First written as comment to a piece on Margo Kingston's Webdiary, in which Kerri Browne has placed the Australian Parliamentary Library's compendium of information regarding the proposed Australian terror legislatiion.  Click here.

When the Commonwealth Heads Of Government meeting was held in Melbourne (late 70's, I think) an Irish friend of our family operated a milk bar somewhere in Victoria, three hundred or so miles from the Big Smoke.

‘On each stage of his journey, as he descended further and further into the gulags and torture chambers of the war on terror, Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi was shadowed by British intelligence.  

The British were there in Karachi when Americans interrogated him and Pakistanis tortured him; they were feeding questions to the Moroccan torturers who took a scalpel to his penis; they stood back and watched as he was dragged to an American torture chamber in Afghanistan and then to the gulag of Guantanamo, where he languishes to this day.  

‘After September 11, the mainstream media's blatant performance as the U.S Government's propaganda machine has only served to highlight the business of `managing' public opinion.  

The resultant `mistrust of the mass media' would at best be a political hunch or at worst a loose accusation, if it were not for the relentless and unswerving media analysis of one of the world's greatest minds.  

And this is only one of the ways in which Noam Chomsky has radically altered our understanding of the society in which we live. Rationally and empirically, he has unmasked the ugly, manipulative, ruthless American universe that exists behind the word `freedom', says ARUNDHATI ROY, in an essay written as an introduction for the new edition of Noam Chomsky.’ 

‘Over a year ago, the comfort of my world severely diminished as I took my journey through the looking glass and discerned the ugly truths about the nation of my birth, the United States of America. “Logic and proportion

‘With TV providing a ceaseless backdrop of the country's failings - a crippled and tone-deaf president, a negligent government, corruption, military atrocities, soaring debt, racial conflict, poverty, bloated bodies in floodwater, people dying on camera for want of food, water and medicine - it seemed things were falling apart in the land where happiness is promoted in the constitution.’ 

Is This The Death Of America?

The Howard government’s response to the gross maladministration within DIMIA stands in stark contrast to its lack of response to an older & significantly more sinister scandal involving the ADF, that now dates back 6 years. 

Whilst the government moved quickly to set-up independent inquiries into the events surrounding the appalling DIMIA scandal, its leader in the Senate, Defence Minister Robert Hill, & the ADF have sought to maintain a veil of secrecy over unspecified allegations of torture & possible execution of ADF prisoners in East Timor, way back in 1999.