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ARCHIVES: 22 March - 28 March 2003 WEEKEND READS23 March 2003 Terry Lane: I'd like to believe in a place called Hell: I say to [my pal] B: "Well, now we know how the good Germans felt when they woke to the news that the invasion of Poland had begun." "No [he replied]. Not the Germans. How the good Hungarians felt when they heard the news in 1941 that Horthy had signed them up in Hitler's Coalition of the Willing." His simile is more apt. Ray Cassin: America's rogue rage is a green light for monsters: The Bush doctrine, and the unashamed assertion of American empire on which it rests, will not make the world safer, for Americans or anyone else. While pretending with weasel words that they are merely enforcing the UN's resolutions, the superpower and its compliant allies such as Australia have abandoned the attempt to build an international order based on law and embraced one built on force. The monsters of the world couldn't have asked for a stronger act of legitimation. Phillip Adams: Dear John (Howard): Soon you'll be gazing at a cake covered in 64 candles. As you bend over to blow them out, feel the heat of the flames on your face. Think about the agonies of being burnt and bombed. And as you blow out the candles, think of lives being snuffed out. John, the bloodstained pages of history are full of men like you. Old men who send young men off to die. Does it make you feel heroic? Adele Horin: Sure, we'll save Iraqis - if they remain in Iraq: In the hubbub of war it can be forgotten that the Howard Government has 152 Iraqis locked up in detention centres. [This] Government perpetrates psychological torture ... on Iraqis who were desperate and bold enough to escape Saddam's regime. We have locked some of them up for longer than Saddam did. Richard Dawkins: Bin Laden's Victory: Osama bin Laden, in his wildest dreams, could hardly have hoped for this. A mere 18 months after he boosted the US to a peak of worldwide sympathy unprecedented since Pearl Harbor, that international goodwill has been squandered to near zero. Bin Laden must be beside himself with glee. And the infidels are now walking right into the Iraq trap. Alan Ramsay: Ink dry on war script a year ago: ...so far as [Australia] is concerned...our Prime Minister...is either a naive, impressionable hick from Down Under who's been utterly taken in by the authority and aura of the White House, or he is a very calculating liar who has convinced himself he's acting in our best national interest. You make your own choice. He has to be one or the other. Mike Carlton: The thin end of a vile wedge: Effortlessly, seamlessly, once again the Prime Minister has found the political wedge he hopes to drive into the public mind. It is a perception - no, a smear - he has assiduously promoted: those who criticise the war betray our fighting troops and their families. WHEN 'JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS' IS OK, EH GEORGE? 24 March 2003 The bugler was having a hard time keeping his lips moist enough to keep up a decent Charge! as the 7th Cavalry pushed towards Baghdad at the rate of 60 clicks a day, unimpeded by any resistance from Iraqi forces. Until they got to Nasiriyah. Some 500 Iraqi soldiers countered 5000 Marines in a pitched battle, resulting in 16 US dead and 14 wounded. (Iraqi casualties continue to be unreported, except perhaps by Arab language Al Jazeera, who, it is rumoured, is about to post an English online web site.) The drive to Baghdad has suddenly been delayed or even thwarted. Five GI's (including one woman) were captured by the Iraqis. "War crimes will be prosecuted. War criminals will be punished. And it will be no defense to say, 'I was just following orders.'" Two of the GI's said they were just following orders. Warmongers are going ballistic over this apparent flouting of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners. Yet the nation they are so gung-ho to defend has routinely flouted the Convention in Guantanamo and in Afghanistan. And within 36 hours of the present war's beginning, footage of Iraqi soldiers marching single file, along with Iraqi dead, were shown all over the world. Everyone wishes these poor GI's well. But you can just hear the chorus of chicken hawk machos back home: "Scaredy-cats! I'd've stood tall for God and Country!"
BUSH OUT OF AMERICA! 25 March 2003 Once again I've had to put the brakes on for a reality check. I have had to admit to myself that I'm actually hoping the Americans will lose this war. I'm rooting for the Iraqis, and if I put Saddam Hussein next to George W. Bush, Hussein looks like the lesser of two evils. Whoa, Nellie! America's reputation has taken such a beating that I am most definitely not alone in this partially erroneous assessment. In reality, I want George W. Bush to lose the war, not the Americans. I want him removed by a bloodless coup, the troops immediately withdrawn, and sanity restored. Failing that, I want him to be impeached and tried for treason, along with Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, John Ashcroft, and all the others who have hijacked America's Government and turned the country into a fascist state. Saddam Hussein is not the lesser of two evils. He and his cronies are already guilty of crimes against humanity and would be in The Hague awaiting trial right now if world domination had not been the number one priority of the only remaining Evil Empire. I want the Iraqi people to be free of both Saddam and Bush. But I know they will simply be delivered from the former to a US administrator appointed by the latter, a figurehead for conquest whose satrapy will be hated in turn. Above all, I wish the American people were the embodiment of the individualism their nation supposedly stands for, instead of a mass of hive-minded individuals who respond with one dumb voice to whatever the media tells them. America has been both a boon and a hindrance to the human race. Not since the Romans has a nation contributed so much to the evolution of the species. But, like the Romans, their innate militarism (and its expression in hegemony), has prevented the planet from enjoying the golden age it could have had. Checking in with reality can be depressing. That's why so few of us bother. In reality, Bush will not be impeached. He may even win his first legitimate election next year. And the vast majority of a helpless and hapless humanity will continue to be at the mercy of a handful of sniggering tyrants. MICHAEL MOORE, HERO TO HIS NATION 25 March 2003 Not since Roger Ramjet has America had a hero this capable of fighting for our freedom. Last night at the Oscars, Michael Moore took the best documentary award for Bowling for Columbine, tapped each of the other nominees on the shoulder and proceeded to the stage with them. His acceptance speech, to a raucous reception, made up of at least 50 per cent boos and hisses, was a mass media blast at Dubya: "We live in fictitious times. We live in a time with fictitious election results that elect fictitious presidents. We live in a time when we have a man sending us to a war for fictitious reasons. We are against this war, Mr Bush. Shame on you, Mr Bush!" There were some who thought it inappropriate to make an anti-war speech at such a gathering. But when your country has suffered a right wing coup that succeeded in installing an illegitimate leader who, through his aggressive ignorance of foreign affairs, so inflamed a volatile part of the world that it sent terrorists to bomb his nation's financial and military heart, and who then wilfully confused the terrorism with the lust for empire of his cronies and a personal vendetta against the lapsed tyrant who had once made a failed assassination attempt against his father, such a speech becomes entirely appropriate.On ya, Mick! LEST WE FORGET 26 March 2003 BUSH KNEW - 9/11 TIMELINE. This is a Shockwave presentation which takes about 15 minutes and lots of memory. I had to reboot Internet Explorer afterwards, no big deal. If you don't want to sit through it, go to: BUSH CAUGHT OUT IN LIE ABOUT WTC ATTACKS. Finally, check out this timely reminder: FAKE TERROR: THE ROAD TO DICTATORSHIP. COINCIDENCE? 26 March 2003 Hark Note: The author of the following is unknown. Look what happens when a President gets elected in a year with a "0" at the end. Also notice it goes in increments of 20 years. 1840: William Henry Harrison (died in office) 1860: Abraham Lincoln (assassinated) 1880: James A. Garfield (assassinated) 1900: William McKinley (assassinated) 1920: Warren G. Harding (died in office) 1940: Franklin D. Roosevelt (dies in office) 1960: John F. Kennedy (assassinated) 1980: Ronald Reagan (survived assassination attempt) 2000: George W. Bush ????? And to think that we had two guys fighting it out in the courts to bethe one elected in 2000. Have a history teacher explain following...if they can. Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846. John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946. Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860. John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960. Both were particularly concerned with civil rights. Both wives lost their children while living in the White House. Both Presidents were shot on a Friday. Both Presidents were shot in the head. Now it gets really weird. Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy. Kennedy's Secretary was named Lincoln. Both were assassinated by Southerners. Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson. Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808. Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908. John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839. Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939. Both assassins were known by their three names. Both names are composed of fifteen letters. Now hang on to your seat! Lincoln was shot at the theater named 'Ford.' Kennedy was shot in a car called 'Lincoln' - made by 'Ford.' Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials. And here's the kicker... A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland. A week before Kennedy was shot, he was with Marilyn Monroe. Creepy huh? FROM NEW WORLD ORDER TO NO WORLD ORDER 27 March 2003 There can be no hope for a positive outcome to this war. For the simple reason that it is not a noble, just war to save the world from evil, but a war of aggression for the usual reasons such wars are begun: revenge, control of resources, filthy lucre, and the real reason Y Chromosomes go to war: the promise of rape. As usual, the people on both sides are pawns. American free will has been conquered by state of the art propaganda, while Iraq will exchange the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein for its new role as an American fiefdom. Iraqis will be better off, but they will not be free. Iraqis may hate Saddam, but they can never trust the duplicitous Americans. Before Saddam invaded Kuwait, the Americans assured him they would not interfere. He invaded and they interfered, using as pretext a fabricated story about Iraqi troops looting incubators in a Kuwaiti hospital. In their adolescent hubris--it's as if they are saying, "Well, we stole the election, now let's steal the world"--they have launched an evil war to oust an evil dictator, with no regard for the ramifications. Muslims and non-Muslims alike are protesting around the world; the protests may lessen because of police brutality, but the hatred is increasing. Baghdad may or may not become America's Stalingrad, but a disgusted majority of the world's population will not be sorry if it is. They wish the Iraqis well, but they equally wish the Americans to fail. In any event, what the Americans will have accomplished through this atavistic error of judgement is world turmoil. Bush Senior wanted a "New World Order". Bush Junior's jejune campaign of revenge, control over oil distribution, and plain old hegemony, will surely bring about no world order. Related Article: Seumas Milne They are fighting for their independence, not Saddam. ATTENTION ALL U.S. CITIZENS WHO STILL BELIEVE IN JUSTICE 28 March 2003 Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich Removal of President's authority to wage war Friends, Against all odds, there were enough signatures, e-mails telegrams andphone calls within the last 24 hours to Congressman Dennis J.Kucinich of Ohio to persuade him to introduce before the House ofRepresentatives in Washington, D.C. a little known resolution thatdeprives the President of his authority to wage war. However, we must now persuade Speaker of the House Dennis Hastertthat there is a growing consensus if not a plurality to mandate theresolution for a House ballot. Therefore, please take a moment to e-mail Speaker Hastert by simplysaying, "I am in favor of introducing HJ Resolution 20 for a vote." Speaker Hastert's e-mail: Speaker@mail.house.gov This is urgent and must be done NOW. Please forward to everyconcerned citizen you know. GOD BLESS HELP AMERICA 28 March 2003  "Let's Party!" |
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Published in Melbourne, Australia by the Political Prisoners of the Future.
