‘The hard core of detainees held at America's Guantanamo Bay detention camp will be held indefinitely even if there is insufficient evidence to bring them to trial, a senior Bush administration official said.

Of the 435 detainees being held at Guantanamo, only 10 have so far been charged with terrorism-related offenses. A further 14 detainees — the so-called high value detainees such as the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — are also expected to face trial now that the U.S. Congress has passed the Military Commission Act, which will finally enable America to commence trials of Guantanamo detainees next year.

from our ABC …..

Commonwealth fights Hicks legal action

Lawyers for the Commonwealth are seeking to have dismissed legal action demanding the release of Guantanamo Bay detainee, David Hicks.

‘What an amazing bloody catastrophe. The Bush administration's policy towards the Middle East over the five years since 9/11 is culminating in a multiple train crash. Never in the field of human conflict was so little achieved by so great a country at such vast expense. In every vital area of the wider Middle East, American policy over the last five years has taken a bad situation and made it worse.

from the centre for american progress …..

"[President Bush] decided, frankly, that it's not ready yet," White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said yesterday of the White House's promised Iraq plan. "[It] is not going to happen until the new year. We do not know when, so I can't give you a date, I can't give you a time, I can't give you a place, I can't give you a way in which it will happen." As the administration dawdles, the "grave and deteriorating" situation in Iraq continues to worsen. Yesterday, 70 Iraqis were killed in a truck-bomb attack, five U.S. soldiers died, and a grim milestone was reached: 25,000 U.S. soldiers have now died or been wounded in the war. Seventy-one percent of Americans disapprove of Bush's handling of the conflict, an all-time high. (Only 16 percent agree with Bush and Cheney that we're winning.) A change in strategy is desperately needed, yet the "search for a new plan for Iraq seems to be taking place with as much urgency as the deliberations over a new color for the dollar bill." The White House initially promised a new plan "before Christmas," but that has been pushed until January at the earliest. The decision to delay may be an attempt to "blunt the effect of the publicity" of the Iraq Study Group's report, or a way to keep a possible increase in troop levels under wraps until after the holidays. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) called the delay "unpardonable." "Every day that goes by," Hagel said, "we are losing ground." "The nation is in a crisis, and Americans need to hear how he plans to unwind the chaos he has unleashed in Iraq," the New York Times writes. "Americans need to see that he is prepared to choose among the undesirable alternatives, and clear the way for a withdrawal of American troops that does not leave even more killing and mayhem behind." (The Center for American Progress has a way: Strategic Redeployment.)

for johnnee, phil, alexander & brendan ..... 

‘After thousands of years of practice, you might have imagined that every possible means of inflicting pain had already been devised. But you should never underestimate the human capacity for invention. United States interrogators, we now discover, have found a new way of destroying a human being.

With all the worry of Iraq, the Wheat Board scandal, the ten years of environmental paralysis, a newly credible opposition and the impending retirement of that great friend George, our esteemed Prime Minister is surely in need of a helping hand to get the Citizenship Examination right.

‘Democracy is supposed to be about ordinary people, common folk, having a say-so in the decisions that shape their lives; the idea that there's an "inalienable right" to certain freedoms; that the only legitimate government is one that answers to "the people." In democracies, people are not subjects, but citizens.

from our ABC …..

Mr Downer said that he's told the Bush administration there must be no defeat in Iraq, that the United States must ensure, on behalf of the Iraqi people, that there's victory, and also that there must be stability in the region. He says it may be that the Coalition has to make some policy changes here and there.

In his farewell speech as Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Annan delivered a series of "lessons" which could be read as rebukes to the Bush/Cheney doctrine. Given at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, Annan's speech invokes Truman throughout, while conspicuously using Bush's name exactly zero times. The lessons:

from the ether …..

Downer inciting violence, says Fiji coup leader 

Fijian military leader Commodore Frank Bainimarama has criticised Australia's Foreign Affairs Minister, saying Alexander Downer is inciting the people of Fiji to violence.

Shining brilliantly in Rolls-Royce's online media room is the two-week-old press kit for a great story that didn't even make it to Google News, let alone into Australian print. It's how Cheney's Men and Rolls Royce have signed a A$50 million deal with the Australian Navy to service and maintain the amphibious ships HMAS Success, Tobruk, Manoora and Kanimbla (links courtesy of RR)

From the home city of The Foreign Minister of Australia the Vice President of America has been coordinating his aid business into Iraq. This makes it surprising that Downer and Cheney will not be discussing the aid scandal of AWB.

It\s understandable however, that Cheney, hiding for years from his dual positions by claiming that his Halliburton fees were "deferred payments," would not be seen dead talking to somebody up to their neck in tarnish about mis-spending public money about paying bribes to Saddam. Given all the trouble that Halliburton/KBR have been getting into for overspending from the public purse (most recently including spending $600 a day per security guard at Mid East offices) Downer probably feels the same way.

Administration officials say their preliminary review of the Iraq Study Group Report "has concluded that many of its key proposals are impractical or unrealistic & a small group inside the National Security Council is now racing to come up with alternatives to the panel's ideas."