‘Readers tell me that Americans don’t live here any more. They ask what responsible American citizenry would put up with the trashing of the Bill of Rights and the separation of powers, with wars based on deception, and with pathological liars in control of their government? One reader recently wrote that he believes that "no element of the U.S. government has been left untainted" by the lies and manipulations that have driven away accountability. So-called leaders, he wrote, "talk a great story of American pride and patriotism," but in their hands patriotism is merely a device for "cynical manipulation and fraud." 

AWB executives
'expected to spy on Iraqis' 

It is claimed AWB executives were
asked to gather intelligence for the Federal Government in the lead-up to the
war in Iraq.

The Cole inquiry is examining
allegations AWB was paying kickbacks to the regime of Saddam Hussein, in contravention
of United Nations sanctions.

From the ABC ….. 

Rice
salutes Australian troops 

US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has thanked a small contingent of Australian
troops who have returned from Iraq, Afghanistan and Sumatra at a gathering in
Melbourne. 

From the ABC ….. 

No
need for ads on the ABC: Labor 

The
Federal Opposition's communications spokesman says the Government should rule
out the introduction of advertising on the ABC.

Poll
reflects Labor's 'bad week' ….. 

A Federal Labor frontbencher, Lindsay
Tanner, says the Australian public has sent a message to the Opposition, after
an opinion poll that suggests a loss of support.

The Newspoll published in The Australian newspaper shows Labor is 6 per cent
behind the Coalition on a two-party preferred basis and approval for the
Opposition Leader, Kim Beazley, has slipped to a new low. 

From the ABC ….. 

During the speech,
Mr Bush accused Iran of contributing to the unrest in Iraq, saying some of the
homemade bombs that are wreaking havoc in the country came from Iraq's eastern
neighbour.

From the NY Times …..

Hussein Saw Iraqi Unrest as Top Threat

BERNARD E. TRAINOR
MICHAEL R. GORDON
Published: March 12, 2006 

From
the ABC ….. 

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip have arrived in
Canberra to begin their five-day tour of Australia.

The crowd of several hundred cheered and waved English and
Australian flags as the royal couple stepped out of the plane.

Jovicic urged to take Serbian citizenship

‘While the publication of the
first Abu Ghraib photos in April 2004 opened the floodgates for former Iraqi
detainees to speak out about their treatment at the hands of occupation forces,
this wasn't the first I'd heard of torture in Iraq. A case I'd documented even
before then was that of 57 year-old Sadiq Zoman. 

He was held for one month by U.S.
forces before being dropped off in a coma at the general hospital in Tikrit.
The medical report that came with his comatose body, written by U.S. Army medic
Lt. Col. Michael Hodges, listed the reasons for Zoman's state as heat stroke
and heart attack.