Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

Is Australia your deputy sheriff in the region, Mr President?

“No. We don’t see it as a deputy sheriff. We see it as a sheriff. There’s a difference.” He’s outsourced policing South East Asia to us. What an honour! Umm, but doesn’t that bin our latest insurance premium? Who we gunna turn to, John? Who we gunna turn to?

The occasion of the emperor’s announcement of this enormous responsibility? A closed press conference with seven hand-picked journalists from Australia and the Asian region.

Wild. Just wild. John Howard sort-of-called Australia a deputy sheriff to the Yanks in our region in a 1999 Bulletin interview, then ran a mile from it when the shit hit the fan from our Asian neighbours. Not helpful in the region. Not helpful at all, especially now, when we need cooperation from our neighbours to combat terrorism and don’t need terrorists in our region targetting us. (For reaction in Asia see Asia unhappy with Bush’s sheriff comments and Australia is ‘puppet, not ‘sheriff’)

Howard hadn’t told us about our promotion – as usual he left it to the boss.

It puts Howard’s decision to expel the public from their own parliament when George addresses our representatives in a new light. I’ve never heard of that happening before, but we’ve never been the US President’s sheriff in South East Asia before.

The symbolism is obvious. Democracy has no place in the world of Bush, supreme commander and Howard, sheriff. The world as fashioned by Bush – Howard as echo chamber – is too dangerous for democracy. They’re creating a world in which they wield absolute power. In America, George’s thugs are making sure of that by rigging the voting system with the help of his big corporate mates (All the President’s votes? in The Independent). In Australia, Howard’s put Senate reform on the table and is trying to crush skeptical media voices by handing control of what’s left of Murdoch and Packer’s competition to the big two.

In America, the Democrats and many, many Americans are fighting back hard, led by Democrat presidential candidates General Wesley Clark and Howard Dean, both trenchant critics of Bush’s war. The US Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity have just published a piece in praise of Andrew Wilkie, One Person Can Make a Difference. Yet in Australia, Labor opposition leader Simon Crean lies low, popping up only to tell his MPs to applaud Bush even before hearing what he’s got to say to a Parliament from which the Australian people are locked out.

While George was putting the gold star on Howard’s lapel and Crean was dressing down his rebellious MPs, former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating urged us not to put all our eggs in the Bush basket.

United States foreign policy would lead Australia into a “Mad Max world” where the US would shield itself behind missiles, he said. He criticised the US policy of pre-emptive strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan, which gave other countries the signal to walk away from multilateral agreements and treaties, and said small nations like Australia had a vested interest in a rule-based system around multilateral agreements.

“There is every chance that the American policy will lead us into a Mad Max world, while the US seeks to cocoon itself behind a screen of national missile defence,” Mr Keating told the 2003 CPA Australia congress in Melbourne.

He also warned against sole reliance on the US for security and trade. It was not a “smart policy” because China would soon eclipse the US as a superpower. “China is a phenomenon and it’s in our backyard and it is one of the reasons why we should look long and hard at free trade agreements with the United States. Back-lane, backdoor agreements never work in trade. They are always for the stronger party.”

Australia should embrace its own identity and find security within Asia. “We [should] maintain our alliance structure with the US, but essentially make our own luck. We should go to these places not as some kind of vicar of empire, or deputy of the United States, or borrowing the monarchy of another country, rather as a nation confident in ourselves . And that’s not falling in love with every American administration. It’s about fundamentally having a number of relationships at once. “It’s a bit promiscuous, I know.” (Beware Mad Max world of US.)

Simon, please read Harpers magazine’s The revision thing: a history of the Iraq war, told entirely in lies. “All text is verbatim from senior Bush administration officials and advisers. In places, tenses have been changed for clarity.” Why should Labor applaud the man who lied to the world about invading Iraq and ignored prescient warnings from experts across the board that it would increase the risk of terror.

Simon, please read this piece, recommended by Scott Burchill:

Iraq War Swells Al Qaeda’s Ranks, Report Says

By Peter Graff

LONDON (Reuters) – War in Iraq has swollen the ranks of al Qaeda and galvanized the Islamic militant group’s will, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said on Wednesday in its annual report. The 2003-2004 edition of the British-based think-tank’s annual bible for defense analysts, The Military Balance, said Washington’s assertions after the Iraq conflict that it had turned the corner in the war on terror were “over-confident”.

The report, widely considered an authoritative text on the military capabilities of states and militant groups worldwide, could prove fodder for critics of the U.S.-British invasion and of the reconstruction effort that has followed in Iraq. Washington must impose security in Iraq to prevent the country from “ripening into a cause celebre for radical Islamic terrorists,” it concluded. “Nation-building” in Iraq was paramount and might require more troops than initially planned.

“On the plus side, war in Iraq has denied al Qaeda a potential supplier of weapons of mass destruction and discouraged state sponsors of terrorism from continuing to support it,” the report said. “On the minus side, war in Iraq has probably inflamed radical passions among Muslims and thus increased al Qaeda’s recruiting power and morale and, at least marginally, its operating capability,” it said. “The immediate effect of the war may have been to isolate further al Qaeda from any potential state supporters while also swelling its ranks and galvanizing its will.”

Magnus Ranstorp, terrorism expert at Britain’s St Andrew’s University, told Reuters the report’s findings would drive home the importance of rebuilding Iraq and other conflict zones. “Military planners and the law enforcement community are fully aware of the consequences of failed states,” he said. “I think it’s probably worthwhile for politicians to keep in mind our responsibility to provide sustained and long term reconstruction in war-torn countries, so they don’t fly back into anarchy or become incubators of terrorism.”

Washington blames al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, for the 2001 U.S. airliner hijack attacks which killed 3,044 people. A crackdown had netted some al Qaeda leaders and deprived al Qaeda of bases in Afghanistan. But it also “impelled an already highly decentralized and evasive international terrorist network to become even more ‘virtual’ and protean and, therefore, harder to identify and neutralize,” the IISS report said.

It said 18,000 veterans of al Qaeda’s Afghan training camps were still probably operating worldwide “with recruitment continuing and probably increasing following the war in Iraq”. Al Qaeda leaders, including bin Laden, are mostly still at large and continue to incite followers over the Internet and through pronouncements on Arabic-language television. Because of its extreme religious world view, al Qaeda “cannot be tamed or controlled through political compromise or conflict resolution,” the report said.

But Western countries need to do more to reach out to Muslim countries and their own Islamic minorities to “eliminate the root causes of terrorism,” especially after the Iraq war “almost certainly further alienated Islam from the West.” Efforts should be redoubled to resolve local conflicts, such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, so regional radical groups such as Hamas do not fall into al Qaeda’s embrace, it said.

Simon, why won’t you question John Howard about why he’s blindly following Bush down his road to hell? No ticker? Don’t care? Maybe you could donate to the cause of a colleague, former Labor Senator Margaret Reynolds, to ease what’s left of your conscience:

Greetings to all those concerned about the direction of Australian foreign policy! An ad hoc group of people who wanted to make a strong statement about the need for an independent foreign policy have organised a half page advertisement in the Australian on Wednesday 22 October,the day that U.S. President George Bush arrives for a brief visit and speech to the Federal Parliament. Rather than design an advertisement of words we have obtained the generous creativity of a number of national cartoonists, (including Bruce Petty, Bill Leake, Alan Moir and Fiona Katauskas), who can so eloquently present a message which will stimulate debate and challenge some of the assumptions inherent in the Australian/U.S. alliance. We aim to promote serious discussion through the good humour and style of the political cartoon.

We seek contributions to help with the cost of this project which hopefully will gain both national and international coverage as we are not aware that cartoons have been used quite like this before. The message accompanying the cartoon advertisement will simply read:

AUSTRALIANS FOR AN INDEPENDENT FOREIGN POLICY FOR GLOBAL PEACE AND JUSTICE…….

On this occasion we are not using the space to record the names of financial contributors because we want to maximise the impact of the cartoonists’ message. I very much hope you will consider a small or larger donation to help us assert our national identity and desire for independence. Donations are to be sent to:

Now We the People, P.O. Box K941, Haymarket N.S.W. 1240. Any queries please phone me 0418181843. An email indicating the level of support would assist in our planning.

***

Poor fellow, America

by Brian Bahnisch

Early on in the Iraq campaign some writers drew attention to the stress copped by the American people through scarce public resources directed to military ventures. It was suggested that people would die in the US because of failing public services.

It has even been suggested that part of the neocon strategy was to squeeze welfare right out of the system as the war effort sucked in the diminishing tax dollar.

A few months ago I heard a report on the radio that many ambulance officers in the US were having to work two jobs because they could not live on their wages.

Last week I heard an assessment of US domestic readiness for a major terrorist strike. The biggest problem, it seems, is that the frontline services like fire, ambulance, SES etc have been pared back and shredded through Bush’s tax cuts. The US would be less able to respond now than it was on 9/11.

Jay Shaft, editor of The Coalition For Free Thought In Media, has just done a couple of articles on poverty, hunger and homelessness in the land of the free. See Living on the edge of disaster: being a poor working mother in America, published in Dissident Voice on October 9, 2003. It gives brief case histories of single mothers living on the edge and links to Homeless and starving in the Land of the Free: US homelessness and poverty rates skyrocket while billions are spent overseas on occupation. It begins:

As I watch far away images of body bags being filled, I see much closer images of bodies. I went by a local park the other day and it looked like a concentration camp crossed with a mass murder scene.

There were people in rags and covered with filth lying scattered all over the place. At least twenty people were on crutches, had parts bandaged, or with open wounds not even covered. They were all hungry and a large majority were sick.

All around this city I live in, and nation-wide, the level of homelessness and poverty is growing alarmingly. From the last counts and estimates nation-wide, there has been at least a 35-45% increase in homelessness and poverty. The increases have come over the last two years with the biggest increases being in 2002 and especially in the first six months of 2003.

Add to that the barely subsisting or borderline homeless/poor, and we start to see a very alarming trend that shows no sign of going away. Over 30% of Americans are on the borderline of poverty. A lot just do not quite make the cut to receive food stamps or some kind of benefits and live on a razor edge of desperation and starvation.

I’ve recently heard that official poverty in the US has reached 35.7 million. Shaft tells us that about 40 million are “food insecure or hungry or at risk of hunger “. 3.9 million, 39% of them children are homeless, with the biggest increases from single mothers with children. Many more are “precariously housed”.

Things seem to have rapidly gone pear-shaped from about mid-2002, the time the Bushies started to sell the Iraq war to the American people. From other sources it appears that much of this increase seems to stem from the Newt Gingrich-inspired Clinton welfare reforms. Limits were placed on life-time entitlements to welfare. These appear to be cutting in about now.

Nevertheless Bush’s public purse parsimony is amplifying the problem and reducing the capacity of other agencies, both government and non-government, to cope. Charities are working with reduced resources and increased demand. Not all requests, even for food, can be met.

Words truly fail me about all this. I know we in Oz are also creating our own internal third world, but the scale of the problem in the US seems staggering. Shaft again:

If the US spent just three months occupation costs [in Iraq and Afghanistan], they could wipe out hunger and homelessness completely for ten years. However, it does not seem like feeding and sheltering our own citizens has a very high priority.

If the US took just 25% of their annual military budget, it could go a long way to wiping out hunger and homelessness around the world. Just 10% of our military budget spent yearly on America could give every high school graduate a college education for four years.

It seems like it is not a priority to protect our children from starvation and living on the streets.

You would think that Bush does not stand the faintest chance of re-election in 2004. However, given the alienation of the marginalised, together with the cynical manipulation of their fears, you can never be sure. Still it does leave Bush vulnerable to an opponent offering even a modicum of hope.

*

Living on the edge of disaster: being a poor working mother in America

by Jay Shaft

Dissident Voice, October 9, 2003

To be a borderline poverty level working mother is becoming a reality for more and more single, hard working mothers. The edge of financial disaster is becoming familiar territory for millions of women and the families they struggle to support. A desperate scramble for survival is the way a growing sector of the America that is the real backbone of our workforce has to deal with.

These are the stories of five single mothers and the families they are forced to raise all on their own. This is their voices and feelings on the America that has left them behind and seemingly forgotten them. They have all felt the pinch of our economic hard times as a crushing burden they were unfamiliar with until the last two-three years.

Never before has this level of borderline and actual abject poverty existed in America. The disparity between the working class and the ultra rich is becoming more apparent week by week. More companies layoff workers and still manage to give their corporate executives enormous profits and dividends as the low level virtual peasants are discarded by the millions.

Let me take you into the daily lives, the minute-by-minute struggle, and try to get you to live in their footsteps as they walk the path of worry, fear, desperation, and insecurity. Take just a few minutes of your time to read this and maybe you will know what it is like to live as a single mother on the edge of disaster.

Karen is a 27 year-old mother of two who just last year in November was fired from a computer consulting firm where she worked as a mid-level manager. With a degree in communications management she made a very respectable salary. It enabled her to keep her family in comfort and enough luxury to feel a part of the American dream.

Now she works two jobs and has gone hungry many times to make sure that her children have proper nutrition. Sometimes she has even watched as her children missed some meals and went to sleep with empty stomachs and restless dreams of abundant food and a secure home.

“I went from a three bedroom custom built home to a three room studio that I can barely pay for. I have had to juggle my rent, electric bill, car payments, food expenses, and buying decent clothes for my kids. I have had to make the minimum payments on my light bill and had three shutoff notices in a week. I would scrape up $50 or a $25 check from Daystar just to keep my

balance below $200.

“I have not been able to actually pay off my whole bill since January. I know at least fifty other women in the same situation because we all have seen each other going around to all the places like Urban League, Daystar, Salvation Army, We Help, or anyone else that can give us the little checks to keep the lights on. I never thought that something as simple as paying a $200 bill would be beyond my reach.

“I have to pay my rent in chunks every week or so and haven’t been able to make a full monthly payment in over six months. Thank god my landlord has kids and is in the same position I am at times. Only another working mother can fully realize what my life has become. I probably will have to file for bankruptcy as a last resort this month.”

Daria is a 36 year-old mother of one who has lost five jobs in the last ten months. She moved from up north to Florida on word of mouth about all the jobs available. Little did she know before moving that the jobs she heard about were vanishing onto thin air. The factory jobs and manufacturing jobs that were so prevalent just two years ago have been eliminated or moved to other cities or sectors.

All that seems to be available are low income service industry jobs or temporary fill in jobs. What little jobs that become available are sought by hundreds of unemployed workers desperate for any position no matter how menial.

She has struggled to be hired only to be eliminated due to economic setbacks within weeks of getting into the job and setting herself up for some sort of job security. After getting the prospect of financial security and the hope of catching up with her bills, she sees the job disappear and has to start her employment search all over again.

“It’s an exercise in tenacity at best” she sighs. “Thank you George Bush, we ‘re really seeing our bright future and prosperity!” As she puts on a dim and vague smile she describes her worries and fears. You can see her desperation and fear for tomorrow etched in the worried lines of her face.

She has rarely found reason to smile in the last year and the laughs are few and far between. The ability to relax and have a truly enjoyable time has been yanked out from under her and her good times have dried up.

“I have never had to live like this in my life. This never seemed possible to me before I moved down here. I had to live in a motel for two months and in various shelters before I got a permanent apartment.”

She now lives in a two-room studio that is barely big enough for her and her daughter.

“This is no way for my kid to live. No kid should have to go through this. I mean I feel so bad sometimes that I can’t give her more security and the things she really needs. I tried to file bankruptcy after being forced to live on my credit cards rather than be homeless and have my kid out on the street. I am so broke I can’t even afford to pay the lawyer the filing fee for the bankruptcy so the bills keep coming in.

“My neighbors watch out for me and it kind of makes me slightly embarrassed, like I can’t take care of my kid. I never had it where my neighbors have to help me, but I’m not going to turn it down. Everybody has to take help sometimes and it helps me get by with a little extra food to feed my kid.”

Melissa is a 21 year-old mother of one who has been homeless or in emergency shelters numerous times in the past two years. At first her husband struggled side by side with her to provide for their child. After being on unemployment for almost a year and bouncing from job to job, her husband finally just left one day.

Because he left out of necessity she now qualifies for state child care benefits and barely enough food stamps to feed her and her daughter. She has not seen her husband for months and knows if he comes back she will lose her benefits and fall back into the pit of poverty and hopelessness.

“I cannot see my husband anymore and it hurts so bad he had to go away. He is working a great job and saving quite a bit of money. I am even scared to let him mail me a few hundred dollars a month. If it wasn’t for that coming in I would be back on the streets with my three year old.

“I have not been able to really explain to her where her daddy is. She can’t really grasp why we have had to live in overcrowded shelters for weeks at a time. She keeps getting settled in somewhere and then we have to move on to another temporary housing shelter.

“I have kept a single room apartment for three months now, but I am $400 behind in my rent. I manage to pay $80-$100 a week and that just keeps me in the place. I had to live at my friend’s house for a week after the landlord locked me out until I could come up with $200.”

Mary is a mother of four who has never been married and had no problem keeping a well paying secretarial/ data entry job until about a year ago. She fits the pattern of single women losing good jobs and being forced over the brink of poverty.

She has been among the 60% recorded increase in single mothers between the ages of 19-32 becoming newly homeless. This figure is growing everyday as more single mothers are forced onto the street with their children.

She has managed to keep a room in a Christian based woman’s halfway house so she can save up enough rent for an apartment or small house. The halfway house has extended the rule on the length of stay for the 20 women and their 47 children from 3-6 months to a full year upon proven necessity.

“I have four kids between five and twelve. It is almost impossible to clothe them, feed them, and buy the small things they need to be reasonably happy and content.” She sits in a wooden chair and hugs herself as she recounts the woes that have overridden her simple life, and take away any sense of a future with even a small measure of security.”

The tears flow freely down her face as the hurt and anger boil out of her.

“Just to have someone listen to me and try to let my voice be heard is overwhelming. I just feel myself sinking deeper into hopelessness and the worst depression I’ve ever felt. No one wants to listen to me or give me an outlet for my simple worries and let me cry it out.

“My twelve year old daughter knows how close we are to being separated from each other. I have almost had my kids taken from me three times. I love my kids with all my heart and have always been able to provide for them. I want my kids to be able to go to college if they want to get a better life for their kids, if they have them.

I have to move out of this shelter next month. I will have just enough for a decent apartment or small house for a few months. I will have a small window where my rent is paid and I can try to get everything back on track. All I hope for is to keep my place and put my kids back in a good school and give them some stability. If I can make it through the first three to six months it will all get better. That is my only wish right now. It’s that simple.”

Amy is a 25 year-old mother of three. Her story is slightly different, but also all too familiar with the daily struggle increasing with each setback she encounters. She has just filed for filed for bankruptcy and lost her small, prosperous business.

Her house is in mortgage repossession and she is fighting the bank over a $2000 missed payment. She says she has paid almost half of the mortgage and never been late on a payment until a few months ago. Now she has less then a month to come up with the late payment. She must also come up with the next quarterly payment a few weeks after that.

The only comments she had was a bitter tirade against George W. Bush and his “Leave No Child Behind” promise, and all the promises of economic revival and prosperity for the working class.

“I actually voted for that lying asshole and gave that whole scamming party my confidence. I believed the promises and new riches they dangled in front of us like an empty pipe dream. I damn sure will not ever vote for or support a Republican again!

“George Bush ought to try living my life for a week. He should come down from his high horse and bust his ass like most of the people I know. Brighter future my ass. What a sick joke on all the hardworking Americans.

“I had my own business that I built up since I was nineteen. I had a real dream that became my entire life. I was living the promise of the American small business owner. Two years ago I had a huge profit margin and was about o open another small craft and deco boutique. Now I don’t have a pot to piss in and I had to sell my business to a rich guy who is just interested in turning a profit. He doesn’t care about the personal touch that I put into it for years to get my customer’s loyalty.

“All I have to say to theses rich guys that took over our country is that the little people are getting raped and chewed up and spit out. They have no interest or concern for all the drowning real life people that still believe the lies about an economic recovery.”

I could include many more personal stories of single mothers in crisis but the stories are all strikingly similar. All the interviews I did for this article portray a tale of the skyrocketing poverty rate.

Here are some harsh facts about the children that have become the true victims of this great depression that is engulfing our country. Their mothers are slipping below the surface of poverty but they are the ones who suffer without understanding why or being able to fully comprehend the nature of the situation.

18% of American children, almost 15 million, live in poverty, meaning their parents’ income is at or below the federal poverty level. 8% of America’s children, 6 million, live in extreme poverty. 39% of American children, 28 million, live in low-income families. That means that over half of all children in America are facing this growing crisis of starvation, insecure housing, and an uncertain future. (census/poverty, census/income)

3-5 people in food lines and having to use soup kitchens or supplemental food resources are children. 18 million children are estimated to have to miss at least one meal a day. Without the basic services provided by America’s Second Harvest and other food distribution groups, many children would not eat at all.

Now that you have heard some of the voices of the affected single mothers you might be able to feel their desperation and agony. Through their words and the stark facts that are all too real for many, I have tried to take you into the problem. I have tried to let you experience it first hand so that you may have greater understanding.

If you are in similar circumstances you are not alone. If you are one of the Americans still living comfortably with little or no worries, just remember how easy it is to fall into the same trap many are in.

Most Americans are now within a few paychecks of losing their homes and everything that goes with their normal lives. Something as simple as losing a job for even a few weeks is enough to start the long slide into poverty and starvation that is facing millions of Americans.

Maybe together we can change the current trend of disenfranchising even more Americans. It is time for us to take back the control of our destiny and future. If our current leaders choose to ignore our plight they should be replaced with leaders that will ensure the future of America’s children.

The bottom line is that a huge majority of the children are now affected by the crisis facing single mothers in poverty or at the borderline. If we choose to ignore their fate then we truly have failed as a nation.

We are not following the “Leave No Child Behind” promise. We are making sure we leave all of them behind. Leaving them behind to go hungry and live on and off the streets until the state steps in and places them in just as shaky and unstable situation of foster care.

The promise George Bush repeated for months on end is now echoing empty and broken. It leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of the needy Americans who are raising our very future. They hear all the promises while the children go to bed hungry and not knowing where the next meal will come from.

If this is what America has become then we need a true change. If this is all that we can expect of this once great nation then the dream of all hopeful Americans is now dead.

 

The righteous garden. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www,daviesart.com

How low can Bush go? As Simon Crean refuses to ask Howard the big questions on Iraq and presses Labor MPs to give Bush a standing ovation next week – for what, exactly? – Bush’s regime hawks pro-war form letters to his long-suffering troops in Iraq and sends them to home town newspapers.

The power of the net exposed Bush’s latest fraud on the American people and their soldiers after US newspaper The Olympian received identical letters from two soldiers and a news service searched the net for more and contacted confused soldiers and their families. A taste:

The letter talks about the soldiers’ mission, saying, “one thousand of my fellow soldiers and I parachuted from ten jumbo jets.” It describes Kirkuk as “a hot and dusty city of just over a million people.” It tells about the progress they have made.

“The fruits of all our soldiers’ efforts are clearly visible in the streets of Kirkuk today. There is very little trash in the streets, many more people in the markets and shops, and children have returned to school,” the letter reads. “I am proud of the work we are doing here in Iraq and I hope all of your readers are as well.”

Sgt. Shawn Grueser of Poca, W.Va., said he spoke to a military public affairs officer whose name he couldn’t remember about his accomplishments in Iraq for what he thought was a news release to be sent to his hometown paper in Charleston, W.Va. But the 2nd Battalion soldier said he did not sign any letter. Although Grueser said he agrees with the letter’s sentiments, he was uncomfortable that a letter with his signature did not contain his own words or spell out his own accomplishments.

“It makes it look like you cheated on a test, and everybody got the same grade,” Grueser said by phone from a base in Italy where he had just arrived from Iraq.

The ‘letters’ arrived just before the Pentagon began studying why so many US soldiers were committing suicide in Iraq.

Melody Kemp found US Soldiers to America: “Bring us home now; were dying for oil and corporate greed!”, an interview with an American soldier who served in Iraq. An extract:

USA (nom de plume): I would like to thank Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Congress for is that nice huge cut they made to Veterans Benefits as soon as the war started. I am in the Reserves after years of active duty and now I cannot get PTSD counselling or many medical benefits I used to take for granted. I knew I would have the benefits because I was laying my life down for my country. Now my benefits are cut by around 2/3 and I have to go to either group therapy or pay for a private counsellor out of my own pocket. What happens when someone like me has been through enormous battle stress and combat fatigue and then comes home to no counselling?

I’ll tell you what is going to happen, he will either kill himself or take a bunch of people with him. Some of the guys coming back are going to have gone through the worst time of their lives with their buddies dying and getting hurt, and then they’ll find out they got screwed out of any counselling. It is the greatest disservice America is committing against soldiers who fought for this country and may come back wounded or horribly scarred. Medical services, school aid to dependents, school aid for the vets, all slashed to the bare bones; mental health and drug and alcohol counselling are being eliminated or the waiting lists will be years long for whatever services manage to survive.

That is one thing the American people still have not really caught on to is the fact that while they were screaming out Support Our Troops the current regime makers were fu..ing the military and veterans out of almost every social program and non essential service that would make life easier. Bush really fu..ked us while we were gone. We found out about it after being in the middle of heavy fighting for several weeks. It was one of the first things I read in Stars and Stripes, and I thought it was a joke because it was just to hard to believe Congress and our leaders would screw us that bad while we were fighting and dying.

Peter Funnell wrote: “Noticed the steadily, ever increasing number of US soldiers being killed in Iraq? There is no let up. How long can Bush keep the lid on this? And here we are, our niche military capability having done its job and returned home and as good as no military presence of note in Iraq to deal with the ongoing but deadly low level conflict. I never thought we should have been involved in this mess and my view has not changed. But we have been part of causing the mess and are nowhere in sight to help finish it all. The whole thing just stinks. Where to next?

Marilyn Shepherd sent The Guardian list of Coalition casualties since Bush dressed up as a soldier and declared victor. War without end.

Don’t you feel safer these days? The US didn’t want Turkish troops before the war, but now they’re begging for them, against the unanimous resolution of the Iraqi Governing Council and the wishes of most Turks (seekurdistanobserver). Democracy, Bush-style. Israel’s launched a preemptive strike on Syria with US approval (The painful truths that now confront Syria’s reformists) and has reportedly put nuclear warheads in its submarines (Israel won’t confirm or deny it has nuclear weapons and international inspectors aren’t allowed to find out.) Russia has signed up to Bush’s doctrine of pre-emptive strikes, warning that it “must be prepared for a growing number of conflicts – such as the US-led war in Iraq – waged outside the authority of the United Nations, and wars increasingly motivated as much by economics or the interests of what it termed ‘big transnational companies’ as by national security” (Moscow prepared to stage pre-emptive strikes).

Brian McKinlay writes:

Watching Tony Jones on ‘Lateline’ last Thursday night I must have nodded off. When I awoke he was talking about journalists receiving top secret info from the government in breach of the criminal law, and I guessed he was talking about the big Washington Scandal – how ‘conservative’ columnist Bob Novak named Valerie Plame, wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson, as a CIA operative, thereby blowing her cover and her career (see A Q&A on Leakgate). This has led to charges that Novak has breached National Security regulations and acted as a conduit for a vengeful White House which wanted to hurt Wilson because he wouldn’t come to the party on the White House’s false claims that Iraq had bought Yellowcake from Niger. All old hat, I thought, as I woke from my power-nap. But no! Jones was asking Alexander Downer how the Federal police investigation was coming along into the leaking of a top secret document written by Andrew Wilkie, the former ONA analyst who has been such a burr under Howard’s saddle, to columnist Andrew Bolt, government supporter and friend of right-wing causes. Downer hadn’t spotted any activity to date from the AFP. At least in Washington, Bush is going through the motions of an investigation. Stay awake, Brian, and don’t confuse Canberra with Washington – despite the similarities!

I saw that interview, and boy oh boy did Downer squirm when Tony popped the leak question at the end. It came as no surprise that the AFP STILL haven’t got around to questioning him or his staff – we’re talking a seriously compromised AFP here, just like the Government wants its police/defence force/public service to be. I reported on September 14 in Howard on the ropes: Labor’s three chances for a knockout blow that the AFP sat on ONA’s reference of the leak for NINE WEEKS without interviewing Bolt and only decided to actually investigate after the scandal got top billing in question time:

The leak of intelligence whistleblower Andrew Wilkie’s top secret ONA report on Iraq to Government-friendly journalist Andrew Bolt in June began to haunt Howard last week after his government brazenly briefed government backbencher Sandy Macdonald on its contents to hit Wilkie over the head with in the parliamentary inquiry into Howard’s pre-war intelligence.

The leak of Wilkie’s report is a serious breach of security and a criminal offence which went unnoticed back in June. The Macdonald drama lifted the lid on the scandal, revealing that ONA had referred the leak to the Australian Federal Police for investigation on July 4. NINE WEEKS later, the AFP had not interviewed Bolt! The AFP now joins Australian Electoral Commission as an ‘independent’ body under strong suspicion of having been so politicised under John Howard that it no longer performs its duty without fear or favour.

I rang the AFP last week to ask when the investigation began and why Bolt had not been interviewed. The reply: “Following a thorough evaluation, the AFP moved into investigation phase YESTERDAY.” The AFP said it was also investigating the use of top secret material by Macdonald. In other words, a government MP is under criminal investigation and the leaker could well be a government staffer or minister guilty of a serious crime and a serious breach of security in a security-conscious Australia.

I was the subject of an AFP investigation many years ago when I was leaked a Simon Crean Cabinet submission. These types of leaks – unlike leaks of classified security documents like Wilkie’s – are usually ignored, because often it’s politicians doing the leaking. I was interviewed at the Canberra headquarters of the AFP within days of Crean’s referral, and said “no comment” to all questions asked because my source was confidential. But the police had good reason to interview me. I could have got the document anonymously in the mail or found it in a rubbish bin, and in either case could and would have been frank with the AFP. So why wasn’t Andrew Bolt interviewed? Two reasons spring to mind – either the police already knew who leaked it and didn’t want to pursue the matter, or had decided not to investigate at all.

This is an intolerable situation and, as other writers have pointed out, makes a despicable comparison with Australian defence force officer Merv Jenkins, who took his own life in Washington after vicious government retaliation for his failure to obey a directive not to give US intelligence contacts information on East Timor prior to the independence vote despite government-to-government agreements to do so (see Mike Carlton’s A leak by the bucketful and Michelle Grattan’s It’s no secret: let he who is without spin…).

But the significance of the Government’s Bolt play is much greater than further proof of its entrenched double standards and dangerous politicisation of Australia’s core democratic institutions. If it’s OK to leak intelligence to discredit the whistleblower, why isn’t it OK to release intelligence to refute Wilkie’s accusations that Howard lied about his reasons for invading Iraq? Why not declassify the intelligence which would prove Howard’s constant claims in arguing the case for war that invading Iraq would REDUCE the risk of terrorism, REDUCE the risk of WMDs finding their way into the hands of terrorists, and make the world a SAFER place forAustralians? Why won’t Howard disprove Wilkie’s assertions by proving his own case?

See Wilkie-v-Howard: who’s the villain, who’s the hero? for the Senate debate last month – meant as a warning by Labor that it would expect answers from the AFP at Senate estimates committee hearings next month. But has Labor got the backbone for it?

In many ways, on many things – economic, environmental, social, political – Bush and Blair are soul mates. Breach national security for a cheap trick? Sure. They play dirty, these two. And so does Blair – his denials of involvement in the outing of scientist David Kelly blew away after the head of the defence ministry revealed Blair had chaired the meeting which decided to throw him to the wolves (Blair chaired meeting that led to unmasking of Kelly, inquiry told). Truth? These three think truth is for suckers. Their endless lies and relentless, casually unethical attempts to ruin honest people who don’t sing their corrupt tune are starting to look pathological.

Here’s the transcript extract:

TONY JONES: Finally, another issue related more distantly to Iraq, and it relates to the question of whether you or any of your staff members passed Andrew Wilkie’s ONA assessment or information contained within it over to the journalist Andrew Bolt. Have you or any of your staff been questioned on this matter or provided statements to the Federal Police?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Well, no, not at this stage. But obviously we’re happy to cooperate. And you know, if the Federal Police have questions to ask us and any other ministers’ offices or officers of my department or ONA, everyone will cooperate with them on that.

 

TONY JONES: Can you state to us right now that to your knowledge no-one in your office passed on any such material?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Well, look to the best of my knowledge no-one gave the document to Andrew Bolt. But, look –

TONY JONES: Or information related to the document, taken from the document in some detail and then passed on?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Well, look, you know, in the end I think the best thing to do here is to allow people in my office to talk to the Federal Police and in my department and in other ministers’ offices … it’s the best way to handle it.

See CIA scandal tars everybody, In (partial) praise of Robert Novak and Does administration want to find leaker? for a taste of the intense media discussion in the US about Novak’s position and that of the media in general. There’s been virtually no discussion of Bolt’s role or the medias dilemmas on this issue in the Australian media. Our media is much too clubby and timid for that.

Chris Murphy in Southport, Queensland, discovered that vice-president keeps lying even after Bush admitted there was no line to Saddam and Osama before the war.

“Twelve years of diplomacy, more than a dozen Security Council resolutions, hundreds of U.N. weapons inspectors, thousands of flights to enforce the no-fly zones and even strikes and against military targets in Iraq, all of these measures were tried to compel Saddam Hussein’s compliance with the terms of the 1991 Gulf War cease-fire. All of these measured failed.” U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, addressing the Heritage Foundation on 10 October 2003 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8205-2003Oct10.html, registration required.)

Chris writes:

Funny that. Sanctions and inspections “failed”, did they? So where’s the proof that they failed, Dick? No weapons of mass destruction have been found. Not a hint. Not a whiff. This means one of two things: either Hussein had in fact destroyed all his WMD or they have now been dispersed to parts and to people unknown. In either case, it is the United States who has “failed”. If the WMD did not exist, then America has inflicted appalling damage on itself (destruction of lives, financial cost, national morale) in a futile campaign that may well become another Vietnam. If the WMD did exist, then the United States has only succeeded in making the world one hell of a lot scarier than it was before the nutters in the White House, including Dick, summarily set upon Saddam Hussein in their insane “war on terror”.

Cheney also persists with the claim that Saddam Hussein was connected with Al Qaeda:

“Saddam had a lengthy history of reckless and sudden aggression. He cultivated ties to terror, hosting the Abu Nidal organization, supporting terrorists, making payments to the families of suicide bombers in Israel. He also had an established relationship with Al Qaida, providing training to Al Qaida members in the areas of poisons, gases, making conventional bombs.”

This last sentence is a blatant lie, an assertion disproven time and again and even disowned by the President himself, yet Cheney repeats it whenever possible. It is, in large part, the reason a majority of Americans continue to believe that Hussein was involved in the attacks of 11 September 2003.

The Kay reports rejected Howard’s last-ditch defence of his claims on WMDs – “the trailers”. Scott Burchill notes this line from the Kay Report:

“Kay had to back down from a claim that two mobile trailers found in Iraq were intended for making weapons. Now he says they were not well suited for that purpose.”

Crean has not asked ONE QUESTION of Howard about the Kay report’s findings. Not one.

How many lies, and how big? See Yes, Bush lied. Former Webdiarist Tim Dunlop, now in Washington, does a great job regularly recording the Bush regime’s daily lies about its lies at roadtosurfdom.

Jacob A. Stam in Narre Warren, Victoria has been tracking civilian deaths. He writes:

I’ve pasted below some notes I’ve made on the topic of civilian casualties of the Iraq war. Being a survey from notes and clippings I’d amassed over the period and have been meaning to boil down for some time, you might find something of interest.

I don’t know about you, but I’m still working through my feelings of disgust, rage, etc. etc. etc. regarding our country’s part in the bloodbath. All the ins and outs have been argued and re-argued ad nauseam, yet after all we’re still left with 5-10 thousand needless dead, with untold thousands maimed and brutalised, and with a humanitarian nightmare still remaining in Iraq with no end in sight. While all that was going down, I remember going into work every day where none of this was mentioned, as if nothing was happening over there, and yet we all knew in our bloody trembling hearts that THE COUNTRY IS AT WAR. (I work for the government, by the way.)

Such was the division in our country, produced in large part by a mendacious national leadership and its failure to honestly and morally map out this country’s war aims (they still haven’t quite made up their minds what these were!!), we could not even discuss it in our workplaces in order to find meaning and strength from each other in such a terrible and momentous time. This, after the war crimes against a helpless people, is the Howard crew’s most egregious moral failure.

Was it all worth it? I’m so grateful for those fellow citizens who have the superior moral compass to tell me: Yes, of course, put your mind to rest, sleep easy.

In a just world, the Bush-Blair-Howard Axis of Egos would be hauled before a tribunal at The Hague for their commission of an illegal war of aggression against the people of Iraq. Yet even assuming that the legal and moral underpinnings of the decision to go to war may be defensible, even if only in a qualified sense, the conduct of the war cannot. (Margo: The war was illegal. For the latest evidence see Goldsmith ‘scraped the legal barrel’ over Iraq war, reporting a leading legal peer labelling the British Attorney-General’s opinion that the war was legal “risible”.)

Amnesty International raised the spectre of war crimes charges in a news release of early April:

Amnesty International is deeply concerned about the high toll of civilian casualties and the use of cluster bombs in US military attacks in heavily populated areas. On 1 April, at least 33 civilians including many children were reportedly killed and around 300 injured in US attacks on the town of al-Hilla. Amnesty International is particularly disturbed by reports that cluster bombs were used in the attacks and may have been responsible for some of the civilian deaths. “The use of cluster bombs in an attack on a civilian area of al-Hilla constitutes an indiscriminate attack and a grave violation of international humanitarian law,” Amnesty International emphasized today.

AI has identified an “indiscriminate attack” that constitutes a “grave violation of international humanitarian law” in short, a war crime. Being undoubtedly cognisant of the nature of the world in which it must operate, AI stopped well short of suggesting that charges should be laid, let alone prosecuted.

We all know, however, with whom the buck stops it stops with thee, George, Tony and John! The “coalition of the willing” ignored repeated calls by AI and other organisations such as Medicins Sans Frontieres for a total moratorium on the use of cluster bombs, depleted uranium armaments, landmines and other indiscriminate weapons. For such conduct alone, a dock awaits the Axis of Egos in The Hague at least, in an ideal world, perhaps in some parallel universe…

Although John Howard has cunningly managed to suppress discussion on the topic, his reinvention of himself as “the great wartime leader” has come at the cost of the lives of five- to ten-thousand Iraqi civilians. (We’ll arbitrarily leave aside the matter of perhaps as many as 30,000 dead Iraqi soldiers many of them teenage conscripts.)

In early April, Howard was asked by Lateline’s Kerry OBrien what he considered an “acceptable number” of civilian deaths, at least as regards the Iraq adventure. Howard replied:

Kerry, I can’t ever put a figure on that. Any death is tragic, and I also said that last week. I note, by way of an independent observation, that a spokesman for the International Red Cross said on the ABC AM program this morning that the hospital system in Baghdad appeared to be coping quite well with the level of civilian casualties. Now, I thought that was an interesting comment, because the International Red Cross is a respected, neutral organisation; it can’t be accused of painting it one way or the other. I do know the efforts being taken by the coalition to avoid casualties is quite unprecedented. I believe those efforts should go on, and certainly, as far as Australia is concerned, the targeting policies that we have adopted in relation to the bombing we’ve participated in, those policies are going to be maintained; and I would expect the Americans and the British would stick to their approach, because there are ethics of war and they do need to be maintained.

Thus, his only specific reference to civilian casualties – buried amid the dross of bland reassurance and the crocodile tears of “any death is tragic” cant – was given a positive spin in that Baghdad’s hospital system appeared “to be coping quite well”. As Alan Ramsey commented at the time, Howard seemed to be suggesting that “it matters less how many civilians are killed or maimed, just so long as the Iraqi medical system and its hospitals can cope with the casualty lists”.

Getting a realistic accounting of civilian deaths in the Iraq war is difficult enough, but arriving at a count upon which all the “players” can agree is probably impossible. Staunchly pro-war commentators predictably have tended to avoid any mention of actual numbers, preferring to obfuscate with vacuous, alternately triumphal or dismissive statements about “relatively few civilian casualties”.

At the sceptical or critical end of debate, the web project iraqbodycount currently tallies a minimum 7,377 and a maximum 9,179 civilian deaths from the outset of the war to the present.

In the UK in early April, ‘The Independent’ reeled off the following facts and figures:

130,000 British and American troops are in action in Iraq from a total force of 250,000 in the Gulf. The Allies have launched 725 Tomahawk cruise missiles, flown 18,000 sorties, dropped 50 cluster bombs and discharged 12,000 precision-guided munitions. There have been an estimated 1,252 Iraqi civilian deaths, 57 Kurdish deaths and 5,103 civilian injuries. 88 Allied troops have been killed in the conflict, 27 of whom are British. At least 12 Allied soldiers are missing, 34 Allied soldiers have been killed in ‘friendly fire’ incidents or battlefield accidents. 9 journalists have been killed or are unaccounted for. There have been 2 suicide attacks on US troops, killing 7 soldiers. 8,023 Iraqi combatants have been taken prisoner of war. So far, 0 weapons of mass destruction have been found. 1,500,000 people in southern Iraq have no access to clean water. 200,000 children in southern Iraq are at risk of death from diarrhoea. 17,000,000 Iraqis are reliant on food aid, which has now been stopped. 600 oil wells and refineries are now under British and American control. 80bn dollars has been set aside by US Congress to meet the cost of war. A capital city of 5,000,000 people now stands between the Allied forces and their objective: the removal of Saddam Hussein.

Locally in a mid-April column, Alan Ramsey reeled off a bunch of facts and figures:

When Baghdad fell on the 22nd day of the Anglo-American invasion, with Australias tiny force no more than the military tea lady, the outcome in numbers, as reported from US central command at Doha, Qatar: US forces 255,000; British forces 45,000; Australian forces 2,000. Casualties: US 101 dead, 11 missing, seven captured; British 30 dead; Australian nil. Iraqi military, between 5, 000 and 10,000 dead (estimate); Iraq civilians, 600 dead and 4000 wounded (estimate).

The air “campaign”: 30,000 sorties flown by 2000 US/British aircraft from five aircraft carriers and 30 land bases dropped 20,000 “total munitions” on Iraqs cities, infrastructure, its military and its civilian population. There is, and was, no Iraqi air force. The US/British aircraft were unopposed. To call what this aerial armada did a “war”, as distinct from unchallenged slaughter, is to debauch language.

Ramsey also noted that the Red Cross was by then contradicting Howards faith in Iraqs hospital system, that in fact hospitals “are struggling to cope with a deluge of wounded that is causing growing chaos”. This was also noted by Carmen Lawrence, who wrote that “the Red Cross reported this week that the number of casualties in Iraq is so high that the medical staff have stopped counting and the hospitals are overwhelmed”. These statements, it should be noted, do not seem to distinguish between civilian and military casualties.

With regard to Iraqi military casualties, Robert Manne remarked (early April): “Even though the protection of ones own troops and the destruction of the enemy is an inescapable dimension of waging war, the deaths of so many young Iraqi men, in such technologically uneven battles, seems to me tragic and pitiful in the extreme.”

In early May came the following report from Associated Press:

The battle for Baghdad cost the lives of at least 1,101 Iraqi civilians, many of them women and children, according to records at the city’s 19 largest hospitals. The civilian death toll was almost certainly higher. The hospital records say that another 1,255 dead were “probably” civilians, including many women and children. Uncounted others who died never made it to hospitals and now are buried in shallow graves that have been dug throughout the city in cemeteries, back yards, hospital gardens, city parks and mosque grounds. More than 6,800 civilians were wounded, the hospital records show.

In early July the ABCs 7.30 Report carried a report from the BBCs Newsnight program featuring a project called “Survey of Civilian Deaths in Iraq”, founded by 26-year-old Marla Ruzicka. The project has 150 volunteers “working all across Iraq to scrupulously document” civilian deaths during the war. Presenting the report, the BBCs Paul Wood reported that so far “the volunteers have counted 2,652 deaths”. He added that these are “preliminary findings” and that “the final number will probably be a little over 4,000”.

In an interview Ms Ruzicka stated, “We go door to door, we go neighbourhood to neighbourhood and we check hospital records, we get death certificates to verify. Our work is very accurate. We know that, if we’re trying to get assistance to people and we have one false claim, it could throw out all of our claims.” While Ruzickas project is undoubtedly a worthy endeavour with apparently impeccable methodology, the question remains of how many civilians will remain unaccounted for, whose fate was not recorded owing to the chaos and confusion of war, and hence for whom no death certificates or gravestones exist to trace their brutal end.

George, Tony, John we’d love to see you at The Hague. Given, however, that we do not live in a just world but in a quite different one of your creation, we won’t hold our breaths.

Brian McKinlay sent me a recent BBC on Afghanistan. For yet more proof that the earnest Blair many of us once believed was in good faith is just another snake oil salesman, see his solemn promise to the people of Afghanistan just before the war on October 22, 2001 in a speech that gave me hope then and now makes me feel sick. Up yours to the Iraqi people, and to the people of the world who want us to work for peace, not endless war:

To the Afghan people we make this commitment. The conflict will not be the end. We will not walk away, as the outside world has done so many times before. If the Taliban regime changes, we will work with you to make sure its successor is one that is broad-based, that unites all ethnic groups, and that offers some way out of the miserable poverty that is your present existence.

… So I believe this is a fight for freedom. And I want to make it a fight for justice too. Justice not only to punish the guilty. But justice to bring those same values of democracy and freedom to people round the world. And I mean: freedom, not only in the narrow sense of personal liberty but in the broader sense of each individual having the economic and social freedom to develop their potential to the full. That is what community means, founded on the equal worth of all. The starving, the wretched, the dispossessed, the ignorant, those living in want and squalor from the deserts of Northern Africa to the slums of Gaza, to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan: they too are our cause.

And now?

Afghanistan ‘out of control’ (BBC)

Britain should be doing more to restore law and order to Afghanistan, the government has been warned. Large swathes of the country are under the control of warlords where people live under the daily threat of violence, said Christian Aid. The charity, which is running aid projects in the country, wrote to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw warning him conditions were only getting worse. Nato takes command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the capital Kabul on Monday, but that security should be extended to the whole of the nation, says the charity. And the push for a change in Nato and United Nations policy towards the war torn country should come from Britain, it adds. Growing criminality is further compounding the insecurity felt by the Afghan population.

“As we are sure you are aware, the security situation in Afghanistan has shown a marked deterioration in recent months,” said the letter, which was backed by other aid agencies. Only a properly trained Afghan National Army and police force can bring stability and security but they are years away, the agencies say. “In the meantime, radical elements seek to undermine both the transitional government and the reconstruction process,” the letter states. “In addition, local struggles for power, fuelled in some areas by the opium trade, are leading to a growing fragmentation of the country. While efforts to create a national army, police force and judiciary remain at an embryonic stage, the ongoing climate of impunity means that there is no protection for the individual from the arbitrary use of power. Growing criminality is further compounding the insecurity felt by the Afghan population; there are numerous examples of robberies, thefts and assaults even in (supposedly) one of the most secure regions, Herat.”

The multinational Nato force should be in place before the next Loya Jirga gathering of tribal chiefs discusses a constitution in October, according to the agencies. The letter was signed by Martin Kyndt, Christian Aid’s acting director, along with AfghanAid’s UK director Fraser Mackay, Care International UK’s programme director Raja Jarrah, Ken Caldwell of Save the Children and TearFund’s Graham Fairburn.

What the are the values our ‘liberal democracies’ stand for? Whatever they are, they’re not what Bush, Blair and Howard are championing. To end, Webdiarist Mike Lyvers responds to the extract of Paul Berman’s examination of the values of fundamentalist Islam in We open our eyes, keep loving and go on. Berman wrote:

The followers of (Islamic revolutionary philosopher) Qutb speak, in their wild fashion, of enormous human problems, and they urge one another to death and to murder. But the enemies of these people speak of United Nations resolutions, of unilateralism, of multilateralism, of weapons inspectors, of co-ercion and non-coercion.

This is no answer to the terrorists. The terrorists speak insanely of deep things. The anti-terrorists had better speak sanely of deep things.

Presidents will not do this. Presidents will dispatch armies, for better or worse.

But who will speak of the sacred and the secular, of the physical world and the spiritual world? Who will defend liberal ideas against the enemy of liberal ideas? Who will defend liberal principles in spite of liberal society’s failures?

President George W Bush, in his speech to Congress a few days after the September 11 attacks, announced that he was going to wage a war of ideas. He has done no such thing. He is not the man for that.

Philosophers and religious leaders will have to do that on their own. Are they doing so? Armies are in motion, but are the philosophers and religious leaders, the liberal thinkers, likewise in motion?

There is something to worry about here, an aspect of the war that liberal society seems to have trouble understanding – one more worry, on top of all the others, and possibly the greatest worry of all.

Mike Lyvers

Margo, thanks for including that piece by Paul Berman in Webdiary. I found it fascinating and could comment extensively on various aspects of it – but I’ll spare you that. Permit me one comment though.

The split between religion and science that has occurred in European culture – and which ultimately allowed that culture to become so much more successful than any other – has put the West in closer touch with reality than ever before, but at the expense (for some) of satisfying spiritual yearnings. I think a closer examination of exactly what “spiritual yearnings” really are is called for.

For some people, spiritual yearnings boil down to the loss described in the story of Adam’s fall. With his metaphorical coming of age, Adam enjoyed freedom and independence but lost the comfort and security of the loving parent symbolized by an anthropomorphic God. In Western culture the Church once satisfied these yearnings and kept existential angst at bay by telling fables about a loving father-figure in the sky who watches over us at all times, and warded off the inevitable fear of death by positing a heavenly afterlife in eternity. These days, such fables are unconvincing to most thinking people in the West.

However, there is a deeper dimension to spiritual yearnings in some people, and that is a yearning for transcendence, or knowledge of ultimate Reality. This yearning goes beyond the simple need for an anthropomorphic father – figure; rather, it goes to the very core of our being. Several religious traditions have evolved various practices aimed at addressing this deeper dimension of spirituality (eg., sufism in Islam, kabbalah in Judaism, Zen in Buddhism, Vedanta in Hinduism) and thus it is no surprise that Westerners are turning to such practices in ever-increasing numbers.

On the other hand, those who suffer the simpler type of spiritual yearning are turning in increasing numbers to fundamentalism, both in the West and in the Islamic world.

Fundamentalism is ultimately a life-denying philosophy that rejects Reality in all its aspects, esoteric and exoteric, and its increasing popularity constitutes a very sad development indeed.

Richard Perle, a leading Bush propagandist for invading Iraq to rid the world of his Weapons of Mass Destruction, now says it doesn’t matter if there were none. Like most big political players in Bush’s war, he’s connected to a US defence company whose profits depend on war, but unlike most he was forced to resign this year from the Pentagon’s advisory Defense Policy Board after the New Yorker exposed a conflict between his public and business interests.

The Anglo Coalition now reckons it doesn’t matter that its stated reason for war was false, and that the factual basis for the stated reason was, to put it generously, severely beaten up. Perle suggested this week that the stated reason was adopted so the Coalition could argue that invading Iraq was legal. Lie to be legal!

“The war was appropriate, even if no weapons are found, and even if there were no weapons – because we liberated 23 million people and opened the door to a tremendously important change in the region. The policy of containment had failed. Saddam was a brutal dictator who used weapons of mass destruction [in the past], and leaving him in place would have been dangerous.”

So where does that leave the people of Australia – the victims of the scam?

Australia’s democracy looks pretty darn hopeless compared to the British and US democracies in getting the truth about the real reasons we invaded Iraq and in achieving accountability from the perpetrators of the big lies.

John Howard’s got help, of course. Start with a paralysed opposition and abjectly compliant ministers and backbenchers who collectively turned their backs on the people who elected them. Add his media propagandists – Rupert Murdoch and a bevy of talkback radio boosters – and a press gallery more intent on scoring the game than getting the truth. Toss in a weak Parliamentary committee system and Howard’s willingness to ignore or subvert its processes and presto, he’s getting away with it scot free.

What are disappointed Australians supposed to do? Give up? Retreat to the garden or the home renovations? Howard’s won everything if they do. He wants a detached electorate which has given up on honesty in politics, because then he’s a shoe-in next election on the devil-you-know principle.

I’ve been brooding on an email from K.E. last week:

This government frightens and outrages me. I smell Nazism every day in the news and I want to know where to go to meet like-minded people to talk, to protest, and if necessary in the long run, to revolt. I don’t know where to find people like this. Most of my friends seem passive and only minimally concerned. Do you know of any action groups or how one can become politically active?

So when I got an email from the North Shore Peace Group network offering a seat at a war forum starring Tony Abbott I decided to find out exactly how they’d managed to get a senior minister to front voters on Truth and Democracy: Casualties of War?, to my knowledge a first! He’ll join Sydney Labor left MP Tanya Plibersek, Peter Macdonald – the independent who gave Abbott a run for his money at the 2001 election – and local human shield Donna Mulhearn at North Sydney’s council chambers on Monday to front 200 local residents with tough questions to which they expect answers.

David and Sue Roffey, of the wealthy Sydney North Shore suburb of Mosman, decided to give direct democracy a go in January. Sue was concerned that no-one in Mosman seemed to have known about last November’s march against the war, “so I put a small ad. in the Mosman Daily saying ‘I oppose the war, anyone else?'” Six people met round the Roffey dinner table soon after, and the Mosman peace group was born.

The power of the Mosman group, like other North Shore peace groups, is that it’s genuinely cross political. Most active members don’t belong to any party and they vote Green, Labor, Democrats and Liberal. The group’s most prominent political supporter is John Valder, a former head of the NSW Liberal Party and Howard backer, who’s attended many of the group’s functions and will ask a question at the forum. The Mosman peace group has found common ground, and local activist groups who can boast that have enormous power to get a yes from their local MP.

To let Mosman know they’d arrived, group members attended local markets with placards and purple ribbons which sold like hotcakes. The $600 they raised bought T-Shirts. ‘North Shore against the war” and “Think again, John”, were the polite, very North shore slogans. Sue, a psychologist, said the groups modus operandi was “respect for other people’s points of view”.

“We wanted to stand up and be counted – if individuals don’t do it then groups don’t do it and people’s don’t do it,” she said. A Mosman student created their website, now a bulletin board for peace groups across the North Shore. Its motto is a quote from Martin Luther King: “Our lives begin to end when we become silent about things that matter.”

The group’s goal was to see 100 Mosman residents at the February March. They knew they’d succeeded when the ferry was packed to the rafters on the day.

As the tanks neared Baghdad in April, David and another member of the group asked for an appointment with their federal MP, Tony Abbott. To his credit, Abbott didn’t insult his constituents with form replies. They had a long conversation in which Abbott revealed that he’d been mugged by Cabinet for daring to say in Parliament that invading Iraq could increase the risk of terrorism. Think about that for a minute. Still trust John Howard with our national security? We found out much later that the British Joint Intelligence Committee, the premier intelligence adviser to Tony Blair, thought exactly the same thing. Howard claims our intelligence body, the ONA, didn’t bother to send him the JIC report and instead threw it “into the mix”, a mix he has not yet disclosed.

David and Sue asked Abbott if he’d be on a panel to debate the issues when the war was over. He agreed.

The Roffeys, along with many other Australians, were deeply frustrated with John Howard’s pretence that he hadn’t promised George Bush Australia was all the way with the USA if it invaded Iraq even without UN sanction, and that Howard used that pretence to refuse to discuss issues arising out of possible UN refusal to endorse the war. Howard had stymied Australia’s premier journalists with that ploy, and thus the Australian people’s desire for debate on an issue of grave concern to us all. David – a retired telecommunications consultant now studying political economy – and many others emailed their questions to the PM. His method of avoiding answers is grotesque in its contempt. Howard’s people replied to all emails with questions on the war by saying he’d referred them to the foreign minister Alexander Downer. Downer didn’t reply. Not ever.

Now Tony Abbott will. All the journos, columnists, Labor ‘strategists’ and newspaper editors who think Australians don’t care about the war any more might be interested to learn that all 200 tickets for the war forum were taken before David and Sue got around to placing ads in the Mosman Daily. People are interested, alright, if they think there’s a chance they’ll get answers.

The Mosman Group isn’t interested in catching out the pollie or in stunts or oneupmanship. They’ve modelled the forum on a BBC radio show which brings together pollies, experts, and activists for a weekly discussion on big issues with interested voters.

Everyone on the Mosman group mailing list was asked to submit questions. The organising committee distilled six themes, composed six questions and assigned someone to ask them. The panelists know them in advance, and they are published on the website. Pollies who want to avoid question can be picked up by subsequent speakers or by the questioner, who has a right of reply. The questions are:

1. Since it is now clear that WMD was only a pretext for the US to invade and occupy Iraq, what safeguards need to be in place to ensure that in future such a momentous decision is not left to one person or a small group? How can there be more accountability for such actions?

2. A US Army manual defines terrorism as: “The calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature. This is done through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear.” Do you agree? How broadly can this definition be applied?

3. Many Australians feel profoundly dis-empowered and disillusioned by the process that led to Australia’s involvement in the attack on Iraq. What prospects are there for the restoration of people’s faith in democracy?

4. How have the past policies of developed western countries (particularly the US and UK) towards the Middle East played a role in fostering the problems we now face, such as the terrorism of Islamic groups such as al-Qaeda?

5. Have Australia’s long term interests been served by our involvement in the war against Iraq? What is our future as a nation if we continue our current allegiance to the US agenda at the expense of broader international relationships?

6. How has Australia been served by its media and how they have covered these issues?

What’s the point?

Sue: “I believe our culture is determined by discourse. What people talk about and the way they talk about it determines their actions. We need to maintain an alternative way of talking about the war at a time when a uniform, government-led discourse is dominating the media.”

After the first phase of the Iraq war, when Saddam’s statue fell, the Mosman group decided not to oppose the occupation because it was pointless to do so. “We’re solutions focused,” David said, so they now focus on what the government’s behaviour means for democracy in Australia and the relevance of truth in our political discourse. They hope their next forum will be on the media’s role in the mess.

But David and Sue have a bigger goal – to inspire voters in other seats to ask their MPs to front the people who voted them in and answer their questions. If our leaders play clever avoidance games with media questioners and bestow most of their media time on their media cheerleaders, then what’s a voter to do but seek accountability direct?

David maintains the website and is happy to help anyone who’d like to start their own group. His email is mail@sydneypeace.com

***

Details of the Don’t Be Bush Whacked! hoedown at Prince Alfred Park on Sunday afternoon are at NSWpeace

For Bush events in other states see: Melbourne, Adelaide, ACT, Perth, Launceston, Hobart

There’s a list of national contacts at vicpeace

**

Sue Roffey’s field in psychology is “emotional literacy” and “emotional intelligence”. This is her outline of an emotionally literate community:

* shows that it values the diversity of its members

* gives people a chance to be heard

* provides opportunities for participation

* encourages and provides for the establishment of support networks

* uses conflict resolution techniques to manage differences

* makes consequences for wrong doing fair and clear

* makes decisions that are in the community interest rather than in the interest of one (powerful) sector

* provides equal opportunities in reality as well as on paper

* expects all individuals to be aware of community responsibility

An emotionally literate society:

* has transparent government

* has laws based on values of humanity and equality

* has politicians who are solution focused, not blame focused

* is pro-active in early intervention for issues that may have a negative and often expensive outcome

* makes efforts to understand and address the reasons why people behave the way they do

* treats people with respect and humanity even while disapproving of behaviour

* acknowledges the importance of feelings and emotional literacy – gives this a high profile and provides education at every level

* has a media which is responsible, provides balance and is aware of its impact on feelings and public discourse

Nine hundred people attended St Brigid’s Catholic Church in Marrickville on Saturday night for a Bali memorial service. Some knew the community members who died in Bali – Debbie Borger and her daughter Abbey, 13, Robyn Webster and Louisa Zervos.

I was one of the many who didn’t know them. I’m new in Marrickville, and a loner to boot. Someone I met briefly at a local cafe a while ago rang last week to suggest I come along. Regular church goers said there were an awful lot of people there they hadn’t seen before. Abbey was a student at the local Catholic school. The school opened and blessed a garden for her today. Since her death, the school’s theme has been peace.

The beauty of the mostly Tongan choir’s voice was itself enough to make you cry. Marrickville is the first stop for many migrants to Australia and it felt like every nationality on earth was in church.

My father wanted to be a Methodist minister and preached his way through his teens. He lost his belief when he applied his logical engineering mind to his religion. He sent his children to Sunday School, and I lost my belief when my teacher didn’t answer my question: “If God tells us not to murder why did he kill all all those people by flooding the river after Moses crossed it with the chosen people?”

I wasn’t planning to go to Church. I found myself doing so after reading an article in the Good Weekend by Paul Berman, author of Terror and Liberalism W.W.Norton). Berman is a left winger who supported the overthrow of Saddam but despised Bush’s case for war, which he believes was so mendacious and incompetent the world was now in greater danger than before the war. Berman has studied the works of the Islamic philosopher Sayyid Qutb, hanged by Nassar in Egypt in 1966:

Qutb is not shallow. Qutb is deep. In the shade of the Qur’an is a masterwork, in its fashion. Al-Qaeda and its sister organisations are not merely popular, wealthy, global, well connected and institutionally sophisticated. These groups stand on a set of ideas, too, and some of these ideas may be pathological, which is an old story in modern politics; yet, even so, the ideas are powerful. We should have known that, of course. But we should have known many things…

‘The truly dangerous element in American life, he believed, was not capitalism or foreign policy or racism or the unfortunate cult of women’s independence. Instead, it lay in the separation of church and state. As Qutb saw it, under Christianity’s influence Europeans began to picture God on one side and science on the other. Religion over here, intellectual inquiry over there. The church against science, the scientists against the church. Everything that Islam knew to be one, the Christian Church divided into two. And, under these terrible pressures, the European mind finally split asunder. It was the fateful divorce between the sacred and the secular.

Their scientific and technical achievements allowed the Europeans to dominate the world. And the Europeans inflicted their “hideous schizophrenia” on peoples and cultures in every corner of the globe. That was the origin of modern misery – the anxiety in contemporary society, the sense of drift, the purposelessness, the craving for false pleasures. The crisis of modern life was felt by every thinking person in the Christian West. But then again, Europe’s leadership of mankind inflicted that crisis on every thinking person in the Muslim world as well, which could only make the experience doubly painful – an alienation that was also a humiliation.

That was Qutb’s analysis. In writing about modern life, he put his finger on something that every thinking person can recognise, if only vaguely – the feeling that human nature and modern life are at odds…

And so, Qutb produced his manifesto for Islamic revolution:

We keep learning how well educated these people are, how many of them come from the upper class, how wealthy they are. And there is no reason to be surprised. These people are in possession of a powerful philosophy, which is Sayyid Qutb’s. They are in possession of a gigantic work of literature, which is his In the shade of the Qur’an.

These people believe that, in the entire world, they alone are preserving Islam from extinction. They feel they are benefiting the world, even if they are committing random massacres. They are certainly not worried about death. Qutb gave these people a reason to yearn for death. Wisdom, piety, death and immortality are, in his vision, the same.

It would be nice to think that, in the war against terror, our side, too, speaks of deep philosophical ideas. It would be nice to think that someone is arguing with the terrorists and with the readers of Sayyid Qutb.

But here I have my worries. The followers of Qutb speak, in their wild fashion, of enormous human problems, and they urge one another to death and to murder. But the enemies of these people speak of United Nations resolutions, of unilateralism, of multilateralism, of weapons inspectors, of co-ercion and non-coercion.

This is no answer to the terrorists. The terrorists speak insanely of deep things. The anti-terrorists had better speak sanely of deep things.

Presidents will not do this. Presidents will dispatch armies, for better or worse.

But who will speak of the sacred and the secular, of the physical world and the spiritual world? Who will defend liberal ideas against the enemy of liberal ideas? Who will defend liberal principles in spite of liberal society’s failures?

President George W Bush, in his speech to Congress a few days after the September 11 attacks, announced that he was going to wage a war of ideas. He has done no such thing. He is not the man for that.

Philosophers and religious leaders will have to do that on their own. Are they doing so? Armies are in motion, but are the philosophers and religious leaders, the liberal thinkers, likewise in motion?

There is something to worry about here, an aspect of the war that liberal society seems to have trouble understanding – one more worry, on top of all the others, and possibly the greatest worry of all.

I went to Church.

***

No media. Such a relief that the Church decided not to publicise the event. No outer eye – exploitative or otherwise – to milk it, sentimentalise it or reduce it to just another ‘package’. Regulars said there were an awful lot of people there who’d never been to St Brigid’s before. Of many faiths. The power of word of mouth.

The priest, Father Tom McDonough, asked us to hold each other’s hands while we said the Lords Prayer, I held the hand of an old man on my right and a young woman on my left. We sang this hymn:

Let there be peace on earth

and let it begin with me

let there be peace on earth

the peace that was meant to be

with God as our father

children all are we

let us walk with each other

in perfect harmony

Let peace begin with me

let this be the moment now

with every step I take

let this be my solemn vow

***

Parish priest Father McDonough delivered this homily:

There have been so many reminders these last weeks as October 12th drew nearer; so many articles, documentaries, examining how the survivors of that terrible bombing have survived, asking families how they have managed to get on with their lives without the presence of the loved ones who had made life worth living.

And as sentences were handed down these last weeks on those who did the bombing and those who did the planning there comes the realisation that retribution and revenge can never bring satisfaction.

As you families dealt so much more immediately with the intensity of your pain and grief and loss, like everyone else in Australia we in the parish and in the local community also have had to come to terms with what had happened.

Those of us there will not forget the crowds at St. Clement’s for Robyn or the cloud of butterflies released outside the Church; nor the crowds here at St. Brigid’s for Debby and Abbey. I will never forget Debbie and Abbey’s funeral mass here and the procession down Livingston Road passing by the whole of Casimir College standing silently and weeping in a Guard of Honour. Mr. McCormack told me that afterwards the whole school walked back to the college in complete silence, gathered in their homes rooms in complete silence, trying to absorb what had happened.

Two weeks ago at our Year 12 graduation, our school captains reflected that Year 12’s primary responsibility this year was trying to help the school community deal with tragedy years before such young people should ever have to face it. They felt they had to be a model for the school community, grappling between anger and the desire for revenge and the gospel values that they had been taught.

Only those who were there, only those of you who had lost someone, can stand in each other’s shoes and really know what it is like, Most of us don’t know how you have survived.

The rest of us, all we have been able to do is to be near, we have tried to stand close, to be there if you needed us. Being there for each other is all we could do.

One thing Bali taught us is that we can only survive by supporting each other and looking after each other. We have learned that family and friends are all we’ve got.

Community after community, colleges and schools municipalities and country towns, football clubs and surf clubs, factories and firms have been brought together, helping each other grieve, helping each other accept what can’t be changed, helping each other not to be destroyed by the pain helping each other to live.

We’ve been reminded how careful we have to be never to take things for granted, about what the important things in life really are, and I guess we have also learned how unimportant much really is. We’ve also learned that we have to go on doing the ordinary things, the normal things, the daily things, and not to let hate or bitterness or despair or distrust or suspicion bring us down.

If they did, then the terrorists would really have won – they would have destroyed not only the people we’ve loved but also the love and the laughter. They’d have stopped us from living.

So many people who died in Bali were so young, but I know at our school one thing we learned – how even such a short life as Abbey’s was in fact really full and that she had touched so many people in such a short time.

I said at Abbey and Debbie’s funeral that they had so much living to do and that it was up to us to do that living for them. And it is true of them and of all who died at Kuta, Bali: We can shed tears that they are gone or we can smile because they have lived.

We can close our eyes and pray that they’ll come back or we can open our eyes and see all they’ve left.

Our hearts can be empty because we can’t see them or we can be full of the love we’ve shared.

We can turn our back on tomorrow and live yesterday or we can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.

We can remember them and only that they’ve gone or we can cherish their memory and let it live on.

We can cry and close our mind, be empty and turn our back or we can do what Debbie, Abbey, Robyn and Louisa would want: smile, open our eyes, keep loving and go on.

 

Wretched liberty, by Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

To end the week, rays of hope for warriors against the neo-cons. Webdiarist Philip Gomes reports on the recent election results in Ontario, then a Washington Post report on the psychology of the campaign style of anti-war Democrats US presidential candidate Howard Dean.

 

*

Philip Gomes in Redfern

The recent election results in Ontario, Canada might serve as an interesting template for the Labour Party. The voters overwhelmingly rejected eight years of reactionary conservatism based on the American model; Canada more than any other country feels the weight of American interests and ideology.

The interesting thing about the election was the collective reasoning of the Ontario voter in rejecting the Tories. They wanted a return to public funding of the Health and Education systems. The decline in Government and social services was created a ‘tipping point’, according to my brother Nicholas, who lives in Toronto.

I believe that Canada can serve as a bellweather of sorts for Australia. Because of our shared historical context, there is much we can learn from each other. The following articles will give interested Webdiarists a broader understanding of the thinking in Canada. Just substitute Liberals with Labor, NDP with Greens/Democrats and Tories with Liberals. I also believe this stands in bright contrast to the celebrity election in California. My brother wrote:

You must have heard that the Tories (our Liberals) were completely swept out of power. Unfortunately the NDP (Democrats/Greens) lost official party status as well, which is a shame because Howard Hampton was the best performing of the three candidates. Everyone was scared of a split left vote and just wanted to see the Tories out of office before they did any more damage, so like me they voted Liberal (our Labor).

Now I wish I did vote according to my conscience because I would have preferred to see a minority Liberal government with NDP opposition. But who knew? The main point of this election was to get the Tories out and mission accomplished – overwhelmingly.

You heard people talking a lot about the Tory Republican style. Up here people do see how twisted the US now is. We see them as backward and ignorant and as a result there is a resurgence in Canadian values – the Canadian system.

Even The Economist seems to think Canada is getting very cool with our “liberal” tendencies. The magazine did however criticise our tax structure and low military spending. On the former, Canadians don’t want to see an increase in personal taxes but neither do we want a decrease at the expense of social services – the Liberals won on that platform alone.

The Liberals also brought up the fact that the Tory’s failed to collect $400 million in corporate taxes, and average Canadians are questioning why it is that the middle class carries the tax burden while corporations fly free. People are figuring out via US politics that neo-con tax cuts really benefit the corporations and the rich.

As for Canada’s low military spending, one reporter summed it up with this; “We don’t need to spend on the military because we don’t piss off anyone.”

See the Toronto Star: Liberal majority a victory for hope and Voters weary of Common Sense Revolution

***

Dean pitches voter power

Democratic presidential hopeful inspires, injects psychology into politics

By Laura Blumenfeld/Washington Post

PORTSMOUTH, N.H: The candidate walked into a party with shaving nicks on his neck, uneven fingernails and wrinkles from a hanger creasing his suit at the knees. He has been known to stuff pretzels into his pockets.

“He’s short,” said Teresa Pierce, 40.

“Reminds me of someone my mother might date,” muttered Denise Mallett, 33.

Yet half an hour later, as Howard Dean finished his stump speech, Pierce stood up, joining the crowd in a hooting ovation.

The Democratic presidential hopeful had moved her, she said, made her feel like recruiting friends to vote for him. As she reached for Dean’s hand, her eyes lit up. “He inspired me,” she said.

How? What did Dean do to enchant Pierce and stir up thousands of avid supporters?

Despite the buzz surrounding retired Gen. Wesley Clark’s late entry into the campaign, and mounting attacks from some of his other eight rivals, Dean has raised the most money and leads the polls in New Hampshire and Iowa.

Conventional wisdom credits Dean’s Bush-bashing and his stoking of Democratic anger. But to follow Dean on the stump is to see something more subtle at work.

Political therapy

While the other candidates focus on their humble roots or heroic feats, Dean inverts the telescope: He talks about the voters.

He tells them they’re OK. Instead of trying to get them to love him, he tells them to love themselves. A doctor by training, he injects psychology into politics.

“I liked it when he said the election wasn’t about him, it was about us,” Pierce said. “He’s empowering me.”

This is the intended effect, the candidate said in an interview. “People feel horribly disempowered by George Bush,” he said.

“I’m about trying to give them control back. This is not just a campaign,’ it’s a movement to empower ordinary people. I don’t say, Elect me.’ ”

Instead, Dean says the election is in their hands. Delivering a series of exhortations, he’ll turn a garden party into political group therapy:

“Stop being ashamed.”

“Stand up and say what you think.”

“You ought to be proud.”

“The power to change this country is in your hands.”

“You have the power.”

“You have the power.”

Managed anger

Yes, there is anger. But it is tightly managed. “It’s raw energy, an energy I know could be channeled,” Dean said. “It’s similar in a patient relationship, helping them channel their energy into something better for them. ”

Which, notably, has fed a river of campaign contributions. As of last week, Dean had raised $14.3 million, surpassing the $10.3 million President Bill Clinton raised in the third quarter of 1995.

On his Web site, DeanForAmerica.com, he said: “Time will tell whether the special interests and the Bush administration have underestimated me. But I know in my heart that they have underestimated you.”

Don’t get mad, he urges; get even. It has been a recurrent theme in insurgent campaigns, but Dean’s has capitalized on the Internet, where those who feel alienated can instantly connect: “The power is in your hands – contribute!”

Frustrations grow

Perhaps one reason Dean connects so well with supporters is that on a gut level, he feels the way they do – frustrated.

The former Vermont governor said he decided to run for president while fuming over a newspaper article about Bush: “I said, am I going to do something about it, or shut up? Given the choice, I’d rather talk.”

Like Dean, Andrew Fairbanks, 45, seethed when he read about Bush.

“Oh, God, he was yelling at the TV news, yelling at me,” said his wife, Kim Fairbanks, 36. “I said, Andrew, you need to go find other people who feel like you do, you need to channel the energy positively.’ ”

One day he heard a radio interview with Dean.

“The anger evaporated,” Andrew said.

“Dean makes you feel like you matter,” Kim said.

As the couple talked, Dean stood at a nearby podium, talking to several hundred people gathered under the stars outside a house in Milford.

Contrary to popular depictions, he didn’t flail his arms or rant. His expression wasn’t angry; it merely threatened anger. He described Bush’s handling of the economy and Iraq as losing policies.

“Now I’m going to tell you how to win,” Dean said, with clinical precision. “The way to beat Bush is we stand up and be proud of who we are.”

Unconventional approach

If the emotional leitmotif of Clinton’s campaigns was empathy – “I feel your pain” – Dean’s is empowerment – “We’ll fix your pain.”

“The power to take this country back is in your hands,” Dean said to the crowd. “Not mine.”

Dean’s appeal is not based on traditional political charisma. His presence isn’t commanding. He isn’t a backslapper, or a world-class speaker. His smile looks more like a baring of teeth. Asked how he relaxes, he said he mows the lawn and does his taxes.

Yet at a recent New York rally, women cried, “I want to have your baby!” His supporters are so passionate they have organized themselves in areas where no campaign infrastructure exists, calling themselves Dean Heads, Deanie Boppers and Deanie Babies.

“Most politicians treat voters like consumers,” said Karen Hicks, Dean’s New Hampshire state director. “Dean treats people like participants.”

He does that, in part, by debating those who come to see him. While some politicians pander, Dean seems to go out of his way to disagree with audience members.

At a fund-raiser for the abortion rights group NARAL in Manchester, he declared, “I have a number of supporters in my campaign who are pro-life, and we have to respect them.”

At a labor union picnic, his style won praise from people who knew little about his policies.

“I don’t even know his background, but I get sincerity from him,” said Rusty Goodwin, 68.

Doris Bauters, 69, said, “Dean’s a regular working guy, just like us.”

*

Webdiary’s Harry Heidelberg wrote about the Dean vibe on August 4 in Will Howard beat Bush?

On the eve of the anniversary of the Bali bombings, Bruce Power examines the still unanswered question of why our Government did not warn Australian tourists that Bali was a terrorist target. Bruce says of himself:

I worked at the National Nine News Bureau, Parliament House, Canberra during the mid 70s. With the first memorial for the Bali terrorist attack victims only two days away, I’m sure Australians would be interested to hear the truth as to why the Government didn’t warn those Australians who were in Bali or preparing to travel to Bali prior to the terrorist bombings about the dangers they faced there.

***

Seventeen days

by Bruce Power

For 17 long days, the US Government, through its Jakarta Embassy, was instructing people to AVOID SPECIFIC LOCATIONS in Indonesia such as Paddy’s Bar and the Sari Club.

AVOID: abstain, avert, bypass, circumvent, divert, dodge, duck, elude, escape, evade, flee, hide, hold off, jump, keep clear, shuffle off, shun, shy, sidestep, skip, skirt, STAY AWAY, STAY OUT, TURN ASIDE, DON’T GO NEAR, KEEP WELL CLEAR OF! Certainly, DO NOT EVEN THINK OF VISITING!

For 17 long days the Australian Government could have relayed the very same message to Australians who were already in Indonesia or who were preparing to travel there, especially to Bali. However, over those 17 days the Howard Government lulled Australians in to a false sense of security by advising them that tourist services in Bali were operating normally.

The Australian Government did issue a warning on September 20th stating:

“In view of the ongoing risk of terrorist activity, Australians should maintain a high level of personal security awareness at all times.”

When you are sitting in a bar, tavern or nightclub and there is a flash of light, instantly followed by a thunderous, deafening explosion, then it is far, far, too late do be aware of your personal security – if you are alive, that is.

*

First Bali anniversary, October 12

Since the October 12, 2002 Bali terrorist attack, John Howard has failed to satisfactorily explain how it was that in the weeks prior to the Bali bombings the US Government was warning Americans and Westerners to avoid places such as the Sari Club and Paddy’s Bar while the Australian Government lulled Australians into a false sense of security by telling them tourist services in Bali were operating normally.

The Office of National Assessments (ONA) maintains in its Senate submission that:

“There was no intelligence which provided specific warning of the attack which took place in Bali on October 12, 2002.”

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), in its last Advisory before the Bali bombing, maintained that tourist services outside of the remote islands of the archipelago were “operating normally, including Bali”.

Yet the US Jakarta Embassy warning notice of 26th September 2002 clearly warned:

“Americans and Westerners should avoid large gatherings, and locations known to cater primarily to a Western clientele such as certain bars, restaurants and tourist areas.”

The US Jakarta Embassy warning notice, issued 17 days prior to the Bali attack, was itself ‘intelligence’ of the highest quality. It represented the culmination of the most extensive and technological advanced ‘intelligence gathering’ endeavours of the world’s most advanced super power.

This warning notice was very explicit that specific locations in Indonesia – bars, restaurants and tourist locations catering primarily to a Western clientele – were being targeted by terrorists.

Why, then, did the PM’s Office, DFAT and Australia’s intelligence agencies FAIL to act upon the US Jakarta Embassy warning notice?

One phone call from ASIO to the US Jakarta Embassy would have elicited the very intelligence upon which the US Embassy warning was based. If both ASIO and ONA had failed to identify any specific threat to Australians, then the US warning issued on September 26, 2002 should certainly have set the alarm bells screaming!

Given the explicitness of the warning by the US Embassy in Jakarta, the Australian Government has never explained why Australian travellers were not similarly warned as American citizens were by their Government.

The US Embassy wasn’t just warning individuals to ‘be alert’ or to be careful about their own personal security, which was the only advice the Australian Government deemed necessary to offer to Australians. The US Government was instructing people to AVOID SPECIFIC LOCATIONS IN INDONESIA!

Mr Downer confirmed this in an answer to a question in Parliament:

In any case, on 20 September a travel advice for Indonesia was issued which did refer to the general threat of bombings by terrorists … “In view of the ongoing risk of terrorist activity, Australians should maintain a high level of personal security awareness at all times.” I had a look at the equivalent travel advice issued by the Americans. Prior to 12 October, their most recent travel warning specific to Indonesia was on 23 November 2001, so it was rather old. Actually, I was surprised that it had been so long since they had issued an update. In relation to their embassy notices, on 26 September 2002 the American Embassy in Jakarta issued an embassy notice that stated: “Americans and Westerners should avoid large gatherings, and locations known to cater primarily to a Western clientele such as certain bars.” (Questions without Notice 17 October 2002 Indonesia: Terrorist Attacks)

As US Today journalist David Kaplin said on ABC Radio AM on October 23, 2002, with respect to the US Embassy warning: “Now if you’re talking about Indonesia, really you’re talking about Bali.”

So the question that still remains unanswered is, 17 days prior to the Bali bomb attacks, why wasn’t the Australian Government warning Australians who were either in, or preparing to travel to, Indonesia to avoid large gatherings and locations known to cater primarily to a Western clientele such as certain bars, restaurants and tourist areas?

Following the October 12 Bali attack, a November 8, 2002 report in The Australian called Hambali’s meeting puts heat on Thais, confirms that US and (by direct implication) Australian intelligence services were fully aware of a looming terrorist attack targeting certain bars, restaurants and tourist areas in southeast Asia.

The story reveals that Kuwaiti-born al-Qa’ida operative Mohammed Mansour Jabarah was at a key meeting, led by Asia’s most wanted man, Hambali – JI’s chief operations planner – in southern Thailand in January, where Jemaah Isliamiah’s plan to target nightclubs and restaurants was developed.

A front-page story in The Australian on December 13, 2002, Bashir was at Bali plot planning, provided the missing dot as to how much western intelligent sources knew prior to the October 12th Bali bomb attacks. A significant detail of the 2nd meeting attended by six members of Jemaah Islamiah’s leadership council was that it was held at a house rented by the wife of Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, an al-Qa’ida operative arrested two months later in Oman.

The Australian reported in November that following Mohammed Mansour Jabarah’s interrogation, the US learnt of that January meeting.

On November 18, 2002 Time Asia Magazine reported:

A chilling account of the meeting in Thailand was given by one of those present, Mohammed Mansur (Sammy) Jabarah, a 20-year-old Kuwaiti-born Canadian citizen, who was arrested in Oman in April and is now being interrogated at an undisclosed location in the U.S. According to sources familiar with an FBI report of Jabarah’s interrogation, details of his testimony – including the dramatic order by Hambali to target bars and nightclubs – were passed on by U.S. officials to all Southeast Asian governments in August, a full two months before the Bali attack.

That the 2nd meeting in Thailand – where Bali was nominated as a terror target – was held at a house rented by Jabarah’s wife now makes it impossible for anyone to believe that Mohammed Mansour Jabarah’s interrogation did not result in the US learning of JI’s plan for a terrorist attack in Bali.

In conclusion, it seems it was Mohammed Mansour Jabarah’s interrogation which resulted in the US gaining the information which Richard Amitage, US Deputy of State was later to describe on the 7.30 Report as “stunningly explicit and specific”.

More recently, ABC Radio’s PM reported on 26 June, 2003:

A Canadian newspaper is claiming that American intelligence agencies identified two Bali resorts as terror targets one month before the Kuta bombings in October last year. The newspaper claims it’s obtained a confidential 48-page report compiled by the CIA, the FBI, the US State Department and a number of security and intelligence consultants. The two resorts named in the article were identified in the report on the basis of information obtained by agencies specialising in interception of communications, suspect interrogations and international surveillance operations. The Federal Government is investigating the claims made by the newspaper, while one former intelligence officer has told PM the language used and the information identified by the report appear to be credible examples of intelligence and analysis.

The Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer cannot credibly continue to claim 12 months on that there was no intelligence which provided specific warning of the attack which took place in Bali on October 12, 2002.

Had the Australian Government simply relayed the US Government warning to Australians already in Bali or preparing to travel to Bali, the number of Australian deaths and casualties could have been substantially less.

The question is: Why didn’t the government do it?

Margo: The last time our government didn’t pass on intelligence about Indonesia to Australians – or to the United States, for that matter – was before the East Timor independence vote. Our intelligence warned of terrible trouble if the East Timorese voted for independence, yet our government claimed all was well. Merv Jenkins, a defence intelligence official, committed suicide after roughhouse interrogation by Downer’s department after he passed on Australian pre-independence vote intelligence to the Americans in accordance with a standing agreement between the two nations.

 

Father and son. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

G’day. Tonight Webdiary’s first work experience student, Lachlan Brown, discusses the philosophical underpinnings of Howard’s way by comparing the work of John Rawls and Robert Nozick.

Lachlan is a fourth year media and communications student at Sydney University. He plays the piano and french horn and teaches music to help pay his way through uni. His first piece for Webdiary, Destroying Menzies’ noble revolution, contrasted Robert Menzies’ vision for higher education with that of John Howard. In essence, Menzies believed higher education was a public good – a public asset – while Howard and Costello believe it is a private privilege.

For more on the changing role of government in a world grimly capitulating to corporate interests and values, see Muddying the waters between guardians and traders, Sacrificing humanity on the altar of cheap ideologyand A fair go education system: the advantages for all of us.

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Rawls-v-Nozick: liberty for all, or just the rich?

by Lachlan Brown

In our current society, the study of philosophy tends to be written off quite easily. Philosophy doesn’t provide tangible results like engineering or science. It doesn’t build bridges or cure diseases. It doesn’t feed us or clothe us. It doesn’t even make us laugh.

Philosophers are rarely cited in the Australian media or asked to comment on specific issues. This seems to fuel the perception that philosophers are stuck in ivory towers (or at least behind the crumbling walls of sandstone universities), tucked away from the real world and hidden in a realm of abstract thinking.

However not all philosophy is scorned or ignored. Recently, the Wachowski brothers’ Matrix films popularised some of philosophy’s traditional questions about knowledge by judiciously combining them with Keanu Reeves, digital fight scenes and extended car chases. In these films the big questions are put back on the agenda again. Can we trust our senses? Is our entire life just an illusion? Is the real world run by evil machines who constantly deceive us (or does the Australian public service have another function)?

However whilst questions of knowledge are once again popular, I would like to argue that the philosophies of government and politics are central to political debate. How should governments work? What is their purpose? These questions underpin democracy itself and are of vast importance to society as a whole.

At first glance this debate may look quite boring, so Webdiary readers who would like to submit ideas for a Matrix-style film, outlining the contours of political philosophy are welcome to respond (let’s face it, most philosophy does require some sexing-up). Until then however, here are some musings of my own. These are centred around two American philosophers who have dominated the landscape of political philosophy over the last 30 years.

Most people who have studied policy, distributive justice or government know about an American philosopher called John Rawls. Born in 1921 and educated at Princeton, he published his seminal work in 1971, entitled A Theory of Justice.

This work was groundbreaking in many ways. Not only did it help to wrench philosophy away from its self indulgent preoccupation with language, but it also showed how philosophy could have a real impact on the way society was arranged. The purpose of Rawls work was to create a system of justice from first principles, creating a philosophical basis for a just society.

Rawls accomplished this by grounding his theory in a type of social contract which began with a veil of ignorance. He argued that to work out the basic principles of a society, each of us should pretend that we know nothing about our own social class, current wealth or talents. From this ignorance we are to produce the basic principles about how our society should be run.

Rawls argued that not knowing our position in society would lead to us to be concerned for everyone equally. We would therefore be particularly concerned for those who are least fortunate in society, because it would be possible (under our veil of ignorance) that we could be the worst off along with them!

As a result, Rawls came up with two principles that he thought most people would agree with in this hypothetical. Firstly, the Liberty Principle stated that each person has a right to the greatest equal liberty possible. Secondly the Difference Principle stated that social and economic differences in society could only be justified if they benefited the worst off. Whenever you changed society you had to make sure that things would improve for the people on the bottom of the heap. So the rich could get richer only if the poor were not left behind.

Rawls’ theory was a form of liberalism which provided the foundation for many types of government. Chief among these was the welfare state, in which wealth was redistributed so that the least fortunate would be looked after. Philosophy had provided something a tad more useful than language games or debates about whether the chair really exists. Rawls’ theory of justice began to underpin policy and politics.

That’s where our second philosophical friend arrived on the scene. Robert Nozick was a young philosophy professor in the early 1970s who published a critical reply to Rawls theory. In his first book, Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974) he argued brilliantly that Rawls principles of Liberty and Difference actually contradicted each other.

Nozick claimed that any government which forcibly taxed rich people and redistributed their wealth to help poor people was violating the liberty of the rich. Governments, he argued, had no right to encroach on the rights of individuals by taking their money and giving it to others. Governments shouldn’t act like Robin hood, robbing the rich to give to the poor.

This was especially the case if people’s wealth had arisen through talent or hard work. Nozick held strongly to the rights of the individual, and advocated a minimal state which maintained law and order but did nothing to redistribute wealth.

Philosophical battles might not have the power hitting of World Title bouts or the even catty name calling of celebrity feuds, but the debate between Rawls and Nozick is still sending aftershocks through most of the the western world.

These views have become the basis for opposing political parties. In the US, the Democrats traditionally advocate wealth redistribution whilst the Republicans push for tax cuts and less government interference.

In some places however, it seems as though Nozick’s ideas are garnering more and more support. Many Americans, for example, argue that poverty and unemployment are deserved and that success and fortune are gained through hard work and superior talent (manifested in the American Dream).

Australia has now followed the US down this path, with both sides of politics moving further and further away from Rawls’ welfare state toward Nozick’s extreme individualism. This philosophical shift has been subtle but inexorable, like the movement of tectonic plates under the earths surface. As a result many recent policies have been sold using the user-pays mantra that Nozick championed – why should people be forced to pay taxes for things that benefit others?

As a result we get HECs and full fees for uni students. We are strongly encouraged to pay private insurers for health care whilst the government attempts to dismantle Medicare. We make payments to fund our own retirement. We may asked to pay more for the public transport we use. The ABC is relentlessly attacked as a tax-payer funded institution which only benefits a minority.

Of course, this freedom from redistribution can easily result in a profoundly selfish society where individuals are encouraged to consume rather than to care. Furthermore traditional rights, like health care and education, are gradually transformed into commodities which individuals must pay for.

What’s more, there are good reasons to oppose Nozick’s philosophy. If you don’t redistribute wealth then you get vast economic differences between rich and poor. Interestingly, these differences themselves will lead to a denial of liberty. The poor don’t have the freedom to live where they want. They can’t afford legal representation. Children from poor families are unable to pay for a superior education, which further entrenches the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Quite simply, it is clear that liberty is inextricably linked to economic position. As Nozick affirms liberty for the rich, he appears to deny it to the poor.

My hunch is that we won’t run with Nozick forever. In the near future an ageing group of baby boomers will need looking after. And due to the volatile nature of superannuation schemes wealth redistribution will be put back on the agenda again. The big questions will arise once more. Who will pay for aged care? Who should pay for aged care?

Of course, the next generation will be asked to foot the bill. Ironically, this is the very generation which has been brought up on the user-pays principle. And so the men and women who have spent their lives paying their own way will have to cough up once more for the baby-boomers. For their part, the baby-boomers will get an easier retirement which (like their university fees, health and public transport) someone else has paid for.

 

Media bull strings. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

G’day. A new Webdiary reader emailed last weekend:

 

I am very grateful to have found this opportunity to say something. I am an ordinary professional person leading a normal life in what I grew up to think was a democracy. Then why am I now taken back constantly to my childhood when the inhumanity of Nazism was a topic of conversation around our dinner table and when democratic values were spoken and lived every day with gratitude that we had won the war, that my father had returned (the only one to do so from his town) and that we could live in peace, confident that goodness prevails in the end?

This government frightens and outrages me. I smell Nazism every day in the news and I want to know where to go to meet like-minded people to talk, to protest, and if necessary in the long run, to revolt. I don’t know where to find people like this. Most of my friends seem passive and only minimally concerned.

Do you know of any action groups or how one can become politically active?

I replied:

Do you believe in liberal values? There’s a new group called the Reid Group in Sydney – former Dems, Labor, Liberal, plus people from the Wilderness Society – all sorts – which you might like to join. I wrote about them in Can Liberalism fight back. Or you could join the Greens! Do you read Webdiary? There’s lot of people who feel as you do. I could publish your email and ask readers for suggestions if you like – would you prefer to remain anonymous?

K.E. (name and address supplied) replied, in part:

Thank you for your reply and information. I have only just discovered Webdiary and am enjoying it immensely. I got onto the political compass and came out as ‘liberal left’. The company is not bad, but I worry we are all a bit too peaceful in that sector of the compass.

Thank you for recommending the Reid Group. I have now subscribed to their newsletter and look forward to participating in future events. I have never been politically active, so there is a lot to learn. However, I do have an interest in corporate cultures and have written on the impact of psychopathy in organisations which led me to an interest in the personalities involved in corporate collapses such as One Tel, HIH, Enron etc. I’m currently reading and researching in this area looking at the effect of power on narcissistic personalities. Our own Mr Ruddock is a prime example.

It would be good to hear readers’ suggestions, as I am also interested in finding discussion groups. So yes, publish the letter and we’ll see if anything comes of it.

Over to you. Can you help?

Here is the editorial in the latest edition of Dissent magazine, lovingly published by journalism stalwart at The Age Kenneth Davidson and his partner Lesley Vick from their home three times a year. It’s essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the motivations of the Murdoch-Howard assault on democracy through cross media changes to go before the Senate again soon. Control the media and who will expose the insider’s spin to the people? Dissent is available in good newsagencies; its email address is dissentmagazine@ozemail.com.au.

How virtual democracies are primed for profit and war

by Kenneth Davidson

Modern democracies have been around for long enough for neoliberal capitalists to learn how to subvert them. They have mastered the technique of infiltrating the instruments of democracy – the ‘independent’, judiciary the ‘free press’, the parliament – and moulding them to their purpose. The project of corporate globalisation has cracked the code. Free elections, a free press, and an independent judiciary mean little when the free market has reduced them to commodities on sale to the highest bidder. (Arundhati Roy, 13 May 2003)

The excuse used by Bush, Blair and Howard to invade Iraq was the imminent threat posed by Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. This claim now appears to have been untrue, not an intelligence failure. If the US military had thought there was an outside chance that Iraq had WMD capable of threatening its neighbours, let alone the US, it would not have massed its main invasion force just over the border in Kuwait – well within range of any WMD worthy of the name. The US is looking for a diplomatic solution to its differences with the North Korean regime of Kim Jong Il – rather than a preemptive strike – precisely because it thinks the regime could have one or two nuclear weapons and the means and will to deliver them.

The post-war exposure of the unproven claims about Iraq’s WMD is undermining the popularity of Blair in the UK and is an embarrassment to Howard in Australia. But Bush’s popularity remains undiminished by the failure to find WMD in Iraq. Why? Are Americans qualitatively different to Britons and Australians or is the difference bound up in the way the war was presented through the media?

Even before Bush’s inauguration in 2000 he and his closest advisors were determined to invade Iraq. What he needed was the pretext which was provided by the September 11 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. The former NATO military chief, General Wesley Clark, now says that before he was due to go on CNN on September 11 he got a call at home from the White House which urged him to link Baghdad to the terror attacks. He said he declined to do so because he was offered no evidence of the connection. (Margo: Clark has since altered this statement, saying he was called by the group controlled by the Pentagon’s favourite Iraqi-in-exile Chalabi.)

By the time of the Iraq invasion in March 2003, a New York Times/CBS News survey estimated that 42 per cent of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for the September 11 attacks and an ABC News poll found that 55 per cent of Americans believed that Hussein was directly linked to Al Qaeda. Arundhati Roy commented on these ill informed beliefs:

All of it based on insinuation, auto-suggestion, and outright lies circulated by the US corporate media, otherwise known as the ‘Free Press,’ that hollow pillar on which American democracy rests. Public support in the US for the war against Iraq was founded on a multi-tiered edifice of falsehood and deceit, coordinated by the US government and faithfully amplified by the corporate media.

The media did the Bush Administration’s dirty work. Why?

According to BBC Director, John Willis, who worked for a year as vice president in charge of national programs at WGBH in Boston, the ‘swamp of political cravenness’ which characterised the American coverage of the war was intrinsic to the media’s commercial structure, without the discipline imposed by a strong national public broadcaster. In a speech to the Royal Television Society in June 2003 Willis said:

The lesson from America is that, if news and public affairs are left purely to the market, it is most likely to give the government what it wants.

Reporting war may generate ratings, but it is not good for advertisers. Willis reported:

Chillingly, media consulting firm Frank Magid Associates warned that covering war protests might be harmful to a station’s bottom line. Another consultant urged radio stations to make listeners “cry, salute, get cold chills!” Go for the emotions, and air the national anthem each day. (Murdoch’s) Fox led the way as the military cheerleader, apparently giving both viewers and politicians what they wanted. Contra scandal star Oliver North reported on the ground for Fox. The success of Fox has pushed other stations to the right. There was little or no debate, America’s leaders remained unchallenged and any lack of patriotism was punished with McCarthyite vigour.

As Willis implies, the problem of the American broadcasting media’s failure to cover the issues leading up to the invasion of Iraq is far deeper than the bias of the corporate proprietors. It is unlikely they would have run such a one sided coverage of the Administration’s position in the run up to the invasion if the biased coverage had led to falling ratings and advertising revenue.

The commercial broadcasting media’s prime function is not even to entertain. It is to deliver consumers to advertisers in the right frame of mind to spend on the products and services advertised. This function always sits uncomfortably with broadcasting’s social responsibility to inform and educate. But as the media consultants quoted by Willis make clear, the commercial and social responsibilities of the broadcast media are never so far apart as during the build up to war, especially when the government case for war is built on lies and half truths which should be exposed by responsible reporting.

In circumstances like the build up to the invasion of Iraq, the responsibility of reporters is to deal with the facts, and the competing views surrounding those facts. Done properly, this approach to journalism is likely to unsettle the audience and make it less receptive to the message from advertisers.

For commercial broadcasters, concerned about the bottom line, investigative reporting about war can only occur it the war becomes unpopular due to an unacceptable level of American casualties. This in turn affected the way America conducted the war – with overwhelming firepower from a safe distance – which has ongoing implications for the safety of the occupying forces.

Unfortunately, the displacement of journalistic values by commercial values in the broadcast media is likely to get worse, not better, because of the push to relax media ownership laws in Australia, Canada and the UK, as well as in the US.

In all countries the argument advanced is the same. Developments in information technology have increased the number of broadcasting outlets, which means that competition will be sufficient to preserve media diversity, rather than ownership limits as at present. In none of these countries has there been any pressure from the public to relax media ownership regulation. If fact, to the extent that there has been any public interest, it has been distinctly hostile as people have a well-founded fear that the proposals would increase the reach and power of the major media conglomerates.

In Australia the latest attempt to change the media ownership laws failed in the Senate in June 2003. The Communications Minister, Senator Alston, gave the game away as to the real purpose of the legislation:

The tragic result is that Australian media companies will be denied the opportunity to grow and expand and will be left with little option but to resort to cutting costs and services.

Echoing the arguments made overseas, Alston claims:

Australians in 2003 can get their news and information from a wider range of sources than ever before – one in two households is connected to the Internet. Almost one third of households have pay TV. Digital TV is a reality. There are more community broadcasters than ever.

But Australian Broadcasting Authority research shows that the overwhelming majority of people rely on traditional media as their source of news and current affairs: 88 per cent rely on free-to-air television, 76 per cent use radio and newspapers and only 10 per cent use pay TV and 11 per cent use the Internet.

And where does the content for the pay TV and Internet services come from? According to a research paper by the Parliamentary Library (Media Ownership and Regulation in Australia by Kim Jackson), the content is controlled by existing media operators. The only significant new Australian news service provided by the pay TV operators is Sky News Australia. Sky is owned by the existing networks, Seven and Nine, and British Sky Broadcasting. The latter is owned by News Corporation:

The most popular Australian Internet news sites are also controlled by existing media operators, namely PBL (Packer), News Ltd (Murdoch), Fairfax (Publisher of the Age, SMH and Financial Review) and the ABC.

The only major new operator in Internet news is Telstra corporation. However Telstra’s Australian news service consists of AAP news stories. AAP is jointly controlled by News Ltd and Fairfax.

The Howard government threatens to reintroduce the legislation later this year and make it a trigger for a double dissolution. It may gain the Coalition the support of the media moguls at the next election. If passed it would allow, for instance, Packer to take control the Fairfax Group as well as the Nine Network, and allow Murdoch to bid for control of the Seven or Ten networks while retaining his 68 per cent control of the capital city and national newspaper market.

The new media merger rules announced by the American Republican-dominated Federal Communication Commission in a 3-2 decision in June 2003 abolishes the old rule which prevented TV-newspaper mergers and only allowed TV duopolies in the 60 largest markets if they passed rigorous public interest review. Now TV-newspaper mergers will be allowed in 200 markets where 98 per cent of the American population live, and TV duopolies and even ‘triopolies’ will be allowed in over 160 markets covering 95 of the population and there will be absolutely no public interest review of mergers.

According to the director of the US Center for Digital Democracy, Jerry Chester:

The companies behind the measure include the powerhouses of corporate media power: Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp/Fox, General Electric/NBC, Viacom/CBS, Disney/ABC, Tribune Corp and Clear Channel. (Clear Channel owns 1,200 radio stations in the US and has an interest in Australian Radio Network with eight stations that give it an audience reach of 50 per cent of the population.)

According to Chester:

Not surprisingly, the media conglomerates thirst for more control as they seek to end ownership limits. What this means hasn’t been covered by the media. There has been no TV network news coverage on the impending media give-away.

Even so, there has been strong community resistance to the FCC policy and it may yet be blocked by Congress. If the new FCC rules stand, they are likely to have a profound impact on the structure of the broadcasting industry of other countries, unless those other countries can maintain strong domestic regulation designed to maintain national ownership of broadcasting and print media.

In the UK, the communications bill which promotes media deregulation along the lines proposed by the FCC in the US and Alston in Australia would allow US companies for the first time to buy into ITV or Channel Five. The bill lifts the ban on newspaper owners buying Channel Five. In theory Murdoch’s News Corp will be able to own four national newspapers as well as Channel Five and also remain the main shareholder in Sky, the leading pay-TV broadcaster.

The bill as initially proposed by the government was attacked by the former chief executive of British ITV, Stuart Prebble. He said:

It really is preposterous. Of all the many craven things this government has done in the past this is the most disgraceful. They seem to have allowed this bill to be written by Rupert Murdoch.

The House of Lords threatened defeat of the communications bill unless the government accepted an amendment, (known colloquially as the ‘Murdoch amendment’) drafted by Lord Puttman which calls for any takeover of Channel Five to be subject to a public interest test.

In Canada parliament responded to the pressure to open up its media with an inquiry by its standing committee on Canadian heritage (Our Cultural Sovereignty: The Second Century of Canadian Broadcasting) which rejected the changes proposed in the US, UK and Australia out of hand. In tabling the report in June 2003, the chairman of the committee, Clifford Lincoln, said:

The Committee believes that broadcasting is an essential preserve of the Canadian culture and imagination. Thus, it is opposed to increasing the level of foreign ownership. In essence, the Committee holds to the view that once Canadians give up control over what amounts to our cultural sovereignty, we can never get it back. The committee also took a strong position on the question of cross-media ownership, believing that Canadian democracy is enhanced when there is a diversity of voices and when Canadians have a wide variety of sources to choose from.

The Committee also looked at the structure of the industry to … place a strong emphasis on measures and incentives to ensure that Canadian audiences view Canadian programming. To this end they recommended the Canadian Television Fund be recognised by the government as a central component of the Canadian broadcasting system by directing licensees to contribute to the CTF.

It also recommended that the CBC (the national public broadcaster) “be provided with multi-year funding (3-5 years) so that it might adequately fulfil its mandate (and) the CBC deliver a strategic plan to parliament detailing resource requirements for the delivery of local, regional Canadian programming and new media initiatives”.

Of the group of countries under discussion, Canada is the only one which approached the challenge to broadcasting policy provided by the new digital technologies from the perspective of the interests of the audience. From that perspective Canada looked at the role commercial broadcasting might play and recognised the importance of a well-funded and independent public broadcaster in maintaining standards across all media.

In a functioning democracy, where its parliamentary representatives are concerned to deliver good government, voters should expect nothing less. The US, the UK, and Australia (aka the Coalition of the Willing) have all shown in varying degrees that they are in thrall to the media barons whose vested interests in this issue strike at the very heart of democracy.

Republished with permission

Margo disclosure: I am a member of Xmedia, a group formed recently to try to stop the new cross media legislation being passed by federal Parliament. I have campaigned and lobbied against any further concentration of media ownership in Australia for more than a decade. I am also a member of Friends of Fairfax, a group formed in the 1990s to keep Fairfax independent and stop it being taken over by Kerry Packer. I own shares in Fairfax. The Fairfax board supports Howard’s cross media legislation. For more information on the cross media saga, see Webdiary’s cross media archive.

 

Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

Howard’s Senate ‘reform’ paper is a shocker, as expected. Howard’s way would demolish the Senate as an effective House of Review by abolishing its veto power. It would leave Australians virtually defenceless to protect our precarious rights and freedoms against a dominant Prime Minister converging his short term interests with the public interest and prepared to dump a commitment to truth and ethics to get his way.

Think the extremist ASIO and anti-terrorism bills, for example, where the veto power of the Senate allowed appalled Liberal Senators and MPs to flex their muscles against Howard’s demand to create a police state. On the ASIO bill, see ASIO: Right beats might, again!. On the anti-terrorism bill, see Liberalism fights back on terror laws, where I wrote, in May last year:

Apart from the triumph of Liberalism in the (Senate) report – however short term – the report proves once again that the Senate is vital to protecting Australia’s democracy and ensuring good, considered law is passed by the Federal Parliament. Paul Keating called Senators “swill” and John Howard wants to gut its powers, but it is only through the Senate and its committees that Australians have a chance to discuss proposed laws, and where there is some possibility of arguments being assessed on the merits.

By gutting the power of the parliamentary chamber able to consider legislation on the merits, hear the views of Australians in legislation committees and to insist on maintaining our democratic rights and freedoms unless very good arguments are made to the contrary – because the numbers aren’t in the PM’s pocket – Howard’s fanatical proposals would crush our democracy. Which is what he wants, of course – see Howard’s roads to absolute power.

And yet just two days ago, with a straight face, Howard repeated his standard cliche about our democracy in a speech at the centenary sitting of the High Court in Melbourne. It might have been believable when he first mouthed it a long, long time ago, but after 8 years of his government, and particularly in the light of his Senate wishlist, it’s nothing short of mendacious:

As part of the ongoing political debate about our institutions there is frequent debate as to whether or not this nation should endeavour in some way to entrench formally in its law a bill of rights. I belong to that group of Australians who is resolutely opposed to such a course of action. It is my view that this nation has three great pillars of its democratic life. A vigorous parliamentary system, robustly Australian, responsible for the making of laws; a strong independent and incorruptible judiciary; and a free and sceptical media, free and sceptical often to the discomfort of us but nonetheless an important and integral part of our society.

You’ll get an idea of Howard’s drive to crush “a free and skeptical media” from How virtual democracies are primed for profit and war, published tonight, and my piece just after the Senate rejected Howard’s cross media laws for the first time in June, Governing for the big two: Can people power stop them?

We’re well aware of Howard’s “respect” for the judiciary, most recently shown by his appointment of Philip Ruddock – under investigation in the cash-for-visa and official people smuggling scandals, perpetrator of serial contempt of the Federal and Family Courts on immigration cases and proud trasher of our international human rights obligations – as Australia’s first law officer. And who could forget his condoning of Senator Bill Heffernan’s gutless slander of High Court Justice Michael Kirby. Howard sent Heffernan to the sin bin for a moment after his allegations were shown to based on a fraudulent document, then reappointed him as the PM’s representative on the NSW Liberal Executive.

But the real killer is the Senate thing. Despite wanting to gut our “vigorous”, “robustly Australian” parliamentary system, he still won’t countenance a bill of rights. Bet on it. My take on Howard’s transformation from Senate conservative to Senate revolutionary is at Howard’s Senate strip: All power to him. The view of the crazy brave Clerk of the Senate, Harry Evans, is at Howard’s rubber-stamp democracy. Details of how to participate in the Senate debate are at constitutionalchange.

Tonight, a history of the Senate’s role in our system by John Nethercote. John is a Canberra-based commentator on Australian Government, the parliament and public administration. He edited Parliament & Bureaucracy (1982), The House on Capital Hill (with Julian Disney, 1995) and Liberalism and the Australian Federation (2001). He oversaw publication of Australian Senate Practice (6th ed., 1991) and currently editsAustralasian Parliamentary Review. His first Webdiary contribution – on the death of the public service as a check and balance on untramelled executive power – is at What servants are for.

I’ve done an interview with former Labor Attorney-General Michael Lavarch on why he’s joined the committee overseeing the Senate discussion paper process. He said some interesting stuff about what you’d recommend if you really wanted to improve our system of government, not wreck it, which I’ll report to you tomorrow.

***

Governments and the Senate

by John Nethercote

John Howard’s discussion paper on the Senate will be the newest instalment in one of the longest running controversies in Australian parliamentary politics.

The Constitution-makers provided a parliamentary scheme which would in due course impose a strong bicameral flavour on the conventional party battle. The Parliament they fashioned was remarkable not only for its democratic and elective foundations but for the fact that those foundations extended, for the first time, to the upper house (the Senate) as well as the so-called popular chamber, the House of Representatives.

The Senate’s powers, for the period, were, in a formal sense, marginally circumscribed in the limitations placed on its role in initiation and amendment of financial legislation. But these circumscriptions did not alter its basic powers – no bill could become law without the Senate’s consent.

And because it was a house elected on the same franchise as the House of Representatives, it could exercise its powers with an increasing legitimacy denied to other upper houses, not least the House of Lords. Even in the 1890s, other upper houses, despite their nominal powers, were seen, as Sir Samuel Griffith expressed it in 1891, as “checking and . . . useful revising” bodies.

From the start the Senate asserted its equality with the House of Representatives on matters great and small. This may be explained only partly by its constitutional role and elective foundations.

It also derived from the fact that more than half the original Senators were experienced in lower house politics and thus well accustomed to robust debate. They eschewed the politenesses typical of conventional upper houses aspiring to bring the sober second thought to the business of legislation.

The Senate came into its own with the undisputed emergence of two-party politics.

The elections of 1913 brought a Liberal Government to office, with the slimmest of majorities in the House. The Labor Opposition in the Senate, however, had a very comfortable majority which it proceeded without inhibition to exploit; the practice of using the Senate as a weapon of opposition in the party battle was firmly established in this period.

The prime minister of the time, Joseph Cook, lost little time in establishing grounds for a double dissolution on the basis that Labor’s caucus practices ruled out inter-house negotiation as a means of resolving differences; he was well-placed to know as he had left Labor more than 20 years earlier over adoption of the caucus rule.

There was much reluctance about activating the double dissolution provisions. The Governor-General, Sir Ronald Munro-Ferguson, a veteran of the People versus the Peers battles in the United Kingdom, was most reluctant. In an early case of what might be called the Munro-Ferguson heresy, he sought a resolution on lines of British practice in these matters.

The desire to reshape the Australian Parliament on British lines, with a greatly weakened second chamber, remains strong to this day, despite its inappropriateness. Australia does not need an upper house with powers more like those of the House of Lords; what it needs, in the first instance, is a revitalised House of Representatives for which even the contemporary House of Commons could provide something of a model.

The 1914 conflict was resolved by the people who gave Labor majorities in both houses. But for the next thirty five years the Senate largely slumbered.

There was some sign of life in the turmoil following the conscription split in the Labor Party, when the Senate thwarted Prime Minister Hughes’s attempt to delay elections by means of an Act of the Imperial Parliament. More than a decade later, the Scullin Labor Government was unrelentingly hassled by the Opposition in the Senate but took no steps even to lay the grounds for a double dissolution.

The big criticism of the Senate at this time was the method of election which usually gave huge majorities to the Government; in 1947-49 Labor had 33 of the 36 seats.

The modern era of adversarial bicameralism owes its origins to introduction of proportional representation in 1948, when Attorney-General Dr Evatt gave effect to an idea he had first advocated in 1915. The only reservations about the new system came from Opposition Leader Menzies who perceived that it would be difficult to secure majorities in the Senate under the new method of voting; and that, moreover, this difficulty would be all the greater in elections following double dissolutions.

Thus, under proportional elections for the Senate, deadlocks with the House would be more likely, but their resolution, except by means of a joint sitting, more difficult. Such has been the history since 1974.

Although the Menzies Governments were from time to time troubled by the Senate, it was mainly under his successors that the problems he had foreseen became increasingly manifest.

In late 1967 the Senate had a signal victory when it forced the Holt Government to table documents on the use of the RAAF’s VIP squadron. Its new potency was capped a few months later by Senator John Gorton’s accession to the prime ministership.

For the next eight years the Senate’s role continued to strengthen, not least by means of a comprehensive committee system; perhaps the leading figure in this course of events was Senator Lionel Murphy, Labor leader from 1967 until early 1975.

The revived Senate reached its zenith when it refused to pass budget legislation in 1975, forcing dismissal of the Whitlam Government as well as a double dissolution election.

In the past 35 years, all governments have been troubled by the Senate. This is evident in the number of double dissolutions – though the futility of these has meant that after having had four between 1974 and 1987, there have not been any since.

It has also been evident in the number of referendums about the Senate in the period – it is by far the most likely subject for a referendum. Failed proposals have included abandoning the nexus and adoption of so-called simultaneous elections for the Senate and the House.

One change which did succeed is the doubtfully beneficial provision that Senate vacancies shall be filled by new senators from the same party; as a consequence, resignations from the Senate come at a rate four times that of resignations from the House of Representatatives.

The reason that the double dissolution figures so largely in options for resolving deadlocks between the Houses is the same reason that Cook activated the double dissolution provision back in 1914 – the great difficulty negotiating legislation through a Senate in which party discipline is so strong.

The real inflexibility in Australian parliamentary politics is not the bicameral scheme in the Constitution but the Prussian rigidity of discipline in the major parties, in Parliament itself and as enforced by the party machines outside.

The double dissolution provision – the innovatory provision in the 1890s – is not without problems or deficiencies, but these should not be allowed to cloud the fact that it is party practice rather than constitutional procedure which most needs reform.

 

Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

Here is the interim report of the Edmund Rice Centre into the process and aftermath of Philip Ruddock’s deportations of asylum seekers. The Centre expects to release a final report in December after completing its research.

 

NO LIABILITY: TRAGIC RESULTS FROM AUSTRALIA’S DEPORTATIONS

A project of the Edmund Rice Centre for Justice & Community Education in cooperation with the School of Education, Australian Catholic University.

Research Team: Mr Phil Glendenning, Director, Edmund Rice Centre for Justice & Community Education; Sister Carmel Leavey OAM Ph.d, Mrs Margaret Hetherton MA, Dr Tony Morris Ph.d, Australian Catholic University. School of Education

7 October 2003

Disquiet about the fate of boat people

Reports of death, disappearance, imprisonment and torture, of fear-filled lives spent in hiding, privation and despair have filtered back to Australia about some people Australia has removed after disallowing their claims for protection on refugee or humanitarian grounds.

Disquiet about this situation was expressed to the 2000 Senate Committee [1] by bodies such as HREOC (the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission), Amnesty International, the Refugee Council and various legal aid and trauma treatment organisations.

In 2002 a coalition of religious groups, COPAS, including leaders from the major Christian denominations, Jewish, Moslem and Buddhist groups, petitioned the Federal Government to heed the reports of terrible things happening to some deportees [2] and cease sending people to countries where protection of their safety and rights is very problematic. The study reported here was designed to clarify the situation behind this widespread disquiet.

Government policy

The Government asserts that deportation is a sovereign right and essential to border protection. Removal is seen as the essential sanction for people who come or stay here unlawfully. What happens to people when they are ‘removed’ from Australia is apparently not a concern of Government.

The Government shows no signs of acting on the opinion of the 2000 Senate Committee that some form of monitoring may be the only way in which Australia can be assured that its refugee determination processes are correctly identifying genuine refugees and humanitarian cases.

Nor has the Government apparently taken any action to implement Recommendation 11.1 of the same Senate Committee report – that the Government place the issue of monitoring on the agenda for discussion at the Inter-Government/Non-Government Organisations Forum with a view to examining the implementation of a system of informal monitoring [3].

Few reasonable people would dispute that Australia has a right to protect its borders. However, that right is not absolute. A basic concern for life, human rights and justice underpins most of the concerns expressed to the Government about the way it implements its border protection policies. In addition, Australia is obligated under a variety of International Conventions not to remove people to places in which they are not safe. These legal obligations are discussed later in this report.

What counts as evidence about the fate of deported people?

At the 2000 Senate hearing above, Mr Sidoti, representing HREOC, called for a random sample of returnees to see what is happening in their lives. In this study we found that it is impossible to set up such a sample. A sample has to be based on known numbers. DIMIA (the immigration department) does not publish the statistics on returned persons, which would be the first step in setting up a random sample based study. Even the 2000 Senate Committee recognised it did not have access to the numbers of ‘returnees’, saying only it is certainly in the thousands.

As an alternative, Mr Sidoti also called for random checks based on risk assessment factors to decide where Australia should be monitoring returnees and where not. We decided to follow this approach and interview returnees from relatively high-risk countries of origin or currently residing in high-risk alternative countries.

Initially we hoped to contact returnees through people with whom they were linked in Australia, but few such links survive the deportation process. We then began traveling to overseas countries to contact deportees directly. This is a difficult process, which is continuing.

Methodology

To provide comparable information, interviews were conducted on a standardised format. Where possible we sought corroborative material evidence to check the returnee’s story. Where we could not find this – and to control for any possible collusive fabrication- we looked to see if the pattern of an account was mirrored in independent interviews with other returnees in similar situations. We have also checked the internal consistency of each account given us, a strategy also used by the Refugee Review Tribunal in assessing credibility. We are satisfied that our data provide a reliable case for the Government to answer.

To date we have conducted interviews with returnees in three overseas countries. We have also drawn on reliable accounts from deportee contacts and expert respondents in Australia. This is an on-going study. To date we have interviewed 20 people overseas. We have also drawn on another 8 authenticated accounts. We plan to expand the number of interviews before writing the final report.

Risk factors

Our interviewees came from the following States/ with the high-risk profiles noted below.

Iran

Political and religious dissent is punished very harshly in Iran – often with death or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Rights to freedom of speech, press, assembly and association are severely restricted. Discrimination is experienced by ethnic minorities such as Azeris and Kurds and by religious minorities – Sunni Muslims, Baha’is. Christians, Jews, Mandaeans and Yaresans. Conversion from Islam is not permitted.

The judiciary often acts as an arm of government policy and is not independent. Vigilante groups practise intimidation and violence with tacit support of members of government.

In particular jeopardy are critics of the Shi’ia clergy-dominated government and people who do not conform to the rigid Islamic dress and behavioral codes.

Afghan and to a lesser extent Iraqi refugees are systematically denied the means to subsist by recent Iranian laws intended to reduce the large refugee populations hosted by Iran. Support for this description may be found in the footnoted reports by the US State Department, United Nations, US based Human Rights Watch, The Australian Refugee Council Amnesty International and the Australian Uniting Church sponsored Deportation Task Group [4].

These accounts contrast sharply with the more sanguine report of DFAT’s (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) Fact Sheet on Iran, possibly affected by the desire to protect Australia’s trading interests.

Syria

Syria has not signed the Refugee Convention and has no domestic laws to protect Iraqi, Bedoon or Afghan refugees living there. Iraqi refugees are theoretically eligible for up to six months visitor’s visa. Like over 3000 accepted applicants waiting for UNHCR resettlement, they might just be successful in this claim.

However, many do not make this problematic application because of justifiable fears of long delays and being identified and refouled by the Syrian authorities in the process. They then live very precariously without legal status, with severe restrictions on employment and freedom of movement, denial of access to health care, education and housing, combined with constant risks of arrest, detention and deportation.

Undocumented refugees are very vulnerable to harassment and extortion by the Syrian police, threatening arbitrary arrest or refoulement. This is particularly true of the Bedoons. Support for this description may be found in the footnoted reportsof the US State Department, Human Rights Watch, UNHCR and Amnesty International [5].

Iraq

The official human rights situation in Iraq changed markedly with the fall of the regime of Saddam Hussein but the resultant murderous civil disorder and dislocation of normal services makes it problematic for any returnees. In addition, some are still afraid of reprisals from those who forced them to flee in the first place.

Afghanistan

Despite the establishment of the Hamid Karsai Government ending the tyranny of the Taliban, areas outside Kabul are still considered to be without effective civil government and subject to lawlessness and insecurity. While the UNHCR is encouraging voluntary repatriation of refugees, NGOs like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are critical of this policy. [6]

Nigeria

Despite being oil rich, most of the Federal Republic of Nigeria’s 120 million population (60 percent Muslim and 40 per cent Christian) struggles for daily existence, suffering prolonged droughts, inflation, high unemployment, official corruption and ethnic tensions among the 250 separate ethnic groups.

Those who have suffered most from a succession of brutal military regimes are the Ibo peoples, who unsuccessfully tried to secede, sparking the Biafran Civil war (1967-70). In this conflict, the Ogoni people, led by the subsequently executed Ken Sara Wiwa, protested against environmental damage and injustice in the exploitation of their oil-rich lands and against the impact of the introduction of the strict Islamic punishment code of Sharia Law in some of the 36 states.

Zimbabwe

The political situation in Zimbabwe has gradually deteriorated since 1996, when Robert Mugabe won another six years in government. At the beginning of 1999, popular frustration with economic mismanagement and increasing corruption led to the formation of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), with a strong base in the unions and support from commercial farming interests.

When the MDC won 57 of the 120 elective parliamentary seats in the June 2000 poll, Mugabe then moved to remove or suppress his opponents in the judiciary, the media and other centres of influence.

Now Zimbabwe is in a parlous state, with the economy all but collapsed and the government manipulating widespread famine so that the people in opposition strongholds suffer most. Strong military backing is used for the forced removal of white farmers in a brutal land redistribution programme, which has earned Mugabe widespread scorn internationally. MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai is now on trial for alleged treason, charged with an almost certainly fabricated plot to assassinate Mugabe.

Research findings

We set out to examine the process of removal, the conditions people were placed in, and their status in the country Australia removed them to. Our initial question we set out to answer in the research was:

1. Is the Australian Government sending or attempting to send refugees to places which are not safe?

During the research process evidence suggested to us that a new theme was emerging, in terms of some of the methods used by Australia in the process of removal. This prompted the need to answer the following two questions:

2. Has the Australian Government encouraged refugees to obtain false papers and is there is evidence of bribery and corruption?

3. Is the conduct of removals consistent with Australia’s legal obligations and values?

1. Is the Australian Government sending refugees or attempting to send them to places which are not safe?

Our answer to this question has to be Yes. We cannot say how frequently it happens but among the 20 people we interviewed overseas, many were in serious danger as a result of our deportation arrangements. For some, this occurred immediately on arrival at their destination or at an intermediate port. For some, the danger arose as they tried to live in the country to which Australia had sent them.

A. In danger immediately on arrival or at an intermediate port on the deportation journey

C5

On arrival in Nigeria, C5 was immediately taken aside for interrogation because of his membership in the Biafra independence movement and connection with Christians opposed to the imposition of Sharia law – the reasons for his asylum claim in the first place. He was told he faced severe interrogation, detention and indefinite imprisonment without trial but was given an escape chance by one officer who seemed sympathetic to the Biafran Liberation cause.

This officer offered him the chance to make a run for it while handcuffed on the drive from the airport to headquarters; the officer said he would pretend that the escape had happened while he was dealing with a flat tyre. All his belongings (suitcases and $1600 US) had to be abandoned in the process (by accident or as a bribe).

C5 escaped further dangers by making contact with friends, who warned him that he was on the most wanted list and got him out of Nigeria and eventually into a First World country to begin a new appeal for asylum.

T1

On arrival in Damascus, T1 was taken from the airport to the Political Security Prison where he was beaten. Relatives paid a bribe for him to be released after a month. T1 believes Australian Correctional Management (ACM) had supplied negative information about him to the Syrian authorities because he had been a leader in the detention centre and had made contact with Australian journalists. We clearly could not verify this allegation although the interviewer noted physical scars and wounds consistent with T1’s story of beatings after arrival in Syria.

P5

In late 2000 in Abu Dhabi on the deportation journey to Syria, an Iraqi deportee P5, was arrested traveling on a false passport (obtained, he alleged, on ACM advice). His passport was recognized as a forgery. In custody he was made to strip naked and was interrogated. He was threatened with being sent to the Iraqi Embassy in Abu Dhabi.

P5 threatened to jump out the window, stating that as a member of the anti-Saddam groups he would be hung if he were to go back to Iraq. This saved him and he was deported back to Australia only to have the Australian authorities again risk his security by deporting him 3 months later on the same forged passport and again via Abu Dhabi where he was held on the plane during transit. The researchers have the passport with the double set of stamps as supportive evidence of this account.

C6

In August 2002, after nearly 3 years of detention, the Australian authorities sent C6 to Kenya. C6 is an 18-year-old Hutu, orphaned eight years earlier in the murderous Hutu/Tutsi conflict. He was escorted under guard to Johannesburg and on to a Kenya airlines plane to Nairobi.

He had emergency travel documents from the Australian authorities but these were taken from him at the airport in Nairobi, an action witnessed by the Christian Brother and lawyer who came to meet him. Once again he became stateless and without documents with the predictable consequence of further imprisonment. [7]

C7 [8]

C7, who has now been granted refugee status in a first world country according to Amnesty International, agreed to ‘voluntary’ deportation after suffering multiple beatings and rape in Silverwater prison in Sydney where he was held following charges of ‘behavioral misconduct ‘ in detention.

He was deported to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) because DIMIA refused to accept that he was citizen of Angola. P&I, a private South African ‘people mover’ company was employed to secure travel documents that showed falsely that C7 was a DRC citizen. In transit through South Africa, C7 successfully demanded to speak with officials from the Angolan Embassy who ascertained that he was indeed a citizen of Angola.

By this chance success C7 avoided landing stateless in the DRC without residence, money or indeed the necessary language, French.

C2

C2 is a young Zimbabwean whose asylum case rested on his involvement in the Movement for Democratic Change, (MDC) and the dangers he experienced through his witnessing and later seeking redress for the political assassination of his father and cousin. He was refused asylum in Australia and told that within a fortnight he was to be deported back to Zimbabwe.

Such a deportation he believed would bring certain death in the light of his previous experience, harassment, near death ‘accidents’ and finally of torture in prison graphically described in his affidavit:

I was kept…for about five days. I had all sorts of things done to me I had electrical cables attached to my feet (toes) and they switched on the power from a low current up to a point when the current was too much for me and I would pass out. On one particular incident / occasion I was kicked in the face while 1 was lying down. This broke my nose, jaw and broke off two front teeth. I thought l would never get out of there alive. I could not eat any solids and just drank water. During those days they kept on driving the point across to me that I should have listened to advice and kept my mouth shut and should not have pursued my father’s murder and kept out of MDC affairs They told me I was going to ‘join’ my father. This torture continued for days but I was later released. The pressure from our family lawyer, my wife and mother, facilitated this. We filed a report to the Police but nothing came out of it.

C2’s deportation to this situation was narrowly avoided with the help of Australian friends who bought tickets for him and his family so that he could go to another first world country where there is some possibility of having his claims for asylum seeker status granted.

B. Dangers After Arrival

Australian authorities seem to have a sanguine view of the prospects of Iraqi, Palestinian and Kuwaiti Bedoon deportees in Syria. Australian officials seem to have been oblivious of the risk to Iraqis of refoulement by Syrian authorities or of abduction by agents of Saddam Hussein before the fall of his regime.

Nor do they seem to have understood the dangers and discrimination faced by people dumped with short-term visas in Syria, in particular Palestinians or stateless Bedoon from Kuwait. Some accounts from our interviews illustrate these perils.

P5’s case for asylum was based on his public opposition to Saddam in the period 1969-1974 and the documented hanging of his associates. He told the interviewer:

The Australian Government said that it was true that Iraq is too dangerous for you but your wife has made it out of Iraq to Syria and you too have lived in Syria. So they said, you can go to Syria. After the 1998 border was opened between Iraq and Syria, Syria was no longer safe for people like me who were enemies of Saddam.

The situation has changed radically since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime but until that point Iraqi people we interviewed had lived in fear of being refouled by Syria or assassinated by Saddam’s agents who could easily cross the border. Some like P1 and P2 say they still cannot rid themselves of fear.

Once their short-term visas expire in 1-6 months, life for the stateless Bedoon, in Syria is characterized by continual fear, insecurity, loss of basic civil rights, discrimination and poverty. In their common view Bedoon claims before a Melbourne Court were all accepted and those before a Sydney judge all rejected.

The depression is palpable in P4’s typical account. Along with all Bedoons in the Kuwait army, he was ejected and discriminated against, on suspicion of being under Iraqi influence after the Gulf war:

I am very tired. I have no future. I am dizzy from the situation. I cannot go to Kuwait. Also the money my wife’s family sends, $200.00, is not enough to live on. I am dizzy. I do not know what to do. What can I do? Where shall I go? Where shall I stay? I don’t know what to do. In tourists season, I dress like a Kuwaiti man but the rest of the year is a real problem when you can easily be asked about ID. Persecution is a big problem – we are in danger because our accent is different. Some people are informing the police because we have no passport…

That is the reason for persecution. Children cannot go to school because they need a passport to go to school. I take them to the Mosque each day, where there is a school for studying Islam…

They can listen but if someone wants to study then they must have ID. We have no ID so my children have to do unofficial study.

Other Bedoon deportees presented a similar picture. Thus P2 said:

I live like a street person. I have no country. No identity. No money. I carry nothing in my hands. I have an unknown destiny.

T2 says he very concerned about safety issues:

No-one has picked me up yet, but I have to avoid trouble all the time; I need to turn the other cheek if I am in a fight as I do not want to be seen by police.

T2 has changed accommodation 7 or 8 times as he is concerned that Security may be looking at him.

T5 did not report to Syrian authorities after arrival as required as he was highly anxious about what would happen to him. He believed he would be deported.

T5 is currently very anxious about his legal status in Syria and is constantly looking over his shoulder for the Security police. He keeps a very low profile, often not leaving his house for days. Security police have stopped him once and requested papers. He was forced to give a bribe of 500 Syrian pounds to the police to ‘ensure’ his safety.

A Palestinian is similarly living in a security limbo. He is constantly concerned about the Security Police, stating:

I get a scared feeling when I see security or a policeman. I feel scared – it is a real problem.

The researchers have concluded that, at the very least, Australian authorities appear to have acted without care of the dangers they have risked for detainees in the deportation process.

The defence that many of these ‘returnees’ were so called ‘voluntary’ returnees is unacceptable. Some agreed to be returned as a possible lesser of two evils – the dangers of removal against indefinite, life wasting detention in Australia, isolated from family contact. The UNHCR has three times held that Australia’s policy of mandatory detention of asylum seekers is in breach of international human rights law. [9]

It is hard to understand why the perceived imperative to remove asylum seekers from Australia outweighed the danger of secondary refoulement to countries where they had been oppressed; and in a number of cases the Australian authorities recognized this oppression.

In other cases, such as that of the stateless Bedoons, people were deported with short term papers. This was done with the apparent knowledge of Australian authorities that such people would face a semi-underground life, excluded from normal employment, in terror of discovery and with active discrimination against themselves and their children in perpetuity. living outside the law in another state.

*

2. Has the Australian Government encouraged refugees to obtain false papers and is there is evidence of bribery and corruption?

This question was not an original focus of this research. It arose as a pattern emerged suggesting that agents of the Australian Government might themselves involved in practices used by ‘people smugglers’. Of the ten recorded interviews with Australian deportees in Syria, six told us that they were encouraged to get false passports. Some declined to do this.

We note that DIMIA spokespersons have publicly said:

There were safeguards to ensure that deportees did not travel on false passports. If there was any doubt about travel documents people have obtained themselves, the department referred them to the ‘relevant authorities ‘ for comment on their authenticity. [10]

This denial has to be put against the fact that six people interviewed separately in Syria told us the same story and gave names of officials who had encouraged them to buy passports from ‘people smugglers’. One such official allegedly told the deportee that if he disclosed this as a complaint, he would be in detention for 10 years. In addition, one interviewee, P5, gave us his now not needed false passport stamped with two deportation journeys out of Australia.

As described above, the second journey was needed precisely because the falsity of the passport was discovered in Abu Dhabi and P5 was returned to Australia. It is not possible to believe that these facts were not known by the Australian officials who organised the second journey on the same passport and made special arrangements to take P5 through several stopover check points with the help of Australian Consular officials.

Further material evidence of the duplicity among some Australian officials comes from a ticket purchased by Australian officials in Canberra for an interviewee to return via Syria to Kuwait. No entry documents were available for Kuwait and the person alleges he was told to enter Syria on the short visitor’s visa and then continue to live there illegally. He was given a ticket purchased by DIMIA for travel from Sydney to Kuwait and included a seven day ‘stopover’ in Damascus. If questioned at Damascus airport he was told to show the Syrian officials the ticket as evidence of the fact he was only staying for seven days. The ticket and plan were only revealed to the deportee on the day of departure from Australia. The researchers have accepted this story as true. The ticket coupon provides evidence; the person is trapped without documents in Syria, and the policy of providing travel documents only at the point of departure is the norm.

Another repeated theme in the stories is the practice of being given currency to put in travel documents to secure acceptance by immigration officers in different countries on the journey. Specific amounts were mentioned that needed to be placed inside travel documents and handed to immigration officials upon arrival. Again, the researchers tend to accept this allegation because it is so is widely told by interviewees in independent interviews.

*

3. Is the conduct of removals consistent with Australian values and legal obligations?

a. Legal Obligations

The 2000 Senate Committee [11] sets out Australia’s critical obligation to people in need of protection. It is non-refoulement. People who are found to have refugee status derive this right from the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol to which Australia was an early signatory. It means they have the right not to be returned to the country where they have a well founded fear of persecution on the grounds of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular group or political opinion – the so called ‘Convention reasons’.

People who fail to establish that they are refugees but are deemed to be in need of protection also have claims for non-refoulement under the 1984 Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) and the 1996 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). [12]

To establish a non-refoulement right under the CAT there must be substantial grounds for believing that a person will be in danger of torture on return. The Convention states that all relevant considerations must be taken into account including a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights. The non-refoulement right under the ICCPR is mainly derived from Article 7 that no one shall be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. This is wider than the definition of torture under the CAT and does not have a nexus with Convention reasons or specific targeting. It applies particularly to people caught up in situations of generalized violence and war.

Australia has never incorporated the non-refoulement provisions of the CAT or the ICCPR into its domestic law. This means that people who seek to rely on Australia’s signing of these international agreements depend on the Immigration Minister’s discretion and that there is no illegality or legal appeal process for apparent breaches of these conventions in Australian law.

There is much disquiet about this in Australia. The 2000 Senate Committee recommended that the Attorney General’s Department, in conjunction with DIMA, examine the most appropriate means by which Australia’s laws could be amended so as to explicitly incorporate the non-refoulement obligation of the CAT and ICCPR into domestic law (recommendation 2.2.). The Government did not respond. Currently, the Senate is enquiring into the exercise of the Minister’s discretion.

The Refugee Convention prohibits countries making reservations about Articles 1 and 33 – the definition of a refugee and the non-refoulement provision. Australia has however, particularly in recent years placed a number of reservations in the Migration Act, which limit the application of our international obligations of which the following are most significant.

In 2001, the definition of persecution was narrowed [13] so that the reasons for persecution set out in the Convention will not apply unless the reason for persecution is essential and significant, it involves serious harm and systematic and discriminatory conduct.

High Court judgments have in the past preferred a wider definition noting that:

Persecution for a Convention reason may take an infinite variety of forms from death or torture to the deprivation of opportunities to compete on equal terms with other members of the relevant society [14].

Recent judgments have criticised Australia’s abandonment of a wider definition. [15] Such narrowing of the definition can lead people with internationally justifiable refugee claims to depend on the CAT or ICCPR. Hence they are protected only by the doubtful exercise of Ministerial unchallengeable discretion.

The Refugee Convention prohibits discrimination so that asylum seekers, or categories of them, are blocked from the same entitlements and services available to other Australian permanent residents. Nevertheless, Australia has a complex system of such discrimination involving mandatory indeterminate long-term detention for people who arrive without a visa – the boat people largely.

It has a variety of visas. The Temporary Protection Visa TPI limits residence (until recently to 3 years) and does not allow family reunion or even temporary departure in family crises. Other visas, e.g. for people who apply late for refugee status limit also the right to work and to access medical, educational and social security benefits and services.

Australia has excised some of its territories from the migration zone so that people arriving in those areas are removed to other countries (the Pacific Solution). Such people cannot apply for protection in Australia except with the Ministers discretion and then only for a TPI. There have also been, attempts to restrict access to the courts by asylum seekers for review of protection visa decisions although these restrictions have been, at least in part, successfully challenged in the High Court. [16]

Whether or not the removals investigated in this research are consistent with Australia’s legal obligations depends largely on the quality of the processes used to determine whether people are at risk as defined by the covenants and conventions of international law above. In turn, the quality of that assessment depends partly on the natural justice of the process, the quality of information available to the decision makers and on the reservations with which the international obligations have been incorporated into Australia’s domestic law.

Enough has been said above to indicate that a persuasive case can be made that Australia has institutionalised a perverted system to define its international legal obligations. The failure to incorporate some key international law obligations into domestic law, despite the Senate Committee’s recommendation in 2000 is also evidence of this perversity.

What this study highlights is the pain and danger inflicted on people who, on the face of it, have claims on our protection. The following section of the report highlights the way in which our harsh and indeterminate detention system, criticised, as already noted, by the UNHCR, pushed people to accept unsafe ‘voluntary’ removal. Hence some went to situations in which they faced the threat of death (P5 and C2) or torture (T1). Others went to a life on the run in terror of the Syrian security police (P1, P2, P4, T1, T2, T5). As a result most have a difficult time surviving financially and can see no end to this problem.

At this stage in the research we do not have access to the records of the determination process through which the protection rights of our interviewees were determined. Nor was this a focus of the research. Without such information it is not possible to make findings about the quality of the process experienced by our interviewees. From the viewpoint of the asylum seekers, however, the process appears as a lottery in which much information was excluded. Thus the kind of protection available in Syria was allegedly misunderstood at the Refuggee Review Tribunal. Bedoons applying in Melbourne were all accepted. Bedoons applying in Sydney were not. These experiences of the interviewees are given in their own words in the next section of the report.

b: Australian Values

Is the conduct of removals consistent with Australian values? How does our national self-image stand up to the experience of the deportees? P2 states:

I went to Australia to seek asylum, not to be tortured. If they had told me in one week whether I was accepted or not, it would have been better. I tried for 1 year and 8 months to leave Australia but I was informed by the Australian Government that there is not one single country in the world that will accept you. We were begging them to give us any document. I feel a gang of people control all of Australia like a Mafia. I don’t know anything outside the razor wire. I have not seen anything good I witnessed suicide attempts, attempts at cutting wrists, cutting chests, sewing lips and jumping onto razor wire.

P4 reflects on Australia and his whole experience. He came “looking for freedom, safety and justice. Instead we found nothing but traps, built of steel bars, bad laws, and dishonest politics”.

They destroyed me, 3 years and 3 months. What crime did I do? There is no reason they put me into jail and then give me $200.00 to go to Syria. My crime was to say ‘I am a refugee’ when I got to Sydney off the plane.

He makes complaint about the ‘lottery’ aspect of the review process – an opinion shared by many lawyers met in the course of this study:

What has made our imprisonment harder to bear is the manner in which our claims have been considered. For some asylum seekers, the process has been fair, but that is more a matter of luck than justice. When two people with identical circumstances are interviewed by different officials, one will receive a visa, while the other will not. Ignorance about the culture and politics of our homelands, flawed translations, and even the temperament of officials have all led to unfair decisions. Whatever evidence we present, whether it is our personal testimony or a report from a respected authority, it can always be ignored or dismissed by an official whose mind is already made up.

Misinformation about Bedoon safety in Syria, the harshness of treatment leading up to deportation, the long delays in processing contravene the Australian values of mateship and a fair go. P4 states:

The RRT told me that I could live in Syria. The RRT accepted that I was stateless from Kuwait but told me that the Syrian government would accept all Arabic speaking people; but the Visa I was issued for Syria was only for 3 months. The government of Australia did not care. The Certificate of Identity had a Syrian Visa that expired after 3 months on 8 April 2002. A member of the RRT, a Sri-Lankan person from Sydney, told me that I could stay in Syria for 15 years and could get Syrian citizenship. The Federal court accepted that I was a Bedoon and said, “you have a case but you can live in Syria”. Australia did not care what happened after I got to Syria.

He quotes the lawyers’ advice:

They said to me, “We know you have a just case but it is finished. Stay here and live like a dog or go from Australia”.

P2 described his own desperate situation:

I had 2 choices: whether I would commit suicide in the detention centre or whether I would leave Australia. As a group, we were considering suicide. We wrote to the media, TV, government and Churches asking “please save us”. When I remember Australia, my heart is torn to pieces.

P3 laments the curious injustice and inconsistency of Australians:

I find it very sad and tragic for Australia that the Government there now, is fighting the war against Saddam and yet this is the thing we were also prepared to do to get rid of Saddam Hussein and for this, I spent 2 years and 3 months in detention.

Some of the processes of deportation contravene common decency standards. Chemical injection undermines a person’s capacity to respond to demands; inhumane treatment denies the dignity of the human person; secrecy and lack of transparency in the actual deportation process screens the Immigration Department from scrutiny by the Australian people who often do not know what is going on.

Explaining his reason why he agreed to go from Australia ‘voluntarily’, P2 said:

I had witnessed what happens to resisters, Algerians, Turkish people. I saw people injected. One Turkish man was provided by DIMA with a false passport and they deported him forcibly. I witnessed a lot of cases like this.

An actual example of injection is graphically described by a former ACM Officer:

… was told we have an ‘extraction’; he’s high risk, whatever that meant. I mean I didn’t know anything then. I just followed orders. We get this guy out of bed early in the morning. We pull the sheet off him. He’s in his pajamas or those long pants that those people wear. He clings on to the bedstead; this is a steel bedstead. My job is to unwind his fingers, struggling, shouting he won’t go. There are nurses. First time I’d seen a ‘chemical restraint’ used. They must have broken about three needles on him. I’m thinking there must be a better way. This bloke’s not an animal.

P2 regards the secrecy of the ACM guards as ‘very strange’:

They took us to the airport. Our friends were to come and say goodbye to us but ACM staff had keys to airport doors and we were taken directly to the plane. We were restrained from seeing anybody.

C4 refers to the inhumane detention of the Iraqis on the Manoora, sent to Nauru after being promised to go to Australia:

We refused to land in Nauru and were kept on the boat for one month in a room large enough for 100 and we were 350. We could not breathe; there was not enough room and the toilet facilities were terrible, terrible. There was not enough food and the food had too much chilli in it so that no one could eat it.

These damning indictments are the views of deportees who have had unfortunate experiences and it could be argued that it is not the only view of Australia. But it does raise some questions. Is this a mirror in which Australians need to look at themselves? For the sake of protecting our borders, was it necessary so to besmirch our image as a freedom loving and just nation? Could we not have protected our borders in more humane and compassionate ways?

In his Jessie Street Trust Lecture of 2001, Marcus Einfeld reminded us that though we are generally a kind and generous people, illusion is always a possibility:

It is just that we are not as good as we say or think we are.

Referring to our treatment of asylum seekers generally, he goes on to say:

Indeed, while this situation persists, we are engaged in an empty, untruthful boast about our supposedly superior standards. [18]

***

Footnotes

[1] Senate Legal and Constitutional Reference Committee, A Sanctuary Under review: An Examination of Australia’s Refugee and humanitarian Determination processes

[2] ‘Some’ is the operative word. Disquiet has been aroused by particular cases and people returning to particular risk situations. It may well be true, as the Refugee Council of Australia told the Senate Committee, that generally speaking people are able to return to their countries without difficulty.

[3] The Senate Committee did not recommend a Government monitoring process. It took into account state sovereignty issues, diplomatic ramifications if Australian officials should formally monitor foreign nationals in overseas countries and potential dangers to the returned persons arising from such official attention. It recognized that UNHCR is not resourced for the task and finally made a recommendation (No 11.1) that the task be undertaken by NGOs in consultation with Government.

[4] US State Department, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices (2001) Iran; UNHCR Report on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran prepared by the Special Representative of the Commission on Human Rights, Mr. Maurice Danby Copithorne Document No E/CN.42002/42; Human Rights Watch By Invitation Only- Australian Asylum Policy 2003; Amnesty International Annual Report Iran 2002; Refugee Council of Australia Report on Second Field Visit To Iran September 2002.

[5] Human Rights Watch By Invitation Only- Australian Asylum Policy 2003; US State Department, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2002: Kuwait’ 31 March 2003; UNHCR, ‘ Chapter 6: Statelessness and Citizenship’ in The State of the World’s Refugees: A Humanitarian Agenda, 1997; Amnesty International Index MDE 13/027/2003 7 August 2003(on recent refoulements from Syria to Iran)

[6] Amnesty International, Afghanistan: Continuing need for Protection and Standards of Return of Afghan refugees 25/07/02

[7] One month later, PAUL left Mombassa in search of a more friendly African country, running the risk of detention, or worse, as he crossed more borders without papers. Some Australian friends discovered that in PAUL’s attempt to enter South Africa, he was detained in Lindela prison.

[8] Again this case does not come from our interviews but from Amnesty International sources

[9] Australian Human Rights News 18/09/03

[10] Sydney Morning Herald, September 30, 2003 p2.

[11] op.cit. Chapter 2

[12] The obligation may also arise under other international law instruments such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CROC)

[13] Migration Legislation Amendment Act (m0.6) 2001 (Cth) section 5

[14] McHugh in Applicant A & Anor v Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs [1997] 190 CLR 225 quoted in Australian Lawyers for Human Rights Refugee Law Kit 2003 p 13

[15] Loc.cit Kirby J in Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs [2002] HCA 14 [108]

[16] Australian Lawyers for Human Rights Refugee Law Kit 2003 Chapter 3 provides a summary of these limitations.

[17] This deportation happened during the ACM officer’s first week of employment in the maximum-security section of Villawood IDC. AA was deported to Algeria; this account was told to Ngareta Rossell on October 18, 2002.

[18] ABC Background Briefing Sunday 3/06/01