Blockades
I expect we'll hear no more complaints from governments, police and media about S11-style protests and union picket lines following Bush's visit to Australia.
After all, the Prime Minister and his colleagues demonstrated in Parliament that blockading is a legitimate tactic.
If they can blockade the Greens senators from presenting a letter to George Bush, then surely blockading is no longer un-Australian.
Ray Fulcher
Melbourne
Habib libelled by Howard
On the 7.30 Report on October 23, Howard may or may not have libelled David Hicks but he certainly libelled 43-year-old Mamdouh Habib who was not fighting or training in Afghanistan.
This is far more than just another Howard lie. An Australian citizen is in a foreign jail, held by US soldiers on US government-occupied land, but beyond the protection of US law, and our Prime Minister libels him in such a way that might lead to prolonged detention or death. Below is an extract from the transcript:
Kerry O'Brien: "So are you now confident that these two men will either be charged and put on trial or released in a way a very short period of time?"
John Howard: "I tell you what I'm confident about is there will be a process established to give an adjudication probably almost certainly through a military commission in a way that will conform with some basic principles that we regard as important.
"But you've got to understand that they were over there training with the Taliban.
"Let's be realistic about this and they were — this idea that some Australian citizen who is charged with something in another country has some automatic right of repatriation for trial in this country is not correct."
John Tomlinson
Brisbane
Man of Tin
Was George Bush thinking of the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz when he called John Howard "a man of steel"? In the story, the Tin Man was able to move his rusted joints once Dorothy had oiled him, but declared he was not perfect as she had thought, because when he was made, he said, they forgot to give him a heart so that if she thumped his chest it would sound hollow.
John Howard's record on Aboriginal reconciliation, refugees, children in detention and the incarceration of Mamdouh and Hicks in Guantanamo certainly fits our hollow, heartless "Tin Man" Prime Minister.
Of course, maybe Mr Bush was thinking of Mr Howard as the Wizard of Oz. After all, he took Australia to war with Iraq which was not supported by the parliament, the UN Security Council or by a majority of Australians and has not suffered the same degree of ignominy as Bush and Blair.
That's some kind of magic even if profoundly black!
Gareth Smith and Maxine Caron
Byron Bay NSW
Socialist Alternative
When Emperor Bush came to the bush capital we had a fantastic, radical, empowering protest of 4000 people to demand that US and Australian troops get out of Iraq. In two weeks, Resistance, the Socialist Alliance and other anti-war activists stuck up 1500 posters and dished out more than 10,000 leaflets.
Socialist Alliance and Resistance members also liaised with the police, helped set up the stage and public address system, organised adverts for the Canberra Times, got approval from the planning authorities, networked with other groups, lined up speakers and spoke to a lot of the media.
As socialists, it is crucial that we put serious energy into, and take responsibility for, building social movements and also recruit to socialist organisations.
It is disappointing that Socialist Alternative have the approach of taking minimum responsibility for the movements and just building themselves.
For example, while the Socialist Alliance and Resistance held more than 30 stalls to build the protest, Socialist Alternative did not do one stall that I know of. They did a few paste-ups, followed up some speakers and also did some media work. One Socialist Alternative member was going to organise a PA for protest outside the Lodge but did not do it. This meant the protest there was disorganised and less political.
Socialist Alternative also argued against having the demand "End the occupation of Iraq" on the publicity and also opposed having high-profile anti-Bush speakers like Bob Brown, Harry Quick and Bishop Pat Power on the platform. Surely, socialists should raise the consciousness of people and should also build movements with broad platforms.
If Socialist Alternative did take more responsibility publicising and organising the protest, the anti-Bush protest would have been even more successful.
James Vassilopoulos
Ainslie ACT
Quolls and hawks
About 20 years ago, I was awoken by a frantic "kerfuffle" in my chook house. Recent news items reminded me of it: "Dubya Bush, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld warn Iran", etc.
Twenty or so years ago I was new to the area, and with a "wonkey" torch saw what I took to be a possum in the chook house.
Because I had removed possums from ceiling areas of my house down in Melbourne, I grabbed a pair of heavy leather, long sleeved welding gloves and caught the animal. It managed to bite my thumb and hung onto it through the glove for a minute or so, before I could get outside, and we jointly agreed to let go of each other and it scampered away.
Returning to the chook house I saw some nine or 10 fully grown hens and six or so large ducks dead, with a further two ducks and several hens with throat wounds. They survived.
My possum was a spotted quoll which had been on a killing spree for the "hell of it".
A month or so later a friend in the general area had 30 or so poultry killed in one night by a spotted quoll, again just for the blood lust.
Do you see the connection with my experience with the quoll, and the cabal in the United States government's top job. Blood lust!
They want to get on with their plans of many years, i.e. wrestling control of Iraqi oil from French and British interests, and pipelines across Afghanistan, Syria and Iran to deep water ports for the oil they are cajoling/pressuring the, in many cases crooked, governments of former Soviet oil-rich territories such as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The USA has airfields and military establishments in these countries already.
The trouble is that Iraq has presented problems they had glossed over in their eagerness, just as the quoll never noticed me coming.
Hence the current, almost manic, attempts to get other countries and the United Nations to commit troops and assuredly pressure Australia to commit more troops to Iraq. This so that they can get their troops out of Iraq and rested ready for other wars/invasions.
The excuse? Ah, there's the rub. We can't use the weapons of mass destruction lie. So the Iranians are building atomic facilities which could be used for make atomic weapons. "We must stop them."
There's an old saying: "Once a liar, always a liar."
Don't be fooled.
Jim Knight
Kangaroo Creek NSW
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, October 29, 2003.
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