"Imagine what it's like to be a young person living in a country that is not moving toward reform. You're 21 years old, and while your peers in other parts of the world are casting their ballots for the first time, you are powerless to change the course of your government.

"While your peers in other parts of the world have received educations that prepare them for the opportunities of a global economy, you have been fed propaganda and conspiracy theories that blame others for your country's shortcomings.

‘Vice President Dick Cheney cast the global war on terror on Tuesday as a “war of nerves,'' borrowing a phrase Harry Truman used to describe the Cold War. Cheney asserted that the hopes of the civilized world depend on a U.S. victory.

“We are not going to let down our guard,'' Cheney told a convention of automobile dealers. He said President Bush “will not relent in the effort to track the enemies of the United States with every legitimate tool at his command.''

Our “great besider” only has to freewheel his deceitful spin these days. 

The little fella is not only made safe by his many loyal but mindless followers, always primed & ready to do his dirty work for him, but by a sycophantic, incompetent or dishonest media.

Among his gentler media handlers is Ray Hadley, from 2GB.

Take the latest on air free kick on “radical Islam” awarded yesterday.

‘"Trust us. You're guilty. We're going to execute you, but we can't tell you why."

That is how Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, characterized the Bush administration's recent proposal for a draconian new trial system to deal with accused terrorists. The plan includes a reinterpretation of prisoner protections guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions. Graham was joined in opposition last week by other Republicans, including Colin Powell.

‘President George W. Bush, Vice President Cheney and the entire Republican election team are scrambling to make their so-called war on terror the focus of the next seven weeks. As in 2002 and 2004, they’re counting on their ability to scare Americans with the al-Qaida bogeyman. And while the trauma of 9/11 has begun to dissipate and American voters seem less susceptible than ever to the scare tactics used by the White House, for the past five years the Democrats have been singularly unable to develop an effective counter to the Bush administration on terrorism. So, for that reason, here are 10 important facts about terrorism that opponents of President Bush should understand.

‘I'm standing down so I can speak the truth.

I am profoundly ashamed of the Government. The Labour Party has lost its way.

There are many good things that New Labour has done since 1997, mostly things Labour committed itself to before the New Labour coup, but I have reached a stage where I am profoundly ashamed of the Government. Blair's craven support for the extremism of US neo-conservative foreign policy has exacerbated the danger of terrorism and the instability and suffering of the Middle East.

The Editor,
Sydney Morning Herald.                                                 September 16, 2006.

John Howard’s Citizenship test simply isn’t tough enough (“Embracing old and new. Now that’s cricket”, SMH, September 16).

‘America's response to 9/11 was basically to blow off the entire question of why it happened, change the set-design behind the same old us-vs.-evil commies cowboy-movie worldview, and to patch the hole blown in our self-esteem with a crude mix of stage-managed self-congratulation and sentimental claptrap.

Our failure to actually win our subsequent self-declared war on the evildoers we explained away by using a modern innovation ie: taking a New-Agey approach to our shortcomings and forgiving ourselves for our little imperfections.

‘In August, even before the official announcement that some two dozen would-be terrorists had been arrested in London, President Bush and his top advisers swung into action. Their goal was not to stop the terrorists, who were already safely behind bars, but to use the threat to justify the president's seemingly endless "War on Terror."

Vice President Dick Cheney, who had known in advance about the pending arrests, hinted darkly about the threat posed by "Al Qaeda types." The president, standing on an airport tarmac in Wisconsin the next morning, warned that the arrests were "a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists." And that afternoon, Peter Wehner, the director of the White House's Office of Strategic Initiatives, declared that America is engaged in nothing less than a "civilizational struggle" with enemies who seek "to establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia."’

from the Centre for American Progress ….. 

‘For five years after 9/11, the administration failed to work with Congress to develop a system to try detainees. Last week, President Bush finally unveiled legislation for military commissions. "The rationale is clear," Time magazine's Andrew Sullivan writes. "In the week of the fifth anniversary of 9/11 the president wants to change the debate from Iraq, from Iran, from the past and position himself once again as the indispensable protector." With the bill, the administation is "proposing to write into law a two-track system that has existed as a practical matter for some time"; one system that observes the Geneva Convention's ban on "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment," and one that does not. (Georgetown Law professor Martin Lederman described the move as a "Jeckyll and Hyde routine.") On Sunday's edition of Meet the Press, Vice President Cheney explained why the legislation essentially ignores the Supreme Court's Hamdan decision, which forced the administration to develop a system consistent with Geneva: "I happen to disagree with the Supreme Court. I think the Thomas/Scalia/Alito minority views were the correct ones." It looks as if Congress will toe the administration line. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) plans to push for a vote "by the end of the month and hopes the memory of the Sept. 11 attacks would help rally lawmakers behind the White House proposal."

‘Every few years the U.S. intervenes in a new foreign country, making headlines even as its lesser bases, alliances, and pacts pass beneath the radar. To name a continent, to name a country, is to name some form of intervention: Korea, Grenada, Haiti, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iran, Vietnam, to name a few. Even the moon and Mars lie ’neath the new Caesar.

Each intervention is new and news; and our rulers furnish specific reasons for each one. They also appeal to unifying umbrella themes such as anti-Communism, anti-Fascism, and anti-Islamo-Fascism. Few remember or can name last year’s theme. Yet the number of interventions, their global reach, and their long-term persistence paint a different picture. There is continuing method to this madness. An intelligible process is at work. There are long-term causal factors.

‘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.