Photo by web diarist Fiona Haines

Related:  Fiona Haines peace rally photos

What is the instinct at the core of the world’s largest demonstrations against war on Iraq? Why did so many protest for the first time? And what does this augur for the future?

It’s partly because many people – conservative, radical, right and left – believe war on Iraq will escalate terrorism and instability, not lessen them, and have become frustrated by the pro-war nations’ failure to address or engage with this belief and deeply fearful about what that failure means. They’ve become convinced that they’re being lied to to get their support for the deaths of their soldiers, and civilians, in their name, while war is being waged for quite another purpose. They are worried that right is not on their side – not on either side – and they’re deeply uncomfortable at the lack of moral certainty that the war is a just one.

It’s partly a profound lack of trust in the judgement and motivations of the US administration, fed by its assertion of the supremacy of its values in its national security strategy and its determination to break away from the constraints of the UN, the body set up after WW11 to try to prevent another world war. (For a critique of the strategy, see A Citizen’s Response to the National Security Strategy of the United States of America, which is being used in the US anti-war campaign).

The complicity of western governments and companies in the rise of the monster they now seek to destroy because, they say, he has weapons – which they supplied; the exposure of their lies and secrets in previous wars; and their refusal to admit past mistakes in arguing their cause is destroying their credibility. Big change is in the air. People all over the world are learning about the UN, middle-east history, WMDs and their makers and distributors – stuff most hadn’t given a second thought to before now. A collapse of trust in our political and economic leaders means more and more people are getting the facts to make up their own minds, asking their own questions, finding their own answers, and, increasingly, taking their own action. They’re asking what values their respective nations really stand for. The energy, dynamism, and passion of this debate is unprecedented, all around the world. The peoples of the world sense that we’re on the verge of something momentous which could destroy our lives and those of our children if we get it wrong now.

When I heard about Osama’s latest tape my first reaction was that it should have been suppressed. World-wide publicity means terrorist cells across the world get the message to strike after the invasion of Iraq. This is the biggest downside of the American’s failure to find Osama. And that failure is the biggest weakness in the American case for war. We’ve been told over and over that war will be different from now on – that the world needs to unite to weaken the stateless enemy. Yet the Americans are doing the same old thing – attacking a nation state – without evidence that he’s in cahoots with Osama, an act which empowers Osama’s plan for a clash of civilisations. The West strikes first.

Last night I had a nightmare vision of the world becoming the Israel/Palestine war writ large. Israel has overwhelming force and the nuclear bomb on its side, and uses it’s military advantage without mercy, just as the Yanks will. Palestine is reduced to nothing but the willingness of its fighters to die in the cause. Is might winning? Perhaps, but the the price is endless insecurity and daily fear of death in the shops or on the bus. Freedoms and liberties disappear as the State swings becomes a police state to prevent terrorism. We lose our freedom, we lose our sense of safety, we fear our neighbour. More and more resources are thrown into protecting our water supply, our airports, our key infrastructure, so our standard of living goes down. If the terrorists really get going they could threaten our trade supply lines. Maybe the decision of the Europeans and the Japanese to subsidise their local agriculture will prove correct – that in the dark times ahead self-sufficiency will be vital to get food on the table and to ensure as far as possible that it’s not contaminated.

Most think the war, phase one, will be quick and pretty easy – what happens after that is the worry. This is what all the questions about ‘Why now?’, and the Americans failure to prove a link between S11, Osama’s terrorist network and Suddam are really about. To many, invading Iraq means the West could begin World War 111. Yet none of the three advocates for war ever really address this fear – let alone spell out what they plan for Iraq post-Saddam. We have been given no risk assessment of whether the war will make us safer or more vulnerable to terrorism in the short or medium term – Howard’s most contemptuous failure in the debate. No wonder more and more people think it’s really about something else altogether – oil, and in Australia’s case – about trade for blood and yet another downpayment on our hope for help if we’re threatened, while the very decision to go to war with Iraq makes the odds of needing that help higher.

There’s an even more corrosive factor in play. The culmination of the cynical governance of the major parties in western democracies is that they are just not believed. When Tony Blair recently called out the troops to London airports in response, he said, to a specific terrorist threat, many people thought he was lying – that his announcement was a tactic to increase support for the war. We can’t underestimate the Vietnam legacy here – million of people around the world know the US lied about that war from beginning to end.

So now we see an extraordinary and extremely dangerous new phenomenon – governments of democracies prepared to send troops to war in the face of sometimes overwhelming public opinion against it. This brings the very legitimacy of those governments into question, and the very meaning of democracy. As I’ve argued before, this is not a question of populism – I fully support the right of elected governments to make decisions they believe to be in the public interest in spite of public opinion. War is special. It is blood sacrifice. It requires at least the appearance of the sacrifice of citizens on behalf of fellow citizens, not on behalf of the government of the day. Democratic governments must make the case to their people. If they don’t, the social compact at the foundation of democracy is in tatters. Politicians may have squandered the precious gift of trust from the people for so long that it’s not there any more – and they are then in no position to say “WE will decide whether we go to war and how many troops we commit”. If people come to believe that the state, as well as the enemy, is their enemy, we could be in for tumultuous change in the system under which we live.

What does this impending war on Iraq symbolise? What’s made the world split asunder over it? What’s the really big picture here? What’s at the bottom of the intensity of feelings about it? Any ideas?

Today Mr Mecurious explores the difference between nation state’s rights and human rights, Alex Pollard argues that pacifists are the least naive of all when it comes to war, and Kingsley Thomas uses Jungian analysis to suggest a psychological reason why Australian’s aren’t buying Howard’s war. To end, more Webdiarist reports on the protest marches last weekend, and reactions to them.

To begin, Matthew Roberts writes that he’s been reading The Arrogance of Power by former US Senator J. William Fulbright, once Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, published in 1966. “It is astonishingly relevant to issues surrounding US Foreign Policy today, and given the many reflex references to the appeasement of Nazi Germany the following quote is of particular interest.”

The second great advantage of free discussion to democratic policy-makers is its bringing to light of new ideas and the supplanting of old myths with new realities. We Americans are much in need of this benefit because we are severely, if not uniquely, afflicted with a habit of policy making by analogy: North Vietnam’s involvement in South Vietnam, for example, is equated with Hitler’s invasion of Poland and a parley with the Viet Cong would represent ‘another Munich’. The treatment of slight and superficial resemblances as if they were full-blooded analogies – as instances, as it were, of history ‘repeating itself’ – is a substitute for thinking and a misuse of history.

The value of history is not what it seems to prohibit or prescribe but its general indications as to the kinds of policies that are likely to succeed and the kinds that are likely to fail, or, as one historian has suggested, its hints as to what is not likely to happen. Mark Twain offered guidance on the uses of history: ‘We should be careful,’ he wrote, ‘to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it – and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again – and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.’

There is a kind of voodoo about American foreign policy. Certain drums have to be beaten regularly to ward off evil spirits – for example, the maledictions regularly uttered against North Vietnamese aggression, the ‘wild men’ in Peking, communism in general, and President de Gaulle. Certain pledges must be repeated every day lest the whole free world go to rack and ruin – for example, we will never go back on a commitment no matter how unwise; we regard this alliance or that as absolutely ‘vital’ to the free world; and of course we will stand stalwart in Berlin from now until Judgement Day. Certain words must never be uttered except in derision – the word ‘appeasement’, for example, comes as near as any word can to summarizing everything that is regarded by American policy-makers as stupid, wicked, and disastrous.

I do not suggest that we should heap praise on the Chinese Communists, dismantle Nato, abandon Berlin, and seize every opportunity that comes along to appease our enemies. I do suggest the desirability of an atmosphere in which unorthodox ideas would arouse interest rather than anger, reflection rather than emotion. As likely as not, new proposals carefully examined would be found wanting and old policies judged sound; what is wanted is not change itself but the capacity for change. Consider the idea of ‘appeasement’: in a free and healthy political atmosphere it would elicit neither horror nor enthusiasm but only interest in precisely what its proponent had in mind. As Winston Churchill once said: ‘Appeasement in itself may be good or bad according to the circumstances. … Appeasement from strength is magnanimous and noble and might be the surest and perhaps the only path to world peace.’

***

On Sovereignty

by Mr Mercurius Summer Hill

This piece is intended to open a Webdiary discussion on the concept of state sovereignty and how this idea is used in contemporary international politics and rhetoric. The question is not an abstract nicety. All governments from time to time justify their policies to their citizens and the world using the idea of sovereignty. It has serious and immediate applications, and we would all be served by a fuller comprehension of this term.

I seek to show that sovereignty, or state rights, is divorced from citizen/human rights, that state leaders themselves understand this, and that they invoke the term to help carry out their political will.

I begin by disavowing any specialist technical knowledge of the topic – what I will do is observe some uses of sovereignty in recent times and invite consideration and response. There will not be verbatim quotes or citations – rather this piece conveys a general impression from which we can steadily become more forensic if this serves our aim.

Historically, sovereignty finds its origin in the imposition of a monarch’s powers across their kingdom. Although monarchism has declined, the idea of sovereignty has remained – distilled now into the powers of a states body politic. Depending on the nation in question, the body politic may consist of a single individual, or may extend amorphously across government and opposition parties, lobby groups, commercial interests, the judiciary and even, intermittently at the margins, the general populace.

Sovereignty has also retained at its core a key property of the old monarchic powers – that of a disjunction with the rights of the citizenry. Although sovereignty need not be in conflict with citizens rights, it equally need not represent them. Thus a dictator and an elected leader alike can employ the idea of sovereignty when they wish to assert their state power over their limited domain.

To me then, sovereignty and state rights appear to be interchangeable terms, at least in modern usage. The term state rights may also be more precise because it makes it clear that we are talking about something other than citizen’s rights or human rights when we discuss sovereignty. I will thus use these terms interchangeably – employing state rights when this helps to illustrate the disjunction. (If you think this is begging the question, please finish reading first and then tell me why.)

I now invoke the UN into this question, as it brings us closer to immediate affairs, and by observing UN declarations and resolutions we can learn more about how states view their own sovereignty.

Sovereignty appears to be a paradox at the heart of the UN that brings with it a dynamic tension capable of simultaneously galvanising and crippling the effectiveness of that organisation.

The UN was in part established with the hope that wars of conquest and expansion can never again occur, as member states territorial borders are in some sense inviolable. This is also a recognition of reality in this, for what state would sign up for membership unless the promise of inviolability was afforded to all members? No body politic, from a tin-pot dictator to the leader of the free world would agree to surrender an atom of their sovereignty to a larger organisation.

And yet there is also the recognition in many fine UN declarations that this sovereignty, which stops at each nation’s border, is not the same thing as human rights, which are said to be universal.

I seek neither to endorse nor criticise the resolutions/actions taken by the UN over the years, but rather to point out their functional outcome in which state rights have at times been subverted in favour of other rights. Nor do I deny that there are vested interests behind many UN actions – I would not dare to suggest that human rights are the sole, or even major motivation behind many resolutions – nevertheless they are a factor in many.

We should be mindful also that the UN is comprised wholly and solely of its member states. So what we see is that states themselves are sometimes willing to subvert the sovereignty of other states, through the forum of the UN, when they believe other rights take priority.

What is really going here? Why are member states willing to subvert the sovereignty of other states when this raises the possibility that their sovereignty may some day be infringed through the same forum? Perhaps by resolving publicly before the world forum to the temporary subversion of another states sovereignty, they seek to attain a legitimacy that they do not believe is present in unilateral action.

And yet there are limits. We observe frequently that states object to certain UN treaties or resolutions on the grounds that it would infringe their state rights. Except they don’t say state rights of course; in their rhetoric they say sovereignty. But should we buy this argument? Should we believe that when our leaders tell us they wish to protect our sovereignty, that they are doing this for our benefit?

They certainly wish to portray themselves as doing so. Yet we know that our leaders have a functional understanding that sovereignty is disconnected from our rights as citizens. So how can they credibly stand before us and claim to be protecting us when they act to protect our sovereignty? I think they rely on our ignorance of the interchangeable term state rights.

I invite you to consider these points the next time you hear North Korea or Iraq reject UN resolutions or demands from other nations to disarm on the basis of their sovereignty (or some similar term/motive/idea). Whose rights are they trying to protect? Their citizens? Hardly. It is easy to see in a totalitarian state that they seek only to protect their body politic and their absolute power.

I also invite you to consider these points the next time you hear our government refuse to sign the Kyoto protocol, or let any boat people in, on the basis of our sovereignty. Whose rights are they trying to protect? It is less easy to see in a formal democracy, because state power is not absolute. It would be comforting to believe that these are the times when state rights happen to align with citizen and human rights, but somehow I doubt it. I have nothing to substantiate the assertion except that if states themselves understand sovereignty to be different from citizen/human rights, then it leaves me little hope that they have my interests at heart when they talk about our sovereignty.

To further illustrate this point, our government appears to have little trouble negotiating on all sorts of things when it looks for free trade with the US. They are happy to allow GM crop imports for example, and they would only do this if they did not believe it to be an issue of sovereignty – other rights may be negotiable, but not state rights.

Please don’t tar me with any particular political brush. I am agnostic on Kyoto and GM crop imports – merely observing the bi-polar attitude our government has about how these two issues relate to state rights. They believe that one infringes sovereignty while the other does not. What’s the difference?

As for boat people, our government has held up its Tampa laws (and the mandatory detention policy inherited from Labor) as an assertion of Australias sovereignty. It follows that the government believes the current asylum seeker regime must be vital to protect state rights. I speculate that this is because the asylum seeker policy controls the movement of people, something any state wants to do.

But what does this tell us about the citizen/human rights involved? I think very little. Do we on one side of a border have more rights that those on the other side? Clearly not, if the term universal human rights is to have any meaning. Our government recognises universal human rights – but in practice they have shown that when it comes to asylum seekers, state rights will take priority.

So do you still think that defending the sovereignty of Australia affords your human rights any kind of special protection? It seems to me to be utterly disconnected with human rights concerns – like a fish without a bicycle, to borrow the phrase.

***

Alex Pollard

There is often an argument around pacifism; that That some wars ARE just, because circumstances make them unavoidable. But a survey of history shows that wars usually start with a lie.

The Spanish-American war started with an explosion on board the USS Maine. An apparent coal explosion, it was nonetheless blamed on the Spanish (historynavy).

Hitler started his invasion of Poland, and World War II, by claiming the Polish had attacked first. Hitler took half of Poland, and quite conveniently, the USSR invaded the other half (thehaus).

In the Gulf of Tonkin, an American vessel was reportedly attacked by North Vietnamese boats. When the US Congress finally figured out this was all made up they rescinded the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, but that couldn’t bring back the millions of dead Vietnamese and Americans (militaryhistory).

To get the Saudis on side for their last Gulf War, Powell, Cheney and Bush Sr. produced fake satellite images of Iraqi forces supposedly massing on the border (guardian).

The world knows that the Bush gang has basically been lying flat-out for the last year about Iraq. So what alternative do these war mongers have apart from a humiliating climb-down? Throughout the last century, US Governments have sacrificed the lives and health of many American soldiers for some pretty flimsy reasons. So why should we assume that they consider the lives

of civilians any more worthy? Does this latest terror alert herald an event which will salvage the now hopeless case for war?

Pacifists are sometimes accused of naivety. But history shows that pacifists are the least naive of all.

***

Kingsley Jones

I wanted to bring attention to the writings of Carl Gustav Jung in The Undiscovered Self and Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The observations of these persons (both now dead) are germane to our time, and of special relevance to Australia as we ponder our own destiny at this time.

The nutshell view of both is that the development of the individual and society at large are generally ruled by matters of mythological story. They can be easily understood in such terms when the guiding myths of a society are recognised and understood.

This is not an assertion about historical truth or fatalistic destiny. It is rather more positive than that, being an assertion of what is common to both individuals and crowds when they rise above challenges of resident evil. The eternal human truth is to see in a simple story (a vision) how it is that intuitive understanding can lead one beyond limited logic to practical solutions of real and lasting transformative value.

Let us take this metaphysical statement and make it very concrete. In my view, Australia is, as yet, not a fully formed nation in its psychological self-knowledge.

However, it does definitely appear to favour subvert heroism to overt heroism. I mean that Australians would prefer to act heroically without being seen to, and do not favour the pomp and circumstance of the hero who would claim to be heroic. This is why our first popular heroes were sportspeople who were seen to succeed without really trying.

I suspect this very tradition is why the ANZAC mythology is now so powerfully invoked by John Howard. However, I suspect our Prime Minister truly does not understand the force and depth of that mythology.

Let us recall that the Dardanelles was a grave strategic error committed by Churchill on a whim, and without very good military foundation. An expeditionary force was committed and placed under the command of the British. The tale is really one about how Australians survived psychically in spite of a stupid military campaign that was poorly executed, and poorlycommanded, against an enemy (The Turk) who turned out to earn the respect of our soldiers.

This may not be the official history. However, it is as recounted by my departed grandfather. He was not a soft man, having eliminated by his own trigger finger upwards of eighty of the enemy as a sniper. He was decorated and managed to survive the Great War by the good fortune of being shot just before every major battle (including the Somme).

He never (in my memory) regarded this campaign as holding any individual glory bar survival for he and his mates.

I fear that our Prime Minister has now committed precisely analogous historic errors through invoking what he doubtless perceives to be the popular force of the ANZAC myth to dress up an unpopular military adventure.

He has committed our troops to an open ended campaign in a foreign war of dubious strategic merit, with no clear military objective, under the command of a foreign military whose troops operate somewhat differently. They are more in the Roman tradition – it really does not matter what horror is visited on the enemy, as the end justifies any and all means of securing victory (witness the US rhetoric that will not die regarding possible use of nuclear weapons).

I anticipate that the story of this war is likely true to the letter of the Australian ANZAC myth. If our troops are called on to fight, they will do so bravely, probably be killed primarily be our alleged friends through either poor command of military strategy or “friendly fire” incidents of honest but tragic confusion.

At the end of the whole sorry tale our troops will probably come to admire that “the enemy”, despite their poor standing and equipment, for the simple reason that they fought for their homeland (and not their leader) against invasion.

Of course, Australia could dispense with revisting this mythological past and embrace a rather more noble mythological future of realising that we are most probably more anti-heroic than heroic by nature.

I am saying it is more naturally Australian to break the rules and say: “Actually, this is an exceptionally silly war. We can ennoble ourselves and our region by breaking with the US.”

In taking that stand, we would likely succeed in elevating our political influence very considerably, in extending our relevance to our own region, and in exhibiting some signs of an emerging individuated national character.

This land is blessed with many able people whom I feel have always been wise enough not to blindly follow ideology or need to agree with one another about every little thing. Difference is accepted and tolerated if not encouraged.

However, about one thing I think we should all be agreed. Australia must be a nation that stands for the future and not the past. We must be a nation that leads the way rather than being a blind follower.

So much of the world is sunk into foolish rationalism and hair splitting over the finer points of agreement or disagreement about this or that obviously limited imported platitude, management fad or social fashion.

Why should we, safely isolated from the roots of such social pressure, seek to slavishly copy and imitate it? Can this nation not feel mature enough to step forward and make our own High Renaissance of cultural progress?

Why actively seek to be as vanishingly small in human perspective and aspiration as it seems possible to be? Does the nation not realise that by merely being ourselves and moving forward to celebrate difference and grow and nourish the creativity within all of our citizens that we can easily be far more than we ever thought possible?

I may perhaps have massively misjudged my fellow Australians, but I do not believe we were destined to be a tiny people, nor an arrogant people. I think we are best being a fluid people who easily intuit the wise middle path.

In terms of military history, I thought that was where Australians always excelled.

We favour some of the East and some of the West in matters of politics and strategy. It is not necessary for us to slavishly follow the order of battle: in real war or politics.

This is always much the best course of action for a people who have limited human and material resources.It is better to be like water and flow around rocks. Obstacles are only so to those who feel they must crush them.

Leave the grand strategic errors to the USA. They have already most ably forfeited their claims to world power.

MARCH REPORTS

Damian Shaw-Williams in London

I took part in the largest ever demonstration in London and it was a breathtaking experience in the midst of well over a million and a half people. The diversity of the crowd was amazing, from the ‘Old Fogies For Peace’ to the Socialist Workers Party to the Conservatives for peace. It was young, old, black, white, muslim, jew – a seething colourful solid wall of humanity.

It received far more sympathetic coverage than the previous march, and had the immediate immediate effect of Blair buying more time by waiting for yet another report. However I think the greatest evidence of its significance was the lengths to which the government here were trying to downplay the significance of the march and emphasise the divisions within it. These efforts were treated with the derision they deserved by nearly all media outlets as they (even the pro-war Murdoch ones) had to for a day at least acknowledge the will of the people, who will not be ignored on this matter.

***

Fiona Haines

I went to the rally in Sydney and it was overwhelming to see so many people embracing peace and showing support for the citizens of Iraq. The obvious focus now is to prevent war but the issue of how to deal with Saddam and his monstrous treatment of his own people also needs to be addressed. It’s a shame that is has taken so long to put his human rights violations onto the political agenda. (Margo: Today’s rally photos are by Fiona.)

Polly Bush in Melbourne

Mate, where is the Melbourne voice in all this protest coverage? I thought you were a Queenslander, for chrissake, what’s all this about “Sydney rarely matches the activism of Melbourne on the really big issues, let alone beats it hands down”? C’mon, we weren’t exactly a no-show. As you mentioned, the conservative guesstimates put it at 150,000. The organisers added on another 100,000 – the same as Sydney’s conservative guesstimates, and standing outside the State Library amongst the sea of infectious smiles on Friday evening it was entirely impossible to tell. A leg up on a TV car provided an extraordinary view – Swanston jam packed down the blocks, spilling over the Yarra towards the war memorial shrine. On Feb 14, many Melburnians ditched the intimate candlelit dinner options in favour of one mass inner city love-in. Bewdiful. Shame on you for reducing this to a sly dig at inter-city rivalry!

***

Sarah Moles in Allora, Queensland

I drove 3 hours to suburban Brisbane on Sunday with my teenage son. We took a train from Toowomg. It was like getting onto a Tokyo bullet train – absolutely stuffed with people. It was hot and humid, but not even the children (noses in dangerous proximity to adult armpits) complained. It was a sea of happy smiling faces. At Roma St there were thousands more – all ages, all races, from all walks of life, impeccably behaved, united in protest. It was impossible to get close enough to hear the speakers – only the applause and cheers could be heard. It was inspiring and emotional and restored my faith in my country.

PROTEST REACTION

Thomas Price

Wow ,some middle class hypocrites went on a Sunday walk for 3-4 hours. Big deal – after it they all went home to their comfortable houses with their oil driven cars to live off the fat of the west. The west that they claim is nothing less than Satanic! Now call me old fashioned but I was brought up to believe that if you were against something you didn’t use it. Until these protesters get real and stop living of what they claim we have obtained by ill gotten gains they will be exposed as nothing more than the slimy hypocrites that they are. Talk [ and walk ] is cheap. If you are for real give up your car, your HealthCare and your freedom. The marchers will never do it – hey that’s like a real sacrifice!! Stuff that.

***

Diann Rodgers-Healey

I hear the drums of war beating

WAR WAR WAR

I hear the voices of people pleading

PEACE PEACE PEACE

*

They say we have a democracy

And yes, we are the lucky country

So don’t ask why, unheard they remain

Our rights-filled fearful shrills for peace

*

We fear the loss of blood, so young

We fear the swell of death, so near

The loss of peace, the strength of rage

A future of divide, inequality more alive

*

But yet we teach our children

Peace. Don’t war.

Compromise negotiate mediate, never hate

Compassion understanding, never retaliate

*

So which path are we to create?

Armed with lessons from our past

Filled with respect and intellect

With relentlessness we must find

A bridge of peace to overcome war

A respect for humanity

An understanding of inequality

And the will power to change the roots of hatred

***

Constance Chew in Perth, Western Australia

“I don’t think the mob, to use that vernacular, has quite made up its mind on this issue and it can’t really make up its mind until we know what all the alternatives are.” John Howard.

I think John Howard should make up HIS mind. If those who disagree with this government’s stand on refugees are members of “the elite”, how can we now also be part of a “mob” when we oppose war against Iraq?

How does he know people “haven’t made up” their minds? How many people does he need to see on his plasma telly before he believes that a great many people strongly disagree with his kowtowing to Dubya? Maybe he should *ask* “the Mob”! NOT IMPRESSED!

***

John Douglas in Zhanjiang

What is wrong with these people? we have had the world trade centre then Bali as wall as many other terrorist acts around the world and now they want to allow a man like this to make his weapons of mass destruction. I wonder how many will stand up and say I supported Iraq after they use one of these weapons.

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Simon Probets in Cromer, NSW

I protest the fools that marched in Sydney and around the world on Sunday. You do not represent me or the majority of Australians. Allow the rest of us to support our Aussie troops and thank God such brave men and women exist to provide our freedoms so that we can enjoy the simple pleasures of life such as sleeping at night without fear of being ripped from our beds and executed in front of our families. Evil exists in the world and it has to be dealt with.

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Peter Dyce

I will be interested to see how Howard manages to worm out of this situation. Howard has no room to move. He can’t back out, and he has no ability to influence events. He can’t play down this weekend’s message. He can’t pretend to be listening to the electorate and take us into a war. Has he told the electors one too many?

A mighty lot of city people are not happy. I think the bush is still squarely behind him. But the drought will have a part to play in this too. Basically NSW over the range is totally rooted…. if they don’t have rain by March farmers will be shooting themselves on their own verandahs. So maybe they just won’t care who is office as long as they can get a hand out.

Wars are bloody expensive. Is he finally going to come unstuck? Somehow I don’t think he will because right now we have no other option, Crean? I don’t think so….maybe Costello stages a coup? What would his line be? Maybe a back bench revolt?

Maggie Thatcher got shafted by her own people and and the Tories ended up with a compromise politician in Major who lead them into the wilderness and years of righter than right Beau Blair…

Is this the seachange the Left is looking for? Stuffed if I know, Margo.