What's happening to the world, when you cannot trust "Hackers" not to sell you out?

Hackers turning Leakers in to the Authorities.

What's the world coming to?

• "Suspicion has fallen on to a 22-year-old army intelligence officer, Bradley Manning, who is in custody charged with passing to WikiLeaks a classified military video of a US helicopter gunning down civilians in Iraq in 2007.
• "Adrian Lamo, the hacker who turned Private Manning in to the authorities in May, said on Good Morning America that he suspected the officer was the source of the Afghanistan documents. But he did not think Private Manning had the technical expertise to pull off such a large removal of documents by himself."

Source: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/intelligence-officer-under-suspicion-20100727-10uau.html

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.

Good Friday in Iran?

I do not normally engage in speculation on forthcoming military strikes, as these matters are beyond my expertise. The thing about this "internet rumour" is that, unlike many Nostradamus stories, and rumours of the imminent end of the Earth, this one has a specific deadline of Good Friday: 4 am, 6 April, (Iranian time (Teheran) which is GMT +3:30 hrs). Then you will know whether or not there was anything to it.

*****

WASHINGTON DC, — The long awaited US military attack on Iran is now on track for the first week of April, specifically for 4 am on April 6, the Good Friday opening of Easter weekend, writes the well-known Russian journalist Andrei Uglanov in the Moscow weekly “Argumenty Nedeli.” Uglanov cites Russian military experts close to the Russian General Staff for his account.

The attack is slated to last for 12 hours, according to Uglanov, from 4 am until 4 pm local time. Friday is the sabbath in Iran. In the course of the attack, code named Operation Bite, about 20 targets are marked for bombing; the list includes uranium enrichment facilities, research centers, and laboratories.

The first reactor at the Bushehr nuclear plant, where Russian engineers are working, is supposed to be spared from destruction. The US attack plan reportedly calls for the Iranian air defense system to be degraded, for numerous Iranian warships to be sunk in the Persian Gulf, and for the most important headquarters of the Iranian armed forces to be wiped out.

The attacks will be mounted from a number of bases, including the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Diego Garcia is currently home to B-52 bombers equipped with standoff missiles. Also participating in the air strikes will be US naval aviation from aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, as well as from those of the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. Additional cruise missiles will be fired from submarines in the Indian Ocean and off the coast of the Arabian peninsula. The goal is allegedly to set back Iran’s nuclear program by several years, writes Uglanov, whose article was reissued by RIA-Novosti in various languages, but apparently not English, several days ago. The story is the top item on numerous Italian and German blogs, but so far appears to have been ignored by US websites.

Observers comment that this dispatch represents a high-level orchestrated leak from the Kremlin, in effect a war warning, which draws on the formidable resources of the Russian intelligence services, and which deserves to be taken with the utmost seriousness by pro-peace forces around the world.

*****

For a background story from which this story came, check out:
http://www.inteldaily.com/?c=166&a=1478

Make up your own mind, or just wait and see.

Thing is, George W does need to regain the ascendency in his War on Public Opinion (sorry the "War on Terror"). So it makes sense that he would do something like this. Expect JWH to follow along, supporting Dubbya's brilliant leadership of the coalition of the stupid (willing).

The timing intrigues me: is it part of the deep cover for the "Neo-cons" in the USA, who are pretty much part of the Pro-Israel push, that they should launch this attack on Good Friday - one of the most solemn Christian holy days?

The wider World is sick too.

The author of a book called "Bombing to Win" (now that's a title to resonate with) is advising us that the US is developing a super "Bunker-buster" bomb, just in time to bomb Iran. It will cost a mere $38, so lets hope they build lots of them.

Great news, folks. Lets see if we can precipitate a total World-wide war, as the "War on Terror" has not brought the citizens of the western countries into enough submission, yet. I mean, it worked for a while, but the effect has worn off. The Democrats in the US Congress want to set a deadline for withdrawal - September 2008.

That's right. The point of the "War on Terror" is to -terrorise us, the citizens of the "Coalition of the un-Willing".

In this regard, it is worth noting that the failure of the burghers of New South Wales to elect a Liberal Government in that State, has increased the likelihood of a fraudulent terror attack in Australia some time between now and the next Federal Election. Remember the bombing of a leading international Hotel? (Clue: think Paris)? That worked pretty well, for the Spooks. Their Organization was rewarded with a great increase in its funding, after the mandatory Inquiry.

We have a major international convention scheduled for Sydney, in September, with the next APEC summit. A fraudulent stunt around that time would help Little Johnny over the line, by scaring the citizens, prior to an election, expected late in this year. We need something more frightening than the "Be alert, but not alarmed" Fridge Magnet campaign, obviously.

Who knows, otherwise people might exercise their democratic rights to elect Kevin Rudd. That would not do, at all!


We could always invade Nauru, a la the Iron Lady's attack on the Falklands. That worked well for her. (Photo above is of Maggie mourning her great mentor, Ronald Regan).

Perhaps some of our recently arrived Sri Lankan"Boat people" could stage a riot over there, while awaiting the Immigration Dept's assessment of their Refugee Status.

That's be enough excuse for an invasion, surely, to protect the Nauruans.

War expenses - an obscenity.

The Daily Telegraph has reported this morning that George "W" will ask the US Congress for a cool US$245 billion (Aus$316 billion) to fund his war campaigns. This is an obscenity.

PRESIDENT George W. Bush will ask Congress today for an extra $US245 billion ($316 billion) to cover war costs, even as he faces a knife-edge vote of no confidence in the Senate on his plan for a troop surge in Iraq.

Will George's Little Pal offer to kick in with some extra finding of his own, (our own)?

More significantly, how could that money be better used? It could be used to remove 3rd world debt, or to directly fight poverty, or to provide a bore in every village in Asia, South America and Africa which currently does not have one.