I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at Howard’s shabby performance in Question Time. I suppose I’ll analyse his “answers”, but what’s the point? He looked to camera and said his lines and thinks he’ll win over the people with lies and evasions – stuff the dishonour of it all. His craven team – none of whom raised a word of dissent to his reckless decision to go all the way with GWB – look like they sleep well at night. I hope voters hold them all to account for what they’ve done when the time comes.
Today, a piece by US economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on Bush’s brutal exploitation of S11 to crush dissent and avoid accountability for domestic policy disasters. The parallels with Howard are obvious, and Howard’s not letting up either. After Krugman and a Guardian piece on Bush’s latest poll ratings, a piece by Webdiary’s legal contributor Joo-Cheong Tham on Howard’s latest attempt to crush dissent by authorising the government to close down political organisations Howard doesn’t like without reference to Parliament.
Krugman predicts that the US presidential campaign this year and next will be very, very ugly. I predict the same for Australia’s federal election campaign this year or next. Emperor Bush’s antipodean visit to his always-say-yes-man in November is gunna be wild.
One of Bush and Howard’s only allies in the war on Iraq – although he didn’t send troops – was Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. He’s got the qualifications to join this select group, that’s for sure. Brian McKinlay recommends ‘Mussolini Wasn’t That Bad, Says Berlusconi’ in The Guardian on September 12, with the comment:
“This statement by Berlusconi, the man John Howard claimed to have “made a great friend” of while on his recent visit to Italy, is a disgraceful apologia for Mussolini which will be resented by Italian-Australians and is an insult to all Australian servicemen who fought against Italian Fascism.”
An extract:
In an interview published yesterday by the Spectator, Italy’s prime minister appeared to defend the actions of his country’s fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini. “Mussolini never killed anyone,” the magazine quoted him saying.
“Mussolini sent people on holiday to confine them [banishment to small islands such as Ponza and Maddalena which are now plush resorts].”
Italy’s fascist leader ordered the brutal 1935-36 occupation of Ethiopia, led Italy into the second world war and headed a Nazi puppet government which rounded up and dispatched Italian Jews to Hitler’s concentration camps.
The Spectator had earlier published quotes from Berlusconi that Italy’s judges were ‘mentally disturbed’ and ‘anthropologically different’ from other people. Shades of Philip Ruddock? Just like our Dear Leader and his media propagandists, Mr Berlusconi has “declared that he had no intention of being ‘politically correct’.
To end this entry, S11 reflections from debut Webdiarists Sarah Filetta and Jo Gates, regular Andrea Hamann, and a beautiful piece on the burden carried by US soldiers from a Webdiarist who needs to be anonymous on this one.
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The ugly exploitation of Sept. 11
by Paul Krugman, Saturday, September 13, 2003
first published at iht
In my first column after the Sept. 11 attacks, I mentioned something that everyone with contacts on Capitol Hill already knew: That just days after the event, the exploitation of the atrocity for partisan political gain had already begun.
In response, I received a torrent of outraged mail. At a time when the United States was shocked and terrified, the thought that America’s leaders might be that cynical was too much to bear. “How can I say that to my young son?” asked one furious e-mailer.
I wonder what that correspondent thinks now. Is the American public – and the news media – finally prepared to cry foul when cynicism comes wrapped in the flag? America’s political future may rest on the answer.
The press has become a lot less shy about pointing out the Bush administration’s exploitation of Sept. 11, partly because that exploitation has become so crushingly obvious. As The Washington Post pointed out on Thursday, in the past six weeks President George W. Bush has invoked Sept. 11 not just to defend Iraq policy and argue for oil drilling in the Arctic, but in response to questions about tax cuts, unemployment, budget deficits and even campaign finance. Meanwhile, the crudity of the administration’s recent propaganda efforts, from dressing the president up in a flight suit to orchestrating the ludicrously glamorized television movie about Bush on Sept. 11, have set even supporters’ teeth on edge.
Yet it’s almost certainly wrong to think that the political exploitation of Sept. 11 and, more broadly, the Bush administration’s campaign to label critics as unpatriotic, are past their peak. It may be harder for the administration to wrap itself in the flag, but it has more incentive to do so now than ever before. Where once the administration was motivated by greed, now it’s driven by fear.
In the first months after Sept. 11, the administration’s ruthless exploitation of the atrocity was a choice, not a necessity. The natural instinct of Americans to rally around their leader in times of crisis had pushed Bush into the polling stratosphere, and his re-election seemed secure. He could have governed as the uniter he claimed to be, and would probably still be wildly popular.
But Bush’s advisers were greedy; they saw Sept. 11 as an opportunity to get everything they wanted, from another round of tax cuts, to a major weakening of the Clean Air Act, to an invasion of Iraq. And so they wrapped as much as they could in the flag.
Now it has all gone wrong. The deficit is about to go above half a trillion dollars, the economy is still losing jobs, the triumph in Iraq has turned to dust and ashes, and Bush’s poll numbers are at or below their pre-Sept. 11 levels.
Nor can the members of this administration simply lose like gentlemen. For one thing, that’s not how they operate. Furthermore, everything suggests that there are major scandals – involving energy policy, environmental policy, Iraq contracts and cooked intelligence – that would burst into the light of day if the current management lost its grip on power. So these people must win, at any cost.
The result, clearly, will be an ugly, bitter campaign – probably the nastiest of modern American history. Four months ago it seemed that the 2004 campaign would be all slow-mo films of Bush in his flight suit. But at this point, it’s likely to be pictures of Howard Dean or Wesley Clark that morph into Saddam Hussein. And Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has already rolled out the stab-in-the-back argument: If you criticize the administration, you’re lending aid and comfort to the enemy.
This political ugliness will take its toll on policy, too. The administration’s infallibility complex – its inability to admit ever making a mistake – will get even worse. And I disagree with those who think the administration can claim infallibility even while practicing policy flexibility: On major issues, like taxes or Iraq, any sensible policy would too obviously be an implicit admission that previous policies had failed.
In other words, if you thought the last two years were bad, just wait: It’s about to get worse. A lot worse.
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Support for Bush and war slumps
Gary Younge in New York
Saturday September 13, 2003, The Guardian
President George Bush’s approval ratings have slumped to a lower point than they were in the week of the terrorist attacks two years ago, according to the latest Gallup poll.
With the economy haemorrhaging jobs and little sign of victory in Iraq, the CNN/USA Today poll gave Mr Bush an overall approval rating of 52%, compared with 55% in an ABC/Washington Post poll taken between September 6 and 9 2001.
His continuing downward trend in the polls suggests that the weekend’s televised address to the nation, in which he asked for $87bn for the war in Iraq, did nothing to reassure the electorate and may even have made things worse.
This summer has seen a steep decline in the president’s standing from a high of 71% approval in April, suggesting that he would face an extremely close battle if there were an election today. Asked whether they would vote for Bush or an unnamed Democrat, the president has only a four-point lead; in August it was 12.
Support for and opposition to Bush is deeply partisan, reflecting growing entrenchment among Democrats and Republicans. But of particular concern for the Bush teams, according to other polls, is the low number of independent voters (33%) who approve of the overall job he is doing.
“Taking a fall was inevitable, but he is increasingly vulnerable now,” Jaime Regalado, a political scientist at California State University, told USA Today. “The war in Iraq is showing escalating costs in money and human life and the American public is showing escalating doubts.”
In the latest poll 58% say “the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over”, down from 63% in August. More than half think things are going moderately or very badly in Iraq, while 59% believe the administration does not have a clear plan for handling the situation there.
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How not to fight the ‘War on Terrorism’: the Criminal Code Amendment (Terrorist Organisations) Bill 2003
by Joo-Cheong Tham
Joo-Cheong Tham is an Associate Law Lecturer at La Trobe University and has appeared as a witness before parliamentary committees inquiring into anti-terrorism legislation.
Every other day the ‘War on Terrorism’ prompts a new government measure. Some of these initiatives become public knowledge. Others, however, are buried in the processes of government.
Currently before federal parliament and largely hidden from the public gaze is a measure that seeks to confer unprecedented power on the government. The Howard government has resurrected, through the Criminal Code Amendment (Terrorist Organisations) Bill 2003, a scheme that will arm the executive branch of government with far-reaching power to ban organisations.
If passed, this Bill will allow the proscription of organisations simply by virtue of the federal Attorney-General being satisfied that the organisation is ‘directly or indirectly engaged in, preparing, planning, assisting in or fostering the doing of terrorist acts’. The effect of such proscription is that membership and other forms of participation in proscribed organisations become subject to severe criminal penalties which, in some cases, can be up to 25 years’ imprisonment.
This Bill, as with many other measures in ‘War on Terrorism’, is being justified as necessary in the pursuit of terrorists. This justification of necessity, however, rings hollow.
The Bill is unnecessary simply because the government presently has the power to proscribe terrorist organisations. The Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth), for instance, presently permits the government to proscribe an organisation if such an organisation has been identified by the United Nations Security Council as a terrorist organisation. More importantly, the government has at its disposal extensive ‘backdoor’ proscription powers. Under Part 4 of the Charter of the United Nations Act 1945 (Cth), the Foreign Minister, if satisfied that an organisation is engaged in terrorist acts, can list it with the result that the assets of this organisation becomes frozen. Such freezing will invariably shut down the organisation.
Besides being unnecessary, this Bill carries serious dangers because it confers arbitrary executive power. The arbitrary character of the power to proscribe stems, firstly, from the fact that it is based on reasonably vague criteria. Secondly, it can be exercised on the basis of secret and untested evidence. Thirdly, a weak standard of proof applies with the Attorney-General only being needed to be satisfied on the balance of probabilities. Finally, the Bill provides meagre review mechanisms. The key mechanism is review under the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 (Cth). Such review, however, is likely to be ineffectual. It is limited to questions of legality and does not extend to the merits of the decision to proscribe. Further, the courts have demonstrated a traditional reluctance to examine questions of national security after an executive decision has been made.
Such arbitrary executive power risks undermining fundamental freedoms. The mere presence of such power threatens to erode political freedoms by ‘chilling’ political activity. More than this, the arbitrary nature of such power means that its exercise is liable to lead both to mistakes and abuse. In either case, fundamental liberties like the freedoms of political thought and association are put in jeopardy.
Any proposed anti-terrorism measure should be justified as being necessary in the campaign against terrorism. Moreover, it should not unduly trespass on rights and freedoms. This Bill fails grievously on both counts.
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Sarah Filetti in London
As I sit here at my desk, I watch the news on the screens around me. It is 11 September and there are memorials on all around the world. It is the 2nd anniversary. Two years. I sit here and I think about the last 2 years, about how much has changed in the world.
For my generation, the X’ers or the Y’ers or where ever you want to put us (I am 22 y.o.), this was the end of our innocence’s. We had never know a true war. Yes there was Desert Storm, but as a adolescent growing up in Australia that wasn’t really our concern, it was too far away.
September 11, 2001 was the birth of a new world for everyone, and in particular us. No longer was life care free and happy. All of a sudden we realised that we were not indestructible, we would not live forever.
We worry now. Every time you fly you are reminded of the danger, the extra security at events, the extra security measures taken in every day life. I live in London now, and I fear that I will have to do a security check soon to buy a razor, things have gone crazy. Going on the tube every day is bad enough, without constantly being reminded that un attended baggage is a security risk, that in the case of an emergency listen to staff and be calm. Yeah right, I will be running as fast as I can out of there.
You subconsciously survey every one around you, and I know that I am always looking for ways out. When you fly you have to add an extra 30 minutes now, just for security. What happened to our trust in human kind? I have sniffer dogs patrolling the building I work in and we have nothing to do with the government.
We then turn our thoughts to nearly a year ago, to a lovely tranquil island called Bali, yes it was almost a year ago. The same feelings of hopelessness and shock came flooding back but this time, well it was stronger, it was closer to home, and although, no one I knew immediately was involved, it affected me in a way I will never forget.
Going on holidays, going to work, we are no longer safe. No longer safe to live our lives the way we chose. Things once taken for granted, like rubbish bins on a train platform, well now they are totally foreign.
What gives Osama and his sympathisers the right to destroy the lives of so many millions, no sorry billions of people? Who are they to chose what is right and wrong, who will live or die?
There are many people opposed to this war against terror saying that we are not going about things the right way. I say they are wrong. Osama has already had a victory – he has taken away our freedom and with that, our way of life. We have to fight to get that back.
I do not mean fight against the Muslims, or the Afghanistan people, they are hurting too. Their lives have changed forever as well. We need to stand together and fight. We have to show them that although we no longer feel safe in our lives, we are not going to run. That no matter how much we feel like hiding, we will stand proud and not waiver.
We will not let him continue to win…
***
Jo Gates
I’m astonished at Channel 7’s voyeuristic bad taste to mark September 11 with the programming of a show that focused on the actual attacks on the World Trade centre, and tell us (once more) why the Twin Towers collapsed.
It was a thinly disguised opportunity for Channel 7 to show the footage of impact (do we need to show it ever again?) and try in vain to grab for ratings in a timeslot that no doubt gets beaten by the NRL Footy show every week.
It seems they’ve chosen to commemorate the accomplishments of terrorism as opposed to marking the remembrance of those lost. Even the major US stations weren’t that tacky (?)
Do we need to show that again? Did anyone miss it the first time round in 2000? The more we indulge, the more I think we reflect our ignorance and seeming disregard at all other human suffering and atrocity that has gone relatively unnoticed in other countries in the past 2 years. Then again, if CNN wasn’t there to capture it live, it never happened…
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Andrea Hamann in the United Arab Emirates
I didn’t even notice when September 11 came and went this year, and to be quite honest I am glad I didn’t. It is not that I don’t feel for the victims of that day, I do. It’s that I don’t feel any less for the 800,000 or more victims of genocide in Rwanda, or those of ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Serbia, or the millions of refugees stranded on borders, or no man’s lands around the world, or any other peoples in this world who slip through the safety nets of wealth and democracy. I don’t see any of those victims being honoured with a day where throughout the world everyone pauses to reflect and think of their fates, and how it was that a world community could let it happen, and continues to do so.
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Anonymous
That he was twenty years of age and clung desperately to his mother, umbilically, made absolute sense to me. He would not have seen it that way, of course. He had flown secret missions – he couldn’t say how many – to unnamed parts of the world, in the elite US Special Forces, under the cover of darkness, parachuting in, and, in his words, “destroying everything”. The guesswork in his family was not that he had killed a man, but how many. Or had he killed civilians as well. In fact, that is what he was trained to do: to kill.
I met him personally more than two years ago. He was tough, don’t worry about that. There was something in his eyes that hurts me still, and I can see it there, now, as real as these words on the page. It was ‘an other thing’. A ‘something else’. There was in his eyes something you do not see in the eyes of a normal citizen.
Where was he, in there, I do not know. I do know he was begging to come out. We talked a little about it. He had two more years to serve, and then he was free. “Free” – his word, used easily, and without disloyalty to his country.
On parting, I had one hope in my heart for him. I hoped he would have the time to process what had happened to him.
Two months later the Towers came down. I died a little for him that day, because I knew his fate was sealed. He had been denied time.
Those who have been to America and witnessed its culture would know that it is a military country. It’s not like Australia. Friends and family in the US are either military or they’re not, that is the distinction. We don’t have that distinction, we don’t relate to each other with that in our minds.
Everywhere there, it seems, there is a military presence. It struck me, even before the world had changed, that America was living in fear. Why else the military everywhere? What were they so frightened of? Even their anthem is bound up in war.
He told me of the life he had lived, in shortcut sentences, in matters not Classified – but his telling of it was easy, as though he had it all down pat. Or was this also part of the training? He slept at an airfield, he said, and was just twenty minutes away at all times from jumping in a plane and flying off to some unnamed country and doing what he was trained to do. Twenty minutes.
No one ‘on the outside’ ever knew the mission had been flown, not even his mother. After six months of this, he and his small unit would be farmed out to try to shiver and shake it all off, even if they didn’t fly. Then it was their turn again, and it was back to the airfield to ‘live’. At night, he would be attacked by members of his own unit, invading his sleep by stealth, to keep him on his toes, and because that was what they did. Trained killers attacking.
He was beautiful though. I believe he still is. Deeply and sincerely, when it all got too sensitive, he would bung on an Aussie accent and we’d laugh. He wished to come to Australia, but when he said this, he seemed not to know how to go about it. He knew he would not fit in. We think about sunburn and shark attacks. He thought about killing people.
Amazing. Young people there from schooling years who find themselves without a civilian future are seduced into it, into the military. I happened to meet a recruiting officer while there. I’ve never met a sharper, more seductive, smooth, trained, salesman. Amazing. A struggling and uncertain youth would have no chance, and the offers of a free laptop and certain weekly wage seem designed to be just the right bait. Unemployment and risking the streets or a laptop and everything looked after? What would you choose? It’s nice and easy.. you just sign on to the military for a few short years and then you can get out, with a cash bonus, like that set of steak knives.
What the youth of America don’t know in making that decision is that once in, you can’t get out. At least, its damn hard. Hard, hard, hard. And it’s not as if the young are equipped to make the decision in the first place.
And so to my killer. We listened to some music he had made, on his computer, in his private dog box, in the compound (not under the auspices of the special forces). Dance beats, speed-drug beats, an endless mantra. The beat was his escape. But where could he run, I thought. And outside the building, swarming, were clones of him. Same haircuts, same politeness, same robotic purpose, everywhere.
And yet he was so unique. I miss him. I pray for him. I wonder what the hell has happened to him. I loved him, still do, and I hope he can feel it. In Australia I live by the sea, and I thought about that while sitting in his dog box listening to his music beat in the middle of the US Military.
People of Australia, look out upon the blue sky of your morning and be thankful. Be thankful that your street is not built with one civilian household next to a military household. Be thankful that you don’t have to deal with that force, that presence in your life. Be thankful for your children in the neighbourhood. Be thankful that they may have a better chance. Be thankful that above you in the blue sky is not a satellite eye plotting your every move, beamed back to some country electronically connected to your country’s fear.
Realise, if you will, that America is complex. Realise if you will that when you see images on the telly of American soldiers representing American interests that they may not be there by choice. Not really. nd then, if you will, look upon the leadership of the world and demand of them in your spirit that they wish for a blue sky leading only to the heavens.
Be gentle.