‘"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.

There's a video link from the inquiry room to that which the journalists watch from.  Vision from the Kovco inquiry is supposed to go to no other place even within the amry barracks at which the hearing is being held.  Howvever the Daily Telegraph reported that the inquiry has been halted, all of the journalists evicted from their room and their belongings searched, due to a believed wire-tap by Sky News.   Sky and the Tele have since reported that this was not the case.   The fact, however, that the inquiry believed that an infiltration occurred and acted accordingly belies the level of paranoia at which the inquiry is being conducted.  Perhaps the Austtralian public should consider a similar methodology.

‘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.

The old saying is that a person might be  so lucky as to fall into a bucket of manure and come out smelling like roses.  There's a fair chance that whoever named the AWB's reputation recovery plan may have been overly optimistic.

Along with their departments, three Australian ministers, those of Defence, Trade and Foreign Affairs, are now swimming in that proverbial bucket.

Project Rose was conceived when AWB knew that the UN Oil-For-Food Inquiry was going to suggest that the company was bribing Saddam for wheat deals by giving him money to buy weapons with.   It is also likely to be connected with the activities of Australia's ambassador to the U.S. as another part of a continued cover-up program to conceal that AWB, a formerly Government controlled agency, was funding what became an enemy army.

Today the courts have ordered that AWB hand over piles of documents it didn't wish the Australian Inquiry into the matter to possess.  It managed to suppress some, but over half the documents that it wished concealed will now become available for public scrutiny.

‘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 our ABC .....

Howard yet to decide on citizenship tests

The Prime Minister says the Government has not decided whether migrants will be forced to take English classes when they arrive in Australia.

John Howard says a Government discussion paper, which is to be released soon, will canvas a range of issues.

From our ABC .....

Beazley flirting with xenophobia: Vanstone

Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone has launched a scathing attack on the Opposition Leader, Kim Beazley, saying he is fanning fear of foreigners.

Ms Vanstone has focussed on the Labor leader's campaign against the Government's 457 visa program for skilled overseas workers.

 "Anybody who understands the changing character of the South Australian economy at this time will understand these transitional arrangements are an intelligent response.’’ Said Prime Minister Howard today.

The Wizards of South Oz have been busy this week, spinning straw into gold,  Chinese purchase of our uranium is meant to offset Adelaide manufacturing jobs going to the land of the Great Wall? Not likely.

It was bad enough that the uranium deal, in which an Australian listed company will sell all its ore to Beijing and beyond,was announced before treaties were signed, three-mine policies officially abandoned and in general showing some responsibility and accountablitiy wth our deadly treasures.  The timing of the information's release did,  however, bump the Electrolux off-shoring to the day's second place story for a while, at least until the press conference. 500 whitegood jobs will be globalised into China, Poland and Mexico.  The impact of the event has been softened by a joint Federal/S.A. rescue package

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.