‘The war in Iraq is a disaster, and Rumsfeld needs to be replaced. But don't just take our word for it - this reiteration comes today from a pair of recently retired two-star army generals with more than sixty years of military experience between them. They testified today in a hearing before the Democratic Policy Committee, called in absence of adequate official hearings in Congress.

Despite an open invitation to leaders, the only elected Republican to attend the hearing was Rep. Walter Jones, a self-described conservative from North Carolina, who has become one of the strongest critics of the war after originally voting to authorize it. 

from our ABC .....

Howard plays down water ministry speculation

Prime Minister John Howard is playing down claims that he wants to create a new federal ministry for water http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200609/s1748823.htm|playingdownclaims

Parliamentary Secretary Malcolm Turnbull will take charge of the new Office of Water Resources in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. 

Fighting The International Tyranny Of "We the People"

By Casey Butler

09/25/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- Since September 11th, 2001, "We the People" have had ample opportunity for self-examination. When we look around us, "First world" vs. "Third world", if we are honest with ourselves we must recognize that the democracies comprising Western Civilization have collectively become the next world dictator. This dictator is a tyrant unforgiving in its self-righteousness because it gets its very authority from "We the People". We have, inadvertently, through our own irresponsibility and apathy towards participating in our own government, stepped into the shoes of the oppressor.

From those shoes we can see clearly: There are no "Islamic terrorists" in the Middle East.

Timothy McVeigh was a terrorist. The IRA were terrorists. Baader-Meinhoff were terrorists.

These were terrorists because they had the right to free speech... They had the right to assemble in protest and to form political parties... They had the right to vote for whom they pleased... They had the right to run for office themselves to work for peaceful change. They were terrorists because they chose violence instead of working for change within the system available to them.

The Fundamentalist Muslims of the Middle East who are fighting us now, on the other hand, have never had such rights. Our American government and the governments that support it, ie. Western Civilization, have never allowed Muslims any method other than violent resistance for addressing grievances.

The most coherent historical analogy to current Western strategies in the Middle East today is the 19th century American belief in the "Manifest Destiny" of the United States, and its impact on Native American tribes. As part of American Manifest Destiny, Native American lands were carved up by force of arms at the request of merchants, farmers, and ranchers. Native American tribes were forced onto tiny "reservations" administered by "Indian Agents". Today this process is viewed by many historians as ethnic cleansing of holocaust proportions.

As European Americans justified their violent conquest of Western North America, the Native American who fought desperately against the American military and the civilian population for his land, people, religion, and, yes, freedom, was labeled a "savage". Rebellious "Indians" were viewed as less-than-human, and not worthy of the rights shared by the rest of mankind. Said American General Philip Sheridan, "The only good Indians I ever saw were dead."

A glance at a world history book tells us that our 20th century Western Civilization carved up Islamic lands into political entities that suited our "strategic" purposes. Since that time, by supporting tyrants, "shahs", kings, and anyone else who would do our bidding, including Saddam Hussein when it was convenient, the West has, by these proxies, purposely oppressed the human rights of Muslims in the Middle East.

In fact, in its quest for a "stable" oil supply and new markets, Western Civilization has consistently denied Middle Eastern Muslims the rights and equalities shared by the rest of us in the community of nations.

When a spark of these rights does happen to be ignited, as they were in Lebanon and Palestine, with rudimentary free elections that garnered many Western compliments and promises... As soon as the Muslim people made their will known to be contrary to the will of Western Civilization, they were labeled "terrorists" and immediately crushed and denied these rights once again.

In reality, the Muslims who fight us, including Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda, freedom fighters in the truest sense of the word, comparable to our own founders, who, after all, also oppressed women - even held slaves - until they enlightened themselves.

What the USA and its Western democratic counterparts actually fight today are religiously devout men and women, righteous ten-commandment-keeping people according to our own moral and religious codes - from Osama bin Laden down to the last innocent Palestinian killed simply for living in Gaza.

It is not, in the least, hyperbole to say that the Fundamentalist Muslims fighting us today are sacrificing their lives for their brothers and sisters; they are heroically defending their homelands, their cultures, and their religion, from the corruption, crime, and decadence intrinsic to Western capitalism as we know it.

They are people just like you and I. They are fighting the international tyranny of "We the People" who did not bother to follow what our governments and corporations have done to "third-world" nations in order to turn a profit. Those of us who are supposed to run our government and corporations, but who, in fact, were too lazy to care what government did on behalf of the corporate mentality.

Our Politicians and media personalities can call Fundamentalist Muslims "terrorists" or "Islamic fascists" until their faces turn blue...

But that does not change the fundamental truth that Muslims are defending their homelands, culture, and religion, using strategies already employed and legitimized by Western Civilization itself over Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Hanoi, and many other "battlefields", where the homes and businesses of innocent civilians were also considered military targets. It does not change the fundamental truth that Muslims do not fear death because, unlike most of "Western Civilization", they don't just mouth the words, but really believe they are rightfully fighting for God and the survival of their culture and religion. It does not change the fact that Western Civilization's continuing worldwide oppression of Muslims will result in the collapse of democracy everywhere, because democracy is a system based on government by the people, not the wealthy elite... A system, in the USA at least, founded on the fundamental truth of the equality of all before God.

History is clear: No oppressor who has attempted, by force of arms, to implement ideological change among a populace has ever succeeded. By claiming to believe this war is righteous and winnable, our government and the governments of Western Civilization that support it must ignore history and the very world around us. They must twist history to support their own version of "fighting terror", and constantly invent dangers which must be foisted upon their people in order that they can maintain power. In so doing, they have sold the souls of their peoples to the arms industry, to the creators and armorers of the next holocaust.

Is such a "civilization" of any real value to mankind, a civilization based on force of arms seemingly doomed to repeat the errors of its own history? If we are democracies, surely the solution to war is up to us - the people.

Today there is only one way to save our planet from never-ending war and oppression. We must withdraw all Western military and corporate interests from the Middle East. We must encourage democracy there through open, peaceful, positive methods - the types of methods that eventually brought down even the Soviet Union.

The Qur'an, the single authority for all sects of Islam, requires Muslims to accept peace - if a peace is offered that will stop the oppression and the corruption that has obligated Muslims to fight in the first place.

Continuing our present course of war only insures that more Muslims will answer the Qur'an's call for self-defense of the Islamic religion. On the other hand, reversing our course, seeking peace, and positively supporting Middle Eastern Muslim peoples as they seek democracy and self-empowerment through self-determination, will remove all motivation for Muslim resistance.

The West must stop confusing "truth", "liberty", "God", and "democracy" with the brand of secular capitalism that has served it so well. The secular capitalism that drives Western economies is not compatible with the religion of Islam. We in the West must learn to live with this fact, and allow Muslims to develop their own democratic systems and economies. In the West, secular capitalism must re-invent itself under a new paradigm. Unlimited growth, limitless resources, and unrestricted market hegemony are obsolete in today's world. Secular capitalism must evolve or face extinction.

The Muslims who fight us are not criminals. They are not evil. They are not cowards. They are not "fascists".

To bring peace to our globe, all we in the West have to do is stand strong together for what we have always claimed to stand for: The ideal that all people are created equal, with God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We cannot fight our own noble impulses for defending house and home, which, with our eyes open, we can all see reflected in the freedom fighters of Islam today.

We must stop fighting this war, stop endlessly piling war-torn bodies upon the bodies of the nearly 3,000 Americans who perished on September 11th, 2001. We must begin making their deaths meaningful for our planet, we must honor their sacrifice as of the God of Peace, and not of the god of war.

Unlike the Native Americans of the 19th century - many of whom were tribal and warred among themselves, unable to unite to fight their common foe - the Muslims of the Middle East share a powerful commonality: The Qur'an and the religion of Islam.

To have peace we must obliterate our own ignorance of the cultures, traditions, scriptures, and religions of our fellow human beings - with whom we share our planet.

United in peace humanity might stand, but divided by war we will certainly fall.

Copyright Casey Butler - http://firefighter.eyesalve.org/

from the Sydney Morning Herald ….

Not content with a review of television and junk food advertising guidelines, Christian groups and children's advocates are calling for an overhaul of children's film content as well as R-rated material.

Questions about the content of Finding Nemo and the Cat in the Hat and R-rated movies have prompted the Australian Christian Lobby to approach every state government in an attempt to put film classification guidelines on the agenda when the attorneys-general meet in March.

‘Ordinary terms are inadequate to describe the horrors Israel daily perpetrates, and has perpetrated for years, against the Palestinians. The tragedy of Gaza has been described a hundred times over, as have the tragedies of 1948, of Qibya, of  Sabra and Shatila, of Jenin - 60 years of atrocity perpetrated in the name of  Judaism.

But the horror generally falls on deaf ears in most of Israel, in the US political arena, in the mainstream US (and Australian...ed) media. Those who are horrified - and there are many - cannot penetrate the shield of impassivity that protects the political and media elite in Israel, even more so in the US, and increasingly now in Canada and Europe, from seeing, from caring.

from our ABC .....

Ruddock to raise Hicks case with US counterpart

The Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, says he will raise the David Hicks case with his United States counterpart during meetings this week.

Mr Ruddock says he will meet the US Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales for discussions on national security, but he will also follow up on recent phone conversations about Hicks.

from our ABC .....

Trujillo rejects Govt's Telstra board nomination 

Telstra's chief executive Sol Trujillo says the board cannot support the Federal Government's nominee for a director's position because investigations are yet to establish his integrity and independence.

etc.

‘The Islamists have won in Pakistan and it is desperately important for the government to get in step with its people and stop fighting civil wars with them. Musharraf is completely out on a very long and weak limb with the loathed Bush, FBI, CIA, Northern Alliance, India and all the rest. Musharraf is making lucrative book deals and no doubt all kinds of sub-rosa deals with the U.S. Big Corporations. He is building his Escape Nest, as all failing dictators need to do. If he is lucky, he will be able to escape the bullets and bombs coming his way.

After all the trouble we\ve gone to, the whole plan's gone bung.   It turns out, as some folks were warning years ago, that Australia''s new tanks, part of a mullti-nation Coalition of the Willing fleet of M1A1 Abrams, are too heavy to ride the Halliburton railway to Darwin.

Freightlink, the consortium that Cheney set up to run the line for 50 years after KBR built it. has denied, according to today's Australian, that there's a problem, saying that they're working closely with defence on military transport issues.

‘Puffed-up politicians on both sides of the House seek from new arrivals a pledge of citizenship that endorses "Australian values" at a time when our values are tangled in a global tumble-dryer. That a government should demand such endorsement is itself a violation of a core Australian value - the freedom to think what we please. To think, for example, that numerous values exemplified by our Prime Minister are crap. Like truth avoidance, flag fetishism, excessive secrecy, anti-intellectualism, witch-hunting the whistleblowers, appeasement of George Bush, boasting about this country's generosity, whitewashing black history, bribing Saddam Hussein to buy our wheat then bombing his people, toleration of US torture and its treatment of David Hicks, to name a few.

MINISTERIAL CHANGES

I have spoken to the Administrator Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO and secured her approval to announce the following changes to the Ministry.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade, the Hon Mark Vaile MP, approached me some time ago and indicated his desire to spend more time in Australia selling the Government's message, particularly in rural and regional areas.

As a consequence, Mr Vaile will become Minister for Transport and Regional Services and the Hon Warren Truss MP will become Minister for Trade. Mr Vaile does, of course, remain Deputy Prime Minister. There are no other changes to the Ministry.

"Imagine what it's like to be a young person living in a country that is not moving toward reform. You're 21 years old, and while your peers in other parts of the world are casting their ballots for the first time, you are powerless to change the course of your government.

"While your peers in other parts of the world have received educations that prepare them for the opportunities of a global economy, you have been fed propaganda and conspiracy theories that blame others for your country's shortcomings.

From our ABC .....

Downer challenges UN to follow Australia’s example

Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer has spoken of the importance of rebuilding Afghanistan and Australia's work in stabilising East Timor and the Solomon Islands in an address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

He says the work undertaken by Australia contrasts with the UN's failures in the Sudanese region of Darfur.