US troops in Iraq are not an occupying army. At least not technically: not legally.

Coalition troops are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government & that's important because being an occupier brings with it a host of rights & responsibilities under international law.

UK ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair has accused Iran of backing terrorism and warned the world faces a situation akin to "rising fascism in the 1920s".

Mr Blair told a charity event in New York that Iran was prepared to destabilise peaceful countries.

In his first major speech since leaving office, Mr Blair again defended the decision to go to war in Iraq.

There is an open secret in Washington. I learned it well during my 22-year tenure as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. All members swear to serve the interests of the United States, but there is an unwritten and overwhelming exception: The interests of one small foreign country almost always trump U.S. interests. That nation of course is Israel.

Chaser song despicable: PM …..

Prime Minister John Howard has labelled as "distasteful" and "despicable" a song by the ABC's Chaser comedy team that attacks famous dead Australians including Sir Donald Bradman and Steve Irwin.

John Howard has dared history, the Reserve Bank and the constraints on growth by claiming that Australia can grow indefinitely. He has recast economics as a matter of national attitude rather than a matter of the factors of production.

In a soaring Reaganite assertion of the power of conviction over the constraints of the concrete, he told the Herald yesterday: "We have to get out of our systems this idea that we can't be successful for a long period of time. We must throw off this cultural inhibition.

Costello launches ad attacking Labor's union links

Federal Treasurer Peter Costello has launched a new advertising campaign attacking the number of Labor party frontbenchers with union links.

It signals that the Coalition will attack Labor's union links throughout the election campaign.

Mr Costello released a television advertisement that shows a long line of senior Labor figures and lists their union backgrounds.

At a Stanford University discussion, Gen. John Abizaid (Ret.), the former CENTCOM Commander, said what we all know:

"Of course it's about oil, we can't really deny that," Abizaid said of the Iraq campaign.

Kerr's campaign talking points

Christian Kerr writes: 

The Government’s tax policy is out – but why didn’t the tax cuts come sooner? The economy has been ticking along nicely for ages now.  

Believe it or not, it now appears that Christian leaders in Australia can enter the political debate without being lectured concerning that which belongs to God and that which belongs to Caesar. Provided they choose a fashionable topic, of course. As in criticising the Howard Government's Work Choices legislation.

The latest revelations in the Bush Administration's long unfolding, ever growing illegal wiretapping scandal carry with them a multiple sting.

The US secretary of state has said it is time for a Palestinian state to be founded, and that the US will put its full weight behind such efforts.

Condoleezza Rice said reaching a two-state solution was a priority for her and US President George Bush.