australia's intelligence agencies that an Australian corporation had been (and were continuing to) funnel bribes totalling some $300 million to the regime of Saddam Hussein.

That's a lot of comfort.

Australia has some of the most brilliant anti-terrorism and military intelligence minds in the world. But Howard clearly doesn't pay much attention to their reports, or briefings.

If he did, he would know that the 'War On Iraq' is already being widely viewed as a defeat for the West and "a boost for terrorists" across the world.

Does he really believe that the 'War On Iraq' is going to be resolved in a way that can be seen as some great victory for the West?

Yes, he clearly believes that this is how history will view this fiasco.

So what else does Howard have to say about the 'War On Iraq' these days?

Pretty much the exact same guff he was spouting back in February, 2003.

Here's Howard on November 11 this year :

"...if the coalition leaves Iraq, in circumstances where it is viewed by the rest of the world, and particularly by terrorists, as a defeat, that will have enormous and negative ramifications for the prestige and the authority of the United States in the world."

Here's Howard on February 20, 2003 :

"...if the world walks away from this (war), the damage to the authority....of the United States will be huge."

So, if the United States walked away from an illegal invasion of Iraq in February, 2003, the damage to the "authority" of the United States would have been "huge".

Now he claims if the United States (and Australia) leaves Iraq, the damage to the "authority" of the United States will have "negative ramifications".

The "authority" and "prestige" of the United States was damaged when it became clear only weeks after the invasion of Iraq that there were no WMDs, just as Saddam Hussein and United Nations weapons inspectors said.

The "negative ramifications" Howard so fears have been piling up for more than two years, as Iraqi, Iranian and Al Qaeda fighters armed with homemade bombs took on the greatest military force in the world and destroyed hundreds of American tanks, trucks and Humvees, killing thousands of mostly unarmoured US and British troops.

Howard is clearly living in a fantasyland if he truly believes that the Coalition can leave Iraq with its "authority" and "prestige" intact.

He is deluding himself and he is attempting to delude all Australians.

For the record, a few paragraphs below you will some more Howard fantasyland quotes from the first six months of 2003. A period during which he was being briefed and fed reports telling him (if he had bothered to actually read them) that the Iraq War was not going to work out the way he was dreaming it would.

Of course, Australia's intelligence agencies - like those of the United States, France, Germany, Israel, Russia and United Kingdom - foresaw the rise of the Iraqi insurgency before it became an exploding reality, and repeatedly warned the leaders of Australia, the UK and the United States that Iraq would become a live-field training ground for Al Qaeda terrorists should the war continue beyond the end of 2003.

Our children, our grandchildren, will be living with the legacy of The War HowardBushBlair Had To Have.

Considering this terror-laden legacy, it would be honourable of John Howard to start telling the truth about the 'War On Iraq' instead of continuing to spout the kind of twaddle that makes senior ranks of Australia's Army and intelligence services cringe every time they hear him opining on this incredibly damaging fiasco.

Howard's attempts to continually spin the the reality, and the generations-long blowback we can now expect from the 'War On Iraq', would be laughable, if it wasn't so utterly, horribly tragic. For the people of Australia, and the people of Iraq.


THE VERY BEST OF JOHN HOWARD

THE IRAQ WAR - THE FIRST SIX MONTHS

"....our goal is to make certain that the weapons that Iraq now has, chemical and biological and a capacity to develop nuclear weapons, are taken from Iraq." - January 23, 2003

"..if as a consequence of that military action the current regime disappears, that circumstances in Iraq could well be a lot better, I’m certain they will be a lot better and that in a relatively short period of time the situation could stabilise in the way that it did in Afghanistan." - February 7. 2003

"I think there’s a very big connection between Iraq and North Korea and the connection is this, if the Security Council and the world community can’t discipline Iraq it has no hope of disciplining North Korea." - February, 16, 2003

"Iraq must be disarmed. We cannot afford to allow a rogue state like Iraq to retain chemical and biological weapons. Others will do likewise. North Korea will not be disciplined by the world community if Iraq is not disciplined." - March 14, 2003

"I have no doubt at all in my mind, and many would agree with me, that the Iraqi people will suffer less if Saddam Hussein is removed." - March 17, 2003

"...we don’t have any quarrel with the ordinary people of Iraq, we don’t want to inflict any avoidable pain, injury or death on them. We do have a big quarrel with the regime because it’s the regime that has defied the world in relation to its chemical and biological weapons. We mustn’t lose sight of what this is all about." - March 20, 2003

"....on the scale of suffering I have believed for a long time that the people of Iraq will suffer less if he’s gone than if he’s left there." - March 21, 2003

"...it is a very tyrannical regime and once it’s gone the people of Iraq will I’m sure have a much better life." - April 2, 2003

"...if Iraq had disarmed and fully cooperated, then I don’t think people would have been arguing on its own for regime change." - April 2, 2003

"...getting rid of the regime and thereby ensuring that Iraq does not retain chemical and biological weapons or a capacity to develop them in the future, that is the goal....I would say victory once the regime is gone." - April 6, 2003

"...we won't be making a significant peacekeeping contribution....I'm not talking about a period of 12 months or two years...we certainly don't intend to have a significant army of peacekeepers." - April 10, 2003

"...the same thing with the civilian casualties. Of course there were. But you have to put that in the balance against the tens upon tens of thousands who have died in different ways as a result of this regime." - April 13, 2003

President Bush estimated months ago that more than 30,000 civilians had died as a result of the US-Australian-UK led invasion of Iraq. The Iraqi Healthy Ministry estimated earlier this month that more than 150,000 civilians had been killed.

"It was inevitable that when you topple a tyrannical regime and you took the lid off, it was inevitable there was going to be a period of some upheaval..." - April 16, 2003

Two years and seven months have now passed since Howard predicted "a period of some upheaval."

"...it was a remarkable military victory, and a great tribute to the American military leadership." - May 2, 2003


Howard : Defeat Of Coalition In Iraq Will Spoil US Reputation

Howard : "By All Means Let Us Talk To Syria And Iran"

Bribing Saddam - The Greatest International Scandal In Australia's History

"MARINES DON'T GET KILLED IN IRAQ. I CAN LOOK AFTER MYSELF...I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING"

The brave and supremely confident words of Corporal Ben Novak, a 27 year old Oz-Brit (dual citizenship). He was a Royal Marine and he died in Southern Iraq last Sunday, along with three other Royal Marines on the Shatt al-Arab waterway outside of Basra.

Corporal Novak had been in Iraq for just one week.

His mother said Ben was "so proud to be a Royal Marine. He would wear that uniform whenever he could."

Rupert Murdoch : United States Takes Australia For Granted

Warns Australians About Dangers Of Becoming More "Anti-American"

By Darryl Mason

Rupert Murdoch, head of News Limited and one of only a handful of Australians who have ever renounced their Australian citizenship purely to make more money, said in a speech tonight that the United States is guilty of taking Australia "too much for granted".

During his speech at the first American Australian Association dinner in Sydney he said "America takes Australia too much granted....the best way to keep a friend is to be a friend."

He said the United States "should not come calling only when in need."

He also lectured Australians about what he believes to be a rising tide of anti-Americanism in this country, admitting that a lot of this sentiment is a result of the 'War On Iraq' he so fervently backed.

“I am well aware that the Iraq war was and is unpopular among many Australians," Murdoch said.

Incredibly ironic, of course, because it was his media empire that so relentlessly and ruthlessly promoted the need for a 'War On Iraq' through 2002 and the first few months of 2003 and undeniably helped to pave the way for it to become a reality.

And it was his newspapers in Australia that so consistently savaged those who tried to warn that attacking Iraq would lead to exactly the kind of bloodshed and destruction, carnage and monstrous death tolls that he now recognises as helping to spread anti-Americanism through Australia, Europe and the UK.

Why do people like Murdoch and Australia's prime minister John Howard continually insist on calling it anti-Americanism when it should be more honestly defined as anti-Bushism?

Australians on the whole do not hate Americans. American tourists are not regularly abused or attacked on the streets of our cities. It is President Bush, and his odious doctrine of pre-emptive war and global domination by military force, that infuriates so many Australians.

"...I am well aware that not every Australian sees the current American administration in a favourable light," Murdoch said. "But wars end. Administrations come and go.”

Administrations do come and go, and Murdoch's incredible media power in the United States and Australia usually ensures he gets exactly the kind of administration he wants, for the benefit of his business and ideological interests.

"The Australian people must not allow their perfectly legitimate doubts about one policy or one American administration to cloud their long-term judgment...Australians must resist and reject the facile, reflexive, unthinking anti-Americanism that has gripped much of Europe...Australian sentiment is thankfully nowhere near Europe's level of hostility, but it could get there. And it mustn't."

Well it won't, as long the United States doesn't insist on smashing sovereign countries based on a filthy pack of lies and distortions.

Murdoch was in Australia to launch a $50 million Centre for United States Studies at the University of Sydney. He said the centre will be valuable to the United States because it will
"raise awareness, dispel myths, groom new leaders...."

It will be extremely interesting to see just what "myths" the Centre for United States Studies tries to dispel.


Here's what Australian PM John Howard had to say about Australians and anti-Americanism :

"While anti-Americanism seemingly finds a ready outlet in every age, we should not pretend that it is cost-free. For some, a bit of armchair anti-Americanism may be nothing more than a mild indulgence. But … be careful what you wish for."

Armchair anti-Americanism? What about wheelchair anti-Americanism? Or toilet seat anti-Americanism? Do you have to be sitting comfortably in an armchair to spout of anti-Americanisms?

Nice try, but that's really not going to catch on as a popularism.

Did Howard actually consider what effect the possibility of him pushing forward on committing Australian troops to a war on the other side of the world, agaisnt a nation that did not threaten us, might actually have on the locals?

Of course he did. But he did it anyway.

And he regrets nothing. Just like Rupert.


Go To 'Your New Reality' For More


Some background on the American Studies Centre from the Melbourne Age :

Mr Murdoch was horrified by last year's Lowy Institute poll showing that the only countries generating less positive feelings about the US than Australia were Indonesia, the Middle East, Iran and Iraq. It found that of the 39 per cent of Australians who felt negatively towards the US, almost all thought Australia paid too much attention to Washington's views.

Mr Murdoch raised the issue with the American Australian Association, which led to the idea of creating a US Studies Centre, to be based at Sydney University with a $25 million commitment from the Federal Government.

Guests at last night's dinner included former prime ministers Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Andrew Peacock, Frank Lowy, Sol Trujillo, James Packer, Mr Murdoch's son, Lachlan, and Lachlan's friends Collette Dinnigan and Baz Luhrmann.

The dinner, for which guests paid up to $35,000 a table, also raised money to support a fellowship program for Australian and US postgraduate scholars to study in both countries.

Sydney University Wins Bid For US Studies Centre

Australia Is Not America

Friends In Need : Howard, Murdoch Stand By US

Australian American Studies Centre Installed By Murdoch's Demand After Shock Poll Revealed 39% Think Negatively Of US, And Fear US Almost As Much As they Fear Iran

BORAT LAYS DOWN 'TESTES SATCHEL' CHALLENGE TO JOHN HOWARD

Kazakhi TV reporter Borat has challenged Australian PM John Howard to show his true strength.

Funny, yes, but this is definitely something no Australian wants to see broadcast on television.

If Howard takes up the Borat challenge, let him do it away from the cameras, if that's possible for Australia's most infamous media whore.

From news.com.au :

...Borat has questioned whether Prime Minister John Howard has the balls to govern Australia.

Borat threw down the weighty challenge to Mr Howard at the Australian premiere of his mockmentary Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan in Sydney last night.

"In our country it is not the man with the most votes who wins, it is the man who can suspend the heaviest weight from his testes satchel," he said...

"Our current premier can carry a car battery for almost eight seconds ... how long can (John Howard) suspend from his?"

ABORIGINES FIND THEIR PARADISE IN UTOPIA

BUT THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT WANTS TO TOSS THEM OUT

The Australian media rarely has a positive story on Aborigines. Which seems remarkable when you consider that Aborigines have survived and thrived for more than 60,000 years or longer, in some of the harshest environments in the world.

The ancient knowledge of the Aborigines has much to offer the Australian government now panicking over an horrific combination of widespread drought, massive crop failures and unprecedented water shortages.

Obviously, the Aborigines were doing something right for those centuries of centuries.

You would think that such a world rarity of vital ancient knowledge would be a treasure trove of information for the Australian government struggling now to deal with the end fatal results of two hundred years of land-clearing, river diversions and the near ceaseless logging that has wiped away more than 90% of Australia's ancient rainforests and woodlands.

But you'd be wrong.

Many Aborigines are thriving still, despite the overwhelmingly negative victimisation and stereotyping served up by most Australian media. It is their own fault, a seemingly endless stream of dull-headed 'opinion makers' inform us, because too many Aborigines reject Western culture and 'civilisation'. They don't want to step into the 21st Century, apparently.

There now seems to be a few very good reasons why this resistance is essential to the survival of their race.

New studies show that many Aborigines have a far better shot at a longer, healthier life once they turn away from Western processed foods, alcohol-fuelled leisure and inactive lifestyles.

The example to support this argument is rarely mentioned in the Australian media.

Welcome to the Aborigianl paradise of Utopia.

From the London Times :

Researchers have found such clear indicators of the wellbeing of the people of Utopia — a 1,160 square mile (3,000 sq km) former cattle station in the red desert dust north of Alice Springs — that policy-makers are having to reconsider the worth of an ancient Aboriginal way of life that rejects much of comfortably off Australia’s eating, working and leisure habits.

Yet those healthy traditions may be under threat. Ministers in the Howard Government have declared small Aboriginal communities to be unsustainable and argued for their closure and the removal of inhabitants to enlarged townships. There, they suggest, better services could be provided.

In Utopia’s 16 tiny settlements — known as outstations — infants are fed the blood of kangaroos hunted by their relatives. Old women catch and cook big goanna lizards. People wander the spinifex grasses and dig out succulent honey ants and witchetty grubs for eating. Women make batches of Aboriginal medicines from desert plants, relying on ancestral recipes. Not many people smoke, and only a few drink.

Many in Utopia spend the bakingly hot days in rough shelters, alongside dogs. Houses are often crowded and dirty. Most struggle to pay for food and petrol from the single store. Yet these people are 40 per cent less likely to die prematurely than other Aboriginals in the Northern Territory.

According to researchers at the University of Melbourne, their health approaches — and even exceeds in crucial respects — that of white Australians long expected to outlive Aborigines by 15 to 20 years.

Lennie Jones, a senior elder, is certain of the source of his community’s health: “Out here, we live on bush tucker. Old fellows and kids still hunt. We don’t have white tucker.”

Another, Albert Bailey, whose 76 years represent longevity unusual among Aborigines, says: “In the big communities the young fellows get on the grog all the time. Here we stop ’em. We stay on the land of our grandfathers, always.”

At least, until the Australian government comes to try and force them from their traditional lands and into the cities.

Sometimes it pays to listen to those who know more than you do, particularly about a land as vast and resource-wealthy and bush food-rich as Australia.

If you ever get the chance to go on a 'Bush Tucker Tour' in Australia with an Aboriginal guide, don't pass it up. To take a walk through what seems like fairly barren scrub, and then to learn that there is a rich variety of food in the form of berries, roots and leaves all around you is to see the country through new eyes.

They mystery of how Aborigines managed to survive for so long in the harsh climates of Australia becomes clear when you learn just how much food and water there is to be found, when you know what you're looking for, and you know where to look.

As for dealing with the drought, at least in the decades to come, there is a simple and clear truth in what an Aboriginal elder in the Blue Mountains told me, a few years back :

"If you got the trees, the rains will come. More trees, more rain, it's always been this way."

Go Here For The Full London Times Story