The international media ran hot & fast this week with claims that former US President, Jimmy Carter had called for the closure of Guantanamo Bay, following-up with reports that President George Bush would ‘consider’ that possibility.

 

On the back Bush’s noisy dissembling came today’s announcement by US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, confirming that Guantanamo Bay will NOT be closed.

 

A review of the original joint statement made by the Carter Center & Human Rights First demonstrates how easily the media hares are outwitted by the political hounds.

Whether you prefer chardonnay, beer, bottled water or tennessee whiskey, you can now run a personal check on the contemporary settings of your ‘political compass’.

The US has a vast and very expensive Homeland Security bureaucracy with nothing to do. There hasn’t been a terrorist attack in America since 2001. There have been a vast quantity of terror alerts, the purpose of which was to scare Americans into supporting an unnecessary, illegal & aggressive attack on Iraq.

"Mr Howard needs to make a choice of who he has dinner with, and that is, he has dinner with the powerful merchants of the world who he collaborates with under the 'Free Trade Deal' with China, or he decides to dine with the humble people involved in meditations seeking peace for the world, who, when returned to China, face the same fate as 5,000 others before them. Mr Howard can no longer avoid telling the Australian people who he lends his support."

British MP, George Galloway, offers his latest blunt assessment of the Bush administration.

At the Alfred Deakin Innovation Lectures 2005: Lecture Five, Shared Destinies: America, Asia and Australia on Sunday 5 June 2005 Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani posed some provocative challenges for Western and Eastern societies alike.

As our world is smaller and more linked than ever before, economic prosperity, political stability and environmental survival are all deeply enmeshed.

One of his themes was that perhaps our greatest challenge lies in coming to terms with some profound cultural differences; differences that still separate Western and Eastern cultures. Acclaimed author of "Can Asians Think?" Kishore Mahbuban was not holding back in being pro-American... which was not a problem for me since I am not anti-American as some people would believe. Hey, there are at least half of the population in the US that do not believe the crap dished out by the Bush administration...