US Secretary of Attack Ducky Rumsfeld has refused to give a timetable for the withdrawal of occupation troops from Iraq as US public support for the war in Iraq plunges. Ducky says the US will persevere for as long as it takes to destabilize Iraq. If the coalition were to leave before the Iraqi security forces are able to assume responsibility, we would one day again have to confront another regeeme, perhaps even more dangerous than the last." Mr Rumsfeld said setting a deadline for a US withdrawal is counterproductive to US military bombings, saying It would throw a lifeline to people, who in recent months have suffered significant losses and casualties, been denied havens and suffered weakened popular support... (Translated from American into English by Gus)

Here's Paul Krugman's latest, in the New York Times June 24, 2005 - The War President

" ... Leading the nation wrongfully into war strikes at the heart of democracy. It would have been an unprecedented abuse of power even if the war hadn't turned into a military and moral quagmire. And we won't be able to get out of that quagmire until we face up to the reality of how we got in. ..."
What a load of old cobblers. Mr Rumsfeld dissed that line of faulty reasoning only yesterday, and brought us back to his reality, and away from the brink of treachery.

"Once the media catch up with the public, we'll be able to start talking seriously."

We've already caught up, over here, Paul. We've moved right along. We are onto much more substantive issues, that will not embarass our democratically elected government. Like, BB and the terrible state of public morality. Or cane toads.

God save our Douglas Wood, ready-made media food, lamb roast is good!

V.B. is truly grouse, serve Coonawarra red as "house", management with media "nous"

As endorsed by Wood. 

Opening Statement of Arundhati Roy on behalf of the jury of conscience of the world tribunal of Iraq.

Istanbul, Turkey - This is the culminating session of the World Tribunal on Iraq. It is of particular significance that it is being held here in Turkey where the United States used Turkish air bases to launch numerous bombing missions to degrade Iraqs defenses before the March 2003 invasion and has sought and continues to seek political support from the Turkish government, which it regards as an ally. All this was done in the face of enormous popular opposition by the Turkish people. As a spokesperson for the jury of conscience, it would make me uneasy if I did not mention that the government of India is also, like the government of Turkey, positioning itself as a ally of the United States in its economic policies and the so-called War on Terror.

The testimonies at the previous sessions of the World Tribunal on Iraq in Brussels and New York have demonstrated that even those of us who have tried to follow the war in Iraq closely are not aware of a fraction of the horrors that have been unleashed in Iraq.

The Jury of Conscience at this tribunal is not here to deliver a simple verdict of guilty or not guilty against the United States and its allies. We are here to examine a vast spectrum of evidence about the motivations and consequences of the US invasion and occupation, evidence that has been deliberately marginalized or suppressed. Every aspect of the war will be examined - its legality, the role of international institutions and major corporations in the occupation, the role of the media, the impact of weapons such as depleted uranium munitions, napalm, and cluster bombs, the use of and legitimation of torture, the ecological impacts of the war, the responsibility of Arab governments, the impact of Iraqs occupation on Palestine, and the history of US and British military interventions in Iraq. This tribunal is an attempt to correct the record. To document the history of the war not from the point of view of the victors but of the temporarily - and I repeat the word temporarily - vanquished.

Before the testimonies begin, I would like to briefly address as straightforwardly as I can a few questions that have been raised about this tribunal.

The first is that this tribunal is a Kangaroo Court. That it represents only one point of view. That it is a prosecution without a defense. That the verdict is a foregone conclusion.

Now this view seems to suggest a touching concern that in this harsh world, the views of the US government and the so-called Coalition of the Willing headed by President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair have somehow gone unrepresented. That the World Tribunal on Iraq isn't aware of the arguments in support of the war and is unwilling to consider the point of view of the invaders. If in the era of the multinational corporate media and embedded journalism anybody can seriously hold this view, then we truly do live in the Age of Irony, in an age when satire has become meaningless because real life is more satirical than satire can ever be.

Let me say categorically that this tribunal is the defense. It is an act of resistance in itself. It is a defense mounted against one of the most cowardly wars ever fought in history, a war in which international institutions were used to force a country to disarm and then stood by while it was attacked with a greater array of weapons than has ever been used in the history of war.

Second, this tribunal is not in any way a defense of Saddam Hussein. His crimes against Iraqis, Kurds, Iranians, Kuwaitis, and others cannot be written off in the process of bringing to light Iraqs more recent and still unfolding tragedy. However, we must not forget that when Saddam Hussein was committing his worst crimes, the US government was supporting him politically and materially. When he was gassing Kurdish people, the US government financed him, armed him, and stood by silently.

Saddam Hussein is being tried as a war criminal even as we speak. But what about those who helped to install him in power, who armed him, who supported him - and who are now setting up a tribunal to try him and absolve themselves completely? And what about other friends of the United States in the region that have suppressed Kurdish peoples and other peoples rights, including the government of Turkey?

There are remarkable people gathered here who in the face of this relentless and brutal aggression and propaganda have doggedly worked to compile a comprehensive spectrum of evidence and information that should serve as a weapon in the hands of those who wish to participate in the resistance against the occupation of Iraq. It should become a weapon in the hands of soldiers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Australia, and elsewhere who do not wish to fight, who do not wish to lay down their lives - or to take the lives of others - for a pack of lies. It should become a weapon in the hands of journalists, writers, poets, singers, teachers, plumbers, taxi drivers, car mechanics, painters, lawyers - anybody who wishes to participate in the resistance.

The evidence collated in this tribunal should, for instance, be used by the International Criminal Court (whose jurisdiction the United States does not recognize) to try as war criminals George Bush, Tony Blair, John Howard, Silvio Berlusconi, and all those government officials, army generals, and corporate CEOs who participated in this war and now profit from it.

The assault on Iraq is an assault on all of us: on our dignity, our intelligence, and our future. 

We recognize that the judgment of the World Tribunal on Iraq is not binding in international law. However, our ambitions far surpass that. The World Tribunal on Iraq places its faith in the consciences of millions of people across the world who do not wish to stand by and watch while the people of Iraq are being slaughtered, subjugated, and humiliated. 

___________________________________________________________________

Arundhati Roy received the Booker Prize for literature in 1997. Presently, one of the most eloquent voices for the global justice and anti-war movement, she was also awarded, among many others, the Sydney Peace Prize in 2004, and the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize in 2002.
World Tribunal on Iraq

A straight flush of ABC headlines sent me off in a spin.

Snowies may hold key to water shortage
There are claims Sydney's water shortage could be eased with a supply piped in from the Snowy Mountains.
TGK: That wouldn't have anything to do with Halliburton-KBR, would it?

Bush vows to eliminate torture worldwide
President George W Bush, whose administration has been hit by accusations of prisoner abuse, said that the United States was committed to the elimination of torture worldwide.
TGK: I can suggest a good way to start.

UN links dope smokers to terrorism
The United Nations drug agency has warned that even occasional use of marijuana is a link in a long and dangerous cycle of crime, degradation and terrorism.
TGK: Hallelujah, just what the zero-tolerance lobby wanted.

Aust unis 'losing face' in Asia
A Singapore-based academic says the reputation of Australian universities is falling in Asia to the point where revenue from foreign students could be at serious risk.
TGK: That has nothing to do with declining standards, forced by Nelson's privatisation agenda.

Minister attacks NT uranium mining ban
The federal Resources Minister says the Northern Territory Government will rue its decision to ban any new uranium mining over the next four years.
TGK: A day after Senator Minchin declares there is NO need for nuclear power!

Iraq insurgents deny contact with US
The Islamic Army in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Al Qaeda Organisation in the Land of Two Rivers and Ansar al-Sunna have denied they have met US representatives over the violence in Iraq.
TGK: No, no, Mr Rumsfeld will talk to freedom fighters, though.

Me tablets, me tablets!

Planets align in cosmic show
TGK: All OK, now.

From the New York Times
Young Officers Join the Debate Over Rumsfeld

WASHINGTON, April 22 — The revolt by retired generals who publicly criticized Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has opened an extraordinary debate among younger officers, in military academies, in the armed services' staff colleges and even in command posts and mess halls in Iraq.....
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Read more at the New York Times

and please visit the cartoon at the top of this blog... note the date...

May the new year sees the end of conflicts including the present Iraqi war which is a derivative from the one mentioned in the toon at top... Not won yet... 

From The American Conservative

During my early years at the Central Intelligence Agency (2003-05), I would occasionally stop by to chat with friends and colleagues who manned the ramparts in the Office of Iraq Analysis (OIA). Here, Langley’s best and brightest pontificated over ways to weed out “former regime elements” and divined the optimum solution to foster a united and democratic government in Baghdad.

One office meme, in particular, captures the can-do spirit of those days: the “Freedometer.” The Freedometer was a circular cardboard cutout with a pivoting arrow, posted conspicuously for all to see in that particular cubicle platoon. And with all the fun and seriousness of a game of spin-the-bottle, it measured ”freedom” on no particularly observable basis.

In reality, the Freedometer was referencing President George W. Bush’s declaration in September 2001 that the War on Terror was “a war against people who hatefreedom.” It was at the same time a mockery of those who believed this rhetoric and an indictment of those who knew—or should have known—that the policies laid out to wage successive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would lead to unconstitutional encroachment upon the freedoms and civil liberties of Americans.

In recent years, the government’s freedom rhetoric has proven to be as shallow as that of the OIA’s Freedometer. The government has wire-tapped Americans’ phones without warrants, carried out extrajudicial killings of American citizens suspected of joining al-Qaeda, and spent billions of American tax dollars on an ever-expanding national security establishment.

In Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War, James Risen, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter with the New York Times, examines the development of the “homeland security industrial complex.” This work is essential to understanding the profit motive, and overall does a solid job at getting to the bottom of one important question: Cui bono?

 

read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-high-costs-of-the-freedom-agenda/

See toon at top...