‘The Transportation Security Administration's secret no-fly list includes some very unlikely terror suspects - Bolivian president Evo Morales, 14 of the 19 dead 9/11 hijackers, and every single person named "Robert Johnson."

Journalists Susan and Joseph Tentro recently obtained a copy of the 44,000-name no-fly list and collaborated with CBS's 60 Minutes to investigate the names on it. They found thousands of inaccuracies and ambiguities on the list, not to mention some shocking omissions.

from Mike Carlton in today’s SMH …..

‘The blatant dishonesty came towards the end, with a brief nod at the war on terrorism. "It remains," intoned Howard, "an inconvenient truth that if countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia simply abandon the people of Iraq this would be an enormous victory for the forces of terror and extremism around the world."

No mention of the deceit and incompetence that got us into Iraq in the first place.

‘When you hear that we must bomb Syria because it allows Iranian weapons to transit its territory, remember how our own Dutch allies have been deliberately turning a blind eye for years as one of its major international airports is used as a transit point for our shipment of illicit, non-conventional weapons into the Middle East.

Remember too that at the exact same time that the US Administration was demanding that Iraq be sanctioned and its children starved because Saddam Hussein was developing Chemical and Biological Weapons, our Department of Commerce was (and presumably still is) issuing export licences to facilitate the production of exactly the same weapons in Israel.

‘My fellow Americans, it’s official now: We live in a fascist nation.

Now, the term "fascist" has been thrown around over the last fifty years in a loose way that has drained it of much of its meaning. If someone wanted to cut 5% off of a leftist professor's favourite welfare programme, the professor would call his opponent a "fascist." I’m not using the word like that. I mean honest-to-goodness, old-fashioned, 1930s style fascism, featuring such old favourites as:

‘It may be that the Roman republic was doomed in any case. But the disproportionate reaction to the raid on Ostia unquestionably hastened the process, weakening the restraints on military adventurism and corrupting the political process. It was to be more than 1,800 years before anything remotely comparable to Rome’s democracy - imperfect though it was - rose again.

The Lex Gabinia was a classic illustration of the law of unintended consequences: it fatally subverted the institution it was supposed to protect. Let us hope that vote in the United States Senate does not have the same result.’

from today’s Australian …..

‘North Korea last night stepped up its nuclear blackmail with the announcement that it will test an atomic device for the first time.

Blaming an American "extreme threat of a nuclear war and sanctions", Kim Jong-il's increasingly isolated regime announced that a nuclear weapons test was essential to bolstering North Korea's defence.

‘At Nuremberg, we rejected the certainty of execution for the uncertainty of a trial. The test was one of principle over power, and the United States passed.

President Harry Truman understood that our nation's ability to bring about a world of peace and justice was rooted not in our military might but in our moral authority; not on the ability to compel people with our tanks and planes but to convince them that our values and our ideals were right. He understood that our ability to succeed in spreading American values of freedom and human rights are only as effective as our willingness to uphold them.

from Alan Ramsey …..

‘We let David Hicks rot for almost five years, without trial, in an American military hellhole in Cuba, and the Howard Government does nothing. A Melbourne court sees videos of an elite Victorian police unit obviously bashing confessions from suspects, yet all the police do is cry foul at their public "humiliation". Now a 90-plus-kilogram policeman in a remote Aboriginal community behaves so brutishly his victim's liver is torn in half and four ribs are broken after a "fall" as he is being taken from the paddy wagon and dragged, on his back, by the arms to a cell.

In July 2003, George Bush said in a speech: "The United States is committed to worldwide elimination of torture, and we are leading this fight by example. Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes, whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit."

This week, former US Ambassador for War Crimes Issues, David Scheffer, said:

‘We have seen America’s president and vice president, sworn to uphold the Constitution, advocating exactly the same tortures techniques KGB used at the Lubyanka. They claimed beating, freezing, sleep deprivation, and drowning were necessary to prevent terrorist attacks, calling them by the euphemism, “tough interrogation.” Stalin made the same arguments, but did not stoop to euphemisms.

The White House insisted that anyone charged with vague “terrorism offenses” – including Americans – could be kidnapped, tortured, and tried in camera using “evidence” obtained by torturing other suspects. Bush & Co. reject the basic law of habeas corpus and US laws against torture. The UN says Bush’s torture plans violate international law and the Geneva Conventions. These conventions were enacted to provide basic protection to combatants and civilians in wartime, and regulate the behavior of occupying powers.

‘The war in Iraq is a disaster, and Rumsfeld needs to be replaced. But don't just take our word for it - this reiteration comes today from a pair of recently retired two-star army generals with more than sixty years of military experience between them. They testified today in a hearing before the Democratic Policy Committee, called in absence of adequate official hearings in Congress.

Despite an open invitation to leaders, the only elected Republican to attend the hearing was Rep. Walter Jones, a self-described conservative from North Carolina, who has become one of the strongest critics of the war after originally voting to authorize it. 

‘Ordinary terms are inadequate to describe the horrors Israel daily perpetrates, and has perpetrated for years, against the Palestinians. The tragedy of Gaza has been described a hundred times over, as have the tragedies of 1948, of Qibya, of  Sabra and Shatila, of Jenin - 60 years of atrocity perpetrated in the name of  Judaism.

But the horror generally falls on deaf ears in most of Israel, in the US political arena, in the mainstream US (and Australian...ed) media. Those who are horrified - and there are many - cannot penetrate the shield of impassivity that protects the political and media elite in Israel, even more so in the US, and increasingly now in Canada and Europe, from seeing, from caring.

‘The Islamists have won in Pakistan and it is desperately important for the government to get in step with its people and stop fighting civil wars with them. Musharraf is completely out on a very long and weak limb with the loathed Bush, FBI, CIA, Northern Alliance, India and all the rest. Musharraf is making lucrative book deals and no doubt all kinds of sub-rosa deals with the U.S. Big Corporations. He is building his Escape Nest, as all failing dictators need to do. If he is lucky, he will be able to escape the bullets and bombs coming his way.

‘Puffed-up politicians on both sides of the House seek from new arrivals a pledge of citizenship that endorses "Australian values" at a time when our values are tangled in a global tumble-dryer. That a government should demand such endorsement is itself a violation of a core Australian value - the freedom to think what we please. To think, for example, that numerous values exemplified by our Prime Minister are crap. Like truth avoidance, flag fetishism, excessive secrecy, anti-intellectualism, witch-hunting the whistleblowers, appeasement of George Bush, boasting about this country's generosity, whitewashing black history, bribing Saddam Hussein to buy our wheat then bombing his people, toleration of US torture and its treatment of David Hicks, to name a few.

MINISTERIAL CHANGES

I have spoken to the Administrator Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO and secured her approval to announce the following changes to the Ministry.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade, the Hon Mark Vaile MP, approached me some time ago and indicated his desire to spend more time in Australia selling the Government's message, particularly in rural and regional areas.

As a consequence, Mr Vaile will become Minister for Transport and Regional Services and the Hon Warren Truss MP will become Minister for Trade. Mr Vaile does, of course, remain Deputy Prime Minister. There are no other changes to the Ministry.