The U.S. Missile Shield, now controlled from Adelaide, would have looked from above like a cheap umbrella.  Still, while recycled paper and plastic were being exhumed from the South Australian outback and extruded into space-station "lifeboats" for Western Civilization, as long as it kept the Jihad at bay for a few years, the ageing Aegis system would have served its purpose.  These days people refer to it mostly as the Shield of Christ.  and the devotion with which its components are renewed at Port Adelaide is akin to religious fervour. 

The trick was going to be how to get the population off-planet and keep the allies of Allah out of Antarctica.  Bad enough if they got control of the Australian uranium reserve, but what if they got their hands on the mineral reserves beneath the ocean floor under the South polar icecap?   We'd be broke.  

‘As the bodies pile up in Iraq, new polls show that most Iraqis want us out of their country, and they want us out soon. At the same time, Al Jazeera acquired a letter believed to be from a high-ranking al Qaeda operative that shows that our worst enemies think a protracted occupation of Iraq is "the most important thing" for the future of their cause.

Yet the Bush administration and its mouthpieces insist that we must "stay the course" in Iraq -- either to bring stability to the war-torn country or out of some misguided belief that we can salvage America's dignity from an embarrassing Vietnam-style defeat.

‘The Australian and American governments have sought to label prisoners in Guantanamo Bay as dangerous and as evil; in their terms, as terrorists. The latest to join in this litany of inappropriate, pre-trial condemnatory comment is the new United States ambassador to Australia, Robert McCallum. It is another unwise intervention in Australia's affairs.

McCallum well knows that the American courts, Congress and President would not allow any American citizen to be tried in the military commissions, formerly established by President George Bush, now to be established, slightly modified, by law of Congress.

‘The Transportation Security Administration's secret no-fly list includes some very unlikely terror suspects - Bolivian president Evo Morales, 14 of the 19 dead 9/11 hijackers, and every single person named "Robert Johnson."

Journalists Susan and Joseph Tentro recently obtained a copy of the 44,000-name no-fly list and collaborated with CBS's 60 Minutes to investigate the names on it. They found thousands of inaccuracies and ambiguities on the list, not to mention some shocking omissions.

from Mike Carlton in today’s SMH …..

‘The blatant dishonesty came towards the end, with a brief nod at the war on terrorism. "It remains," intoned Howard, "an inconvenient truth that if countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia simply abandon the people of Iraq this would be an enormous victory for the forces of terror and extremism around the world."

No mention of the deceit and incompetence that got us into Iraq in the first place.

‘When you hear that we must bomb Syria because it allows Iranian weapons to transit its territory, remember how our own Dutch allies have been deliberately turning a blind eye for years as one of its major international airports is used as a transit point for our shipment of illicit, non-conventional weapons into the Middle East.

Remember too that at the exact same time that the US Administration was demanding that Iraq be sanctioned and its children starved because Saddam Hussein was developing Chemical and Biological Weapons, our Department of Commerce was (and presumably still is) issuing export licences to facilitate the production of exactly the same weapons in Israel.

Last year the freedom of speech in South Australia was challenged by the forbidding of the public to gather on the steps of  Parliament.  Fortunately the voice of democracy was heard and we were allowed to protest US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld's visit.  One of the proudest moments of my life was helping to fix the rallying banner for peace  to the Paliamentary pillars.  It restored my faith in the voice of the people being allowed to be heard.

Foreign Minister Downer's words yesterday have changed my mind.  Faced with statistics suggesting that four out  of five Australians believed that our atempted mission in Iraq  was a faillure, Mr Downer turned a deaf ear to the point of view.

‘My fellow Americans, it’s official now: We live in a fascist nation.

Now, the term "fascist" has been thrown around over the last fifty years in a loose way that has drained it of much of its meaning. If someone wanted to cut 5% off of a leftist professor's favourite welfare programme, the professor would call his opponent a "fascist." I’m not using the word like that. I mean honest-to-goodness, old-fashioned, 1930s style fascism, featuring such old favourites as:

‘It may be that the Roman republic was doomed in any case. But the disproportionate reaction to the raid on Ostia unquestionably hastened the process, weakening the restraints on military adventurism and corrupting the political process. It was to be more than 1,800 years before anything remotely comparable to Rome’s democracy - imperfect though it was - rose again.

The Lex Gabinia was a classic illustration of the law of unintended consequences: it fatally subverted the institution it was supposed to protect. Let us hope that vote in the United States Senate does not have the same result.’

from today’s Australian …..

‘North Korea last night stepped up its nuclear blackmail with the announcement that it will test an atomic device for the first time.

Blaming an American "extreme threat of a nuclear war and sanctions", Kim Jong-il's increasingly isolated regime announced that a nuclear weapons test was essential to bolstering North Korea's defence.

‘At Nuremberg, we rejected the certainty of execution for the uncertainty of a trial. The test was one of principle over power, and the United States passed.

President Harry Truman understood that our nation's ability to bring about a world of peace and justice was rooted not in our military might but in our moral authority; not on the ability to compel people with our tanks and planes but to convince them that our values and our ideals were right. He understood that our ability to succeed in spreading American values of freedom and human rights are only as effective as our willingness to uphold them.

from Alan Ramsey …..

‘We let David Hicks rot for almost five years, without trial, in an American military hellhole in Cuba, and the Howard Government does nothing. A Melbourne court sees videos of an elite Victorian police unit obviously bashing confessions from suspects, yet all the police do is cry foul at their public "humiliation". Now a 90-plus-kilogram policeman in a remote Aboriginal community behaves so brutishly his victim's liver is torn in half and four ribs are broken after a "fall" as he is being taken from the paddy wagon and dragged, on his back, by the arms to a cell.

 

In July 2003, George Bush said in a speech: "The United States is committed to worldwide elimination of torture, and we are leading this fight by example. Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes, whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit."

This week, former US Ambassador for War Crimes Issues, David Scheffer, said: