Bush's Last Day 20 January 2009.

Bernie wanted me to post this - and for good reason.
Certainly the G.W> Bush Presidency was indeed an era of error.

Click to enlarge, to read the fine print of my disclaimer

Let me just say that this Blog wishes Obama all the very best for his Presidency.

No doubt it will be difficult, with huge challenges ahead - the environment for starters. Do you remember Global Warming? And all that stuff about Kyoto Protocols?

And that's not to mention the excesses of the Stock Market. My opinion on that will differ from what Obama is likely to do - he will continue to bail out the banks and stockbrokers, in order to keep the economy from collapsing totally. Personally, I think they need to charge the B"astards.
In my view, theft is theft, and ought not be rewarded.

There were other parts to the email, about the supposedly "funny" things GWB said, while President. I am afraid I do not find them funny, because, he was President (in all probablility, by fraudulent means), and he got to laugh at the rest of the world - for 8 long, miserable years.

In truth, I doubt the world will recover from the excesses and errors of the GW Bush presidency within my lifetime.

• THAT'S NO LAUGHING MATTER.

• ASK THE IRAQIS
• ASK THE PALESTINIANS
• ASK DAVID HICKS
• ASK MAMDOUH HABIB
• ASK THE PEOPLE IN TENNESSEE WHOSE HOUSESHAVE BEEN DELUGED WITH TOXIC COAL ASH
• ASK THE PEOPLE OF NEW ORLEANS -THE VICTIMS OF CYCLONE KATRINA,WHO WERE IGNORE BY THEIR PRESIDENT
• ASK THE MILLIONS OF AMERICANS WHOSE HOUSES HAVE BEEN SOLD FROM UNDER THEM BECAUSE OF THE "SUB-PRIME LOANS".
  
• AND THAT' S JUST FOR STARTERS.

NONE OF THAT IS FUNNY!

Let's hope President Obama can get on with repairing the damage done by his predecessor.

Its moments like these when I feel like praying for him, and the world at large!

American Warmongers supporting the outrages in Gaza.

This attached story comes from the Reuters UK Website.

U.S. seeks ship to move arms to Israel (see full story below).

My own perspective is that this is George W Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney's parting "gift" to Israel.

Bast*rds (Bush and Cheney, I mean).

Am I naive? Very likely!

The American War Machine is huge, and greedy and, frankly, evil to the core.

But there is another factor at play - the defeat of G.W. Bush's party in the November Elections in the USA. Remember that?

The America is supposedly the most modern nation in the world. But the American people are still living with an archaic US Constitution, with its "horse and cart era" insistence on the Presidential hand-over occurring in late January - two months after the election. That gives ample opportunity for a corrupt and evil administration to: cry "Havoc" and let slip the dogs of war".

The full quote from Marc Antony (in "Julius Caesar") is worth reading: It reads like a News report from the Gaza Strip this week:

ANTONY:
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:

And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side, come hot from Hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice
Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war;

That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.

George W. who most likely has not read much of The Bard, certainly understood the "opportunity" presented to him and his people, by this Constitutional "delay". And now we see he has used his chance to send "bucketloads", no - "shiploads", no - 2.5 million kilograms of high explosives to Israel. And that is just the first (reported) shipment. We know from today's report that there is more on the way. The Americans hardly need to tell the Israelis to "go for it - while you can", when they are making such extraordinary "special shipments".

This smacks of the behaviour of a War Criminal to me. But we more or less know that about George W, anyway, don't we?

After all, the whole business of the invasion of Iraq, on an illegitimate pretext, and without the sanction of the UN, is just the largest, and most obvious of his outrages. The perversion of the US justice system, at Guantanamo is another. And there are hundreds more examples, no doubt, which "little people" like us may never hear about.

I like (personally) nearly all the Americans I have met. But goodness me, as a nation they have a lot to answer for, after allowing George to steal the Presidency in the first place - 8 years ago.

I vividly remember the frenzied response of otherwise "nice people" after the September 11 outrage. George took full advantage of that outrage, and confusion. Somebody played the American people for "Suckers" AFTER September 11, 2001 - and possibly before that date. We may never know the truth.

Our own "Little Johnnie", who was in Washington at the time, fell into line with George W. And next week he will get his beloved Medal for it. It should be an "Iron Cross" - befitting a "Man of Steel".

Bastards - all of them.

Bush ought to have been impeached. At the very least he ought face an International Court of Justice hearing for "Crimes against Humanity". But I am not holding my breath. Howard ought just go away and hide his face in shame.

These are my opinions, but don't anyone bother complaining, for I am just a "little person" living an ordinary life in the hills of NSW, Australia.

What does it matter what I think?

---

Read the full press report below. (The text is original, but the emphasis is mine).

U.S. seeks ship to move arms to Israel

Fri Jan 9, 2009 11:42pm GMT

By Stefano Ambrogi

LONDON (Reuters) - The U.S. is seeking to hire a merchant ship to deliver hundreds of tons of arms to Israel from Greece later this month, tender documents seen by Reuters show. The U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command (MSC) said the ship was to carry 325 standard 20-foot containers of what is listed as "ammunition" on two separate journeys from the Greek port of Astakos to the Israeli port of Ashdod in mid-to-late January.

A "hazardous material" designation on the manifest mentions explosive substances and detonators, but no other details were given. "Shipping 3,000-odd tons of ammunition in one go is a lot," one broker said, on condition of anonymity.

"This (kind of request) is pretty rare and we haven't seen much of it quoted in the market over the years," he added.

The U.S. Defense Department, contacted by Reuters on Friday in Washington, had no immediate comment. The MSC transports amour and military supplies for the U.S. armed forces aboard its own fleet, but regularly hires merchant ships if logistics so require. The request for the ship was made on December 31, with the first leg of the charter to arrive no later than January 25 and the second at the end of the month.

The tender for the vessel follows the hiring of a commercial ship to carry a much larger consignment of ordnance in December from the United States to Israel ahead of air strikes in the Gaza Strip.

A German shipping firm which won that tender confirmed the order when contacted by Reuters but declined to comment further.

CHARTERS "RARE"

Shipping brokers in London who have specialized in moving arms for the British and U.S. military in the past said such ship charters to Israel were rare. Israel is one of America's closest allies and both nations regularly sell arms to each other.

A senior military analyst in London who declined to be named said that, because of the timing, the shipments could be "irregular" and linked to the Gaza offensive.

The ship hired by the MSC in December was for a much larger cargo of arms, tender documents showed. That stipulated a ship to be chartered for 42 days capable of carrying 989 standard 20-foot containers from Sunny Point, North Carolina to Ashdod.

The tender document said the vessel had to be capable of "carrying 5.8 million pounds (2.6 million kg) of net explosive weight," which specialist brokers said was a very large quantity. The ship was requested early last month to load on December 15.

In September, the U.S. Congress approved the sale of 1,000 bunker-buster missiles to Israel. The GPS-guided GBU-39 is said to be one of the most accurate bombs in the world.

The Jerusalem Post, citing defense officials, reported last week that a first shipment of the missiles had arrived in early December and they were used in penetrating Hamas's underground rocket launcher sites.

(Reporting by Stefano Ambrogi; editing by Michael Roddy)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved.

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US "Surge" failure

Despite what General Petraeus might have told the US Congress, the BBC tells us that the "Surge" has failed. (We are talking about the boost of troops which George W sent to Iraq - to try and improve their chances of getting a result.)

Their survey results are extraordinary - just look at the top line. Something like 90% of the people surveyed (Iraqis - how novel is that?) say that the Americans ought leave NOW.
The General was quoted (by Dennis Shanahan, from "The Australian") as saying that "there had been a 75 per cent reduction in religious and ethnic killings in the capital between December last year and this month."

That article by Shanahan was taken to task by the ABC's Media Watch this week, as a complete overstatement. Despite the fact that there was apparently a correction made later, the original statement is still up on the web.

The ABC's Tony Jones has a much more sceptical report, based upon the views of a retired US Air Force Colonel, Sam Gardiner.

Howard is delusional.

"But I want the public to know that I haven't stopped listening to them,"
- thus speaks John Howard.
What?

When did that happen - I mean that John Howard ever started listening to us?


Was that on 26 May 2000, when more than 250,000 people walked across Sydney Harbour Bridge in a show of solidarity for reconciliation with the Aboriginal people of Australia?
Nope!
Was it when thousands marched against the imminent invasion of Iraq - proclaiming it to be an illegal invasion of a sovereign country? Walk against the War - 16 February 2003.
Nope!

Howard is delusional.
There is one cure for his condition - a resounding defeat in a Federal Election.

Bring it on!

How many is too many, Mr Bush?

Here is a report straight from today's edition of crikey.com.au

16. Iraq: more deaths than during the Rwandan genocide?

Jeff Sparrow writes:

Some time back, the prestigious medical journal The Lancet published a study that put the number of violent deaths attributable to the invasion and occupation of Iraq at 601,000.

While Messrs Bush, Blair and Howard – noted statisticians all – dismissed the figure with lordly waves, an impressive array of Australian scientists was less sanguine. They explained to The Age why they judged the report valid: “The cross-sectional household cluster sample survey method used is a standard, robust, well-established method for gathering health data. A copy of a death certificate was available for a high proportion (92%) of deaths. Conservative assumptions were made about deaths of uncertain cause and about the small areas not sampled.”

The Lancet study was based on data current to July 2006. Now the American group Just Foreign Policy has produced an updated figure, suggesting that to date the war and occupation have killed nearly a million Iraqis.

As Just Foreign Policy acknowledges, the number is an extrapolation and it lacks the methodological rigour of The Lancet report. Basically, it projects the earlier figures forward, using a rate based on the Iraq Body Count project’s tabulation of deaths reported in the media.

Less than perfect, sure – but the best estimate we have. And it indicates that more people have died in Iraq than during the Rwandan genocide. Now what took place in Rwanda was undoubtedly a crime. So what about Iraq?

It should be remembered that, in 2003, many – perhaps most – experts doubted that the invasion had any basis in international law. As thirty-one Canadian law professors explained in one of the many open letters circulating at the time, the Iraq war represented “a fundamental breach of international law (that) would seriously threaten the integrity of the international legal order that has been in place since the end of the Second World War."

Of course, as recent events have shown, law enforcement maintains its own priorities. Recklessly loaning a SIM card lands you in indefinite detention; devastating another country, not so much.

Whatever the legal consequences of the Iraq death toll, the moral implications are inescapable. WH Auden put it perfectly, in lines that might have been composed after reading the Just Foreign Policy report:

And the truth cannot be hid;
Somebody chose their pain,
What needn’t have happened did.

The body politic is very ill indeed!

We have known for a long time that the NSW State Political scene is sick.
Quite how sick, I did not know, until just recently.

Peddling of influence is commonplace in NSW.
Our local member does not hesitate to try to put pressure on the local business chamber, to try to get me to shut up about the Kangaloon Aquifer. He complained that I was apparently advising people to vote 1 Green, 2 Liberal in Kiama. (I was present when this phone call took place - and while I heard only one end of the conversation, I do know for a fact that the call was made.)

Anyway, the allegation is wrong. What I have been saying (privately, up until now) is that it is my intention to vote that way. As far as I know, this is still (only just) a democracy, and I am entitled to vote how I want.

The fact that my friends and colleagues have been subjected to pressure, to get them to try to influence me is appalling. It just confirms me in my intention to vote in a way that would end up not supporting Matt Brown.

The Greens have decided to give their preferences to Labor (in Kiama) as they judge that over-all, the ALP is slightless bad than the Liberal Party, and that the Liberals' decision to hand over the Industrial Relations powers to the Federal Government was the deciding factor. While I understand that decision, on the full range of policies, personally, I cannot bring myself to follow that voting recommendation. So, I am voting on a "Single Issue" policy - for the first time in my life. I have previously declared myself to be a life-long Labor Voter up until this election. But that was a position formed when Labor politicians like EGW, and Tom Uren believed in Labor Party policy, social justice, and the "light on the hill". Not this mob.

*****

Back in November, I went to my local member, Matt Brown, quietly and respectfully, and told him that the information he had been given about potential environmental damage to the Kangaloon Aquifer was wrong. He had been briefed by the Government and the Sydney Catchment Authority. He disagreed (fair enough). Except that we quoted facts and figures from SCA documents. He undertook to check it out, then came back and he still said that we were wrong. He now knows that we were indeed right (confirmed by the head of the SCA, no less), but by then, he had locked himself into a position opposed to our campaign to protect the Kangaloon Aquifer.

So there it is Matt. You were wrong. You now know it, but you do not have the decency to acknowledge that fact. But Matt's personalised pressuring my friends and colleagues, confirms my decision to vote on a "personal" basis - for just about anyone but Matt Brown.

*****

Since I made that decision, our Kangaloon Aquifer signs have been torn down. Who stands to benefit from that action? ("cui bono" as the old Roman adage is). It isn't "rocket science". Only one party support pumping of the Kangaloon Aquifer. (Our signs were not in breach of any provisions of the Electoral Act, and they were not torn down by Council or the RTA.)

*****

Other things are going on, as well.

The process of declaring large projects as "critical infrastructure projects" (which brings them under the provisions of "Part 3A" of the EPA Act), creates a perfect situation to institutionalise corruption within the State planning system. Developments which are controversial become subject to the decision of just one person, the Minister for Planning, Mr Frank Sartor. And the decision to deem a project subject to Part 3A is itself beyond appeal or review.

A "Part 3A" declaration lifts a project above all normal planning controls, including all Local Government planning procedures and normal State Government controls, such as environmental controls. Mining companies and large developers love this, and are beating a path to Frank Sartor's door.

No wonder! From a sociological analysis of that situation, it creates the perfect situation to promote collusion between developers and the Government (at an individual or governmental level). I am not making any accusations, merely providing a classical sociological analysis of the relationship between developers and Government.

We don't need Brian Burke in NSW, we have Part 3A.

*****

TO THE VOTERS OF NSW I SAY:
ENJOY YOUR TASTE OF DEMOCRACY TOMORROW.
THIS IS WHAT WE ARE INVADING IRAQ FOR: TO SHOW THEM HOW GOOD DEMOCRACY IS.

Politics

On this grey, foggy day,when I cannot see to the bottom of my garden, a wistfulness and depression overtakes me. Perhaps it is the collective consciousness of my Viking/Slavonic ancestors, in their bleak and cold environs, that is stirring within me.
Perhaps I forgot to take my pills!

We sit around grumbling about our politicians. We write blogs.
Do we really identify what it is that we are dissatisfied with about politics locally and elsewhere.
I believe we need to examine not only the local politics but also the situation in the world.
We need to identify the terminology and research history of politics.
All that in good time. Later.
Today I am giving in to the basic feelings about local (Australian) politics.

I believe that we elect politicians (our representatives in Parliament) for their: wisdom; ideas that resonate with our own; their ability to speak for us; willingness to consult with us; their individual leadership qualities; ability to think creatively; strong belief in a civil and democratic society, freedom of speech and thought; transparent justice system;

Sadly I am very disappointed in most of our politicians, who, I believe, fail to live up to most of the above qualities.

Our representatives, once the election is over, no longer represent their electors. They mostly follow the party line. They learn verbiage, and the art of saying nothing in many words.
Our PM, John Howard, no longer leads. He follows and obeys his mentor overseas - G.W Bush. It appears that Bush and his puppeteers can do no wrong. In fact, I believe that JH has become a puppet of the USA administration.
I do not perceive JH as a person of vision of a future society. Instead, on "his watch" we have seen workers' rights eroded; civil rights limited; justice system becoming very opaque; each one of us may be picked up in the middle of the night, held incommunicado, not told of our alleged crimes, perhaps even rendered to another country and held in a secret prison and tortured.. All legal.
Shades of USSR, Communist China, and of course Fascist Germany.
John Howard of course says: "trust me".
What is happening to development of the indefinables - arts - fine, film, theatre, opera..... Not really accessible to the masses.
The Australian film industry is in doldrums; actors are going overseas, etc....

David Hicks is lingering in an USA military concentration camp situated outside USA. He is subjected to physical and psychological torture and inhuman treatment. He has been in the concentration camp for 5 years without a charge. The process is rejected as unsafe and illegal by most civilized democracies. In fact USA will not subject its own citizens to this. Uder JH "watch" this treatment is fine for an Australian citizen. After all GWB and Rumsfeld said Hicks is fine and the torture is OK.
GOOD STUFF JOHNNIE!
Who created politics of fear?
I believe it is the height of hypocrisy when JH and his cardboard cut-out Attorney General - P. Ruddock, stand and mouth words about democracy.
What shit.

How utterly sad that JH had a chance to lead Australia into a better future. Instead, under false pretences he followed USA into an unjust war. He condoned killing of many innocent people. TO BRING THEM DEMOCRACY?!!! Etc, etc, etc.
Ignore the corruption in USA administration. Ignore that Dick Cheney ran the Halliburton Corporation - the biggest vulture in Iraq! What happened to Iraq's USA$20 billion allocated for reconstruction? According to the USA ambassador in Iraq: This is water under the bridge".

All of this are my personal beliefs and feelings.

I also recognize that the polity, the grey masses, seem to like the status quo and have elected JH and his cronies to govern this country.
I have to accept this.

I love Australia and love living here.
As a result of geographical quirk and accident, Australia is physically isolated from the other continents and the shit that is going in these.
I am ashamed of our federal politicians and their sycophantic relationship with USA.
I am ashamed of our PM who I believe, overdoes the kissing and rimming of George Bush's backside.
I perceive JH as a mediocre little person and not a leader of a major state.

I am ashamed of our government's treatment of David Hicks, Australian citizen.

Enough for today.

The real cost of the "War on Terror"

Jeff Sparrow has written an article about the obsession with capital punishment in The Age, 1 January 2007. "Delivering convenient death shrinks all our souls". It starts out with a predictable question, along the lines of: "Why do people want to watch the death throws of Saddam Hussein" - which he refers to as "digital necrophilia".

But then, he switches tack, and comes up with these statistics - OK, he has borrowed them from "The Independent" in Britain.

"the Global War on Terror, ... according to Britain's Independent, has already taken the lives of 62,000 people, created 4.5 million refugees and cost the US more than the sum needed to pay off the debts of every poor nation on earth..."

There you go - they could have paid off world debt - but instead chose to fabricate a reason to invade Iraq - so that they could steal the resources of a sovereign nation. OK, not many people think kindly of Saddam, but he was as legitimate a ruler as many others I could name. And don't forget the Americans worked with him, when it suited them, (because of Iran).

It also shows that continuing world poverty is a choice made by powerful Governments.

The people who campaign to "Make Poverty History" must be spewing over these statistics.

Saddam has been executed.

The news services are full of it - the news that Saddam Hussein has been executed.

There is little doubt he was indeed a mass-murderer of people who opposed his view of the world.

But in that he is not Robertson Crusoe (as the phrase is). In other words he is not alone, in that charge.

I simply ask - how many innocent Iraqis have died since George W Bush decided to invade Iraq?

And let us not forget the spurious grounds on which the Invasion of Iraq was perpetrated. The reality is now more obvious than it seemed when John Howard signed Australia up to the "Coalition of the Willing".

The reality of this wart is that it is a war based on the theft of the resources of a previously independent and autonomous nation - Iraq.

Now the country has had its infrastructure destroyed. It is a far more dangerous place today than before Saddam was overthrown. The invasion might have been successful, but the occupation has been an unmitigated disaster - for all concerned (not the least, for the 2995 American soldiers) who have died in a pointless war (as at 230 December 2006).

The Americans have been meticulous in NOT COUNTING Iraqi casualties - "Why bother?". However, some people have been trying to keep tally. They estimate these deaths to have amounted to 52060 (minimum) or 57628 (maximum). I have no way of judging how accurate these body counts are - judge for yourself.

Whether or not George Bush is a war criminal - surely enough people have died? George W Bush ought pull out of Iraq.

John Howard should never have taken Australia into this evil, illegal and unjustified War.

He did not listen to the Australians who opposed the war.

He ignored those who prayed for him not to join the war.