Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

"It’s been said that there are two essential qualifications that a US ambassadorial aspirant must possess: they must be a personal friend of the President and a significant donor to the President’s political party. Diplomacy doesn’t rate a mention." John Richardson

"Your appointment strengthens my confidence that still outstanding serious issues raised with your predecessor, Senator Robert Hill, and members of the Australian Defence Forces, will now be quickly resolved." John Richardson, writing to new Defence Minister Brendan Nelson

"With Howard, Abbott and their ilk convincingly defeated on the future regulation of RU486 today, it’s worth taking a minute to reflect on the disgusting racial and religious bigotry implicit in Danna Vale’s comments this week, particularly given that they are indicative of an increasingly common mindset in our country, consistently encouraged by the Howard government." John Richardson

"Whilst Australian citizen, David Hicks, continues to endure his 4^th year of illegal imprisonment and torture in America’s Guantanamo Bay gulag, a new report by Joshua Denbeaux, a law professor at Seton Hall, has found that, based on data supplied by the Pentagon, that "55% of the detainees have not committed any hostile acts against the United States or its coalition allies." John Richardson

"Whilst Hamas has already taken tentative steps to achieve political legitimacy, there will be little point in their continuing that process if Israel refuses to engage them in constructive discussions in pursuit of the peace process and the ultimate achievement of self-determination by the Palestinian people." John Richardson

"With ‘Bomber’ Beazley finally seeming to be ready to declare Labour’s own ‘phoney war’ with the government over, the benign picture of the situation in Iraq painted by Hill is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain, whilst the difficulty confronted by the ‘coalition of the willing’ in trying to work out how to extract itself from the disastrous mess is matched only by scale of the problems it has created." John Richardson

"Whilst the government moved quickly to set-up independent inquiries into the events surrounding the appalling DIMIA scandal, its leader in the Senate, Defence Minister Robert Hill, and the ADF have sought to maintain a veil of secrecy over unspecified allegations of torture and possible execution of ADF prisoners in East Timor, way back in 1999." John Richardson

"It is sorely tempting to accept Professor Mirko Bagaric’s thesis that Australians would not benefit from a Bill of Rights... But his capstone argument appears to be that there is no point in us having a Bill of Rights, as our politicians as ‘lawmakers’ would simply find ways to subvert those rights!" John Richardson.

"The invasion and continued occupation of Iraq, the continued presence of US military bases in Muslim countries, coupled with continued western support for authoritarian regimes and continuing support of Israel at the expense of justice for the Palestinian people, guarantees that terrorism will not go away." John Richardson.