Voice from the Commonwealth Commentary, World Views and Occasional Rants from a small 'l' libertarian in Massachussetts
"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest for freedom, go home and leave us in peace. We seek not your council nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams
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Praise for Voice
"A smart fellow...I do like, recommend and learn from Barbera's blog." -Roger L. Simon
"Your blog is bullshit"- anonymous angry French reader.
Dictators who murder their own people are fine but the French are pretty upset about the alcoholism caused by 'strong' beers and have decided to add on a new tax that would do serious financial damage to the Trappists who brew ales that sell very well in France.
France said the plan of adding two euros ($2.10) in taxes per liter of strong beer is an attempt to counter alcoholism, but Neyts sees it as protectionist since France itself does not produce beer as potent. "Why does the measure only apply to strong beer and not on wine, which has a much higher alcohol content and consumption?" she asked. "It is a piece of French logic which will need some explaining."
For Omer, it is a far cry from the daily ritual of seven prayer sessions, which start with Vigils at 4:30 a.m, punctuated only by religious study and the overseeing of the daily brewing process. Last week, he traveled to nearby Rochefort to plot a course of action with his religious brethren at another of the six abbeys in Belgium that are the only ones allowed to produce Trappist brews. "In the end, we will win the battle," he predicted, his arms tucked in his beige and brown cowl.
In the process, some microbrewers surviving on narrow profit margins could be pushed into bankruptcy. More than two dozen brewers across Belgium are directly affected by the tax plan.
Even Chimay, the biggest exporter of the strong beer, will suffer badly. The consequences of the tax would cost the company some 125,000 euros ($130,000) a month. And if distribution were disrupted, Belgian brewers would lose French market share for their beers, replaced by other drinks. "It would take two to three years to get our market share back," said Bernard Bleus, the brewer's director general.
To become a true Trappist producer, the beer needs to be brewed at the abbey and overseen by monks. A third prerequisite is that a majority of all profits go to good causes.
So, to dictators who murder and starve their own people we must give aid and open discussions. But to Trappist monks who commit the crime of producing a strong (and tasty) beer, that somehow contributes more to alcoholism than stronger (French produced) wines we must raise their taxes, possibly running them out of business. Sounds very French to me.
I really have problems trying to understand the rationale behind offering economic assistance to a dictator who has willing destroyed the their own economy. It is what we did with North Korea and may well do again. Now France is saying that is what we must do with Mugabe.
"Sanctions are getting nowhere," said one French official. "It's a lot of hot air and frankly everyone recognises that, even the British." The French want to open negotiations with Mr Mugabe, offering the carrot of economic aid in return for a pledge to improve his appalling human rights record.
Are they so foolish to not know that the economic destruction visited by Mugabes rule is done by intent? That food aid that goes to Zimbabwe is not permitted to be distributed to areas where opposition forces are strong. Do they think that any economic aid given would not go directly to Mugabe and his cronies while the famine continues for the rest of the country? But of course the French believe this. They believe it of Saddam, Castro and Kim. So why not Comrade Bob, too?
I am sorry to see people suffer but why is it our obligation to pour money into a dictatorship that causes their suffering and hope that money will cause that dictator to change his ways? What good does it do for the oppressed? Nearly 10 years of such aid to north Korea has resulted in 2 million starved to death and the rest bordering on starvation while hundreds of thousands are sent to gulags and nuclear weapon research continued apace.
US troops have not abandoned the mission in Afghanistan, despite what some would have you believe.
"The duties of US forces here are determined, and no changes would affect on our activities in Afghanistan even if a possible war begins in Iraq," Roger King, the US forces spokesman in Afghanistan said at a press conference at the American Central Conference Hall in Kabul, reports the Xinhuanet.
He added that in order to help the reconstruction process of the country, the US troops in Afghanistan have earmarked on two separate budgets, respectively for anti-terrorism military operations and for reconstruction assistance, including school rehabilitation, medical services for civilian Afghans and other activities for public interests.
These assistance efforts by the US troops would not be included in the amount of aid pledged by the US government at the Tokyo Conference in January 2001, King added.
Afghanistan is a better place for the folks of Kabul's bird bazaar, too, since the Taliban were tossed out. (Thanks to America)
One old man, Baba Qadir, has been selling songbirds here for many years. He says that business is much better than when the Taleban were in power. "The Taleban used to come here and create problems for us," he says. "They'd tell us to close our shops. This is how I make my living, but they would tell us to go and do something else."
Another shopkeeper says the bazaar is much busier than even a few months ago. "A lot of refugees have come back, so that's making more business for us."
Sri Lankan terrorism expert, Dr Rohan Gunaratna, talks about al Qaeda, why liberal democracies (especially New Zealand) are vulnerable and other terrorism related topics.
Gunaratna goes on: "We must kill the ideology that appeals to people [who believe] these groups are doing the right thing for God. That's a very difficult thing because only Muslim leaders, the community organisations, the imams, can do it. Western Governments and local Governments have to work with the Muslim community.
"[Imams] can't do it too much because it is very difficult for them to justify saying, 'Don't attack the United States, don't attack Westerners' because Muslims feel very upset and annoyed about America's skewed Middle East policies, especially with regard to Israel and what is happening in Chechnya and Kashmir."
Gunaratna says the battle is more than just for hearts and minds - it is a literal war zone that now includes civilian and economic targets, such as the tourism industry, which are almost impossible to protect.
He doesn't believe now is the time for Iraq because he believes we should focus on the remaining al-Qaeda leaders first. He doesn't explain why, in his view, the two are not linked. If they are allied enough that sleepers are awaiting an attack on Iraq I would say it is more imperative to cut Saddam off before he can further help those cells or for more of the cells to be created.
"All the key leaders are alive and so long as the leadership of a group is alive, they will be able to provide strategic direction, allocate resources for operations, recruit, and continue.
"Because of that, the United States should not go into Iraq, but finish al Qaeda. They can wait for five years because Iraq is not posing an immediate threat. But President Bush is determined to invade."
If the United States feels a sense of urgency, al Qaeda and its allies on a mission from their God have exhibited patience. The first September 11 operative moved to the United States in 1994, seven years before the attack, and the 20 hijackers received 18 months of training. But if the US invades Iraq, then sleepers awake. It is only a matter a time.
The United States yesterday deployed an aircraft carrier from Japan to the Korean peninsula, as a Washington envoy warned that "all options" were available to deal with the nuclear stand-off with Pyongyang. The day after it was revealed that Japan was drawing up plans to evacuate its nationals if war threatened on the Korean peninsula, USS Kitty Hawk left its home port of Yokosuka.
It is a message to North Korea (and subtly China) that while we are occupied, we will not ignore South East Asia.
A story in the Asia Times about what Christians on Sulawesi (my wife is from North Sulawesi) face every day. Must be a response to their pro-Israel, hegemonic, oppressive, arrogance.
Taken to Canada and then the United States for interrogation, Jabarah admitted his role in a December, 2001 plot to attack Western targets in Singapore with as many as seven suicide truck bombs, according to a confidential intelligence document summarizing his confessions. A copy of the document was reviewed by the Los Angeles Times.
Australians in doubt take notice. Dealing with JI alone or South East Asia is not the solution.
Jabarah's account to authorities also provides solid evidence of the close working relationship between Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah, a group believed responsible for dozens of bombings across Southeast Asia, including the Oct. 12 Bali blasts that killed nearly 200 people. Jabarah's job was to serve as the intermediary between Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah, which also contributed men, money and explosives to the Singapore conspiracy.
Born in Kuwait in 1982, Jabarah moved to St. Catharines with his family when he was 12. He lived on a quiet street in the city of 130,000 and prayed regularly at the local mosque.
According to his account, Jabarah was attracted to radical Islam as a teenager, especially when he returned to Kuwait during summer holidays.
After high school he travelled to Pakistan, and from there was recruited to attend Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, where his courses included weapons handling, urban guerrilla warfare, mountain warfare and sniper training.
As Jabarah was training to become an Al Qaeda member, the terrorist network was — apparently unknown to him — in the final stages of planning the Sept. 11 attacks against the U.S.
In Kandahar, Jabarah told investigators, he met four of the future Sept. 11 hijackers at a guest house. One, Ahmed Al Haznawi, who was aboard United Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania, could recite the entire Koran from memory.
Jabarah also said he met bin Laden four times. In June, 2001, bin Laden came to speak to graduates of the mountain warfare course and hinted that attacks were coming that would be "severe enough to make the United States forget Vietnam," according to Jabarah's account.
Say what? Is this cuddle up to dictators week in France. This is how the French Foreign Ministry explains their abstention in the UNHRC vote that put Libya in the Chair.
If France chose to abstain in the vote, which saw Libyan ambassador to Geneva Najat al-Hajjaji elected head of the UN commission on human rights, it was done in such a way that France could send two different messages to Libya, a French spokesman said.
He noted that if the vote had been taken a year or two ago, France would undoubtedly have joined the United States and Canada in voting against Libya _ to protest Libya's alleged involvement in the bombing of a French aircraft over Niger in 1989.
However, Paris also wanted to respect the memory of a large number of Africans who died in the plane crash and so thought it best to neither support nor oppose Tripoli's elevation at the world body, the spokesman said.
So they didn't want to disrespect all of the Africans murdered by Libya (on a French airliner, no less) by not taking a stance on their ascension to head the UN Human Rights Commission?
French Foreign Ministry spokesman says France is aware of British sentiment. "We understand the emotion of the British population," he said. However, he says France has the "firm conviction" it is acting properly in inviting President Mugabe to the February 20-21 summit of African heads of state.
Forget any convictions and morality. Not to mention that pesky EU travl ban on Zimbabwean officials. The French government has just given up.
The US and its allies, fighting under the UN's authority, permitted his regime to survive after the Gulf War on the explicit undertaking that he disarm after his invasion of Kuwait was thwarted. He did not and the UN permitted him to escape his obligations then. The UN runs the same risk now if the views of France and Germany, nations that should know better than most the high price of both appeasement and aggression, prevail. To do this will expose the UN to the sorry irrelevance of its predecessor, the League of Nations, which found every excuse to appease tyranny through the 1930s. By striving to enforce UN resolution 1441 on Iraqi disarmament, the US is the last best hope of the UN's relevance. Kofi Annan acknowledged as much when he said last week that UN inspectors would not be in Iraq but for the US military deployment.
Saddam's strategy is to temporise, his tactics are delay and deceit.
Australia can look the other way as Saddam continues to defy resolution 1441 or it can join the US and Britain and add to the existing pressure on the Iraqi regime to meet the obligations the UN has already imposed. The build-up of the most powerful conventional military force in the world's history should surely be enough to convince even the most deluded dictator that his regime would be hard pressed to defy allied air power for very long. Yet if Saddam continues to trust to his luck, the case for correction by force of arms is obvious. To allow him to continue to hold his own people, the Middle East and wider world to ransom by adding to the arsenal of his garrison state would encourage him to escalate his behaviour. It would also encourage other dictators, notably that of nuclear-arming North Korea, to increase the price they will extort from the West for dubious assurances of peace. If the time comes when the US and Britain have no option but to force Iraq to disarm, Australia must be prepared to consider joining them in going to war.
John Howard, he now appears to risk alienating his core supporters, the "Howard battlers", by taking a position alongside the US and Britain which the polls are telling us is deeply unpopular. Why would he do such a thing? This newspaper believes the Prime Minister has adopted a correct and principled position at the risk of political fallout. In other words, Mr Howard genuinely believes what he told our troops in Sydney yesterday: that if the international community walks away from the task of disarming Iraq, and sends a message of weakness to other rogue states, no nation will be secure. For Mr Howard to articulate this message carefully and consistently is his best strategy to win back doubters in the Coalition, given that further progressive revelations of Saddam's duplicity are all but guaranteed.
The Prime Minister has made a principled if now apparently unpopular decision that readies our forces for a conflict which seems increasingly likely. For Saddam to "blink" now would be well-judged, but out of character; for Mr Bush to "blink" would be ill-judged, and equally out of character. We are not at war, but we have signalled to the international community, and Iraq, that Australia rejects the route of appeasement. As an open democracy and a strong but not unthinking ally of the US, the difficult course we have taken provides leadership towards a peaceful world and is in the nation's interest.
Muslims in Singapore have been doing, publicly, what needs to be done everywhere. They are looking inside and talking about what is wrong and what needs to be done and what they can do to confront the extremists within.
As shown in the White Paper, Ibrahim Maidin and his JI members attended religious classes like other Muslim Singaporeans would do. But slowly over time and for a select group of members, the JI ideology gets introduced.
Having taken the oath of allegiance, the JI ideology of violence, hatred and extremism was never challenged by anyone in the group.
If we as a community allow intolerant and extremist views and ideas to go unchallenged, then we inadvertently allow such views to take root here. If we allow myopic, extreme and radical views to go unchallenged, even if they do not advocate violence, then we inadvertently provide a conducive environment for the growth of intolerance and a rigid fundamentalist orientation to life. Just like the fundamentalist groups who reject every thing Western without a clear understanding, we find today such thinking permeating the Muslim mind in a variety of ways.
Articles and journals that present the West as the great evil of modern society and present alternatives, on matters such as politics and economics, couched in religious terms as the absolute truth reflect the fundamentalist traits. But these articles get published while those with a more rationalist interpretation are blocked.
Our challenge, as has been suggested by several Muslim and non-Muslim scholars, is for the moderates to speak up. I know the term moderate is loaded with meaning. But it must be so.
The best safeguard we can put in place is to allow a diversity of views and opinions to emerge. Muslims all over the world will never have disputes on the fundamental principles of Islam such as the oneness of God, the Prophecy of Muhammad, the five daily prayers, the payment of wealth tax, and fasting. But in the way we order our lives, cherish our women, organise our religious life, exist in a multi-religious society, educate our young, and so on, there can be differences. Of course, the diversity cannot be unlimited. Certainly if some advocate violence as a basis of their struggle, then we must all condemn it.
How petty and pitiful so much of Europe has become. After months of haranguing and nastiness emanating from Paris and Berlin, Rumsfeld makes some comments abut how unhelpful Germany and France have been and how many of the other nations of Europe are being more cooperative and it is used by French and German officials to prove American 'arrogance'. Could you imagine if US officials used the same sort of language to describe France and Germany?
"If you knew what I feel like telling him, to Mr. Rumsfeld ... " said Ecology Minister Roselyne Bachelot on Europe-1 radio. She then stopped herself and said the word would be too offensive to publish.
That is constructive and non-simplisme? How would this sort of comment have been reported if Ashcroft had said it?
Martine Aubry, a Socialist leader and influential former labor minister, said Rumsfeld's comments "show once again a certain arrogance of the United States." Washington "continues to want to alone govern the world and more and more without rules," she told RTL radio.
In what way do these people think this will help bring their views to the table with the American Administration? Oh well Martine says we are arrogant and want to be the lone ruler of the world. We better start a dialogue immediately.
And what were Rumsfeld's extraordinarily arrogant remarks?
"Germany has been a problem and France has been a problem ... but you look at vast numbers of other countries in Europe, they're not with France and Germany on this. They're with the United States," he said.
In responding to a reporter's question about French and German qualms, Rumsfeld hinted the United States would turn to new NATO members in Eastern Europe for support.
"You're thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don't," he said. "I think that's old Europe. If you look at the entire NATO Europe today, the center of gravity is shifting to the east and there are a lot of new members."
So much worse than what has been said about im and Bush and other Administration officials and American citizens by the French and Germans, no? Spiteful hissy-fits will not win any Americans to your cause. If you have something constructive agive it don't just whine and bitch. Especially when Rumsfeld says something that is demonstrably true. The day before he says is France and Germany announce, before even hearing the report from Blix and any additional information that the US and Britain will release, that they will not vote for any action against Iraq then say the UNSC must decide? And as for the center of gravity of NATO, look at the growth rates of the Eastern European economies entering the alliance. They are dynamic and fully prepared to become big time players. If France and Germany don't see that they will be left in the dust.
French Economy Minister Francis Mer says he is "deeply offended" by Mr Rumsfeld's remarks, while Environment Minister Roselyne Bachelot employed "Cambronne" (a polite French reference for s***), used as a term of defiance.
Had an American Cabinet member gone on record as saying French and German policy regarding Iraq is shit, do you think it would be classified by the media as 'defiance'?
Chirac and Shreoder really don't get it, do they? "war is always evidence of failure". No, Saddam getting WMD, invading Kuwait, nuking Israel and sitting astride all of the oil in the Middle East is a failure. On top of it, they are liars.
"The first is that any decision for the (UN) Security Council belongs to it alone, to be expressed after hearing the report of the inspectors (searching for alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq)."
They have both already stated they will vote against military action. So they will not base their decision on anything that is reported to them, the decision is made. meanwhile these hypocritical self-important fools do nothing but say they will not support the US yet have not have not spoken one harsh word toward the murderer in Baghdad.
"Everything must be done to avoid war."
Just like the non-failure in North Korea? And the non-failure in Rwanda, Kosovo and the past decade in Iraq?
Unlike France and Germany, the Australians are committed to ending Saddam's regime. They have deployed quite a force to the Gulf in advance of possible action and have repeatedly said they would be involved, with or without UN approval, in the removal of Saddam. And, in an apparent jab at the French, they have codenamed the action: "Operation Bastille".
As the French stormed the Bastille prison on July 14, 1789 marking the birth of the republic and freeing the French from royal tyranny - military planners believe Australia will play its part in storming Baghdad and getting rid of the tyrant Saddam Hussein.
Senator Hill said the difference between this deployment and the one in Afghanistan was that Australia's special forces would be supported by dedicated Australian logistics units. The change was recommended by the chief of the defence forces, Major-General Peter Cosgrove, after analysis of the Afghanistan and Timor campaigns.
Asked whether the mere presence of Australian forces in the Middle East suggested Australia would take part in the campaign, Senator Hill said: "I understand that and that is a reasonable inference ... but no decision has been made (to go to war)".
A look at what they are sending.
Senator Hill said yesterday the amphibious transport ship Kanimbla would be farewelled from Sydney on Thursday and would take provisions, a Sea King helicopter, early protection forces and weapons disarmament personnel. In addition, he said the Government had decided to pre-deploy elements of its special forces, which would be farewelled from Perth tomorrow.
"Thirdly, we are pre-deploying an air force reconnaissance group basically to provide planning for the possible deployment of the squadron of F/A-18 fighters.
The biggest difference between this deployment and the one to Afghanistan was that Australian troops would be relying on Australian back-up units, he said. "We've decided that our special forces, were they to go into action, should be supported by Australian Defence Force elements," he said. "Our intention is that they would be supported by an element from the Australian Commando Regiment, which is based in Sydney, (and) by an element of our recently established Incident Response Regiment (based at Holsworthy) that deals with chemical, biological and radiological threats." These forces would also be supported by three Chinook helicopters and also C-130 transport aircraft, he said.
The Australian commitment included 150 SAS troops, two P-3C Orions, two navy frigates to enforce the UN naval blockade of the Persian Gulf, which were already deployed, and up to 14 F/A-18 Hornets.
Japan, the second-largest financial contributor to the United Nations, plans to cut its support by one-quarter in coming years, senior officials say.
At the UN, Japanese officials say they are angry that the world body has failed them on two counts: the UN has yet to remove a clause from its founding charter that describes Japan as a "former enemy" nearly 60 years after the end of World War II; and Japan, with the world's second-largest economy, has yet to win a permanent seat on the UN's Security Council.
Japan's $US1billion slice of the UN budget is more than the combined payments of four out of five of the permanent members of the Security Council: Britain, China, France and Russia. Only the US pays more.
This on top of the foreign aid cuts last year.
Tokyo has cut its overall foreign aid budget over the past three years by 15.5per cent, or $US1.3billion. Last year it ceded the title of the world's largest donor of foreign aid to the US.
Good for them for realizing that getting their own economy running again is more important than continuing to fuel the UN bureaucracy. And luckily for them, they are a media darling so hey will not come under the attacks that the US would for similar announcements.
Another newspaper in Iran closed down by the judiciary.
Iran's hardline judiciary ordered on Wednesday the temporary closure of the country's top-selling newspaper, the fifth liberal publication to be shut down this month, sources at the newspaper told Reuters.
The Hamshari daily, which only circulates in the capital Tehran, was ordered closed due to its failure to run letters penned by politicians in response to articles carried in the newspaper. "We received the order from the judiciary to close the newspaper for 10 days due to our failure to publish the response of officials on time," a senior official at the newspaper told Reuters.
An argument that if we really wanted peace there should be more war.
But the anti-war movement does not hold a monopoly on peace as a desired goal. To them, peace — or the absence of war — is an end unto itself, a self-evident achievement, the period at the end of the sentence. They have no patience with complications and miserable realities, and very little knowledge of what Iraqis want for themselves.
Assuredly, Iraqis do not want war. But they do want the removal of Saddam Hussein. And if that happens, if Hussein is provided with his exit papers and a place of sanctuary, it won't be because of peace marches in the West and opposition from the American "street." It will be because the U.S., and the British, held a gun to his head. That's the only reality Saddam understands, probably because he's applied it so often himself.
The useful naïveté of the anti-war movement is, at least, well-intentioned, unlike the perfidy of fair-weather allies, such as the French, who Monday were making loud noises about blocking approval of an invasion at the U.N. Security Council. Along with Russia and Jordan, France has been one of the biggest violators of U.N. economic sanctions against Iraq — imposed after Desert Storm in a futile attempt to get Saddam to disarm — even while enjoying profits as the second-largest recipient of oil-for-food contracts. Iraq owes France $4.5 million from pre-Gulf War sales and remains one of its largest trading partners. It was the French who built the nuclear reactor at Tuwaitha, outside Baghdad, that was obliterated by Israeli warplanes in 1981.
So, spare me the French and their moral high ground. They are utterly self-absorbed and mercenary.
But they are a comfort and lifeline in these waning days of desperation for Saddam Hussein.
As is the benevolent, but blinding, idealism of pacifists.
A group of six Iraqi women pointed out, again, that the people in Iraq have face war for the past 30 years. So which war is it that the protestors are protesting? And, again, fools like Zinn, Sontag, Chomsky and the other American ‘dissident’ need to listen to these women and understand what true suppression of dissent is.
"The Iraqi people have been living in a state of war for 30 years," said Nazand Beghakani, a founder of the International Kurdish Women Study Network. "I'm calling on the international community to stop this war that has been forced on the Iraqi people."
Aida Ussayran, a member of the Union of Iraqi Democrats, fled her native land 25 years ago after being jailed three times for pro-democracy activism and an act of particularly harsh punishment — the execution of her son. "My story is no different that any other political activist living under a cruel regime," she said. "The regime is merciless in its bitter pursuit of any innocent man, woman or child."
The women also denounced the systematic beheading of innocent women who belong to families suspected of opposing Saddam's regime. Ussayran said 16 innocent women were decapitated in front of their own children three months ago.
In the north, Iraq's Assyrians, who are Christians, have suffered cultural oppression and thousands have been forced to leave the country, said Pascale Isho, a member of the Assyrian Women's Union.
More freedom for women in Afghanistan. A group of 30 women are set to get their driver's licenses. This story actually contains four stories that show the freedom that is spreading in Afghanistan. First women are getting driver’s licenses. Second, they were taught to drive by men. Third, the women are government workers. And lastly the next group getting their licenses are doctors.
This is an interesting argument against Australia getting directly involved in a US led war against Saddam. I accept that Australia should be very worried about Islamists in Southeast Asia and have an interest in working with Indonesia and Malaysia to root out these groups. I see a couple of problems with his position.
The writer seems to be working from the assumption that involvement in the liberation of Iraq would not be defensible among the ‘moderate’ Muslims. Many argued the same thing about the campaign against the Taliban and this did not prove to be true. The Muslims of Afghanistan are thankful for the involvement that led to their newfound opportunity to rebuild. The case could be made before hand and would certainly be clear afterwards that a similar reaction would be forthcoming among the Muslims of Iraq. The elements that would reject this are the selfsame groups and followers that Australia and the moderate Muslims of Indonesia and Malaysia must work to root out. He cites still strained relations with Indonesia because of East Timor. Australia has nothing to be apologetic for. The people of East Timor were facing genocidal conditions at the hands of corrupt elements within the Indonesian army, nobody else was coming to their rescue and more ‘negotiation’ would have resulted in more slaughtered East Timorese.
Secondly I think Mr. Mackie is being too local at the expense of the larger picture.
It is obvious that the former represents a vastly greater threat to Australia's basic security than the latter, so much so that it is almost incredible that Australians are being brainwashed into subordinating it to a lot of flim-flam about a war in Iraq, in which our interests are utterly marginal.
He ignores the fact that the money, training, equipment and personnel utilized by the Islamists worldwide are not always local. It is a web and Mr. Mackie thinks that by cutting off the piece of web closest to Australia will keep them safe. I don’t think that is true, the Islamist Imams who incite murder, the terrorists who carry out the murder, the training, equipment and money they use to pay for the equipment is part of global network and Saddam remains in a central position in the network.
Unlike Mr. Mackie I would argue that Australia could and should be able to take part in Saddam’s downfall and, simultaneously, strengthen ties with the moderate Muslims who hate terrorism and promote peace and understanding. It would not be easy and would involve a great deal of effort but the end goal freedom for Iraqis and the removal of the threat of Saddam and his terrorist ties and cooperation with the moderate Muslims who want to separate themselves from bin Laden and the hatred spewed by the Islamists is something that is worth taking the time and effort to do right.
North Korea's inclusion in US President George W. Bush's "axis of evil" is a serious stumbling block in diplomatic efforts to get the rogue state to drop its nuclear program.
Madeleine Albright dancing a jig and toasting the murderous Kims didn't go to far in convincing N Korea to drop it nuclear program.
This could make things tense in Indonesia. The police are advocating charging Abu Bakar Bashir with treason. Good for them, I hope Megawati and the army and police are ready to deal with the Islamist violence that will accompany such a charge.
``Bashir is accused of treason. We have enough evidence to show that he has plotted to topple the government,'' said National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Edward Aritonang. Police commanders have said they compiled sufficient evidence to convict Bashir on charges of having organized a string of church bombings in 2000 that killed 19 people and of involvement in an alleged plan to kill Megawati. Police were recommending charges of treason, and involvement in attacks using explosives, Aritonang said. Bashir would face a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.
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