dad... what's a terrorist?

This piece, by David Campbell, was published in The Age, 22/04/2004.

dad... what's a terrorist?
Well, according to the Oxford dictionary a terrorist is "a person who uses violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims". Which means that terrorists are very bad men and women who frighten ordinary people like us, and sometimes even kill them.

Why do they kill them?
Because they hate them or their country. It's hard to explain ... it's just the way things are. For many different reasons a lot of people in our world are full of hate.

Like the ones in Iraq who are capturing people and saying that they'll kill them if all the soldiers don't leave?
Exactly! That's an evil thing called "blackmail". Those innocent people are hostages, and the terrorists are saying that if governments don't do what they want the hostages will be killed.

So was it blackmail when we said we'd attack Iraq and kill innocent people unless they told us where all their weapons were?
No! Well ... yes, I suppose. In a way. But that was an "ultimatum" ... call it "good blackmail".

Good blackmail? What's that?
That's when it's done for good reasons. Those weapons were very dangerous and could have hurt a lot of people all over the world. It was very important to find them and destroy them.

But Dad ... there weren't any weapons.
True. We know that now. But we didn't at the time. We thought there were.

So was killing all those innocent people in Iraq a mistake?
No. It was a tragedy, but we also saved a lot of lives. You see, we had to stop a very cruel man called Saddam Hussein from killing a great many ordinary Iraqi people. Saddam Hussein stayed in power by giving orders that meant thousands of people died or were horribly injured. Mothers and fathers. Even children.

Like that boy I saw on TV? The one who had his arms blown off by a bomb?
Yes ... just like him.

But we did that. Does that mean our leaders are terrorists?
Good heavens, no! Whatever gave you that idea? That was just an accident. Unfortunately, innocent people get hurt in a war. You can't expect anything else when you drop bombs on cities. Nobody wants it to happen ... it's just the way things are.

So in a war only soldiers are supposed to get killed?
Well, soldiers are trained to fight for their country. It's their job, and they're very brave. They know that war is dangerous and that they might be killed. As soon as they put on a uniform they become a target.

What uniforms do terrorists wear?
That's just the problem ... they don't! We can't tell them apart from the civilians. We don't know who we're fighting. And that's why so many innocent people are getting killed ... the terrorists don't follow the rules of war.

War has rules?
Oh, yes. Soldiers must wear uniforms. And you can't just suddenly attack someone unless they do something to you first. Then you can defend yourself.

So that's why we attacked Iraq? Because Iraq attacked us first and we were just defending ourselves?
Not exactly. Iraq didn't attack us ... but it might have. We decided to get in first. Just in case Iraq used those weapons we were talking about.

The ones they didn't have? So we broke the rules of war?
Technically speaking, yes. But ...

So if we broke the rules first, why isn't it OK for those people in Iraq who aren't wearing uniforms to break the rules?
Well, that's different. We were doing the right thing when we broke the rules.

But Dad ... how do we know we were doing the right thing?
Our leaders ... Bush and Blair and Howard ... they told us it was the right thing. And if they don't know, who does? They say that something had to be done to make Iraq a better place.

Is it a better place?
I suppose so, but I don't know for sure. Innocent people are still being killed and these kidnappings are terrible things. I feel very sorry for the families of those poor hostages, but we simply can't give in to terrorists. We must stand firm.

Would you say that if I was captured by terrorists?
Uh ... yes ... no ... I mean, it's very difficult ...

So you'd let me be killed? Don't you love me?
Of course! I love you very much. It's just that it's a very complicated issue and I don't know what I'd do ...

Well, if somebody attacked us and bombed our house and killed you and Mum and Jamie I know what I'd do.
What?

I'd find out who did it and kill them. Any way I could. I'd hate them for ever and ever. And then I'd get in a plane and bomb their cities.
But ... but ... you'd kill a lot of innocent people.

I know. But it's war, Dad. And that's just the way things are. Remember?

a world war III scenario...

How can you guess the intention and agenda behind what happens? Well, one way is to see it all like a game of chess. A player makes a move, you analyse it.

You ask questions like:
What is he up to?
What is he threatening, and why?
Where might he go from there?
What's his strategy?
And you try to second-guess his game plan several moves ahead.

So let's analyse the Americans' game so far and see what we can deduce:
Using 9/11 as a pretext, they've installed their military and friendly governments in Afghanistan and Iraq. Part of this strategy has forced Pakistan to align itself more closely with America. Russia is supportive - it's allowing American bases on its soil. They are in South Korea. They are in Guam. They own Alaska. They surround China stategically. China has nuclear missiles and America has just re-energised its Star Wars program.

Iraq, under Bad Boy Saddam, because he was mad at the Yanks for suckering him into the first Gulf War and for the cruel and crippling sanctions which followed, refused to sell oil to America and was a potential major and happy supplier of oil to China. Iraq is the second biggest oil field in the world and now, having invaded Iraq and dickering with Iraqi "democracy", America seeks to control where that oil goes.

China is the second largest consumer of oil in the world and America now has it's hands on most of the taps. It can control the flow. Oil is an essential resource when fighting a war. The military cannot operate without oil.

China is emerging as an economic superpower. If China manages to get it's economy cranked up, the Yanks are in deep trouble. The Yanks cannot even conceive the idea of Not Being Number One and Not In Control. The Yanks have got a very long history of manufacturing wars in order to further their agenda.

The Yanks are excellent at propaganda. They are very good at engineering situations so that it looks to the untrained eye as if the target of their strategy is the aggressor when in fact the real aggressor, all along, is America. (Read "Killing Hope" and "Rogue State" by William Blum, and also "Rogue States" by Noam Chomsky. And that's just for starters. Get back to me when you're done with these and I'll feed you more "required reading".)

Can you see a pattern yet to America's more recent machinations? If you look at it like a chess game, America is preparing to attack China. But you gotta make it look like China is the villain, the aggressor. That's the next phase.

That's the phase where they try provoke China into attacking Taiwan. America has a treaty with Taiwan... Another way is to convince the public that China is a rogue state and is posing a global threat - where have we heard that line of rhetoric before, I wonder...

Remember, China, without outside interference, is about to surpass America as the biggest economy in the world. A well-conducted war would smash China's infrastructure and production capablility. Such a war would set it back 50 years.

Ask yourself who, out of China and America, is more in need of a war?

Now ask yourself, given America's track record of interventionism, need-to-control, and aggression, whether it will just sit back and watch China do its humble free trade thing.

The way I read everything that's happened since the collapse of the Soviet Union, America is posturing for a war with China.

Has anyone considered the human cost of such a war? Hundreds of millions would die, many more would be maimed. America has never been bothered by such things - in fact, it prides itself with inflicting the higher body-count. The only thing that America worries about is the cost to its own people and it has excellent technology to minimise that.

I think we've been sucked into supporting the Yanks in World War III. I think WWIII has already started, by using 9/11 as the pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. I think Iran and Korea would be the next stepping stones to a war with China, but if public opinion is a problem here, they will go straight for China. No problemo.

Look for warning signs. The gradual and systematic vilification and demonisation of China would be an indicator. Racism has already been cranked up to new heights in America, Britain, Europe and Australia, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Watch this space.

global governance - part 1...

This is a mega-topic, so I think I'll deal with it in parts. This subject is much bigger than my inadequate level of erudition allows me to express, but I'll give it my best shot. As a global citizen, I must have my say...

Individual nations must be allowed to retain their sovereignty and be free to manage their own cultural matters without outside interference. Each nation must be free to choose it's own political and economic model.

But certain issues should be dealt with at the global level and therefore we need a global government and the UN is the best existing institution to fulfill that role but it needs to undergo drastic changes before it can be a true global government.

Membership should be on the basis of one representative per nation. No individual nation should have any veto powers. All principles of good democracy ought to apply to the internal operations of this body.

It's scope should be limited to three areas: Environmental Policy, Human Rights and National Rights. In these areas, however, the UN must have over-ruling authority and the ability to enforce compliance upon individual nations if it is deemed necessary.

(That will do for now. Next, I'll rant in more detail about each of these three areas.)

Postscript: In light of the comments made so far, I'm now in a quandry. Do I give up this line of thinking as naive and hopelessly inadequate or do I stumble blindly onwards? I think I'll pause for a while to ponder upon this while the war crimes continue...

kilroy was here...

You need to go here to read about the origins of Kilroy.

howard the international terrorist...

From ABC-TV 7.30 Report, 22/09/2004:

On the subject of terrorism and pre-emptive strikes:

JOHN HOWARD: ...but I just repeat again that if there were a group of people - I'm not talking about a country - I'm talking about a group of people who were threatening Australian lives and there was -

KERRY O'BRIEN: In another country.

JOHN HOWARD: Yes, but Kerry - threatening Australian lives.

My first responsibility is Australian lives.

It transcends any other responsibility that I have in this office.

That is why I've stated what I have.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Whether it's 1 life, 5 lives, 10 lives, you would breach international law, you would breach national sovereignties of other nations?

JOHN HOWARD: Well, Kerry, you're adding all of those descriptions, I'm stating the principle.

KERRY O'BRIEN: They're obvious questions to ask, I would have thought.

It's a very serious proposition?

JOHN HOWARD: I would have thought it was an obvious responsibility of an Australian PM to put the safety of Australian lives ahead of any other consideration.

KERRY O'BRIEN: And as you know in the harsh reality of global politics there are all kinds of things that prime ministers and governments have to balance when they're making tough decisions?

JOHN HOWARD: Of course they do but one of them has to always be a clear-sighted preference for the for the Australian national interest ahead of any other consideration.

So there you have it. International law and another country's sovereignty stand for naught if Mr Howard convinces himself that his "infallible intelligence reports" tell him that there are bad guys under the beds in another country and they're reportedly ready to mount an attack against Australia.

That attitude has so many holes in it it's not even funny. And you know what else is not very funny? The average redneck right wing punter out there thinks Howard's policy is sane. Not only is that not funny, it's downright scary!

I'm being seriously terrorised by John Howard! To whom do I report this person who is seriously threatening the security of this country? Is a pre-emptive strike on The Lodge called for? Isn't it a good thing that I advocate non-violent solutions to these problems?

Vote Howard The Neo-Con out!!!

you are getting tired... your eyelids are getting heavy...

Hypnotised, brainwashed, conditioned... Elsewhere in this blog I've said that this is what a culture really is. US culture is no exception, and apparently George Bush is getting a bit of expert help.

The Enemy Is Us by Sam Gardiner:

In war, you deny information, spread lies and use psychological warfare. An expert on military information operations explains how Bush has mastered this technique -- and used it against the American people.
Full Story >>>

Australian readers will note that the same thing happens here, except we don't get to vote in the elections of the country which controls us. Americans are citizens, we're non-citizens. Successive Australian governments have sold us into American slavery. Latham's been "spoken to" by the US Ambassador, and now he's nicely "on program".

Vote [1] the Greens, is all I can say...

pssst... wanna join the church of jesus?

I was witnessing a debate in which a dude was getting stuck into the evils of Christianity in reply to another dude's ranting about the evils of Islam. So I decided to contribute my rant to that conversation:

Why are we leaving out the rabid Zionists who dispossessed and killed so many Palestinians in order to obtain their own Lebensraum. Are we afraid of their rat-bag accusations of "anti-semitism"? They were fanatical killers too.

All three Western religions worship the same god. It all goes back to their common superstition - the belief in a non-existent god brought about by the clever mind-control rituals their preachers and parents subject them to.

Their god is nothing more than a figment of the imagination of a bunch of ignorant and deluded men some 4000 years ago. Men who were murderous land-thieving misogynistic bigoted control-freaks, and who conjured-up a god to give unquestionable authority to their dubious ideas and even more dubious actions. End of story.

Today, followers of these religions are still hypnotised into believing that they're the "chosen people" and that their culture is the superior one because it is ordained by their god. Utter expansionist control-freak stuff. And very dangerous stuff too. Millions, if not billions have already died in the perpetuation of this superstitious twaddle. And I'm sick of it! Absolutely and totally sick of it! No more!!!! Finito!!!!

And I'm sure if Jesus were around today that's what he'd say, but that's just my interpretation of his teachings. That's my Jesusness. So, who wants to join the Church of Jesus? (No mention of a Christ or a god you'll notice. That's entirely intentional.)

We at the Church of Jesus focus only on the values we believe Jesus stood for: Freedom of speech, love, forgiveness, tolerance, socialism, communism, etc. In this day and age, we believe Jesus would feel it's time to tell the masses that this god business was just something he had to give lip-service to, way back then, on pain of death, but that it's really just authoritarianist twaddle, and always has been.

"If you meet God on the road, kill him!" (Something Master Jesus might say if he were around today as a Zen master.)

You want to know what the Mother of All Conspiracies is? It's the God Business. And it's a business in whose name they keep killing and dispossessing others, and a very big business it is too. Huge chunks of territory and trillions of dollars are involved in the god business. And then there's the arms industry generated by the machinations of the god business. Very big business. So big in fact that if you were a business man, you'd be mad not to believe in the God Business...

And now we have a Judeo-Christian war on Islam. Another Cruisade. And they made it look like Islam started it. Millions will die. Why? I think it's because Judeo-Christian "interests" want Islamic oil and control of Islamic territories in strategic preparations for a war with China.

I believe Judeo-Christian Big Business has absolutely no intention of letting China get up off its economic knees and the only way to stop them is to invent a pretext to go to war against them, so they can be bombed back into the economic stone age. And they'll make it look like China started it. Hundreds of millions will die.

What's happening is nothing less than World War III and we're getting sucked into it by religious fanatics in America and Israel manipulating politics and Big Business for their own ends. We're witnessing the crime of the millennium. And you? What about you? Will you be an accomplice, or a whistleblower?

Wake up world - before it's too late!

The end is closer than you think...
.

if you leave comments, i promise to love you forever...

Discussing my attitudes to people's comments in my blog, Tony said...

Gerry, you said: "I'm not bothered about what responses I might elicit. I just blog." Actually you said it several times. Can you blame me for thinking this meant that you're not interested in comments?

Ok, good point. And to a degree that's true. So now I'll have to make my disclaimer more specific.

From now on I shall have to say, in a Cognitive Behaviour Therapy kind of way, "Please feel free to share with me your responses to what you read here. Depending on what your response is, I may or may not be interested. Also, be aware that I am free to respond to your response in whatever way I choose." Is this better, Tony? :-)

What I'm not going to say, in a Big Business kind of way, is "Your comments are important to us", or "We value your comments", when in all truth, I have absolutely no idea how much I will value your comment, or how important I will deem it, until after I've seen it.

Poetry, I love it! :-)

speaking pre-emptively...

Even bloggers dream. I had this dream, well, nightmare to be precise. I say nightmare because when you're dreaming about comments being made on your blog, that would have to qualify as a nightmare.

So there I was... Dreaming... Dreaming I was reading a comment on my blog that went something like this...

You anti-semitic bastard! God damn you! It's you and your kind that killed six million Jews! A Mossad hit-team is on the way...

Well, that woke me up!

And it caused me to think about how many people I might have offended with what I've written in my blog. So, let's take stock of the offended:

War-mongering extremist Christians.
War-mongering extremist Zionists.
War-mongering extremist Muslims.
Anyone who believes in a God as described in the Bible, the Written Torah, or the Quran.
Quite a few Americans, Britons, Australians, and Israelis.

Not doing too bad, am I?

Being a war veteran, I'm entitled to free shrinkage. Do you think I should get some? I wonder what my shrink would make of my blog? These are interesting questions, yes?

Shalom

a letter to an american friend...

I thought I'd share this (edited) email with those of you voyeuristic enough to read this blog:

This is a composite reply to all outstanding emails from you. I've been unable to get my head around "issues" enough till now to formulate a relatively sane reply.

About being "middle of the road"... I read something the other day, but I can't for the world of me remember what exactly, except that it was a neat aphorism. Something along the lines that if you travel in the middle of the road you're heading for a head-on smash... :-)

A warning about my personal blog - you may be offended by comments I make there about America, God, and religion. These are three issues about which I have a tremendous amount of anger. It's just as well I've made a vow never again to kill people as a way of solving problems. In any case, my blog is where I shout my insanities at the moon. It's my therapy tool. And it scares some people. But not as much as America scares me, and it's not just Bush and the neo-cons. The Dems aren't all that different. I'd better shut up now, or I'll get on a roll and another rant will happen... :-) Read the blog if you want to get an idea of what I think.

"Hang in there, Gerry. If you have a lot of unfocused anger, it sure doesn't come through in your writing. What I hear in your 'voice' is hope."

Ha! That's because if I wrote to you when I'm angry, you'd probably never write back again. I'm not fit for human consumption when anger is having me. I often wait days before I can reply to someone in a civilised way. And even then, as I write the reply, heaps of editing is required to make the final result even slightly fit for human consumption. "Hope"? I see no hope. William Blum says it all in "Killing Hope", and "Rogue State".

Your friend (a Vietnam veteran whose name is deleted here) says he has healed. In a way I envy him. I have not healed. I cannot even conceive the idea of healing till America stops screwing the world "in America's interest", because it's all just an endless string of Vietnams. I cannot understand how he can feel healed and be aware of what America is doing to the rest of the world. Has he got his head in a zen sandpit? Sorry if this is a bit harsh... It's not anger, it's white-hot rage..

I'd better end here,

Peace and Love, in a time of war and hate,

Gerry

america... lurching towards theocracy?

Post-revolution America started out as some sort of social experiment in democracy and liberalism. All went well for a while. So well in fact that Americans became utterly deluded by their "success" and believed that they were superior to anyone else. This translated into a foreign policy that saw the rest of the world as mere "business opportunities" and "resource stockpiles", there purely for America's taking.

But the rot was setting in. In America The Beautiful, drug use, crime, moral and ethical decadence all spiralled out of control. What to do? Alarmed citizens knee-jerked, with ever-greater furvor, towards predominantly fundamentalist Christian religions.

Now, an alarming number of Americans have become fanatically religious and this fanaticism has translated itself into a fledgling theocracy in politics and Big Business. This in turn has ossified America's rapacious and murderous foreign policy.

But the rest of the world is rising up against this new, deluded, fanatical, arrogant, lying, fascist, imperialist America. The rest of the world has begun to realise, not so much what they want, but rather, what they don't want. And what they don't want is American exploitation, domination and interference. They are very clear about that.

The poorer, militarily disadvantaged nations and cultures have discovered the effectiveness of guerrilla warfare as a means of resistance. They have also discovered that they can strike directly at America and its partners in crime.

Appearing increasingly theocratic, America now looks to Moslems and non-Christians to be not only an environmental, economic and cultural threat, but also a religious threat. The use of "terrorism" as a means of resistance will become more widespread as America blindly builds bunkers of misinformantion because it refuses to acknowledge that the source of nearly all "terrorism" is actually it's own toxic foreign policy. Cyclops has his head in the sand...

Will this new paranoid and belligerent America lurch even closer to becoming a rabid fundamentalist Christian Zionist theocracy? Will these religious lunatics manufacture The Apocalypse with their "bring it on" mentality?

I know this is badly written, you bloody snickering Wunderkinder, but if I wait till I've learned great literary skills, those ignorant bastards will have got us all blown to bits.

newspeak #2

Our Prime Minister says "...the fight against terrorism will be long and hard..."

Unspun, this reads something like "...we'd rather incur and inflict an endless string of deaths and injuries than review our toxic foreign policy..."

newspeak #1

Our Prime Minister says "..living in an age of terrorism.."

Unspun, this reads something like "...living in an age where our foreign policy is so offensive to other nations, races, cultures, and religions, that some of them have decided they'd rather die attacking us than to continue to live under the yolk of our toxic foreign policy..."

how they glorify war...

Quote from tonight's Channel 9 News:

"Gallipoli - our glorious defeat"

How is this not glorifying war?

signals from a parallel universe...

The following are excerpts from comments to a post on another blog. I've brought them here to continue a debate with Parallel, should s/he choose to do so. The debate so far:

Gerry: Read my blog. If, after reading my most rabid rants you don't "get it" about the spurious "war on terror", or if you don't understand what a diabolical distortion of the global political playing field the spinmeisters of Bush, Blair and Howard have wrought (snip)

Parrallel: I have only had a quick glance at your blog, and I wouldn't want to evaluate your position just on that as I might do you an injustice.

One thing I did notice... you only used the term "terrorist" in scare quotes, but several times referred to "freedom fighters". So I want to know, were the Beslan attackers terrorists in your view? Or would you decline to be so judgemental?

Oh, I also noticed your remarks about fundamentalist zionists / christians. They seem to worry you a lot, so to reassure you, perhaps I should let you know that Bush is an Evangelical (Methodist, I believe) and not a white supremacist and Sharon is, if anything, a mellowed nationalist and I suspect an atheist. They are not, actually, the source of all evil.

You can accurately call me a Zionist, though - in that I believe that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state.

Gerry: 1. I define "terrorist" in my very first blogpost. Defining one's terms is imortant, don't you think? "Shock and Awe" was "terrorism" but they called it Operation Iraqi Freedom, i.e. they call themselves freedom fighters. Are we getting this yet, noname?

2. If you think the Bush regime is not controlled by fundamentalist extremist Zionist Christians and Zionists, that Israel's foreign policy is not controlled by ultra-right extremist Zionists, and the "terrorists" are not extremist fundamentalist Moslems, then I cannot help you, noname.

3. You can accurately call me a Zionist too. Especially after you read my blog in greater depth. Skimming is _so_ superficial, don't you think, noname?

Parallel: (snip) you already appear to becoming uncivil just because someone stands up to you, I'd hope that doing it in public may restrain you.

1) Your definition of "terrorist" - thanks for the pointer - is meaningless. No exclusion for self defence? And you will always claim that anything the US does is for political/economic reasons and hence "terrorism"... but strangely, the Iraqi Baath/Shia fanatics are "freedom fighters" even though their aims are avowedly political...

You appear to see no moral difference between shooting fleeing six-year-old kids in the back, and bombing the training camp where fanatics are indoctrinated to do the shooting. They are both "political", after all...

2) I quite agree that you can't help me, or anyone who does not already share your absurd Chomskyite fantasies. Can't really have a discussion when one party is so close-minded.

3) You give me no reason to think that reading your blog in depth would repay the effort. As for questions, the most important one I asked - whether you consider the Beslan attackers to be terrorists - seems moot.

And now I'll continue - by firstly re-stating my definition of terrorism: The term as it is used here defines a terrorist as anyone who uses any means to kill or maim _anyone_ to further their political, strategic, economic, or religious aims. It follows that all acts of war are acts of terrorism.

So you see, Parallel, that "self defence" is an obfuscation to this issue. All sides claim "self defence" anyway. All sides see themselves as fighting for their "freedom", or to "protect their interests" or "their way of life". That goes without saying.

We're talking here about whether the "Shock and Awe" mass-bombing of Baghdad, the nuking of Hiroshima, the fire-bombing of Dresden, the cluster-bombing of vast swathes of rural landscape on which civillians will be randomly blown to bits for years to come, long after the "military action" has ended, etc, is any less "terrorising" or "immoral" than what you distinguish as "terrorism". It is you who seems to be sucked in by the idea that one form killing civillians is less terrorising than another. I make no such distinction.

As to being closed minded. I used to be. I used to blindly justify why murdering more than three million Vietnamese people was the "moral" thing to do. I used to blindly believe that all acts of US aggression and intervention were obviously morally right. I used to dismiss as "left-wing pinko crap" any criticism of US foreign policy. And just like you, I used to dismiss Chomsky. And then I opened my mind. I started reading stuff with an open, analytical, non-partisan mind. And huge slabs of stuff fell into place that previously had been dismissed by my bigotry as worthless. I've only just begun my real self-education, my de-programming.

Yes, the Beslan tragedy was an act of terrorism. Yes, yesterday's attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta was an act of terrorism. Yes, 9/11 was an act of terrorism. They were also acts of war. All acts of war are acts of terrorism.

All that's left now (if you want to get partisan) is to debate whose acts of war are more moral. Or whose acts are more heinous. When you've finally seen enough death, when you're finally sick of justifying the killing, when you're finally sick of doing the killing (have you ever killed anyone, Parallel, have you seen them die horrible, slow, painful deaths, their eyes pleading with you to the end?), you might become a pacifist. But you cannot become a pacifist whilst you insist that one side is justified.

Maybe one day your mind will open enough to see this. Till then, if it gets you through the night, feel free to see me as the bigot and yourself as the ultra-educated, open-minded, übermensch. No skin of my nose, cobber. Coooee.

the gospel according to osama...

Read it and weep, people.

And afterwards, don't for a minute continue to pretend that you don't know what reasons underlie al Qaeda's attacks.

And don't for a minute assume that al-Qaeda's case is not at least as valid as anyone else's. Especially if you support or excuse the extremist Zionist views by which Israel justifies its actions in Palestine, and the extremist Christian Zionist views which the Bush Regime uses to justify it's actions in the middle east.

Either we denounce all of these murdering religious extremists, or we must grant them all carte blanche. Anything else is merely taking sides in what may soon become history's biggest and most drawn-out blood-bath.

Which way do you think leads quickest to the end of bloodshed? Think long and hard my friends...

And if you stupidly choose to take sides, you are advocating bloodshed, not peace; you are a war-monger, not a peace-seeker; and for that I hope you rot in the Hell-on-Earth which you have created for all of us, you God-forsaken bastards!

Damn you Sharon! Damn you Bush! Damn you Blair! Damn you Howard! Damn you Osama! Go to Hell the lot of you! And take your religious psychopaths with you. I mean it!

with the wisdom of hindsight...

"With the wisdom of hindsight..." Wonderful phrase, that. Used so eloquently by politicians and foreign policy decision-makers, whenever you try to pin them down about their wrong-headed decision-making. What a beautiful escape clause.

You can commit the most blatant atrocities and war crimes in foreign lands, justify them with lies, deceptions wrought by distorting "intelligence" to say whatever fits your bigoted, selfish, racist agenda. Then, if later it all gets questioned and you're looking pretty sick, you just trot out this wonderful piece of rhetoric "Well, yes, I agree that with the wisdom of hindsight..." and you just sidestep all responisibility very nicely.

According to most legal systems, ignorance is no excuse, yet as a politician you can consign millions to death and later plead ignorance and that's accepted? Why? Well, it's because these slimeballs don't accept "the rule of law" when it comes to international law. I'd say that any state whose government flaunts international law should be deemed a rogue state by the international community and treated accordingly.

Let's start with the U.S., Britain, Israel and Russia! Why not inform yourselves on how many interational laws, conventions and UN resolutions these four nuclear-armed rogue states flaunt on a daily basis?

Whilst the majority of the citizens of these rogue states condone this behaviour, they are accomplices to their nations' war crimes (that's the other side to this wonderful thing called "democracy") and you can now understand why the citizens of these rogue states are considered fair game by the freedom fighters of the countries/cultures/ religions being threatened by these bully-states.

Is the penny dropping yet, my little bigots, jingoists, racists, hypocrites, and religious lunatics, hmmm? Not in my name, you don't, you bastards!!!

Now, where did I put my medication...

the end of days...

We may really be close to "The End of Days" as the Bible puts it. But not because of any Divine Plan, rather, that time is close because religious fanatics have been let loose on the planet. The false prophets of hate and fear have taken over.

We've got fundamentalist Christian fanatics running America. Fundamentalist Zionist fanatics are running Israel, and fundamentalist Islamist fanatics are reacting to America's and Israel's machinations and wreaking havoc.

The lunatics have taken over the assylum and they don't care if they trash the planet in the name of God. They are all stark raving mad. America has the world's largest nuclear arsenal, now in the hands of religious fanatics. Israel is rumoured to have somewhere between 200-400 nuclear weapons and these are also now in the hands of religious fanatics. And when you inform yourself enough about the machinations of these two powers over the last few decades, you begin to understand what's driving the Islamic religious fanatics utterly mad. We must all walk away from these merchants of war and hate, and seek out teachers of peace and love.

The people empower these fanatics and the people can disempower them. It's up to you, the people. "You're the voice, try and understand it." Peaceful people power worked in India. It worked in Poland. It worked in East Berlin, It worked in Russia, it worked in Romania. It stopped the Vietnam war. And peaceful people power can stop this madness now.

Intolerance, hate, vengeance and war are not the answer. Tolerance, understanding, love, forgiveness and peace are the only answer. Listen to what your religious teachers are telling you. If they are justifying war and hate, walk away from them. have nothing to do with filling-up such ungodly houses. Find teachers who will have nothing to do with war and hate. If you cannot find such teachers, practice your faith privately and with peace and love in your heart. It is really insane to commit mass murder in the name of any God. And if you think your God wants you to go out and kill other people, find another God because that one has gone mad. Or maybe you have...

Don't go insane, go sane!

Saint Gerry of the Blue Mountains has again shown you the way. You are no
longer lost. Follow the path. Do not stray. Any questions?

fair suck o' the sav, legacy!

Here in Australia we have an organisiation called Legacy. They do good work helping the families of Armed Services personnel killed whilst obeying orders.

Legacy's cranking up their fundraising campaign right in the middle of an election campaign which will be fiercly contested about the rights and wrongs of our military personnel going to Iraq. They should have been a bit circumspect in the wording of their current campaign. But they went down the jingoistic path. So now I will cream them for it! Why? Because this is my blog!

Don't get me wrong. I will be buying a Legacy badge, and I strongly recommend every Australian to do likewise. That is absolutely important and is not at all under dispute here.

What is under dispute is their pathetic appeal to jingoism. What am I on about? Glad you asked. In a TV ad I saw this evening, Legacy used the line that "Legacy stands by the families of those who died defending our way of life." Come again? "Died defending our way of life" ??? Really?

The Boers died defending their way of life. The Turks died defending their way of life. The Germans died defending their way of life. The Japanese died defending their way of life. The Vietnamese died defending their way of life. Iraqis are dying
defending what they believe to be their way of life.

Just because someone dies "defending their way of life" doesn't make their death noble or holy. It all depends on what aspect of "our way of life" was under attack.
At this time in Australia's drunken, staggering way towards a just future, it would be highly conceited to suggest that those who do not share "our way of life" should be attacked and killed. Surely we have not yet reached that level of enlightenment as a nation, that "our way of life" is beyond question.

And another thing: Some died in conflicts where the attacked country did not in any demonstrable way threaten "our way of life". It all reeks of propaganda-speak.

And so, I resent Legacy's fundraising propaganda implying that every Australian soldier who was killed died for good reasons. It is so one-eyed! So bigoted! So jingoistic!

Nevertheless, I urge you all to go buy Legacy badges. Especially for the families of any Australian servicemen/women who died for no good reason!!!

re-writing history...

The re-writing of history, in relation to Marcel Caux, began as soon as he died.

An internet search conducted yesterday produced the following results:

Channel Seven, Channel Nine, The Age, The Herald Sun, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telelgraph, The Mercury, The Townsville Bulletin, and, for all I know, every Packer and Murdoch media outlet (I'll leave that research project to paid journalists), all "forgot" to mention that Marcel Caux was strongly outspoken against war in general, and our participation in the Iraq war in particular.

Only The Sydney Morning Herald and The ABC remembered to mention it.

Rusty Priest, a former president of the RSL in NSW, who is reported to be a close and long-time friend of Mr Caux, and who gave a eulogy at Mr Caux's funeral, also apparently "forgot" to mention that he was strongly outspoken against war, or if he did mention it, the media apparently "forgot" to report it..

Since Marcel Caux's strong pacifist stand was central to who he was, I cannot help but think that those who "forgot" to mention it were engaging in blatant and deliberate attempts to re-write history.

I hope this helps to set the record straight.

Lest we forget...
.