‘The fragile truce between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown was dramatically shattered yesterday when supporters from the rival factions mounted attacks on each other, dashing any prospect of a peaceful handover.

Past and present ministers lined up to warn Mr Brown he could not assume he would inherit the premiership unimpeded. Mr Brown's supporters retaliated, saying Mr Blair should resign before Christmas. And in a move destined to add fuel to the fire, the Prime Minister will today make a speech on the "way forward" for the country, in what Labour insiders believe is a deliberate attempt to tie Mr Brown to the Blairite agenda.’

‘"The United States calls 'terrorists' anybody that it doesn't like or that Israel doesn't like, because people like Hezbollah and Hamas who are fighting a war of resistance against Israeli occupation are labelled as 'terrorists,' while most of the world sees them as legitimate resistance fighters when they're fighting the Israeli army."

Such views are routinely expressed in news media almost everywhere in the world. But in the United States, our media insulation about the "war on terror" is extreme - and dangerously self-deluding.’

‘I mentioned here earlier this week that as the Bush era endgame begins, these thugs will grow more brazen in their depredations, and more open about their brutal tactics. It's getting harder to hide the massive extent of their lawbreaking, and if the Democrats take Congress in November, it will be harder still.

So what they must do now is simply break down all notions of law and morality, destroy the notions of justice and honour.

‘The Taliban have regained control over the southern half of Afghanistan and their frontline is advancing daily, a group closely monitoring the Afghan situation said in a report Tuesday.

The report on the reconstruction of Afghanistan marking the fifth anniversary of 9/11 is based on extensive field research in the critical provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Herat and Nangarhar.

‘Anyone who appeals to freedom as a reason for war has to support and favour freedom. He has to favour the exercise of freedom over one’s just property. He has to favour the absence of unjust attacks and infringements on one’s life, liberty, and property because that is what freedom means, correct? Not so. Politicians constantly make the appeal to freedom while simultaneously supporting the state’s multiple infringements upon life, liberty, and property.

What are we to think of this blatant contradiction? We can conclude that our rulers are hypocrites. This is true. They pretend to favour freedom while their every act undermines it. Whenever they invoke freedom, watch out. They are talking about other things, things that are not freedom, things that go against exercising one’s free will over one’s property. Their aim is to sabotage freedom.

Figuring that if Australia has 36%, and South Australia has three quarters of that, then our state must surely, apart from any other reason, be one of the most stragegically important places in the world.

How could any self-professed superpower feel anything but duty-bound to protect such an important asset, especially if it might one day depend on the ore for its survival ?  What an Achilles Heel the place could become if it's defence was left to the natives.

So we get B-2s on bombing simulations from Guam, a run of "joint trining exercises" that will turn parts of the State into simulations of the Persan Gulf and Afghanistan, Christ knows what monitoring the desert from just outside our vertical territory limit of 100km.

‘Recently, while watching Robert Greenwald's new film, "Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers," I began to grasp the enormous scope and implications of the corporate takeover of the war in Iraq. I asked myself, Why isn't this a huge issue for Americans of all political stripe? After all, making money off war, while American soldiers are dying, strikes many people as just plain wrong.

It's all in Greenwald's film: American tax dollars paying for the enormous profits enjoyed by a gaggle of well-connected companies that have revolving doors with the military and the U.S. government. Wars waged in our name creating ballooning CEO salaries, gigantic waste, and the loss of control of the role of the military. But the viewer is unprepared for the really shocking realization; the lives of hardworking, patriotic Americans are sacrificed, stupidly and callously, and soldiers are put in unnecessary danger all to make a buck - many, many bucks.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The episodes of Doctor Who that were screened on the weekends surrounding 6/6/06 concern the freeing of an ancient Beast from beyond the dawn of time.

The story, currently being broadcast in Australia, must have made many more people aware of the possible symbolism of the date than if it had been broadcast at another time. To achieve this would have required a considerable timespan of forward planning, and you have to wonder whether the writers and producers were simply timing for dramatic effenct and publicity or whether they may have been attempting to alert the populace to vigiliance of possible psychological manipulation of events emenating from that point in time.

‘This is a terrible story. Thomas Ricks, the highly respected Washington Post defence correspondent, could not be further from the grotesque antics of Michael Moore, yet his scrupulous account of the disaster in Iraq will fill the reader with anger. His research confirms how some extremely clever neo-cons in Bush’s circle were blinded by arrogance and ideological obstinacy. The degree of their irresponsibility, intellectual dishonesty, incompetence and lack of imagination is almost beyond belief. Virtually every decision they took has played straight into the hands of the West’s deadliest enemies.

from our ABC .....

Howard reassures growers on banana imports

Prime Minister John Howard has re-assured banana growers in far north Queensland that restrictions on the import of fresh fruit will not be relaxed.

The banana industry is seeking urgent talks today with the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service over the importation of frozen processed bananas from Vietnam, though authorities say these pose no quarantine risk.

From Antiwar.com

Blindly Backing Israel Against Iran
by Gordon Prather

Well, that tears it.

First we had Dick Cheney - the most powerful Vice-President we've ever had - nonchalantly tell a radio talk-show host just hours before the Bush-Cheney second inaugural: "Well, one of the concerns people have is that Israel might do it [that is, attack and destroy Iran's IAEA-safeguarded facilities] without being asked; that if, in fact, the Israelis became convinced the Iranians had significant nuclear capability - given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel - the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards."

‘If you control the language, you control the debate. As the Bush Administration's Middle Eastern policy sinks ever deeper into bloody incoherence, the "war on terror" has been getting a quiet linguistic makeover. It's becoming the "war on Islamic fascism." The term has been around for a while - Nexis takes it back to 1990, when the writer and historian Malise Ruthven used "Islamo-fascism" in the London Independent to describe the authoritarian governments of the Muslim world; after 9/11 it was picked up by neo-cons and pro-war pundits, including Stephen Schwartz in the Spectator and Christopher Hitchens in this magazine, to describe a broad swath of Muslim bad guys from Osama to the mullahs of Iran.