Tag: Iraq

Andrew Coley from Prospect, SA

THE rise in human rights abuses around the globe since the media and coalition countries became obsessed with the debacle in Iraq has now been confirmed by Amnesty International (“Rights worst in 50 years”, 27/5).

Mmmm …50 years. Wouldn’t that include the communists killing something like a 100 million of their own citizens. Never mind..small detail.

we need to encourage nations to develop their own sense of democracy and security through international aid in areas such as trade, health and education

I agree with Andrew that international aid in areas such as trade, health and education is agreat idea and one that should be pursued after the West can develop the circumstances where aid will make a difference. Bush could have chosen not to go to war and give Saddam say, US$500 million aid to build schools and health centres. The fact that all the schools and health centres Saddam would’ve built with the aid looked remarkedly like palaces and the playground equipment like tanks and missiles wouldn’t have worried Andrew. And even if some of the change was spent on schools, they would be Schools of Hate with Clerics inciting mayhem and murder. We could have also given the Taliban aid but I think they would have given it to Osama who would have sent it back to the US in a missile loaded with 10,000 gallons of aviation fuel. Straight back to the Whitehouse Still, good idea Andrew. As US troops invaded the heartland of the AL Queda in Afghanistan I argued then that they should, amongst a whole lot of other things, secure Kabul, set up schools, let girls in and start educating the whole population. Sorry Andrew, but your faith in human kindness is not a subject in Iraq or Afghanistan seats of learning. Still, the Editor of the Australian thinks it’s good enough to print. Makes me wonder if any of these people have ever had to make a plan work. On the same page Christian Leavesly from Carlton Vic points out that;

Human rights have been fought for and won the hard way over hundreds of years. They did not spring up overnight, and their existence is proof of their necessity.

One part of history where human rights were won the hard way was during World War Two and I can promise Christian that the human rights he talks about were not uppermost in the minds of Roosevelt, Churchill, Menzies or Curtain. If a enemy POW had info that was important to the war cause then he was interrogated until he coughed up. WW2, for the younger set, was when the US gave thousands of their sons to provide a safer world where Human Rights lawyers could call them evil and not be beheaded. I like the line from Secretary Powell recently when argueing that the US were not colonising the Middle East when he suggested that the…only land we have ever kept after any invasion was a small plot for our dead. Otherwise they went home after peace had been established. Could I also mention the Marshal Plan that rebuilt Europe and the efforts that went into demilitiarising Japan. Nah. Not Anti-American enough.

Chrenkoff has done the work that the Western Press should be doing whileThe Professor attacks on a similar line Go read, I’m tied up with another Legacy Auction and have little time to blog

Terrorists strike again – lets see if this gets the Prisoner ‘Torture’ beat-up off the front pages. Most probably not – the Terrorists, their clerics and their western media smell blood. I hate to be an armchair general, particularly as I only made Major, but surely the incident smacks of amateurism.

Witnesses said a convoy of five white Nissan vehicles was passing through the Harthiya neighborhood toward a checkpoint into the Green Zone, where U.S. authority and the Governing Council have their headquarters, when a red Volkswagen Brazil sped up to the convoy and exploded.

Surely someone is responsible for the Governing Council’s mobile security; surely someone looked at the problem and considered any vehicle broaching or approaching the convoy en-route must be a threat; surely someone thought an armoured vehicle fore and aft of the convoy with appropriate ‘Don’t approach or we will treat you as a suicide bomber” signage would have helped. Particularly if offending vehicles took a strike from a 120mm smooth bore if they got too near. Surely ‘someone’ is looking for a new career somewhere. This is a war after all. It is not a lesson in Human Rights – terrorists who blow up innocents have abandoned any claim to Human Rights. Smart after the event? No. Every Army in the civilized world has manuals on how to protect convoys. If it’s not safe to drive around the country, and it seems that is the case, then at least make it safe for the leaders. Full-on ‘Protect the US President’ or Blair, or Howard should be afforded the Governing Council. I warn you, the terrorists, aided and abetted by the media, are currently winning the war and if we don’t pull together and support the Coalition, even when they are imperfect, then a dark curtain will come down over the Middle East and no-one will be game enough to try and draw the curtains again. They will be back to the 12 Century and we will have fed their zeal and they will keep on killing us. You will hear it on the streets of Bahgdad, through the Middle East, the African continent, the sub continent and in the Mosques in Indonesia. The West is weak – lets attack again. Kill the infidel. Update: Read the Professor’s latest post dealing with the media’s support of the Terrorists. Sickening!

Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan has been sacked after the newspaper conceded photos of British soldiers abusing an Iraqi were fake. The Terrorists have lost one of their best PR Agents but not to worry, the Western press, trained by the communists during the Vietnam War, will be able to fill the void.

This item from News.com talks of a video released today on an Islamic militant website . It appeared to show US businessman Nick Berg being beheaded. That’s BEHEADED. Not stripped naked and photographed, not threatened by dogs, not leashed naked like a dog, not even photographed with a pretty westerner laughing and pointing at your genitals – but beheaded.

After reading a statement, the men were seen pulling the man to his side and putting a large knife to his neck. A scream sounded as the men cut his head off, shouting “Allahu Akbar!” – “God is great.” They then held the head out before the camera.

Don’t bother looking up any headlines of main stream media. Not a mention. If Private John Doe, the most insignificant US soldier in Iraq had even muttered the word ..prisoner beheaded in his sleep there would be questions in the House. Bush would be called upon to fall on his sword, Bob Brown would be calling for a Senate Inquiry. and the Arab world would be enraged. Sure, it could be a set up but it’s pretty hard to fake slicing a knife through a man’s neck. Even if the IT disadvantaged Arabs had managed to fake it can you imagine the media feeding frenzy if CNN showed a video of US soldiers supposedly decapitating an Iraqi. Fake or not it seems to me a case of I see your torture and raise you a beheading Puts it all in perspective. Doesn’t it? Pictured: Berg’s family on hearing of his death. Compare this with the pictures of Arabs dancing in the streets on Sept 11. Update: I was wrong. The Age/SMH has carried the story here

Bob Brown accuses Howard and Downer of knowing about the Iraqi prisoner saga in January and in the time honoured tradition of left wing politics calls for an inquiry that will never happen but in the meantime some people will be left with the impression that Howard and Downer have known all along. Mud sticks. Who needs evidence. Just stand up and utter anything that comes to mind and some of it will stick. But he said his accusations could never be proved unless there was an inquiry into when the government became aware of the mistreatment. Accusation by suggested inquiry. He goes on to suggest Australian troops may have involved by boldly stating;

…an inquiry would also find out if Australian troops were involved in the abuse.

No one, anywhere, in any newspaper anywhere in the world have mentioned Australian troops being involved and don’t you think that if there had been even a suggestion of this, that the media would have been attacking Howard from all sides? When Churchill said ‘Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried’ he must have been talking about having to put up with people like Bob Brown because clearly the greatest downside of Democracy are the ‘Bob Browns’ and compliant media. There is a lot of comment on the web including Slats quoting a letter full of commonsense, Andrew Bolt says We’re not that sorry and Chrenkoff says ‘Bush made me do it’ All worth reading.

I don’t know about you but I’m getting a bit tired of the Iraqi Prisoner Saga. The war against terror has become a war of superlatives and the left are the dominant troopers. Unspeakable abuse shouts the SMH in this article. Not quite unspeakable abuse – everyone is talking about it. Tracy Wilkinson writes;

A victim of the sexual abuse waged by the US military against Iraqi prisoners tells how his life has been ruined. . His pictures have been flashed around the world. Naked and hooded, Hayder Sabbar Abd has been subjected to unspeakable abuse at the hands of American prison guards and has unwittingly become the focus of one of the largest scandals to hit the United States military in a generation.

…one of the largest scandals to hit the United States military in a generation. Short memory, Tracey. I’m sure the Bush/Howard/Blair haters could come up with dozens of scandals over the last decade. The article finally gets to something unspeakable.

Sabbar and six other Iraqis, all Shiite, fought with another prisoner, a member of a prominent Sunni family and the son of a leading official from Saddam’s Baathist party which allegedly massacred hundreds of Shiites and dumped them in mass graves.

..which allegedly massacred hundreds of Shiites and dumped them in mass graves. Now that’s unspeakable!

The scandal has shaken the US military to its core, reverberated through Washington and enraged the Arab world.

Core shaking? I think not. Charge them, sack them, get on with it. The US military will be furious that troops did this, photographed it and released the photos. You’d almost think it was a set up but then US then did what no other Arab country would ever do, including those who are enraged. They openly admitted their error and stated their intention to fully investigate and charge the fools who erred. Heads will roll but not like in the Arab world where heads really do ‘roll’ The Arab world is enraged. Jesus. The Arab world danced in the streets over the images of the WTC attack (there’s another case of unspeakable) and the SMH wants me to be take this little superlative as a given. Reverberated through Washington is media speak for reverberated through the left wing media – as in – here’s something else we can beat up on and turn everyone?s mind away from any successes of the overall plan Had I been in command of the prison and some idiot did what these guys did, I would sack them minutes after my commander sacked me. The reported treatment of prisoners is undeniably stupid but it ain?t quite ripping out toenails. Let’s move on.

On viewing the obscenity of the films released of animals celebrating the death of the four American civilians the term Urban Renewal came to mind.

The US media was dominated by the story of four American security contractors who were attacked, burned, mutilated, dragged from the back of a car and hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River “like slaughtered sheep” by an angry mob in the Sunni Triangle town of Fallujah.

Fight fire with fire. Level the place. My idea of education being an answer falls on it’s face when confonted with this mindless savagry. Sometimes reeducation is best delivered by 7.62mm rounds at 2700 fps. Prance and smile now, you bastard.

The next generation name for pet dogs. Saddam. Caught like a dog in a hole the Arab World are in shock – delightful and refreshing shock. Ain’t it sweet?

Several Jordanian officials who welcomed the capture nevertheless expressed dismay that “Arab dignity” had been wounded by television footage showing Hussein being inspected by a doctor who appeared to be checking his teeth and searching his hair as if inspecting for lice.

Arab dignity? What bloody dignity.

Late news in Australia reports Saddam Hussein may have been captured in Tikrit. To be confirmed later as more news comes to hand. Update The report is confirmed by US military Intelligence. Time.com has the story