In an address to the government funded right-wing think-tank organisation, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra yesterday, John Howard, arguing for Australia’s continued presence in Iraq, told his audience that: “The stakes are extraordinarily high - for Iraq, for the wider Middle East, for American power and prestige and, ultimately, for our region and our own national security,” adding that: “I believe strongly that to signal our departure now would be against Australia's national interest”.
These remarks demonstrate Howard’s continued penchant for lying and promoting deceit. He ignores entirely the interests of the Iraqi people themselves who have had their nation destroyed by a war started by a Coalition of the Willing, of which Howard was and is a major partner. He ignores entirely the fact that the continued presence of occupation troops in Iraq is achieving nothing except even more death and destruction. He ignores entirely the 600,000 plus people that have already perished in a war that he was part instigator of and he ignores entirely the growing humanitarian disaster as the numbers of refugees displaced by the war reaches two million and continues to grow as displaced Iraqis pour westward hoping to find refuge in Syria and Jordan.
He arrogantly blusters about ‘American power and prestige’ as though America actually has any ‘prestige’ left after the way it has abused its power against so many peoples of the world. He continues to display his arrogance and belief in his own national self-importance by talking of ‘Australia’s national interest’ ignoring altogether the fact that the vast majority of Australians never wanted to be part of the criminal invasion of Iraq in the first place and even more Australian’s are now demanding that enough is enough and that we should leave immediately.
Howard continues to perpetuate the myth of ‘al Qaeda’ in Iraq whereas in reality there are only those that are either fighting to rid the country of the invader or criminals that have used the chaos of war as an excuse to commit murder and mayhem in grabs for political and economic power in a nation that has slid into anarchy as a result of that war.
The Iraqi people have rejected ‘democracy’ enforced upon them via a nation that has invaded, occupied, destroyed and, together with its puppet government, pillaged its resources. The Iraqi people demand that the invaders leave their country and that they confront the future via their own self-determination.
For Howard to presume that he knows what is best for the Iraqi people is both delusional and arrogant, characteristics which took Australia into war against the Iraqi people in the first place four years ago and which Howard continues to display as the Iraqi people endure even greater hardships.
AUSTRALIANS AT WAR
THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY is a compelling factual history of neoconservatism and its influence on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Click on image above for details.
15 comments:
Any thoughts on this comment, Damian?
" The so-called Al-Qaeda is in my opinion, an illusion. It is a bunch of organizations which used to be supervised by the CIA, and used to commit crimes in some Arab and Islamic countries. They committed crimes in Luxor, Tunisia, and Jordan. Who knows who committed these crimes? Who can vouch that the prisoners in Guantanamo are really the so-called terrorists? We don't know, because none of these crimes were investigated. Take, for example, the London bombings, of which Muslims have been accused. Who are they? Has anyone announced their names? Has anyone said who they were? They were forgotten, just like in all the bombings that took place in Europe. The truth is that the people who do this are the agents of the U.S., with its new anti-Islamic policy, and the agents of Zionism and the Mossad. Unfortunately, our media in some Islamic countries follows the Zionist media machine and repeats what it is says."
Me, I don't buy that the US and the Zionists are driving terror. The claim to have been "supervised" by the CIA is probably pushing it too. They might have been the 'money men' but they surely weren't directing things against the Soviets in Afghanistan as far as I know. The claim as to not knowing who the London bombers is also seems weak to me.
The quote is from a Syrian Minister, by the way.
Anonymous, whether you 'buy it' or not is immaterial. The fact is both the CIA, as well as other US agencies, and Mossad have been involved in 'false flag' operations or planned false flag operations in the past. Google the 'Lavon affair' and 'Operation Northwoods'. See for yourself.
Check out here as well:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/fakealqaeda.html
Northwoods never took place, though.
The Lavon Affair is interesting because it actually took place - however there seems to have been acknowledgement that this was a wrong move by the Israeli government shortly after.
The al-Qaeda bombings and operations worlwide would seem to not only be on a much larger scale than either of these two plans/events.
Anonymous, you say Northwoods never took place. True, it didn't. But 9/11 did.
As for Lavon, that did take place. You say they said it was a wrong move. They would say that, wouldn't they? They always say stuff they don't mean or simply just lie. They said they invaded Lebanon last year because two of their terrorists got caught by Hizbollah yet we know this is a lie because we know they'd been planning the attack on Lebanon months before their terrorists got caught.
al Qaeda is now just a figment of the wests propaganda office - while there are people like you around who are gullible enough to belive this crap, they'll keep churning out the garbage to feed you with. It's all smoke and mirrors and think tanks that sit down and dream up scaremongering scenarios ready for the next alert.
We must be about due for another scare anytime now. I wonder what it'll be this time.
If 'they' always say things they don't mean or lie, when can government be believed?
And correct me if I am wrong, but whereas Northwoods was planned by government agents, I don't recall you ever pinning blame for the planning of 9/11 on the US government or one of its agents. That's not what you mean here, right?
Of course governments lie. They should never, ever be taken at face value.
So, what do you think happened on 9/11? Remember, governments lie!
If governments lie, then what does one believe when - for example - the Iranians say they are not pursuing nuclear weapons? Does this mean they are?
9/11? Four planes crashed, two into the WTC towers, one at the Pentagon and one in Penn. and al-Qaeda was involved.
Why would the Iranians lie over whether or not they are pursuing nuclear weapons?
Besides, I don't recall America or anyone else jumping up and down when Israel were building their nukes so, even if the Iranians are building nukes, why is it OK for the Israelis to have them and not the Iranians?
al Qaeda were involved in 9/11? Where's the evidence?
Why would Iran lie? I think the obvious reason they would lie would be because they have no choice. Saying 'we want them and are trying to get them' would place them in contravention of the NPT and stop all the technology transfers to them from nuclear states. This would hamper their nuclear efforts and make it harder to get their weapons. Thus, they lie and say 'we don't want them' and continue to work covertly to gain the weapons.
This seems a reasonable explanation as to why Iran might lie. Do you find it unreasonable?
Perhaps the world did not make a fuss when the Israelis were making their weapons. Could a reason be that the Israelis were able to do so in greater secrecy than the Iranians?
Still, now that they have them there is certainly more fuss about Israel's small aresenal than, for example, Russias truly massive one. Why do you think this is? There is much more 'fuss' over Israeli nukes than Indian or Pakistani nukes - though both those countries obtained them outside of and in contradiction of the NPT regime. Why do you think this is?
RE: al-Qaeda. I would start with the confession from bin Laden.
You have said a few times on this blog that you don't know what happened but you know what didn't happen. What evidence convinced you that al-Qaeda had no involvement with 9/11?
Anonymous, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. The IAEA have found nothing at all to suggest that they are.
The only reason that Israel and the US want to push this is because Israel wants Iran neutralised so that it will leave Israel with a free hand to deal with Syria. (Iran and Syria have a treaty to help each other.) Then, with Syria out of the game, Hizbollah can be dealt with and so can Hamas. The nuclear issue is just a ploy for public consumption by people like you who believe everything they are told without questioning anything.
When it comes to nukes there are far more important and urgent worries than prattling on about whether or not Iran is after nukes. As you said noted yourself, Pakistan, an Islamic nation teetering on the edge of fundamentalism with Musharraf hanging in by only a thread, does have nuclear weapons. One would have thought that this would have been a greater worry than all this Iran garbage. No, anonymous, I’m afraid you’ve been led up the garden path as far as Iran is concerned. They are no more a threat to the West than Norfolk Island is – despite all the wind and bluster from the right-wing extremists like Netanyahu and the other warmongering neocon lunatics in the US that support him and the other extremist Zionists in Israel.
Bin Laden never confessed to 9/11. The tape that was purported to be his confession turned out to be a fake. In fact bin Laden denied any part in it.
See here:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/osamatape.html
and here:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/29/1038386299712.html
You ask: “What evidence convinced you that al-Qaeda had no involvement with 9/11?” The total lack of evidence that al Qaeda was involved is fairly compelling. The totally transparent garbage that is Mohammad Sheikh Khalil’s ‘confession’ says it all.
Anon,
Let us assume for a moment that 911 happened as you believe it did.
This belief means that:
1. Logically the attackers could scarcely have expected to be successful, they must have expected to be shot down - no one in their right mind would expect that they could fly around for 40 minutes without being intercepted.
They also could not have known that drills would confuse defenders.
2. The attackers could not have known that the WTC buildings would actually be brought down. US engineers had believed that the buildings could withstand such an attack. Without the buildings being brought down they certainly would not have had the symbolic victory that occurred.
3. They could not have reasonably expected to be successful in hitting the pentagon, one of the best protected buildings in the world.
So if the planners could not have in anyway have known that the attack would be successful, what would have been the benefit of the probable outcome.
Anon your belief only works with hindsight.
Terrence, I don't think that it does only work in hindsight.
Regarding your points, from my understanding the standard procedure when an aircraft was hijacked was not to shoot it down. Indeed, in the period since 9/11 there have been a couple of hijacks I recall and none of them resulted in the aircraft being shot down.
Second, you are right to say that if the buildings had not collapsed the symbolic effect would not be the same. But even without the buildings coming down, the effect would not be insignificant. Many fewer people would have died, of course, but we would still be talking about a terrorist attack that killed 100s of people. This would remain significant, no?
On your third point, I agree they might not have reasonably expected to hit the Pentagon. However, they might also have not reasonably expected to hit the White House/Capitol also and, in fact, they didn't. According to the official story, the plane that went down in Penn was supposed to be heading that way and didn't make it (for whatever reason). Perhaps this is why more than one aircraft was hijacked: it upped the chance that one would get through and everything after that was a terrible 'bonus'.
But lets imagine that the planes had been intercepted and shot down before they could crash into any buildings. Would not this also have a startling effect on the US?
Damian, regarding your statements on Iran, you asked me for a reason why Iran might lie and I offered one. I think it is a reasonable one and it seems to be the one that other states have used in the past to acquire nuclear arms. It does not mean that Iran IS lying but it is a reasonable explanation for why they might lie.
RE: the al-Qaeda involvement - your SMH link is not working. I will reserve comment on what you wrote until I can read both the links.
However, what is your standard of proof here? If there is no evidence of al-Qaeda being involved then it seems you assume they were not. If there is no evidence that a government was involved do we assume the same - or do we assume they are hiding something more skillfuly?
Anonymous, with regard to Iran and its nuclear ambitions; the accusations that are being made about Irans nuclear ambitions were initiated and originated from Israel and the US both of who have lied in the past about its enemies nuclear ambitions. It’s a matter of credibility. It is also a matter of evidence; or, in this case, the lack of it. As I have already stated, the IAEA have found absolutely no evidence that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. The US and Israel are proven liars; Iran has no record of having lied about its nuclear ambitions.
Cut and paste the link for the SMH piece. It works for me.
There is ample evidence, both hard and circumstantial, that the government was complicit at some level or another in the events of 9/11. There is no evidence at all that al Qaeda or bin Laden had anything to do with it. How on earth could bin Laden have organised the demolition from within of the WTCs, especially WTC7, which clearly was deliberately demolished via explosive devices.
SMH link worked this time - don't know why it didn't before.
Read the article, went to the institute's site, found the report, scanned it an found the conclusion:
"While this study does not permit us to draw any definite (statistically significant) conclusions, it nonetheless shows that there is serious room for doubt, and that it is also difficult to agree with some US officials saying that it is 100% sure that it is bin Laden."
Strange how what went from being 'no definite conclusions' to the SMH's 'The Lausanne-based Dalle Molle Institute for Perceptual Artificial Intelligence, IDIAP, said it was 95 per cent certain the tape does not feature bin Laden's voice'.
Even the report warns against such irresponsible journalism:
"Based on this experiment, an unreasonable conclusion (often drawn by some journalists) is that the resulting system is reliable at 97% since it made one error over 29 examples. However, when dealing with statistics, drawing this kind of conclusion when dealing with so few examples is simply too premature, and often wrong."
One wonders whether the SMH staff even bothered to read the report or whether they just took AP at their word...
http://www.idiap.ch/~marietho/images/stories/pdfs/binladen.pdf
Apart from the article it's the video that does it for me - it so obviously isn't bin Laden.
Anyway, I'm off flying for a couple of days. Avagoodweegend.
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