Rose-Red Run The Rivers Of Babylon

It is an uncomfortable truth that the Australian public is divided like seldom before at the present time. We have become polarised into two camps. On one side are those who supported the invasion of Iraq and the continuing occupation of that country by the US led coalition of the willing. These people don’t seem to have a problem with the fact that the leaders who led us into this war justified their actions by repeatedly and cynically lying to us about the reasons they went to war.

On the other side are those who believe the war in Iraq is morally unjust and that we were conned into going to war by people who had very different reasons for invading Iraq to those we were led to believe.

The great champions of the war in Iraq are big business, the arms industry, the oil industry, right-wing Zionists and hard-line Christian fundamentalists.

Yes! The very same Christian fundamentalists who claim to be all about morality. The trouble with the religious right’s view of morality however is that it is based on a very narrow and restricted viewpoint.

It seems that to the Christian-right questions of morality have been reduced to questions of sexual morality only. These people are very concerned about pre-marital sex and divorced people remarrying. They agonise over questions of abortion and same-sex marriages, birth control and sex education.

However it would be easier to believe these people were truly the moral people they claim to be and not just concerned about what occurs in the bedrooms of the nation if they didn’t cheerfully support the war in Iraq and the slaughter of innocent women and children that has occurred during and since the US led invasion.

The blatant hypocrisy of those who use religion to justify the most monstrous of crimes against humanity has never been more evident than at the present time. Terrorists are using Islam to justify their actions and the right-wing Christian hardliners are using Christianity to justify the bombing and killing of the innocent.

Obviously to Christian fundamentalists the war in Iraq is somehow “different

It is remarkable that this title was chosen here.

Babylon (near Baghdad) and Nineveh (Mosul) were the two cities of the first ever recorded (so far known) political hoax in history. It all started officially back in 612 BC.

It involved make believe information of a massacre, including a king who supposedly had died but lived and ruled for another 19 years.

This was not an an expressed opinion, nor an interpretation of facts but a deliberate manipulation of information in those ancient times to achieve a particular purpose.

It fooled all people including historians till the 19th century about a secret agreement made between two warring nations.

Of all irony, it took place where all that cockahoop is being dished up to us daily: Iraq.

More of this later ...

I think you’re on to me Gus! The title (Rose-Red Run The Rivers Of Babylon) was chosen for a number of reasons. I’m sure you (and no doubt others) will pick up on the others!

I agree with you in principle Gus. However the Howard government seems to have at it's command an array of "Doosra" bowlers (many of them part of an apologist media). Trying to play with a strait bat can be difficult under these circumstances - after all Howard has prepared the pitch to suit his own spin doctors!