Cheezburger justice

We at The Trad Pad love this. Below is an excerpt that is worth passing on.

Iraq and oil: Brendan Nelson and Louise Barry

OIL PIPELINE FIRE — A U.S. Army soldier performs perimeter security during a reconnaissance patrol by the 66th Armor Battalion in an area where a recent insurgent attack took place on an Iraqi oil pipeline near Taji, Iraq, March 1, 2006. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Michael Larson . From Defend America.


Crikey has, this afternoon, drawn our attention to a significant opinion piece by U.S. media figure, Keith Olberman. The transcript is published by Salon.com and is available here. Some of the comment took Miss Eagle's breath away - but, in her view, it is all fair comment.


When something comes to our attention, we place it in our own context of time, place, experience. This comes to attention at a time when the Australian government is handling two negative statements in regard to Australia's participation in the Iraq war:

1. Louise Barry's advertisement supporting the concept that Australian involvement in Iraq brings terrorism to our doorstep; and


2. Ministerial comments which say aloud that the Iraq war is about oil and from which the Minister for Defence, Brendan Nelson, now resiles.

Large sections of the Australian polity have always doubted the wisdom of Australia's participation in the Iraq invasion/adventure. Hundreds of thousands of Australians took to the streets. Australians viewed UN approval as crucial to an Australian presence in the Coalition of the Willing. When this approval was not forthcoming, and Australia committed to participation, the edge went from the debate against participation in the war. Australians took on the attitude that our troops are now there, let's support them.

But the Iraq adventure has taken us beyond that. Australians want their men and women home. Australians are well aware of the idiocy and corruption of the Bush/Cheney regime. Australians have been taken into the milieu of what is arguably the most corrupt and unanswerable presidency in the history of the United States of America. We are supporting a corrupt regime in the United States and self-interested inhumanity in Iraq.

Into that context, have come the words of Keith Olberman. Olberman is not a household name in Australia but his words are currently being passed around across the continent by email and blog. Miss E received an email from a friend as she began to post on this topic.

It is time to listen: it is a matter of life and death.

God, creation and the placement of the Word

HT to the staff at Ekklesia for this one. God, dear Reader, seems to have difficulty getting the attention of the forty-third President of the USA. And, it is likely, that the Lord of Hosts is having difficulty getting a guernsey with the media of the said USA. All that clamouring of the religious right clogs the channels, the airwaves, and the advertising it would seem! So God booked space in The Independent across the pond in the UK. Did God use an ad agency? Saatchi & Saatchi, perhaps?

So, dear Reader, check out what God wants to say to the recalcitrant George W. Bush.

Does Bush know what he's talking about....

Ignorance is bliss?

....because Miss Eagle sure doesn't.

Miss Eagle doesn't talk about Bush much. Why bother? Coming home from work to-day I heard a sound clip from a White House press conference. The gist of the thing was about weapons in Iraq. Miss Eagle picked up that much. And Dubya was talking about IUDs. That's cute, Miss E thought to herself. Intra-Uterine Devices as weapons of mass destruction in Iraq! Ooo-wah!

In case no one has guessed yet, Miss Eagle is curious. She is the original curiosity killed the cat but information brought it back girl. So home to the 'puter to check it out. So she went to the White House site and came up with the press conference. Now Miss E's hearing might not have been too good but then Miss E doesn't think too much of Dubya's diction - considering he is a graduate of an Ivy League university. Turns out that Dubya was talking about IEDs.

Now Miss Eagle is not an expert on armaments and - she is a committed peace lover - has no ambition to become one. Therefore she hadn't a clue about IEDs. So she did what any good blogger does, she Googled it: with this result. So good so far or so far so good.

She then decided to explore the other conundrum from the Press Conference. What on earth is a Qud. This was a bit trickier. Google Quds and you will see what Miss E means. However, she thinks this might be the critter. Anyway, she thinks it has a lot to do with this lot.

Miss Eagle has now come to the conclusion that there are two types of armaments. There are peaceful, democratic armaments (like the ones that the USA and the coalitions forces employ) and there are destructive armaments (like the ones that Iran is alleged to have deployed). Mmmmmm......Miss Eagle thinks.

Now perhaps Miss Eagle could be convinced that Dubya knows what he is talking about if........

• She didn't remember all that guff about peace, democracy, and regime change while watching a handful of men (definitely no women) being a choreographed support group for the pulling down of a Saddam Hussein statue.


• She didn't remember the looting of hospitals in Baghdad without let or hindrance from the United States armed forces.


• She didn't remember the looting of the artifacts and antiquities of the earliest years of human civilisation without intervention by the United States armed forces.


• She didn't remember how US corruption, bumbling, self-interest, and military and political self-congratulation have set up post-Saddam Iraq to fail.

Nah! Dubya hasn't a clue about that of which he speaks.

Rumsfield goes and Gates opens

Miss Eagle returns from a battle with ill health rejoicing. The Democrats have won the day in the USA and this morning the resignation of Donald Rumsfield is announced. Rumsfield resigns from the war. In fact, he survives the Iraq War when he has sent so many young men and women to the war only to see them come home in body bags. Rumsfield will undoubtedly see rewards for what George W Bush describes as his patriotism. So after the war, after the killing, after the destruction, Rumsfield will undoubtedly be found a sinecure. Probably the best that can be hoped is that he never enters the halls of governance and government again.

The CIA - remember that in George Bush Sr and George W Bush we have had the CIA constituency ruling the world - has another body in the halls of power with the appointment of Robert Gates to succeed Rumsfield at Defence. Bob Gates headed up the CIA under Bush Sr. The military will be pleased!

Let's focus on the positives.

George W Bush's face is going to do a lot of about-ing in the next two years.

Roosting time....not yet, methinks!

The nation, or at least the metro media, is speculating once again on whether Howard will resign. The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that there is planned refurbishment of the Howard family home in the inner North Shore suburb of Wollstonecraft.. Former Howard staffer, Grahame Morris is saying that it is likely that Costello will know of Howard's plans by Christmas. The Age to-day is carrying a poll.

Last November, Miss Eagle posted begging John Howard not to resign. She has not altered her view. Miss Eagle does not want Howard to resign...yet. You see, dear Reader, all the chickens have not yet come home to roost, the pendulum is only now showing a little quivering which has yet to turn into a swing, the seeds that have been sown are not yet showing a clear and distinct form which will demonstrate to even the most myopic voter that they are a species of noxious weed. The myopic voter is not yet clear about Howard's meanness, cruelty, and indifference to human beings and the human condition; his subservience to great influence and power interests including the planning of a rich slew of retirement benefits and sinecures not only within Australia but from international, and - more particularly - U.S. sources; and his willingness to serve power and business against the interests of Australia and its people.

Australia has the shame and disgrace of AWA, and AWB. Keep going John and you can make it quite easily to AWZ.

One thing Miss Eagle would point to in suggesting that Howard will retire prior to the next election. Howard has to leave office well ahead of George W. Bush. And remember, George W. has only two years from next November left in office. There is every likelihood that George W. will become more of a lame duck, day by day, particularly if November's mid-term Congressional elections go against the Republicans.

The Howards in regal style befitting the nabob of an outpost of the American Empire

The reason Howard has to leave office well ahead of George W. Bush is so that he can take advantage of the benefices of Bush's office to undergird the international aspirations of his retirement plans. A place on the board of a bank or BHP Billiton will not suffice for this Prime Minister. It is difficult to imagine him taking on the international humanitarian role of former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser or the great campaigning in relation to a significant part of the human condition undertaken by former Victorian Premier, Jeff Kennett. Howard has grand plans for his retirement - and all venal. Roosting time is not yet....but could be nearing.

Geneva 1 - Bush 0 in the latest ball game

Justice and plain old fashioned common sense is alive and well in The Supreme Court of the United States of America. Read the decision in Hamdan v Rumsfeld here. But justice and plain old fashioned common sense is frequently conspicuous by its absence in the Bush Administration. That's inhabited by the nutters who thought up the term "illegal enemy combatant", decided to abrogate the Geneva Conventions in relation to the treatment of prisoners of war, and didn't stop to think of the Christian tradition of The Golden Rule and that the GCs cut both ways - you do this to others and someone else will do it to your own.

What's Miss Eagle rabbiting on about?

The fact that the US Supreme Court has ruled

the military commissions illegal

and that the Geneva Conventions have to prevail.

Australians have been guilty of a sin of omission. We have never forced the Australian Government to discuss its attitude to the Geneva Conventions. The Howard Government has stood shoulder to shoulder with the US on the military commissions. Where have we forced either John Howard or the ghostly Phillip Ruddock to defend the Geneva Conventions? Where has the RSL been in defending the Geneva Conventions? Where has the Australian community or the RSL or the defence community demanded that the Australian Government declare and debate its hand on the Geneva Conventions and the fiction of illegal enemy combatants? Why is the Australian Government alone in the Western world in its support of the now illegal military commissions? For clarification of the issues, go here.

Have we shut up because:

1. The US is the most powerful military power in the world
2. The US pulls Australian strings
3. This has occurred when we are fighting people whom we see as "The Other"
4. This has occurred because the context of the abrogration of the Geneva Conventions and the institution of the fiction of "illegal enemy combatants" touches the racism inherent in Australian society

Australians need to reflect that before the League of Nations, before the United Nations, there were the Geneva Conventions.

Australians need to recall what happened in World War II in regard to those nations who were not signatories to the Geneva Conventions. Japan was not a signatory and imprisoned Allied Forces - among them significant numbers of Australians. Look at how Australians were treated by someone who cocked a snoot at the Geneva Conventions.

Germany was a signatory to the Geneva Conventions as were the Allied Forces. German prisoner of war camps were not highly desirable places but a modicum of humanity prevailed. Russia, though, was an example of a non-signatory whose forces were treated abysmally by the Germans because there was no accountability under the Conventions.

This "do unto others" at the basis of the Geneva Conventions has been raised in Senate committee hearings in the US.

It is time for Australians - the RSL, the defence community, the broad community - to demand from their government solid backing for the Geneva Conventions and its application and hem Howard and his cohorts in until they confess that the term "illegal enemy alien" is a fabricated fiction.

~~~

It is not known what the implications are for David Hicks and Miss Eagle waits - but is not hopeful - for Australian and British Governments to provide a response in his matter based on the US Supreme Court decision.

The horror against humanity that is Guantanamo Bay is unaffected by this decision.

An historic letter?

Davo over at Wombat's Waffles has published THE letter from Iran. You can read it there or here. Now there can be all sorts of views on the letter. Who are the Iranians to tell others what to do? Do the Iranians understand how the Americans think? Are the Iranians being sincere but naive?

Now turn that around, shall we? Who are the Americans to tell others what to do? Do the Americans understand how the Iranians think? Are the Americans being sincere but naive?

Now for the answers:

• Both Iran and the U.S. indulge in state-sponsored violence and incursions on the sovereignty of other nations.
• Both Iran and the U.S. need to have a greater objectivity about their history and their place in the world and among the nations. As Robert Burns said: O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us.
• Americans have some self-seeking and self-agrrandizing national myths which do not serve them well internationally. Perhaps, Iran does too. National myths without the objectivity of broad and deep knowledge can not only breed naivete when placed in a wider context but, without such objectivity, other dangers come: ignorance, bigotry, national superiority, notions about racial, ethnic, typological superiority.

George W. Bush professes Christ. Significant sectors of the American polity do too. It therefore behoves the President and all Americans to have a look at the theology of The Letter from Iran. There is much to think about. Equally, the Iranian President will need to be held to his spiritual ideals expressed in The Letter.

The Abrahamic religions do have common ground. The Abrahamaic heritage of the One God. A sense of justice. A sense of compassion. A demand for an ethical life. The facts are that so often governments operating within this heritage do not live out the ideals and demands of the heritage. We are not ignorant. Yet we build faultlines of bigotry, racism, and prejudice out of a common heritage. And then we complain when, into our self-built difficulties, comes another with a capacity to build the ultimate weapon of the current technology.

The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has outlined the basis for a closer relationship and for a common understanding. Whether the U.S. likes it or not and whether the Iranian President is genuine or using empty grandstanding rhetoric, the path has been shown which could lead to a bridge. Miss Eagle is reminded of what Maya Angelou once said that God sends pebbles into our lives. If we ignore them, he then sends a rock.