Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

The gist of the SMH story is that while 20 SAS troops removed a busload of "enemy" from their vehicle, searched them and recorded their details, it was the lone American soldier who formally took them prisoner.

Here was stupid little me thinking that a war ended when the bullets stopped flying and the the soldiers went home.  Nowadays you can just declare your troops to be in non-combat-mode and leave them on the soil they invaded.

 Once upon a time, as the Coalition forces gathered at the Kuwait/Iraq border, a publicist brought along some representative national flags and placed them in the hands of invading soldiers.  This provided an image of international unity behind the invading of Iraq to sieze Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction.  Now, whether it be by accident or design (I prefer to think the latter) the Iraqi cameraman has given the U.S. a living flag, representing resentment of perceived injustice.

Indeed, Texans wearing KBR baseball caps are arriving by the planeload at Kuwait's airport. Some will support the military directly--KBR employees already handle the meal service, laundry, and garbage pickup for several military camps in Kuwait and will do the same as U.S. units establish bases in Iraq. But after the war most hope to be involved in the multibillion-dollar task of rebuilding Iraq: its roads, electrical grid, water supply, ports, airports, and, most important, oil facilities.

Ministers and senior military officers are today challenged over discrepancies in evidence they gave to a parliamentary committee on the use of torture techniques by British troops in Iraq. (Robert Townsend)

The only way to win the “war on terror” is to be less willing ourselves to use terror to win a political victory. The war on terror will be won when all terrorists – including those financed by democratic governments – are brought to justice in the International Criminal Court.

Rudd says that we didn't look at the intelligence independently. He's right. While Alexander Downer was echoing Donald Rumsfeld's knowledge of the locations of the Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Australian parliament, the truth of the matter was that there weren't any there.

Last year ... I said [the troop surge] is a new tactic used to achieve the same old strategic aim, political stability. And I foresaw no serious prospects for success. I see no reason to change my judgment now. (William E. Odom, LT General, USA, Ret.)

© Steve Bell 2008

Stiglitz and Bilmes dug deeper, and what they have discovered, after months of chasing often deliberately obscured accounts, is that in fact Bush's Iraqi adventure will cost America - just America - a conservatively estimated $3 trillion. The rest of the world, including Britain, will probably account for about the same amount again.

Over the past two and a half years, researchers at the Fund for Independence in Journalism have sought to document every public statement made by eight top Bush administration officials from September 11, 2001, to September 11, 2003, regarding (1) Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction and (2) Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Although both had been frequently cited as rationales for the U.S. war in Iraq, by 2005 it was known that these assertions had not, in fact, been true.(Center for Public Integrity)

"Monday’s feeding frenzy of expenditure would actually make inflationary pressures worse. Mr Howard spent nearly $10 billion on Monday.  Trying to buy his way out of political trouble.  And he did so little more than an hour after the Reserve Bank of Australia issued its monetary policy statement warning of rising inflationary pressures. Today I am saying loud and clear that this sort of reckless spending must stop. The commitments I announce today will cost less than one quarter of those Mr Howard announced on Monday. Furthermore, the commitments I am making today are exclusively directed at tackling the skills shortage, tackling infrastructure bottlenecks and acting on Australia’s environmental and economic challenges." Kevin Rudd, PM elect

"What sort of morals does a government have, who are willing to invade a nation and kill countless people in order to control its resources? More importantly, are you willing to vote for them, even if you think their policies benefit you more than those of some other parties?" Yasir Assam

Until recently the peak oil debate in Australia has been largely confined to internet forums such as Webdiary. That situation has changed dramatically in recent weeks with the release of the Queensland Government’s long-awaited Oil Vulnerability Taskforce Report. World oil production is peaking – it’s official, at least here in Queensland.

"I don’t feel like fluff anymore, I’ve become an activist again.  Joined a group.  Organise public events to really debate the issues.  I speak about the government's lies at every opportunity I get.  I even went to the APEC protests with a group of very respectable women.  I still throw my slippers and I speak out and I vote! We’ll vote the liar out." Christa Schwoebel

Matt Howard from Iraq Veterans Against The War is in Australia at the moment speaking out about his involvement in the Iraq war. A public meeting was held at Melbourne University on Thursday 23^rd August to hear Matt discuss his experiences of the war and the US military, with question time afterwards.

The watchdog organisation Aidwatch has released a report today which found that Australian aid money has been used in Iraq to rework the country to suit international corporations. Our Foreign Minister's response was to brand Aidwatch an extremist organisation.

Does Saudi Arabia, one of the world's most prolific oil exporters (along with Russia) have such control over the Bush administration, and by extension the US economy, that its influence can produce such political cover-up, dishonesty and propaganda? Can US foreign policy be so conflicted and corrupted that this scenario could be replayed to a world "one warned"? I think it could.

I cannot but see, on my reading of this book and his environmental arguments, that good ol’ Al is one of the major assailants.    His hero appears to be the well known tergiversator, Abraham Lincoln, constantly described as “our greatest president”.    Call me old fashioned but I have never thought entry into civil war singled anyone out for greatness.   The only one of note that comes readily to mind as dying in his bed is Cromwell who, very wisely, stayed away from theatres.

The Occupation of Iraq is an insider’s story, a book written from an Iraqi’s point of view, watching with obvious angst as his country plunges into murder and mayhem. In it he describes the bewilderingly complex relationship between Iraq’s three major groups, the Shi’a, Sunnis and Kurds, and further, the factions within those groups.

Hello. Just seen the news tonight and am absolutely dumbfounded that Howard and his defence minister have admitted that we're in Iraq because of its oil. He strongly denied it before the war. Most Australians now know that he was lying about his reasons for ordering our troops to invade Iraq. But who'd have thought they'd admit to the lie!

Women's basic rights are being rapidly eroded in Iraq and occupation forces seem to have forgotten their promises of empowerment.

Can using US funding to reopen Iraqi state-owned enterprises get young men to abandon the insurgency and sectarian militias?

The war in Iraq has been exceptionally bloody. For now, that is about all that statistics can safely tell us.

Full text here

So perhaps we should clarify the issue and ask at this point: Given that it is so often seen as desirable, just what is wrong with revenge?

Get the full report here. Commentary from BBC, Washington Post, The Australian, The Guardian.
Typically, the SMH doesn't think this is important enough to be a lead news story ...

"There is something heroic in my mind for a country that is suffering all that Iraq is suffering, yet it still strove to conduct the trial, to have an embrace of the rule of law which is so fundamental to the establishment of a democracy." - John Howard

"As Halliburton-KBR is accused of massive construction overcharges in Iraq I wonder how much the Adelaide office has been involved. For around five years Adelaide was the Halliburton/KBR's Global Headquarters for Infrastructure. As this was in the period before and after the Coalition's occupation of Iraq, you'd have to assume that a lot of the contentious paperwork would have passed through this building on its way from Iraq to Houston.": Richard Tonkin

"The world is consumed by fears that Iraq is degenerating into a civil war between Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. But in this looming war of all against all, it is Iraq’s small community of Assyrian Christians that is at risk of annihilation.": Charles Tannock