The Irony Party of Australia's Electrophotelephralagraphanetic Pamphlet
news in brief
645pm The Sanguine Outlook of the Poor 1035am Neckfat Forces Retirement of White House Ventriloquist Karl Rove 415pm Darkie Patrol 1156am The Cuddliest MP 330pm Australian cricket team abandon Zimbabwe tour for photo ops 1145am Seditio Ad Absurdum 520pm Property Prices Recovered 4pm The Au Fait McKew 1pm David Hicks Lays Charges Against Alleged Terrorist US 6pm Australian PM Says Birds Will Be 'Enthralled' by Climate Change 0830 am Fuck With The British, Sir, At Your Peril Disinformation Heightened 1am Disinformation Campaign Makes Headlines 620am All to Die in War on Terror 10pm Counterfactual Current Affairs Update: Lebanon 1212pm Inhuman In Beirut 845am Refurbishing Masada 1am Daily Show Host, Writers Offered Amnesty In Future War Against US 12pm Safe Radiation Safely Leaks At Lucas Heights 550am Al Zarqawi, Tiny Children Killed by US in Iraq 610pm TVs Go To Landfill as Viewers Switch Off SBS 840pm How to Submit to an Australian Soldier 1100am Pentagon Failure Highlights Terrorist Competence 1am Doctors More Accountable in Post-Saddam Iraq 1am Daily Show Host, Writers Offered Amnesty In Future War Against US 728pm Bleating Piggies Abhor an Interest Rate Rise 1110pm New Australian Fascism Reaches Fever Pitch on ANZAC Day 914pm 'Elite Sniper' Self-Sniped In Iraq 210pm Iranian President Too Polite to Mention Glaring Western Hypocrisy 325pm Breaking News: Defence Secretary Retired - Children's Literary Icon To Replace Incompetent Rumsfeld 955pm Coca-Cola Plant Shut Down by Agrarian Fanatics:Delicious Beverage Under Assault <30th August 2007
(A special report from Dontepintonuendo Valquez on location in Poor Countries around the world.)
A chasm has opened in global markets and value is pouring down it and disappearing, possibly forever. In Australia Ministers, economists and executives are struggling to remain calm while explaining to the public via TV screens that the loss of 11 per cent of the share market in a week is a 'correction', and that the bottom of the current dip has very nearly been reached.
Massive cumulative unserviceable debt in the shonky US housing market is reportedly at the heart of an international money crisis that has 'wiped hundreds of billions of dollars off the value of global markets'.
'I don't think anybody can be sanguine about it' Geoff Dixon, Qantas CEO admitted to Lateline Business. 'Seven days ago the world economy was incredibly strong' he observed. According to Dixon, the media plays a part in exacerbating perceptions of a financial crisis: 'Certainly I think the whole tenor of it is heightened quite a lot by the treatment it gets in the media.'
But Ali was not to be deterred: 'But these are pretty extraordinary times, aren't they?'
Meanwhile, billions of people around the world not sufficiently wealthy to be involved in the purchase of shares are unperturbed by the financial disaster.
'Oh?' said a man on a bus in Ukraine to whom I mentioned the appalling state of the world's indices. I asked him 'But aren't you concerned about the flow on effects of bad economic times? He smiled. 'It's all the wealthy unfortunates in the West that concern me,' he said, with a compassionate air. 'Are they all going to be okay? Are their material good jeopardised? It's simply awful.'
I began to back away, but he wouldn't stop, saying 'What about your superannuation?' and making other cruel references to my own nest egg, until the bus pulled up at the next stop.
For thirty-four year old Oliver Gallow of Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, the news of the share market dip came as no shock or surprise at all. 'Care?' he asked the reporter ungrammatically. But aren't you concerned about the flow on effects of bad economic times?' I asked a poor person for the umpteenth time. 'See earlier response,' Oliver said, unhelpfully, but with more syntactic precision.
Besuited gentlemen have counter-argued that it's the poor who suffer in hard economic times - that jobs are lost, industrial operations shut down, and so on. But the argument is spurious: jobs are lost and industrial operations abandoned at comparable speed when the economy is strong.
In general the outlook of the poor is sanguine, despite the shaky note in the voice of Treasurer Peter Costello yesterday in Question Time, despite the ongoing losses across the market for days on end, despite reports of billions evaporating in a flurry of selling.
In the United States the Federal Reserve bank has cut an official interest rate, resulting in a sharp jump in the value of stocks on the Dow Jones index in the first minutes of trading today. The rich and powerful are hopeful of an imminent return to stability.
August 15th 2007
In the US Bush Administration policy adviser and campaign manager Karl Rove has announced his resignation. Rove is credited with a kind of Machivellian talent for winning elections, and has been applauded by some for his role as puppet-master to President George W. Bush's appallingly unconvincing but twice-elected puppet.
Others are dubious as to whether a preparedness to win elections by going where others will not - slandering opponents, rigging ballots, stealing elections here and there, as in the 2001 presidential election - would meet with Machiavelli's discerning political tastes. Whether years of overtly odious political ventures and the signal achievement of making a farce of the US president should be considered the sign of a master tactician. Or whether, after having a hand in the elevation of George W. Bush to the presidency, any conscientious human could sleep at night.
In any case, political genius or just least inane Republican, Karl Rove's time as ventriloquist to the President has come to an end. The porcine Rove is no longer able to squeeze his overweight neck into a suit and shirt, and he has been forced to give up his White House office and public life. Rove is expected to direct future Republican Presidential campaigns in a t-shirt from the comfort of home during his declining years, until his neck-rolls entirely engulf his turtle-like form.
July 10th 2007
The Nine Network's new drama series, Darkie Patrol, is to be launched this week and a pre-election extravaganza at Sydney's Star City casino.
An all-blonde cast led by Coles tout Lisa McCune, with a token daygo, have been assembled for the big-budget weekly series which will follow the adventures of the crew of HMAS Hammersley, an Australian patrol boat heavily engaged in activities such as 'searching for people smugglers, illegal fishermen and the like'.
Screenwriters have based many early storylines on actual Victoria Cross citations, while Australia's rich military history will be heavily tapped to demonstrate the bravery and self-sacrifice of our defence personnel who give so much to ensure the plight of those fleeing despotic regimes and trying to feed their children need never disturb the sleep or real estate-related conversations of ordinary Australians.
Darkie Patrol can be seen on Channel Nine and WIN Television at 8.30 pm Mondays.
May 24th 2007
Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey offended Australian women today when he made the anachronistic and sexist suggestion the reason the Opposition's workplace policies are more successful than those of the Government is that his opposite number Julia Gillard is 'prettier' than he is.
Not only was the tubby minister's statement grossly inappropriate, profoundly patriarchal and like something from a previous century, it was by no means accurate. Joe Hockey may personally have a penchant, a crush, a 'thing' for Julia. Perhaps in the circles he moves Gillard is considered less a powerful politician and more a scrumptious bit. He may, privately, fantasise endlessly about the Shadow Workplace Relations Minister. For Hockey, Gillard may be a swan, a delectable morsel, a daunting, unattainable, delicious and tantalising femme fatale.
But Hockey's fixation is not necessarily the norm. And his assertion that Gillard is prettier than he is may be refuted by many of those familiar with the appearance and demeanour of the two.
Hockey is rotund, while Gillard is gaunt and towering. Hockey has chubby cheeks and a fatuous grin, while Gillard is generally serious and somewhat severe. Gillard has short cropped sensible low maintenance ginger hair, while Hockey sports a fluffy black crop. Gillard, in short, resembles nothing so much as a tallish giraffe, while Joe Hockey is in appearance and intellectual substance more closely related to the stereotypical and iconic koala. This clear distinction between the politicians extends beyond the purely physical. While the elongated female Opposition figure is intent on the pursuit of substantial policy and political sway, the fluffy,portly Hockey appears to content himself with making superficial utterances in keeping the Liberal Party line, and otherwise grooming himself in public. It might be a stretch to describe either the Minister or his Shadow as 'pretty'. But there is little doubt that Hockey is by far the cuter and cuddlier of the two.
May 15th 2007
Prime Minister John Howard has ordered the Australian cricket team to abandon a proposed tour of strife torn Zimbabwe after weeks of diplomatic pressure exerted against Cricket Australia failed to produce any change in the sporting body's hardline stance.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has spent the last week in crisis talks, attempting to overcome the Federal Government's lack of legal options.
'It has been an extremely difficult situation,' Mr Downer said on Monday. 'This isn't like Iraq where we could just knock up a dossier proving the regime has, say, a nuclear weapons program. We merely funnel taxpayer's money to the tune of millions of dollars each year into a sport already awash with funds, but we merely facilitate this and were in no position to influence the tour itself. As Cricket Australia pointed out, they would have been fined two million dollars if they pulled out, so it really was an incredibly difficult situation for them.'
Insiders claim much of the problem was the inability of the cricket community to understand the issues the government was attempting to raise.
'They came and said the people running Zimbabwe were bad men, but it seemed to us they were just whinging because this Mugubby fellow is more competitive and effective than his rivals. I mean, his record is impeccable: he's been captain of the country for 30 years and sure, he sledges and plays hard, but that's what you have to do,' said one member of the Australian IX who refused to be named, 'it's no wonder they resent his success.'
The impasse was broken yesterday by a coincidence of events that permitted authorities on both sides of the Indian Ocean to seek a solution with renewed impetus.
'We are convinced that for the tour to go ahead there would be an enormous propaganda boost to the Mugabe regime,' Prime Minister John Howard told ABC Radio, using the characteristic dubious grammar that has enabled him to win the hearts of outer urban voters, 'and if there's any propaganda to be had by brutal regimes from the Australian cricket team, then let's just say I'm first at the crease.'
'I don't think it's fair to leave a foreign policy decision in the hands of young sportsmen,' Mr Howard said after his Government suspended the passports of the team, 'especially as most of the Australian players are babies in their mid 30s. How are they supposed to even begin to appreciate the ramifications of providing tacit endorsement to a regime that tortures and murders its opponents? In sports as in politics, the aim is to win, and we can let the Fairfax papers worry about 'morals'. This is a country where I have trained all citizens to put aside all thoughts of decency in the pursuit of low interest rates and keeping darkskinned foreigners out. It would have been hell for the players to even begin to consider such sophisticated metaphysical issues.'
Zimbabwe authorities were also reluctant to permit the scheduled tour to go ahead.
'Initially we thought this tour would be a good idea, but then I spoke to my children who study at Australian universities and had doubts,' said Zimbabwe Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri, 'these people with their reputation for crushing the weak, intimidation, abuse, sexual misconduct and drunkenness are not individuals with whom we wish to be associated.
May 14th 2007
In interview with Shaikh Al Hilaly, the beleagered mufti of Australia, Australian Federal Police have reportedly raised the issue of the mufti's potential sedition, after the mufti, during a speech on Moslem unity, urged followers of the Islamic faith to lend support to axis of evil nation Iran.
Sedition appears the kind of law enacted only by the least secure of States and jurisdictions, since more mature and well-developed societies are tolerant of banter and persiflage, and do not feel they are likely to come unstuck as a result of the vocal musings of an extremist minority.
In Australia the relevant Bill stipulates that citizens and residents of the country might be penalised (at the pleasure and discretion of the Attorney-General) for promoting the violent overthrow of government, or the forceful deaths of politicians from runtish PM to the odious, purulent, oozing Attorney-General himself. However much one might legally wish an unfortunate death upon these public figures, no mention is to be made of how this happy state of affairs might be achieved forthwith.
The legislation even extends to those suggesting that perhaps it might be fair and reasonable that Australian troops invading far-flung nations at the behest of Americans come under attack by local defenders. Further, simply arguing that given the occupation of a distant land and country the forces of the United States themselves - an erstwhile ally of Australia's - might reasonably be exploded by the expedient of roadside bomb, or sniped at a distance, could incur the judicial wrath of the State.
Penalties for sedition in Australia are in the order of seven year gaol terms per transgression, and perhaps this is more reasonable than the punishments imposed in other times and jurisdictions to which draconian laws of this nature seem better suited. But sedition laws, as mentioned, appear to be at the best of times among the tools and devices of a State on shaky ground, without a secure sense of itself, and prone to fits of wild paranoia.
Taking all this into account the latest threatening mention of sedition (by the AFP in interview with Shaikh al-Hilali) appears a novel application and extension of the
legislation. Keysar Trad, a spokesman for the mufti, has already pointed out that Australia has relations with Iran. Iran has an embassy in Australia, an ambassador, and as Trad suggests, there is trade between the two nations. We are not at war with Iran. Hostilities planned by the United States, and in which Australia will likely participate, have not yet begun.
In which case, how can it be said to be seditious to call for support for Iran within Australia?
The answer appears to lie in inaccessible fine print of the sedition bill, or perhaps in the fine print of a future amendment to it, as yet unimplemented but likely retrospective when enacted.
We, the public, can only guess at this congruent extension, apparently known to cognoscenti among the Federal Police. The new laws, perhaps, prohibit favourable discussion of 'Nations That Do Not Appeal To The Foreign Minister'. Or 'The Making of Statements Inimicable To Current Government Policy'. Or perhaps simply 'Contradicting Prime Minister and Cohorts' will be retroactively outlawed, since by such contradiction there is the ever-present danger that the policies of Government and State might be dangerously exposed as fallacy, hypocrisy, and cant.
May 6th 2007
In Clifton Hill it's getting chilly at this time of year, and woodfires burn in newly painted mid-twentieth century homes (or ducted heating in the cubist boxes au fait with modern builders and architects). The suburb near the city centre and bisected by Hoddle Street, was for a time the bane of property developers and owners, who could barely turn a buck from the sale of the motley jumble of townhouses, cottages and bungalows sandwiched between Northcote and Fitzroy. Vacant plots stayed vacant, corner stores were dilapidated and little-frequented, and in winter icy winds whipped and whistled through unkempt streets, the legacy of the Hoddle Street massacre, in which 14 motorists died at the hand of a lone gunman.
But relieved real estate agents, developers and home owners have apparently put the difficult events for which Hoddle Street is infamous behind them, and are struggling bravely on, in a touching testament to the human spirit. Today houses once available for the price of a t-shirt or hammock are once again appreciated, and appreciating, in a sought-after inner-city location, and those who steadfastly refused to sell investment properties (or more steadfastly still bought in) have been richly rewarded for their faith and their foresight and willingness to see beyond the horror, and for maintaining the belief that with time Clifton Hill would emerge from the shadow of tragedy into productive and lucrative life once again.
In Clifton Hill it's getting chilly at this time of year, and icy winds heralding winter still whip through dark streets lined with townhouse and bungalow. But the resolve and resilience of a small number of compassionate, undaunted (and far-sighted) entrepreneurs fair warms the heart.
March 4th 2007
Recently-outed ALP figure Maxine McKew has announced she will contest the Federal seat of Bennelong, currently held by demi-God and political legend John Winston Howard.
While astute observers such as Daily Telegraph food critic Piers Akerman have dismissed the move as a 'stunt', Parliamentary insiders say the announcement has caused consternation and panic in Government ranks.
'Howard is sweating, no question,' opined Parliament cafe attendant Donna Worrall.
'Just this morning Mr Howard was brought into the cafeteria with a bevy of advisors, who sat him down and ordered one of each of the 18 different types of coffee we serve. Mr Howard had to identify each one by appearance and taste.'
Ms Worrall said Mr Howard appeared to do 'remarkably well' in the test, being able to identify most coffee types with the exception of the four different types of latte on offer.
But Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd's star recruit said there is more to upper North Shore politics than deciphering difficult cafe menus.
'There's the breads as well, and I can assure you the out-of-touch PM doesn't know a sourdough olive loaf from a nine-seed hi-top. And my doorknocking is showing other issues affecting the people of Bennelong that don't interest the Prime Minister: like are Audis now more hip than BMWs, can terrace houses offer real space for entertaining, and how can it be so hard to get a good laksa despite there being so many Thai restaurants?'
But Federal Health Minister and Howard confidante Tony Abbott denies there are ructions in Government circles.
'The good voters of Bennelong won't be taken in by Madame Blow-In,' he told a moderate, intelligent talk-back radio host. 'The issues in Bennelong are complex and people will resent an outsider coming to Wollstonecraft to impose their Mosman ways. The last thing the people of Longueville need is to become another Balmoral. And the style of lawn bowls played on this side of Crows Nest is totally different. I know at Ryde they are proud of their liberal attitudes and they won't come at the imposition of a shorts-only-with-long-socks rule during competition matches.'
February 17th 2007
After five years' languishing in Guantanamo Bay, Australian detainee David Hicks has finally taken action in his legal prosecution of the United States, laying charges against the country over alleged military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq and numerous attempted and actual murders in those countries and others in recent years.
Containment rules imposed by Mr Hicks requiring 85 per cent of the US population to remain on the North American continent at all times have at this time not been breached, and will remain in place for the foreseeable future.
In a piece of sham legal manoeuvring, the US Government has moved quickly to bring copycat charges against David Hick, establishing a system of 'military tribunals' for their trial of the plucky Australian adventurer and others detained in Cuba in an attempt at a thin veneer of judicial respectability. But an Australian in a foreign country fighting with a local military outfit against a foreign invader can clearly be considered within his rights, particularly where the more questionable mores of the local powers-that-be are at their worst no more odious those of the pernicious invader. Only the Bush Administration, the Pentagon, and regional sock puppets Australian PM John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer remain convinced the counter-charges brought by the United States are anything other than the prelude to a show trial - a trial designed to convict Hicks despite the tired constraints of justice and reason.
The difficult legal circumstance now confronting David Hicks could lead to further delays, and further complaints from humanitarian and civil liberties groups that Hicks' confinement without charge of most of the citizens of the United States within the country's borders is a cruel and unusual punishment with no sanctioned precedent. And reports that Hicks own isolated living conditions have taken a toll on the displaced militant's conceptual continuity might mean the United States escapes trial for its crimes for some years to come.
February 16th 2007
After accidentally rejecting the link between human activity and global warming last week, Australian Prime Minister John Howard has committed another verbal faux pas on an environmental theme while meeting with New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clarke in Wellington today. After being harangued by protestors Prime Minister Howard was asked by journalists whether he believed bird species would be threatened if global warming caused sea levels to rise by twelve metres, drowning many of the world's remaining forests. Mr Howard thought about the question, and firmly shook his head. 'The birds will be fine,' he said unequivocally, smiling broadly - 'in fact, far, far more enthralled than they've ever been before.'
Last week miniscule Prime Minister John Howard was forced into an ugly pretence in Parliament that he had not denied the link between human activity and climate change, believing (he claimed) that DROUGHT was the subject under discussion, rather than human responsibility for impending global disaster. In the wake of this latest insensitive statement about birds, the Prime Minister was even more prompt. Within an hour prime ministerial advisors called another press conference in order that he might retract his earlier statement, which had in the meantime become a hot issue for talkback callers across the Tasman. Before the reassembled press Mr Howard explained 'When I said the birds and insects would be enthralled by a future 'waterworld', I thought I meant to say something else, about something else, and on another topic.' And after a brief pause, interrupted only by incredulous journalists asking about Howard's choice of the term 'enthralled' and whether insects were included in the original assessment or only the refutation, the conference was brought to an end by taciturn New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clarke.
January 22nd 2007
The US War of Independence ended in 1783, since which time the British have appeared unable to gain redress from the upstart colony. But 200 years after French support of American troops led to ignominious defeat for the Empire the United States is committed to continued force extension in Iraq for the foreseeable future, and to the maintenance of bases around the world. The stalling of plans of the former Defence Minister Donald Rumsfeld for the creation of a more agile and flexible US army, navy and airforce means the world's largest military machine remains occupied in shoring up its dominance and the geopolitical status quo. And now, with the American capability stretched thin, and distanced from their former European allies there are indications the patient British are moving to obtain satisfaction from the trumped up colonials and restore proper balance to the world.
Evidence of the hostile operations of the surreptitious and effective British military against the overgrown US equivalent remains scant. But a transcript obtained by our intrepid researchers of audio recorded during a recent infraction at a military installation in Maine has shed light on British operations that appear to be the first moves in the second phase of the prematurely named War of Independence.
full transcript of audio recording here
November 17th 2006
A malicious disinformation campaign that has successfully displaced other current affairs from front pages in recent days continues to perturb editors and readers alike, with constant media reference to the spurious misinformation generating further media copy. Commentators keen to turn to more substantial have instead found themselves discussing Ministerial comment on the extent of the dangerous disinformation's spread. Meanwhile, real information is being checked and rechecked before it is released in case it is, in fact, revealed to be empty copy about copy of the self-referential variety that has become increasingly common in the media. Fears the disinformation campaign could achieve a kind of critical effect and completely decontextualise all traditional forms of media are growing, since attempts to combat the disinformation with a well structured Government funded public relations information campaign backfired when citizens said they mistrusted what looked like State disinformation.
Questioned on the source of the disinformation campaign, Government representatives have been curt and dismissive. Attorney-General Philip Ruddock determined to avoid adding to the spiraling disinformation problem, viscerally told reporters to 'Shut up and go away,' An extensive silence descended upon a press conference of the Prime Minister's when John Howard decided he had already said far too much about information that was not only preposterous and absurd, it was designed specifically to distract all those at the press conference from the pertinent issues of the day. A few questions on the impact of the disinformation campaign met with confused and angry responses about distinction between the perception of disinformation and disinformation itself, and the suggestion that determining which of the two is at issue in this case is probably pointless and imposslble.
6th October 2006
Media industry sources say although they cannot identify the specific target of an emerging disinformation campaign now making headlines online, in print, and on broadcast media around the world, the clear message that can be taken from the obfuscating incident is that in a civilisation with advanced communications technologies and a sophisticated culture of semiotic manipulation, empty noise remains a most effective weapon against the dissemination of undesirable truths.
full article here
September 1st 2006
Despite claims from a visiting US academic that the 'War on Terror' is based on an erroneous misunderstanding of the motivations of Islamic militants, Australian ministers have reassured the public that the long fight against terrorism is neither misguided nor contrived. And manning another line of defence Foreign Minister Alexander Downer today denied a former senior weapons advised him the pre-war search for Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq was hopelessly corrupted - rendered farcical in fact - by the involvement of political interests represented by the CIA.
In particular it is the absurd suggestion that the aims of the evil terrorists might be somehow 'rational' and 'strategic' in some way that has most annoyed sensible members of the Government charged with ridding the world of dangerous fanatics and ideologues filled with blind hatred. The assertions appear to make a mockery of the Government's reliable raison d'etre - after all we are several years, many deaths, and billions of dollars deep in conflict that has our troops engaged in various foreign countries, undertaking dangerous missions on behalf of all Australians and they deserve our full support.
Across the water US President George W Bush has himself mounted a new defence of the narrative of the long war. Speaking at the annual convention of an organisation calling itself the American Legion, the near-illiterate President managed a series of relatively coherent sentences without incident: 'The war we fight today is more than a military conflict,' Bush twanged. 'It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st Century.' Bush also reaffirmed the connexion between insurgents fighting the United States in Iraq: 'we should all agree that the battle for Iraq is now central to the ideological struggle of the 21st Century. We will not allow the terrorists to dictate the future of this century, so we will defeat them in Iraq.' Once merely rhetoric, the claim is increasingly accurate as more soldiers of the first wave of Twenty-First Century anti-American militancy take up the fight in the US-occupied country. Like many others in positions of power, Bush also warns against an optimistic prediction of imminent victory. 'There is the tendency to believe that the threat is receding and this war is coming to a close,' he said. 'That feeling is natural and comforting-and wrong.'
If the War on Terror is to persist for half a century before it is won, as Australian Treasurer Peter Costello recently intimated, there is no time to lose, and no time for second guessing the reliable intelligence on those denizens of evil who are our keenest adversaries. After all, the authorities' intelligence has served us well thus far - we have no concrete reason for doubting its veracity.
Nor have the war in Iraq or any of Australia's efforts to combat those terrorists who seek to destroy the free and equitable lifestyle available in the West made their desperate hatred any more intense, as a clamour of dissembling, disingenuous voices have claimed - and as Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty was at one time briefly misheard suggesting. The war on terror may get us all killed, say our capable leaders, statesmen, and officials. But if that's what it takes to preserve our way of life and utterly destroy those who hate freedom, then it will have been worth it, no matter how few of us remain standing.
The War on Terror may be the death of us all. But it is certainly less dangerous than NOT arming ourselves to the eye teeth and climbing out of helicopters half a world a way, guns blazing, in order to take down a few of the locals. In a war with fanatics, no quarter can be given. Our only hope is to defend our way of life with total commitment, with overwhelming force, with shock and awe, by the expedients of psyops, pink mist, bunker buster, cluster bomb, and without the sort of confused and wavering prevarication that characterises the waffle of visiting professors who despite their dissembling hold citizenship in the land of the free. Because there is a worse fate, should our conviction weaken while we fight these single-minded ideologues, these agents of evil, these cruel and irrational fundamentalists - if doubt is allowed to cloud our clear perception, we may be lost altogether, and the simple, unaffected, fair and peaceful Western way of life might be gradually changed or corrupted in some insidious and barely perceptible way.
August 4th 2006
In a set of bizarre alternate universes that nonetheless share many characteristics with our own, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today brought a halt to ongoing bloodshed in Lebanon and Israel with the announcement of solutions to be enforced by the international communities together with infinite immediate ceasefires. Conflict between the very different military organisations of Israel and the beseiged Lebanese and Palestinian populations has plagued trillions upon trillions of countless possible worlds in recent decades, resulting in limitless human suffering, with countless permutations and cycles of violent struggle, uneasy ceasefire, and renewed slaughter since before the birth of the State of Israel in the years after World War II.
Annans' proclamation, made from the Secretary-General's seat of power in the United Nations building in New York, was screened live around millions of worlds. It was an unequivocal statement censuring the brutal bombings, raids and incursions of the Israeli Defence Force in Lebanon's sovereign territory, and calling for Hezbollah's rocket attacks on Israel to be suspended until an Israeli-imposed embargo on guidance systems is lifted and the rockets can be made more accurate.
With the wisdom of Solomon, the benign but implacable Kofi Annan has made the only decision possible that can bring peace to the Arab world and Israel in the short and medium term. Beginning as soon as is humanely possible, Israel will place in Lebanon's hands exactly half of its military resources - air, land, and sea. Half of Israel's defence budget grants from its benefactor the United States will be gifted to Lebanese militants. And half of Israel's nuclear arsenal will be put at Lebanon's disposal. At the same time, Hezbollah will provide Israel with half of its remaining missiles to the IDF, and the small Lebanese army will also divide its armoury.
After a UN supervised exchange, negotiations will begin on a real solution to the problems of the region, based on the new strategic reality.
Israel's abundantly aggressive reaction to the slightest sign of military competence from its adversaries has itself been an obstacle to peace. The overwhelming and murderous response is based on a fallacy - on the idea that an ongoing cease-fire can be brokered in the region despite the fact of extremely disproportionate strength between the antagonists. Israel has insisted until now that while it reserves the right to maintain a large and capable defence force in order to protect its borders, it also has the legiitimate right to destroy at will the defensive capability of its enemies.
Now, though, on millions of distant worlds of the 'verse, the authority of the United Nations, in the name of the international community, has stepped in to resolve the crisis, and provide some balance and a sense of perspective in a difficult situation for which, locally, there appears no immediate solution.
July 25th 2006
There were difficult moments today for the sinister alien being that wears the convenient form of US Secretary of State Condollleeezaaaa Rice, when the evil xenotype was caught for several minutes in the bright sun over Beirut during a photo opportunity taken with Lebanon's Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. 'Dr Rice', who is touring trouble spots in Israel and the Arab world even while the insane Israeli assault on Gaza and Lebanon continues, emerged from a car to embrace the beseiged Lebanese leader but soon found her strange, alien physiology overheating.
This biological response rapidly caused Dr Rice's carefully applied make-up to run, resulting in the momentary revelation to some unfortunate onlookers and assembled jocks from the CIA of a glimpse of the hideous alien features underneath. Rice was quickly whisked away to a hotel to reapply as footage of the accident was already being run and rerun in operations rooms half a world away in order to compose as full as possible a picture of all of those who might bear witness to the mishap. Those media networks that were sufficiently prepared crossed the screen with static as the footage of the diplomatic event went to air moments later, but others were too slow to act.
Despite her brief visit to Lebanon, a country which has suffered two weeks of air bombardment and raids by ground forces of the Israel Army, the demolition of infrastructure, and hundreds of civilian deaths, the inhuman high official of the United States Government has refused to condemn the vicious punishment inflicted on Lebanon following resistance organisation Hizb'Allah's kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers. Instead, Rice has called, along with other Western leaders, both human and offworlder, for the Lebanese Government and Army to extend every courtesy and assistance to the invading Israeli forces, and as a matter of course forgive the slight infringement of sovereignty that thousands of air sorties and ground incursions represent.
Tonight the grotesque but keenly intelligent alien, her disguise restored and composure regained, has returned to Jerusalem to confer with the equally unpalatable monsters that reside in Israel's halls of power, even now planning future slaughter and the further destruction of the lives of the people of a neighbouring country. And by tomorrow the footage of today's small transgression will have been altered, and nobody will remember what they thought they saw on the cameras as the Secretary of State proferred her unearthly cheek to Fouad Siniora in the summer heat, or think to look for those bystanders whose shocked faces were witnessed at the scene.
July 24th 2006
Perhaps those prominent Israeli citizens who direct the affairs of that State have grown tired of their homes and their environs, and crave a change of scenery, a new climate, or less challenging diplomatic relations.
The crazed retaliation of the Israeli military against Hezbollah following the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Lebanon-based militants of the resistance organisation may bring short term gains in reducing the strength of Israel's capable adversaries . But in strategic terms these gains must be balanced against the animosity the sickening violence visited by the Israeli war machine upon the people of Gaza and The Lebanon in recent weeks will earn Israel and her leaders. And there is little doubt the new conflict will harden the resolve of Arab nations and resistance fighters in the region in their determination to see the unfortunate twentieth century experiment in Jerusalem concluded with alacrity.
In moral terms the sickening violence of recent weeks visited upon the people of Gaza and The Lebanon - which has claimed more than 300 lives, and many of these civilian - suggest it is too late for the State of Israel to step backwards across the brink. As the lunatics who guide the brutal sword arm of the Israeli military continue the wanton destruction of life and lives in Gaza and The Lebanon, the world asks itself what line does a murderous, oppressive, deadly, expansionist State such as Israel have to cross - or how many - before it makes of itself a Pariah?
The support offered Israel by the leaders of the United States and Australia - Condolleezzzza Rice was most charming with her comment indicating the current troubles represent 'the birthing pangs of a New Middle East - is unsurprising, as is the vast hypocrisy of allowing Israel free rein in raining destruction on Lebanon. Asked yesterday about what the Lebanese Army should do in the context of a likely Israeli ground invasion of sovereign Lebanese territory, (following the destruction of much of the country's infrastructure in air strikes) Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer suggested the Lebanese military and Government should offer the invading troops every possible assistance in hunting down the 'terrorists' they have been unwilling to suppress. It is also unsurprising that the United Nations fails to take action even to censure Israel officially, since the rogue State is sponsored by Security Council member the United States.
Nonetheless 'we pay in blood for the cruelty of our ancestors.' (-novelist Frank Herbert) There will be a time when American power is not so strong in the world - when that day comes it seems likely an army of millions will falls on Israel to avenge the wrongs of recent decades. And in the meantime, imposing hard conditions, cruelty and oppression on past and future adversaries may be ill-advised, since these conditions cultivate the most dangerous kind of enemy - dedicated, skilled, and difficult to hurt again.
Israeli generals and politicians who insist on continuing this dangerous game - waging bloody, senseless war regardless of the cost to either side, no matter if innocents are cut down during punitive acts of senseless vengeance - these fundamentalists and expansionists who insist that their slaughter is just in the name of Lebensraum, although the killing of their enemies is murder, might at this time consider - just as a precaution - restocking the grain stores of Masada, and refurbishing the ancient fortress before the walls close in again.
July 10th 2006
Some enraged extremists continue to put the case (on lurid web pages and at the tops of their voices though home alone) for an indiscriminate scorched earth policy for all fifty States of the Union when the war just now begun between the United States and her adversaries again crosses the sea and is taken up in earnest on the North American continent. But a more measured approach is in evidence from the elusive leaders of many of the vast and varied anti-American armies, even where substantial efforts are well advanced in preparation for the difficult conflagration ahead.
Now, in an unusual move from fanatical opponents of American power, a concession to humanity, levity , and wit has been offered publicly by the powers now ranged against the United States. In an audio recording made available yesterday to rss feed readers and on internet browsers around the globe, the collective leadership of the dire and determined American foe has issued an edict online promising amnesty and free passage to the host and writers of the popular spoof news TV programme the Daily Show in the event of coming large-scale war in an American theatre.
During the few centuries of its rise to global ascendancy the United States has been slowly and surely accumulating adversaries with an unperturbed air of brash confidence. The arrival of the Black Ships in a Japanese Harbour a century and a half ago was a significant turning point and an ominous portent - it was at this time that the Americans began to demonstrate a prudent disinterest in making war on those similarly resourced, in favour of intervention in the affairs of far less powerful peoples.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the old world order of the Twentieth Century, this process has quickened considerably. Recent interventions in the Middle East have exacerbated rather than alleviated lingering resentment towards the West born of old injustices. Latin Americans, Filippinos, Hawaiians the Japanese, Vietnamese, and Cambodians, to name a few, are suspiciously quiet, US agencies report, on the possibility they might still have some anachronistic grudge to bear. The approach of White House and Pentagon can be formulated in as 'Fuck it. Whenever it happens, we'll take 'em all on.' This bravado, apparently shared in large part by the population of the United States, has the obvious shortcoming of failing to take into account examples such as Rome and Byzantium two long dead civilisations in which substantial back-pedalling, together with stupendous bribes and reparations paid to 'barbarians' in the later centuries of the life of the empire failed to avert the thorough sacking of the greatest cities of these imperial notables at the conclusion of their respective (and interwoven) histories.
But beyond the reaches of the West neither ancient political grievances nor the looming conflict, have detracted from appreciation of the near-universal phenomena of irony and satire - the subversive uses of language - the death of these genres would represent the ultimate symbolic victory for a hegemonic power. And continuing respect for the rare contrary genius , however unlikely its point of origin, has been demonstrated with the special consideration now offered to the now recognised world-wide as the single redeeming feature of US culture, the Comedy Central-produced satirical current affairs programme, Daily Show.
Daily Show host Jon Stewart regularly delivers a searing deadpan commentary in the style of a traditional Western news bulletin, assisted by implausibly talented writers that effortlessly confound the generally reliable maxims concerning irony and North Americans. The programme was screened on Australia's SBS network, but for unknown reasons is seen no more in the Antipodes, to the detriment of satire-starved inhabitants of that US tributary.
Today's audio message has been interpreted by some as an attempt to drive a wedge between those in the United States who are amused and entertained by the Daily Show, and those who find it a perplexing and sometimes treasonous mess of hurtful untruths. But a spokesman for the forces now preparing to make war on the superpower stressed that the amnesty decision was not designed to exploit some perceived political allegiance with the talented writers of the show, but simply reflects an abiding love of well-constructed television satire that does not insult the intelligence of the viewer.
June 16th 2006
The leaking of radioactive material at Sydney's Lucas Heights nuclear reactor earlier this week with the rupture of a pipe used in the manufacture of medical isotopes provided the media with a welcome case in point only days after Prime Minister John Howard announced the Government will inquire into the possible development of nuclear energy on the Australian continent. But the attempts of the anti-nuclear lobby to spin a nightmarish tale from the incident have proved fruitless, with the nuclear accident in actuality nothing more than a red herring. In fact, it has been revealed, the safe radioactive leak was quite safe and well within normal, safe levels, with no humans more than a mite exposed.
Nuclear experts like the good Dr George Collins from Lucas Heights and other well-researched fellows from the reassuring Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation have given assurances the health of workers at the medical nuclear facility has not been endangered with only very slight, very safe contamination affecting one technician, who was washed and later went home safe, whistling, and unconcerned and thinking 'ah, another pleasant day at the nuclear research facility'.
And while small amounts of xenon and krypton were released through the reactor's stack into the Sutherland Shire south of Sydney these emissions were not of a dangerous variety and were within safe levels, or at least were within the limit of permissible exceedences, which is much the same thing. ANSTO says the cause of the uninjurious accident is a mystery, but that the mystery does not entail dangerous possibilities. Although some fuel cells used to make cancer treatments have been shut down during an investigation of the incident, as already stated, everything is perfectly alright, and there is no real cause for concern.
Fresh reports that emerged last night of three additional incidents of contamination at the reactor, all occurring in the past week, are likewise of no concern for the public. Instead, the reports demonstrate just how normal and non-threatening insignificant leaks of radioactive material at safe levels can be, as well as the willingness of the scientists at the Lucas Heights medical research reactor to open their work up to public scrutiny. While two workers were contaminated in another benign leak at the reactor site yesterday, ANSTO has reiterated there is no more cause for concern now than when the initial leak was reported, which is no cause at all.
Despite the obvious and overwhelming rational, scientific evidence that nothing is wrong, the new reports have done nothing to quell the insane and public babbling of hysterical luddites still possessed of a kind of medieval horror of advanced and very stable benevolent modern nuclear technologies.Inevitably in the wake of the four tiny mishaps of the last seven days some of these indefatigable and overwrought humanists now claim to have identified a pattern of incompetence at Australia's only nuclear facility that might be expected to permeate any future nuclear energy industry on the continent, leading inevitably, of course, in their fragmented minds, to a terrifying and all-consuming nuclear holocaust of the sort presented in silly anti-scientific movies, and conjured up by irrational naysayers and under-informed technophobes in their desperate and foolhardy bid to stop technological progress dead in its tracks.
June 9th 2006
In a PR coup for the Coalition forces in Iraq, an air strike on a building on the outskirts of Baqouba, the provincial capital of Diyala, has reportedly killed al Qa'eda lieutenant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Several of al-Zarqawi's aides were killed in the sortie, including Sheik Abdul Rahman, the al Qa'eda leader's spiritual advisor. The discovery of women and children's clothing in the wreckage of the multi-storey building in the aftermath of the attack suggests carnage resulting from the Americans' 500-pound bombs was not limited to al Qa'eda militants.
Al-Zarqawi's opposite number in Iraq, the American military commander General Casey, said in a triumphal interview today that distinctive scars and biometric identifiers including fingerprints had allowed for the definite identification of the terrorist luminary in the hours following the deadly strike.
The killing of al-Zarqawi is a timely boon for the spin machines of the White House and the US military. Evidence has come to light in recent weeks of the massacre of scores of civilian men, women,and children by American soldiers engaged in brutal revenge attacks after the loss of their compatriots still under fire from the Iraqi resistance. But with news wires and the foreign pages of Western newspapers now exclusively committed to reports of the death of the militant Jordanian showpony, the atrocities committed by the personnel of the United States Marine Corps have temporarily disappeared from public view.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has joined in the chorus of voices crowing over the death of al-Zarqawi from a safe distance. 'Normally, I wouldn't express pleasure at the death of anybody' said the pouchy Antipodean politician, qualifying his unabashed delight at the rare success for Western troops better known for gunning down unarmed Iraqis and the torture and imprisonment of thousands of those who dare to mount a defence of their occupied country.
Certainly many in Iraq will be heartened at the news of the death of the cavalier militant al-Zarqawi, who is reputed for involvement in hundreds of bombings, shootings, and beheadings, and a careless disregard for the tangential deaths of civilians matched only by the forces of the Coalition.
But Downer has a partisan view of the ongoing conflict. For many watching the progress of the Western occupation of Iraq exactly the same sense of relief and satisfaction will be felt when the Australian, American, and British terrorists who have given orders resulting in the killing of tens of thousands of innocents in war-torn Iraq in recent years finally shuffle off the mortal coil.
June 1st 2006
At a time when many Australians are in any case switching off their televisions and downloading TV content from the net, the decision by SBS Television to increase the amount of advertising on its airwaves, and to introduce commercial breaks into programming for the first time, appears at best risky, at worst corrupt and salacious.
Perhaps SBS head and cheapsnout Sean Brown believes that such advertisements are value neutral - that they do not represent the conquest of media territory, or the cheapening of Australia's media landscape. For many SBS viewers, this is far from the truth. The slow degradation of Australia's second public broadcaster has been a disturbing phenomenon. But messages from powerful Western financial institutions, manufacturers, et cetera inserted between SBS programming from around the world have left a foul taste in the mouths of many who do not enjoy the assault.
Brown excuses SBS with the usual claims about the necessity of obtaining revenue from rapacious, inhuman corporate interests by selling airtime for the broadcasting of their repugnant messages. But he fails to acknowledge that it is precisely this willingness to cheapen the multicultural broadcaster that is reducing its social capital and continues to undermine its claim for public funds.
It may be anticipated by sleazy SBS execs already owned by the corporate West, and who cannot themselves understand the problem, that this decision from will have little or no impact on SBS ratings. But the ugly phenomenon of commercial propaganda between SBS programmes has already given newly contemptuous viewers a reason to turn off. SBS content, particularly its news and current affairs programmes, is currently vastly superior to anything else on Australian television, including that of the ABC. It has until recently provided many Australians revolted by commercial channels and irritated by the willingness of the ABC to kowtow to Government and establishmentarian interests with a national television network that truly represents their perspective.
But no longer. The next time SBS screens a documentary on the unfortunate conditions in which the inhabitants of the 'developing' world live, or runs a story critiquing the excesses of big business, the irony will be keenly felt by maddened viewers no longer able to escape the propaganda flowing from PR offices and the keyboards, pens, and tiny minds of corporate apologists and oily marketing hacks.
In response to the depressing news from SBS, we at the Irony Party of Australia are pre-emptively reprogramming our televisions to reduce the number of available stations from two to one. Stories from the network's flagship programme Dateline should not be missed but are available online. But we recognise this is an interim measure. The appointment of Government stooge and solicitous corporate floozy Mark Scott to the position of Managing Director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the country's primary public television network, will likely give us reason to ditch this outmoded and prostituted technology altogether.
May 30th 2006
With Australian troops now attempting to enforce a kind of crude security in the East Timorese capital Dili, the citizens of that troubled city have exchanged one mode of unpleasantness for another. Many citizens of East Timor were pleased by the arrival of 1300 gun-wielding grunts from the Australian Defence Force, at least according to the Australian Government and media. But dealing with an inane, brutish Australian soldier who is armed and in fear for his or her own life and limb is not always a walk in the park. Above all, the experience is one of humiliation. Communication is arduous at best when confronted by the best and brightest of the Australian Army, although its probably a good idea not to draw their attention to their shortcomings. Its important to remember for the sake of sanity that it's not in itself a crime to be smarter than your oppressors.
The intervention of an Australian-led multinational force in spiralling conflict in East Timor comes at the invitation of the respected Timorese Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta and from President and former rebel leader Janana Gusmao. It is expected the troops will be able to restore a semblance of peace in East Timor in the short-term. But the independent freedom-loving people of the world's newest nation are now enduring the attentions of 1300 officious ADF personnel trained in an atmosphere of cheerful victimisation, bigotry, and bastardry.
East Timorese people confronted by barbarian troops are urged to adopt a temporarily respectful and deferential pose in order to avoid overtly challenging the khaki-clad Aussie thugs. Above all, any attempt at intelligent dialogue with the occupying forces should be avoided, since brainwashed Australian military personnel are easily confused and liable to feel threatened by erudition or reason.
There is no real threat of random deadly violence from the Australian Defence Force personnel - the troops are in general well-controlled if stupid, and entirely lacking in independent initiative. Nonetheless, there is an everpresent threat of an extended pointless and humiliating exchange with these trained baboons. And Australian authorities are quick to incarcerate and prosecute those for whom they develop a disliking, resulting in a more protracted humiliation for the individual at the hands of the bureaucracy-crazy Westerners.
To avoid this unpleasantness, East Timorese citizens, like those of Iraq, and of the Solomon Islands, where Australan troops have also been deployed, are advised to hold their tongues and resist the temptation to taunt the bumbling over-dressed slow-thinking troops. Do not make eye contact. Speak slowly and in words of few syllables.
In Australia there are hopes in the long-term for a reform of Australian Defence Force culture, under a future and very different government. But for the short to medium term there seems no avenue of redress for Australians disappointed by the continued graduation of graceless, bullying, xenophobic arseholes from Australia's macho, low-brow, defence academies and training grounds.
(an example of one such confrontation with Australian troops in Dili was aired on the ABC's PM programme this evening. The transcript will be available within 24 hours, this link will be updated )
May 29th 2006
References in Bin Laden's latest message for his adherents to the West's mistreatment of Hamas following its election as the legitimate Government of the Palestinians indicate the recording was likely made this year, say US authorities. But some now suggest the frightening competence of the al Qa'eda leader, who, unlike the American administration, has proved immensely successful in the manipulation of geo-political affairs in recent years, could hint at an alternate explanation for the ongoing invisibility of the ruthless, elusive hero of millions. If Osama is not alive but dead in some little-publicised incident or accident of recent years, the world faces a still more difficult adversary - a strategic genius capable of minute posthumous manipulation of geopolitical affairs with devastating and deadly effect.
The release of a new audio recording this month from famous al Qa'eda leader and spoken word artist Osama bin Laden went unmentioned by US President George W Bush. Bush instead spent part of the day of the audio release addressing marines at a training base, insisting that neither he nor they had lost their nerve in their war against Iraqi dissidents and the assembled militia of the Arab world.
The Pentagon has already made public its belief that the tape is genuine - the speaker on the audio recording is the former construction philanthropist Osama bin Laden. The natural conclusion is that bin Laden remains alive in 2006, despite the best efforts of the CIA, the NSA, Marines, and assorted other American hopefuls to reduce the elusive hero of millions to to pink mist. Recent reports suggest bin Laden currently enjoys the hospitality of some of those good citizens of Pakistan's less cultivated northern regions, where the influence of the United States is undermined by the fear and loathing of the locals (see Pamphlet article Dangerous Gypsy Family Destroyed by Powerful US Military ) Many others now believe the Saudi millionaire to have taken up residence in Washington in order to manage US affairs more closely, after cleverly disguising himself as one or another senior American politico.
While the United States authorities declare that Bin Laden is alive, somewhere, and probably Pakistan, another possibility is under consideration. Naturally, the vast and resourceful US military has suffered embarrassment and chagrin at the failure of the world's most powerful military to find a single, tall, bearded man in robes on horseback with a rifle slung casually across one shoulder and a dialysis machine jostling with ammunition, a canteen, and a micro-cassette recorder in the saddle-bags. But some analysts now maintain this is the best rather than the worse case scenario, painting a picture of a nightmarish alternative horrible to contemplate.
Some of those in the commentariat now suggest tales of Bin Laden's survival put about by the public relations departments of US, British, and Australian governments in recent years mask a more frightening reality - the apparently limitless capacity of the Saudi-born political mastermind to orchestrate world events from beyond the grave.
When the twin World Trade Centre towers, a quintessential American symbol of capitalist power, were brought down in late 2001, a series of events were set in motion that have called into play all the enormous security resources of the West, foreign and domestic, and undermined the liberal foundations the Western democracies depend on for the maintenance of their tenuous claim to a high moral ground.
With two Middle East invasions the short-term response to the historic mainland America attacks of September 2001, the US military was quickly drawn out into the field. In addition to the initial impact on the American psyche, a slow and wearing global war of attrition on American interests is centred on theatres chosen by the US. Thousands of Coalition troops are dead in Iraq, and hundreds more have been killed by accident and misadventure in the wilds of Afghanistan.
The populations of invaded nations - Afghanistan and Iraq - have joined in the defence of their world from the onslaught of the West. They are also joined by many of those from other nations sympathetic to their threatened way of life, and fearing their homeland may be a future target for the brutal American military. For many of the new volunteers in this long-term global war there is no expectation of imminent success - perhaps their great-great-grandchildren will see a world without America. New threats - Iran's uranium enrichment programme, Pakistan's non-compliance with the will of the United States , the election of Hamas as a legitimate government continue to plague Pentagon strategists and White House hacks. Meanwhile old problems remain unresolved and costly.
The initial attack and a series of subsequent terrorist bombings - in London, Madrid, Istanbul and a score of other sites - have also had a powerful psychological effect on the West. Political perspectives in the East and West alike have been polarised. Totalitarian elements within the worlds 'liberal democracies' as well as governments of the Arab world are strengthened as a result. The politics of fear, taken up by the predictable, mediocre, corrupt Western governments has been pivotal in securing elections for incumbent powers, and has allowed for the tightening of control and monitoring of liberal democratic populations.
At infrequent intervals the al Qa'eda leader has released audio recordings that by their inclusion of details of unfolding events suggest bin Laden is alive somewhere, unscathed despite the attentions of the Superpowerful security and intelligence agencies of the US. Bin Laden lauded the success of the 2001 mission against New York and the Pentagon in his earliest spoken word releases. More recently he has apparently been au fait with the unfolding details the war in Iraq, with al Qa'eda claimed bombings in Madrid, Bali, and London, and even with the election of Hamas by the Palestinians.
Although it is generally assumed these recordings indicate bin Laden remains alive the alternate explanation is potentially more frightening, speaking as it does to the predictive power of the mastermind. Bin Laden, some say, did not survive the trouncing of the Tora Bora caves of Afghanistan, where many al Qa'eda artefacts were reportedly found and hundreds of militants killed in courageous US air strikes. But instructions left with trusted lieutenants of the nebulous global terrorist organisation, together with a bundle of audio tapes containing accurate descriptions of anticipated - and engineered - events allow Bin Laden to continue to direct the course of world events, effecting a far-reaching political stratagem that remains, for the moment, in an early phase of implementation.
As to what the end game might be under Bin Laden's posthumously effected scheme, global war between Islamic and Western civilisation is seen by many as a plausible worst case outcome arising from current geopolitical conditions. The suspicion that such a catastrophe is being successfully engineered - a nudge here, a nudge there - in accordance with a complex global strategy conceived by Bin Laden is unnerving. His confident prediction and ongoing manipulation of global affairs years after his possible death are more concerning still for the defenders of the West.
Meanwhile hopelessly naive, incompetent, and young Americans continue wandering about distant landscapes among incredulous and hostile local populations in ever widening concentric circles, conducting a survey-by-ordinance of sites where it is suspected the terrorist mastermind and his nefarious cronies might be hiding. It's an innovative and effective method of census-taking - ('EXPLOSION' 'Nope, nobody lives there. 'EXPLOSION' Nope, nobody lives there. 'EXPLOSION" Nope, nobody lives there) that has bin Laden and his Wahabi Allah chuckling and flashing grins at one another filled with amused contempt from an ethereal vantage point the weaponry of the Americans will never breach.
May 17th 2006
The trauma of the endless violence visited upon the people of Iraq in recent years has been exacerbated by a dysfunctional health system previously neglected during the reign of Saddam Hussein and further damaged by deprivations flowing from a decade of sanctions imposed upon the Iraqi population by the munificence of the international community. But despite the botched efforts of the Americans to make their new middle eastern territory a free market clone of their own cheerfully cut-throat society there are some signs of emerging measures for social accountability now being instituted in medical facilities. Salam Ismael, a founding member of the organisation Doctors for Iraq suggest that health professionals are now making new commitments to patients in their care, under the direction of concerned friends and relatives of unfortunate Iraqis who have suffered injury or fallen ill during the poorly conceived Western occupation of their country.
Mediascreens across the globe have displayed ample evidence of the carnage ongoing in Iraq's cities and towns three years after the invasion. Sectarian violence is now increasing, complementing both the inhumane works of the government's in-house death squads and the beatings, torture, and killings administered by the Coalition in their struggle to bring liberty to recalcitrant Iraqis. With basic medical facilities damaged, poorly staffed, or unsupplied with water and electricity, many of those who have survived manhandling, assault, or incarceration by Marines or become the targets of domestic militant organisations have subsequently suffered further as a result of inadequate care after their ordeal.
Now a new spirit of co-operation between doctor and patient could see this unsatisfactory situation reversed, at least in the short term, despite the unwelcome attentions of local authorities and the barbarian invader. Yesterday, Iraqi doctor Salam Ismael explained to Radio National's Eleanor Hall of the current affairs programme The World Today that a new hands on approach taken by friends and relatives of the sick and injured is inducing in doctors a rare degree of conscientious attention to detail. According to Ismael, more than 3000 doctors have left Iraq since the beginning of the occupation. Of those that remain, 61 senior physicians have been killed in conflict between the various interests engaged in the country.
But many doctors are still practising. And, as Ismael, says, in the absence of a functional universal health care system, the good works of medicos are in many cases now commissioned directly by associates of the injured:
Salam Ismael: The militias are also playing the ruler. We are in Iraq as Iraqi doctors and union, building a union. We made a big strike before about almost one month, because we said we cannot continue because militias, people with black coloured clothes entering the hospitals with guns and threatening doctors to make operations under the threatening of pistols.
Eleanor Hall: So doctors have had to perform operations at gunpoint?
Salam Ismael: Yeah, exactly. And one of them, after the Samara bombing, he put the gun in the head of one of the doctors, his surgeon, he said to him, "if my patient will die he will die after him". This is how our doctors are performing at the moment.
The anomalous situation that exists to this day in Western countries regarding the less than perfect efficacy of health care systems and the scant sense of responsibility felt by doctors towards their patients was noted by Romanian playwright Eugene Ionesco in the middle of the last century. Ionesco's creation Mrs Smith from The Bald Prima Donna points out that while ship captains are renowned for their willingness to go down with the vessel in the event of catastrophe, doctors are rarely, if ever, prepared to die with their patients should their ministrations prove unsuccessful.
Once voiced, this discrepancy points to a clear failing of the Western health tradition. In Western-style hospitals around the world millions of patients die every year, while the doctors charged with keeping them in good health live on in relative luxury among the families of the deceased and apparently sleep well at night.
The success of the rigorous community-based health care incentivisation programme for doctors is unfortunately not supported by the Coalition that controls Iraq. However, the tradition of issuing beatings to medical professionals begun in the time of Saddam has been taken up and continued as a matter of course by the new Iraqi authorities and the foreign American forces:
'Doctors also needed in the country because of the breaches of medical neutrality on their own rights. I mean by their own rights, by coalition forces and also by Iraqi police and army, because they are entering the hospitals, beating doctors, and then after that they are leaving.
Ironically the situation is made more complicated still for physicians by the real threat of being tried and gaoled for co-operation with the gun-wielding lay enthusiasts responsible for retaliating against the occupation forces and promoting improved health care at home. Few Iraqi physicians, however, are amused by the irony of having to have militant friends come to work with them in order to coerce colleagues into treating them for injuries gained at the hands of Coalition interrogators during questioning about the provision of medical treatment to terrorists:
Salam Ismael: And that is because of this humiliation, and we have a lot of doctors inside the prison for almost one year because they're accusing them they are treating insurgents. Well, this is medical ethics that we are speaking about.
Despite the new health promotion measures and many anecdotal reports of excellent recoveries as a result of the high ethical standards medics rediscover in themselves when operating under the near attention of trained gunmen, Dr Ismael seems pessimistic about the future of Iraq's medical services. The radical measures adopted by those armed and interested in ensuring the greatest likelihood of positive health outcomes could prove at best a short-term solution, since the exodus of medicos will continue even while remaining colleagues work on in desperate empathy with the citizens in their care.
May 10th 2006
Some enraged extremists continue to put the case (on lurid web pages and at the tops of their voices though home alone) for an indiscriminate scorched earth policy for all fifty States of the Union when the war just now begun between the United States and her adversaries again crosses the sea and is taken up in earnest on the North American continent. But a more measured approach is in evidence from the elusive leaders of many of the vast and varied anti-American armies, even where substantial efforts are well advanced in preparation for the difficult conflagration ahead.
Now, in an unusual move from fanatical opponents of American power, a concession to humanity, levity , and wit has been offered publicly by the powers now ranged against the United States. In an audio recording made available yesterday to rss feed readers and on internet browsers around the globe, the collective leadership of the dire and determined American foe has issued an edict online promising amnesty and free passage to the host and writers of the popular spoof news TV programme the Daily Show in the event of coming large-scale war in an American theatre.
During the few centuries of its rise to global ascendancy the United States has been slowly and surely accumulating adversaries with an unperturbed air of brash confidence. The arrival of the Black Ships in a Japanese Harbour a century and a half ago was a significant turning point and an ominous portent - it was at this time that the Americans began to demonstrate a prudent disinterest in making war on those similarly resourced, in favour of intervention in the affairs of far less powerful peoples.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the old world order of the Twentieth Century, this process has quickened considerably. Recent interventions in the Middle East have exacerbated rather than alleviated lingering resentment towards the West born of old injustices. Latin Americans, Filippinos, Hawaiians the Japanese, Vietnamese, and Cambodians, to name a few, are suspiciously quiet, US agencies report, on the possibility they might still have some anachronistic grudge to bear. The approach of White House and Pentagon can be formulated in as 'Fuck it. Whenever it happens, we'll take 'em all on.' This bravado, apparently shared in large part by the population of the United States, has the obvious shortcoming of failing to take into account examples such as Rome and Byzantium two long dead civilisations in which substantial back-pedalling, together with stupendous bribes and reparations paid to 'barbarians' in the later centuries of the life of the empire failed to avert the thorough sacking of the greatest cities of these imperial notables at the conclusion of their respective (and interwoven) histories.
But beyond the reaches of the West neither ancient political grievances nor the looming conflict, have detracted from appreciation of the near-universal phenomena of irony and satire - the subversive uses of language - the death of these genres would represent the ultimate symbolic victory for a hegemonic power. And continuing respect for the rare contrary genius , however unlikely its point of origin, has been demonstrated with the special consideration now offered to the now recognised world-wide as the single redeeming feature of US culture, the Comedy Central-produced satirical current affairs programme, Daily Show.
Daily Show host Jon Stewart regularly delivers a searing deadpan commentary in the style of a traditional Western news bulletin, assisted by implausibly talented writers that effortlessly confound the generally reliable maxims concerning irony and North Americans. The programme was screened on Australia's SBS network, but for unknown reasons is seen no more in the Antipodes, to the detriment of satire-starved inhabitants of that US tributary.
Today's audio message has been interpreted by some as an attempt to drive a wedge between those in the United States who are amused and entertained by the Daily Show, and those who find it a perplexing and sometimes treasonous mess of hurtful untruths. But a spokesman for the forces now preparing to make war on the superpower stressed that the amnesty decision was not designed to exploit some perceived political allegiance with the talented writers of the show, but simply reflects an abiding love of well-constructed television satire that does not insult the intelligence of the viewer.
May 3rd 2006
Three years ago when interest rate increases last threatened Australian lifestyles, the Government warned Reserve Bank Governor Ian Macfarlane to stop it if he valued his cojones since there was an election not far off and Macfarlane did. In May 2006 the Reserve Bank has again increased official interest rates, and is again the subject of attack. Except for the resignation of John Anderson, neither the spokesmouths or the issues have altered in the intermediary period. Simon Tennant, for example, is still a cheap trollope working for the Housing Industry. This article, originally published at the Irony Party of Australia's Electronic Pamphlet in December 2003, remains exactly as relevant today:
full story
April 25th 2006
Some Australian intellectuals and unconventionals are nervous nowadays of what the future might hold for the Antipodean continent. Where assets allow they are arranging for passports from other countries obtainable through dual-citizenship arrangements, and reluctantly making ready for a rapid departure when things become too dangerous at home. Today, though, on ANZAC Day, a national public holiday that is held to remember those who have fallen in Australia's wars, the focus of authorities and the mob was not on the unAustralian, but the most Australian - those heroes prepared to give their lives (though not in a terrorist, suicide bombing sort of way) for the good of Prime Minister and Country.
Two-thousand-and-six was the first year that none of those who participated in the unfortunate and ill-fated Gallipoli campaign of the First World War were sufficiently corporeal to attend the events in person .But around Australia there was record attendance at marches held to remember Australia's wars and those that fought in them to such distinction. Despite heated debate about whether it was appropriate for family members to march with photographs of their fallen fathers, brothers, or more distant ancestors, proud Australians brought photographs and marched anyway. In towns large and small across the continent military bands struck up profoundy unsynchopated rhythms and walked along picturesque Autumn-littered routes. The hint of a glorious future could be sensed in excited faces as a militaristic fervour gripped the nation. Television networks screened touching personal stories of heroism in European trenches, and black and white movies that recall the nostalgia-inducing patriotic devotion of Australians of previous generations to the noble, aspirational ideas, movements and institutions that tower over the capacities or achievements of any individual - Monarchy, State, and Nation.
On ANZAC day in the twenty-first century, the brutal realities, grim ironies, and unpleasant inconveniences involved in prosecuting war are set aside for a time, in order that the mythic component of the near-sacred event might be celebrated more completely - unspoiled by the taint of empty, endless, post-modern reinterpretation, and the carping of nihilistic elites now boarded up in the garretts and old halls of Academia. In these times the naysayers know they should take care - that there are powerful sentiments awakened in the hearts and minds of the Australian population that will brook no carping opposition from the desperate adherents of lunatic philosophies that degrade Australian life and character and run counter to all common sense.
Today there are no awkward references to the irony of being welcomed in Turkey by the Turks to celebrate our failed invasion of their country, to the expedient killing of surrendered Japanese soldiers on the Kokoda Trail, or of reliable reports of Australian soldiers of the day picking through bones on the battlefields of the Pacific for gold from the teeth of their dead adversaries. Today, on ANZAC day there is no mention heard - from those who are invited to speak - of Australian brutalities, Australian violence, Australian destruction of life and culture in far-flung lands, although our victimisation by the nefarious Japs, the evil Nazis, and the pesky North Vietnamese receives fair coverage.
Although the ANZAC tradition has been shaken by the withdrawal of New Zealand from the great historical journey that is the global Anglo-American Empire and the tri-nation alliance with Australia and the US, for true Australians this is the proper moment for the commemoration of those battles in which our young men and lately women have fought for King, Queen, Country, Empire, Democracy and Freedom, or where they are currently enduring the rigours of a guerilla war - in Afghanistan and Iraq - in order that the benevolent Coalition of invaders of these countries might procure the energy to keep the bright beacon of free, democratic advanced, high-end Western civilisation burning.
Only a few months after the nation-building, high-spirited gatherings in Cronulla that won world attention for Australia last December, and weeks after the intoxicating highs of the Commonwealth Games, during which beautifully proportioned, bronzed and sculpted Australian athletes paraded like Supermen under the bright lights of Australian stadia, and each medal was feted and gloated over in corporate offices, pubs, and homes around the country, ANZAC day has provided a new high point for the blossoming Australian patriotism now sweeping the nation forward.
The ongoing conflict in the Arab world, in which Australia has so self-lessly become involved in accordance with principle and at the behest of our ally the United States, is one reason for the newfound interest in all things war-related in Australia. The threat of terrorism has also united many Australians behind the flag and collective identity - a comforting blanket of xenophobic paranoia has fallen across the nation. The increasingly familiar paraphernalia of the military as a part of the everyday apparatus of State security and control now provides many with The Australian Defence Force has stepped up recruiting measures after a long decline in personnel numbers, and has spent many millions of dollars in the attempt to make the finest of professions more attractive to a generation of young people made soft by creature comforts and a dangerously pacific education.
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But these are only minor contributing factors to the swelling pride in the Australian heart at the dawn of this new century. Much of the praise for the uniting of Australians under a single triumphal banner must be directed towards our great Prime Minister, the near-heighted, farsighted John Howard, whose dedication to the nation as Australia's first citizen is unsurpassed.
The Prime Minister, who enjoys historically unequalled power on the Australian continent after a decade in office and a habit of disdaining traditional limits on executive power, is habitually and frequently in attendance whenever stirring, patriotic events are staged at the National War Memorial in Canberra, a sombre sacred site for Antipodean nationalists. And by a happy coincidence, the capacity of the War Memorial to host the Prime Minister at such events has been significantly enhanced due to generous increases in funding in recent years.
During the Melbourne Commonwealth Games, at which Australia's striving for physical perfection in sport was celebrated with a plethora of medals won by gazelle-like youths and heavily muscled that manifest in their through determination and physical prowess the a singular brilliance and passion of Australians mirrored in the efforts of our soldiers in the pursuit of the death and defeat of those elsewhere in the world foolhardy enough to offer up a challenge. And the National War Memorial, swimming in the munificence of a patriotic Federal Government, responded magnificently with a superb exhibition of memorabilia and creative work concerning the confluence of sport and war in society, drawing out the classical associations between war and sport in societies tending towards high militarism, the certainty and clarity of authoritarian leadership, a naturally competitive, though expansive, attitude towards neighbouring nations and those further afield, and many other familiar tenets of contemporary Fascism.
Howard's devotion to the symbolic commemoration of Australia's military engagements and the promotion of the honourable culture of National Defence is matched with a desire to reinstate more generally in the Australian populace a kind of civic pride that can only be constructive in the development of a powerful nation with great potential that has barely begun to climb through the ranks of world powers to prominence. A small army of lackeys, minions and toadies to the Prime Minister have been assigned to a nation-wide campaign that plans the full restoration of the love of nation, State, and Government to a grateful Australian public for too long beset with a dangerous cynicism towards the aspirations of their leaders and champions.
Those in Government, such as Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, another staunch all-Australian who without a doubt would be the first to place his own life and lean, laconic, muscular frame on the line in order to protect Australia and the Australian way of life, are as one with their Leader in the pursuit of a new Australian spirit. Downer is one of a procession of Ministers who have travelled to Gallipoli in Turkey in recent years to attend ANZAC Day services at the site of the massacre of thousands of heroic, elite young Australians during the First World War. Moved by the ceremony, Downer addressed the press at the time, drawing a parallel between the efforts of the Diggers on the bloody beaches of Turkey and those of the twenty-first century soldier engaged in the war against Terrorism, linking the modern era with a time fast becoming legend for an Australian population increasingly appreciative of the sacrifices of those fighting in foreign theatres of war for the best and most noble of global, human causes. (see Irony Party article Oceania Has Always Been At War With The Terrorists )
The Australian patriots who now stand ready to defend the country against material attack by terrorists and those that hate freedom are augmented by the ranks of those noble souls working tirelessly to protect her symbolic and historical legacy. One such scholar is the well-looked-after conservative young historian and former Liberal Party staffer Stephen Barton came forward on the Lateline programme on ABC Television to defend Australia's role as a part of the benevolent Western imperium that has introduced into the world a new hope - a Pax Americana , which, once all evil adversaries are vanquished, will mean peace, security, and a munificent American presence in every corner of the world. In this context, it can clearly be seen that, for example, the small, local exchange of fire with the Japanese in New Guinea during World War II was hardly a 'battle that saved Australia', as some have claimed, but instead an engagement of many casualties but very little moment, given that the Japanese had not even drawn up invasion plans for Australian mainland. Now, though, history has been corrected, with new research indicating Australia's importance was in shoring up the strength of the Allied armies in the two wars against those difficult European nations that throughout the twentieth century threatened the smooth transition of imperial power from Britain to the United States by way of lucrative wartime commerce.
As another ANZAC day draws to a close, patriots are proud to bear witness to a shift in the national psyche - the old laconic Australian character, disdainful of power, State, and authority, profoundly unmoved by the eidectic rhetoric of ceremony and pomp, is giving way to a new iteration of Antipodean identity. And this brave, new citizen of the respected nation of Australia - a nationalist, a globalist, and a keen adherent of flag and nation heralds a new global destiny for the former colony of an old imperial power. The potential for carefully cultivated future generations is limitless, as long as this youthful nation stays the course. Those crafting future generations of Australian have in mind a particular, noble cast - an ancient mould - they will be like the Illyrian warriors that guarded the Emperors of Rome, building a reputation as fearsome, powerful Praetorians, before the opportunity arose to make one of their own - the capable if inelegant Severus - the ruler of that Ancient civilisation.
In far-flung parts of the world such as unsuspecting European countries, concerned with their own affairs, there are few suspicions of the belligerent, uncompromising, and proud new sentiment at large in the Antipodes, stoked by politicians, the new breed of copycat neo-cons pushing out the old guard in Australian universities and a compliant corporate media. In a part of the world in which totalitarian, highly-militarised societies are still frowned upon after a series of grandiose and ideologically inspired wars significantly reduced the continent in the first half of the last century and conceded global supremacy to the United States, it is naively assumed the moratorium on expansionist, outward-looking, bellicose nation-states still holds.
.But closer to home, as Australian troops attempt the installation of another West-friendly resource-happy stooge in The Solomons, Australian police officers are deployed to provide law and order in PNG, and prison camps are developed on Nauru for the housing of refugees there is at least some evidence Indonesian strategists are becoming more wary as to the intentions of their most powerful Pacific neighbour.
Within Australia itself, though, the blood is up and the mood runs high. The Government and its capable institutions have emerged from a post-colonial malaise with a new, clear sense of direction. Prime Minister John Howard, through his long period in office, has shown himself willing to take difficult decisions, to commit Australians to battle half-way around the world, to build camps offshore to house the desperate people who reach our shores illegally, to cut off the welfare paid to the least useful in society if they are recalcitrant in contributing to the life of the nation. It seems at last a significant new dawn, the end of a long night of the Australian soul, in which uncertain custodians of the nation's future doubted the ability and right of Australians to defend Australian global and future interests by taking a significant role on the world stage in the maintenance of the power of our great and benevolent allies.
Reforms in evidence around Australia have already begun to transform the nation. The borders are now protected as never before. Police and security forces are empowered beyond all previous measures to guard the populace from themselves, and from ever-present external threats. No longer are the youth of the country allowed to waste their time in the idle pursuit of waves, the vagaries and varieties of chemical intoxication, and largely unproductive sexual gratification from one another. And the ceremonies by which we celebrate our country and remember those who have fought and/or died defending her honour have become central to national life, binding the powerful historical symbols of past and the great as yet only imagined future of the Australian continent into a unified narrative now sung into the heart of every citizen from the earliest years of schooling.
Meanwhile, only a frightened few thousand of the old Trotskyite school of Australian ingrates, harlots, dissidents and radicals remain, still publishing dire warnings online for noone to read, quoting the cheesy icons of their failed heterodox tradition and reiterating in endless crude variation Orwell's groundless, fatuous, but contagious fear of a population trapped and controlled by self-serving ideological fundamentalists in a society 'in which the leader of some ruling clique controls the future as well as the past.'
April 24th 2006
A soldier described as an 'elite sniper' of the Australian Defence Force has died after he was accidentally self-sniped while cleaning his weapon in Baghdad yesterday, according to reports in the mainstream media in Australia. The loss of the expert, capable soldier, who died in hospital not long after accurately shooting himself at close range, has been lamented by the Prime Minister and others. The crack sniper will be sorely missed, and the tragedy is felt by all Australians, at least according to a superficial interpretation of appropriate noises made on radio by figures of significance this morning. Amazingly, the introverted sniper is Australia's first casualty in Iraq, despite three years' operation in the country alongside famously trigger happy, inaccurate, murderous and de-brained United States marines.
Snipers have commanded a special reputation in wars in recent decades, feted by generals, presidents and the public, despite their habit of concealing themselves a good distance from the conflict and picking off adversaries without exposing themselves to danger, before finally quickly running away as soon as their position is revealed by a shot.
In the wilds of post-invasion Iraq, the reputation of the Mujehadin sniper Juba has gained legendary proportion (see Irony Party article Cheney Outgunned by Iraqi Quail Hunter). Children in Baghdad idolise the figure thought responsible for the deaths of as many as 100 marines. Although Juba may be a mythic, fictional character, his presence looms large in the ongoing conflict between Iraqis and the foreign invader.
In the United States, meanwhile, the recent spate of foreign engagements has seen the revitalisation of the Support-A-Sniper programme, which allows those who support Americas various and sundry military operations around the globe but cannot fight themselves to contribute money and send messages of support to the heroic figures defending their interests overseas.
The American Snipers website, which bears the prominent slogan 'An organization structured to helping those that are on the front lines of safeguarding our freedoms', is one channel for such assistance and overt glorification.
One particularly touching page of American Snipers dot org concerns a young boy - a 10-year-old all-American patriot - who has emptied piggy banks and contributed his entire savings to his favourite defender of his liberty.
But the tragic incident in Baghdad leading to the unfortunate death of an Australian soldier presents a conundrum for fans of snipery and those that practise the sniping arts. Small children and grown men attentive to the status and lifestyles of celebrity snipers in Iraq are now confused and conflicted as to whether to applaud the crack sniper's excellent shooting or lament his sudden, unexpected fatal wounding a moment later.
April 22nd 2006
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has unveiled early evidence of success in a revived uranium enrichment programme that some critics say reflects an intention to acquire to develop nuclear weaponry. Speaking after the President's announcement this week, Iran's Atomic Energy Agency chief Gholamreza Aghazadeh gave details: enrichment of 3.5 percent had been achieved, a degree consistent with the production of fuel and far short of the the 80 percent level needed to produce a nuclear weapon. But in announcing the advance the Iranian President was too polite to draw attention directly to the details of the glaring hypocrisy of the West on issues of nuclear technology and weaponry.
Since Iran openly announced its intention to resume the pursuit of workable nuclear energy, a torrent of criticism has been heard from Europe and the United States, where political leaders are appalled at Iranian insouciance.
First International Atomic Energy Agency seals on Iran's nuclear facilities were broken early this year, as the country announced its intention to pursue a peaceful energy programme. Then Iran reacted with the same arrogant transparency to United Nations Security Council demands that it cease nuclear technology research, stating clearly that its nuclear programme would continue in spite of the condemnation of America and friends.
Last week the cold warnings from nefarious alien presence US Secretary of State Condoleeeezaa, furrowed brows and endless prattling from European diplomats were trumped by a carefully placed Washington Post story hinted the Pentagon was already planning an attack on Iran's uranium enrichment and related facilities, possibly with a highly ironic tactical nuclear strike. A corroborating report from Britain told of high-level Government meetings there at which the effects of an expected nuclear strike on Iran would be assessed over tea.
But the Iranian President has of late been restrained in his comments, brushing off the threat of American atomic power and displaying a contained reluctance to refer the vulgar ironies inherent in the West's condemnation of Iran. This week Ahmadinejad has largely ignored the daily outbursts of amusing double-speak on Iran's uranium programme from the chagrined representatives of foreign powers who have been for half a century reliant upon nuclear arsenals for the maintenance of clear military supremacy.
Instead, speaking before a small sea of cameras, and framed by an ironic banner bearing the image of doves flying around the Iranian flag, Ahmadinejad focused on the recent work of the country's researchers and technicians in advancing the peaceful work of providing nuclear energy to the citizenry. Although candid on his own country's technological progress and nuclear policy Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad is too polite and in too good a mood to raise difficult questions about the legitimacy of Western perspectives, or make potentially awkward references to difficult topics such as megadeath in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 30,000-odd warheads currently maintained by the United States, plans next-gen tactical battlefield nukes, the frequent use of reduced uranium in Western arsenals, or Israel's 'secret' nuclear missile programme.
As a small concession to international audiences and with reference to both of the faces of the West a banner displayed at the media conference declared in English and to the irritation of those loyalists of Christendom who caught the subtle innuendo: 'Nuclear energy is Iran's certain right.'
The United States has responded to the news of Iran's technological achievement with its customary flexibility, delicate parlance, and diplomatic grace. Frightening rhetoric from Republican Senators and plump besuited White House spokesmouths concerning the metaphorical 'table' of which the Americans appear so fond (and the various options that might be either left on or removed from this figurative furniture) masks an essential demand for Iran's acquiescence and absolute submission to the will of the West.
The gulf between public perspectives on the issue and the official positions of 'elected representatives' is apparently unbridgeable, to the frustration of the humans. The average citizen understands that Iran's infraction, as far as the United States is concerned, relates not so much to the prevention of nuclear war as to America's policies regarding limiting the military strength of her foes. But in public, political agents of the ailing superpower and its tributaries downplay the obvious: already alarmed about China's military strength,the US is desperately interested, where possible, in preventing any other adversary even from approaching a position in which a serious challenge might be issued to American strength. (And in this instance the term adversary can be defined as anyone approaching a positions of serious challenge).
The Australian Government and Federal Opposition has, naturally, enjoined with the chorus of strongly-worded condemnation of Iran's plans for the local provision of electrical power and/or shoring up its own strategic position in the face of the clumsy, aggresseev advances of foreign powers.
'Australia is extremely concerned about Iran's nuclear activities. Iran has a record of concealment over nearly two decades and our concerns are compounded by Iran's determined pursuit of uranium enrichment without convincing justification. Uranium enrichment is a key technology for producing nuclear fuel but also nuclear weapons.'
Alexander Downer, media release at DFAT site
But the Australian contingent of yes-men for bellicose American masters has been distracted somewhat in recent weeks. Comment on the Iranian issue has been limited by an ongoing half-baked inquiry into Government involvement with the payment of bribes to Saddam's pre-war Iraq, a spat with Indonesia over its long-term occupation of West Papua, and by the important developments in Australia's own blossoming, or mushrooming, uranium industry brought about by high demand overseas.
It is time, the public has been confidently advised by Ministers, back-benchers, CSIRO scientists, academics, lobbyists, former Prime Ministers, and myriad public relations tools, to review Australia's own nuclear programme, to consider trading more freely with other nations, increasing the local capability for mining and processing Australia's large stash of uranium and dealing with waste, an industry that could remain profitable for many millennia.
To this happy end, it is a pleasant coincidence that the Chinese and Indian governments, to name just two, have recently approached Australia with requests for the export of consignments of large amounts of the fuel. Prime Minister John Howard last month agreed to export considerable quantities of uranium to China. A decision on a similar deal with India is anticipated in the near future.
On the environmental front there has also been exciting new revisions of reality: it is now understood only nuclear energy can avert greenhouse disaster and save the world from drowning in coming decades as the long-suffering glaciers melt. Given (barring melt-down) the clean, green reputation atomic power has successfully acquired, many former opponents of the industry are now fanatical supporters of the atom-splitting technology, which is, according to many recent media releases, almost entirely safe for periods of hundreds of thousands of years, something our great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren will be pleased to learn in due course.
Oddly, the streets are not yet filled with placard demonstrators waving hopeful for general broadening of Australia's contribution to the nuclear energy industry globally. But helpful industry representatives are explaining to small rooms filled with obese men all around the country why Australia should sprout more uranium mines, production facilities that will enable uranium enrichment, storage facilities for waste that take advantage of relatively stable geography, in addition to the manufacture of uranium sunglasses, umbrellas, deck-cladding and uranium-and-raisin flavoured icecream.
The uranium fetish in Australia has not, however, translated into warm approval of Iran's nuclear programme successes, a peculiar point of interest that might under some circumstances be interpreted as something of a bemusing double-standard.
Google Oracle
As tensions rise between Tehran and Western governments concerned by the resumption of the Iranian nuclear programme, it is difficult to see a clear way ahead. The Oracles of the ancient world have long been silent, and in any case the compounded and competing hubris of powerful humans on all sides suggests the Gods are no longer actively policing the aspirations of mortals. But there are some reliable indicators of the future available to modern soothsayers. Yesterday, the 'Ads by Google' service unavoidable on Google's main site displayed an incongruous but prophetic collection of references when search terms on Iran's enrichment programme were entered into the search engine:
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Presidential Remarks
While Ahmadinejad this week exercised rhetorical restraint, on previous occasions he has been more forthright and eloquent on matters pertaining to the West's containment of un-compliant states. In January 2006, at an extended media conference, Ahmadinejad was pleased to take questions on the current geopolitical clime, and spoke at length on issues of peace and armament as well as human rights. The following quotes are drawn from the January 14 event:
'Any Iranian anywhere in the world is Iranian and government has the duty to defend his or her rights.'
'We call for expansion of fair and peaceful relations with all countries, especially the regional states. ... We assess the extent of certain governments' sincerity towards human rights, laws regarding rights of human beings and freedom of thought.'
''How do you justify this logic of having a full arsenal of nuclear weapons, but when it comes to nations such as ours, you do not even allow research? This logic cannot rule the world today. Even if the Security Council gets involved in this subject, it will not help solve the equation.'
'Our foreign policy is based on justice; we neither commit injustice against anybody nor will surrender to any injustice; we defend human dignity and have in the same vein announced our readiness to engage in academic dialogue.'
'Iran asks the UN nuclear agency to install its cameras on nuclear sites of the Western states which have embarked on propaganda campaign against Iranian nuclear program. We know they will not allow the UN nuclear agency to do so. They don't believe in international conventions. The world public opinion knows that they are making mockery of themselves.'
Our foreign policy is based on justice; we neither commit injustice against anybody nor will surrender to any injustice; we defend human dignity and have in the same vein announced our readiness to engage in academic dialogue ... We said that we welcome academicians in debates on discuss human rights principles and fundamentals; and (we are ready for) the both sides sending delegations to prepare reports on the issue; and this is a fair proposal. ...
'We are ready to assign groups to your countries to prepare and publish reports on secret prison cells, on tortures in jails, on discriminations, on how you run your elections, on the conditions of religious minorities, on the decisions made in support of terrorists at the international level, on the parliamentary system, on the judiciary system and on the administrative system; and you too can do the same. We (propose to) go to prepare and publish reports on the relationship your governments have with your people; you are also advised to come to prepare and publish reports. This will prove the successful path: if it is observed by all governments, then a general monitoring will be made on the observation of human rights and the human rights issue will no longer serve as a 'baton' and a lever of pressure.'
'There is no privilege for countries which have nuclear bombs except that the weapons only serve to tarnish their image.'
'I ask under what pretext does the Qods-occupying regime, have 200 warheads? What power does it have when its very foundations are shaken by just one question? We asked a question and they [Israel] begin to become insecure. Thought, ideology and wisdom are getting to rule the world; Those investing in nuclear weapons are irrationally depleting the assets of their peoples.'
'How many countries should demonstrate their power to achieve global tranquility? Our path is clear; we are for dialogue, logic and law and do not wish to escalate tension; however, we certainly do know how to defend our interests.'
"If sustainable peace and tranquility is to be secured in the world, this will not be materialized unless it is based upon `justice' and `spirituality'. "A peace imposed through swords as well as nuclear, chemical and biological weapons will last long. A peace based upon looting, discriminatory decisions and unjust progress does not make sense.'
'A number of arrogant individuals, who get tranquilized only by exploiting and dominating nations, are at the helm of power ... today, humanity is dominated by the rulers who want to provide security for their own people by imposing war on other nations.'
'Those who think they can provide tranquility by imposing war, insecurity and violence on other nations are mistaken, added the president. We have said that we favor for peace, calm and human dignity for all and want to live in peace with the rest of the world on an equal basis.'
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, January 14th media conference
April 16th 2006
The bungled, illegal, malingering war on Iraq is now an increasing liability for Republicans in upcoming Congressional and presidential elections in the United States, and pressure has been growing on President George W Bush from all sides to retire US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, who many consider largely responsible for the deadly mess and an embarrassment to a generally incompetent Adminstration. Today the President finally acquiesced, and after Donald Rumsfeld's reluctant resignation this morning, Bush wasted no time in making a public announcement as to the unfortunate war-monger's replacement.
It's clear the American political establishment expects a significant departure from the policies and approach of Donald Rumsfeld, a bullying, whimsical, inhumanitarian, and many believe the new Defence Secretary certainly represents a new direction for the Bush Administration. But now George Bush the Younger, who has met with overwhelming opposition on previous appointments, could face an uphill battle defending the risky appointment to a senior administrative position of the relatively unknown fictional children's book character, tiny insect Alistair Spottybug.
full story
April 12th 2006
There's a lot of fanciful criticism of the cool, delicious, beverage Coca-Cola.
Studies indicate Coca-Cola is a harmless carbonated beverage enjoyed daily by hundreds of millions of humans around the planet. It could be suggested the global reach of the delightful fizzy drink is testimony to its excellent quality and competitive price relative to other carbonated refreshments. But for many, the drink is instead a symbol of all things nefarious and fucked up about the world - a poisonous, gut-rending concoction inimicable to the human physiology and an ever-present, inescapable reminder of a conquered and still-colonised world.
In recent years, the assault on the multinational corporation Coca Cola-Amatil from anarchic counter-cultural fanatics has intensified. A convenient straw man has been concocted by a vicious anti-corporate movement intent on tearing down the proudest bastions of Western tradition, and carelessly treading the good name of the West and its cluster of wealthy enlightened liberal capitalist neo-democratic societies into the global mud.
Of course, the truth is, it's all very easy to take a huge, benevolent corporation like CocaCola-Amatil to task for its use of cheap third-world labour, short-cuts on environmental regulations prevailing in former colonial back-waters, the necessary commandeering and dominance of water supplies in the vicinity of its massive production plants, or for the global drive to replace water with diabetes-inducing sugar-filled carbonated beverages as the preferred drink of choice for the world's population from cradle to grave.
However, what many thoughtless naysayers fail to recognise that their careless (and sometimes defamatory) criticisms, while accurate in a technical linguistic or sociological sense, do not take account of the larger picture. In fact, Coca Cola begrudgingly has little option in a few isolated instances but to compromise its highest standards in the short term. And while detractors would argue greed is the primary motivation for the compromises that sometimes results in awkward home and work situations for employees in less well off countries, in fact the opposite is far nearer to the truth.
PLACHIMADA
Despite bringing employment and industry to many poorer regions of the world Coca Cola is now under increasing threat from an intransigent and ungrateful third world population. The situation faced at Coca-Cola's single largest bottling plant in India - in Plachimada, Kerala is a case in point.
On January 15th in 2005 about a thousand demonstrators beset the plant some months after community protest suspended Coca Cola's operations there. Community advocates complained Coca Cola was guilty of creating severe water shortages in the region as a direct result of its practice of pumping groundwater to manufacture supply for the Southeast Asian region. In the Kerala region, it was claimed, Coke has already lowered the water table in the area to the extent that farmers can no longer access water. Bores have run dry.
Coca-Cola's Indian operations have already come under scrutiny after it was discovered last year that Indian farmers were spraying crops with Coke, since the fizzy refreshment was considered effective as a pesticide. Coca Cola has recorded great loses recently after it was revealed in the media that its local product contained enough Monsanto poison that the drink itself could be used as a pesticide.
This difficult public relations issue has been compounded by the international spotlight brought to bear on Plachimada by irritatingly effective Indian environmental campaigners who say Coke's disregard for the people of Kerala has been exacerbated with the polluting of diminished local water-ways with the unpleasant sludge that is the bi-product of Coke production. Local authorities everywhere are prone to losing their pliability when world attention is on them. In October 2005 a Kerala court ruled Coke could not re-open the Plachimada plant due to flagrant exceedences of toxic emissions limits. Late in January of this year, with the demonstrators still camped outside the manufacturing facility, Coca Cola agreed that it would cease operations there if they did not have the community's support.
A petulant spokesman says the company can little afford further bad press.He threatened Coca-Cola may simply ignore India in future unless it is better treated by regulators and local judicial upstarts.
The threat well suits environmentalists, who would be happy to see Coca-Cola executives forced to eat the materials from dismantled manufacturing and bottling plants from all around the world, before being blind-folded, made to kneel, and shot. "We will make it increasingly difficult for Coca-Cola to do business in the US and EU, as well as in emerging markets, such as Brazil, until it cleans up its act in India," said Amit Srivastava of the India Resource Center, a bi-national (US-India) group that campaigns internationally to hold Coca-Cola accountable.
ENLIVENING
It's so easy to forget. For we elites in Australia and a few other lucky countries it is hard to conceive of a time or place where the enlivening brown beverage Coke is not available. Whether we are at home, at work, shopping, or socialising, Coca Cola is available almost anywhere, within, say, five minutes. According to an anecdotal report, Westerners were some time ago offered a can of coke by a small entreprenurial child carrying several of the things through the hills of northern Vietnam. Another eyewitness report from the mid 1980s tells of a shop in a region of New Guinea irregularly frequented by Westerners where the only items of merchandise available are fishing line, tinned fish, and Coca Cola.
And yet for some in outlying remote areas of the world, such as West Papua and the frost-bitten villages of the Russian steppe, Coke is still - even in the twenty-first century - unavailable. In other areas, it is priced too highly for the poorest to afford - imagine: despite proximity to Coca Cola, the dark elixir that is the ubiquitous symbol of Western excess, these unfortunates are unable ever to lift an ice-chilled glass of the fizzy drink to their lips, concerned instead with providing families with simpler necessities of life.
In order to make Coca Cola truly democratic - the ultimate dream of the corporation's executives, and those already drinking the refreshing beverage - some compromise is necessary in some areas. But the planet's less fortunate can rest assured: in future, when Coke is available to all the world's population without exception, attention will turn with haste and aplomb to the few short-comings arising from the completion of this grand global project.
Related articles elsewhere
How Coca-Cola Gave Back to Plachimada
Coca Cola moving out of Plachimada?
Kerala pollution board orders Coke plant to close
April 10th 2006