Sunday, September 28, 2003
Sheep
Agriculture Minister Warren Truss sure has been a nice guy recently. He thinks so much of the Iraqi people that he's going to send them 50,000 live sheep for the end of Ramadan. The ship left Australia about five weeks ago, destined for Saudi Arabia. But Saudi authorities said that 6% of the animals had Scabby Mouth disease, something that doesn't sound particularly appetising. The Australian vets deny this, saying the level is probably closer to point six percent. So we tried to sell them to the UAE; no good. Then we thought maybe Pakistan would want them; nup. By this time the Australia public was getting restless. We didn't like the idea that thousands of sheep were slowly dying in a stifling heat, lurching between Arab countries that we chose to haggle with. It was time for Crisis Management Public Relations. 10 million dollars later Australian exporters had bought the sheep back from Saudi traders (who it seems had come into disagreement with the Saudi government) and pointed them towards Basra. By now, roughly 7,000 sheep had died onboard.No matter, the survivors had a lovely cruise around the Persian Gulf and now seem destined to end up on the grateful plates of Australia's friends in Baghdad and Tikrit. Oh how Australia will be loved in the hearts and respected in the minds of our friends in Iraq.
Agriculture Minister Warren Truss sure has been a nice guy recently. He thinks so much of the Iraqi people that he's going to send them 50,000 live sheep for the end of Ramadan. The ship left Australia about five weeks ago, destined for Saudi Arabia. But Saudi authorities said that 6% of the animals had Scabby Mouth disease, something that doesn't sound particularly appetising. The Australian vets deny this, saying the level is probably closer to point six percent. So we tried to sell them to the UAE; no good. Then we thought maybe Pakistan would want them; nup. By this time the Australia public was getting restless. We didn't like the idea that thousands of sheep were slowly dying in a stifling heat, lurching between Arab countries that we chose to haggle with. It was time for Crisis Management Public Relations. 10 million dollars later Australian exporters had bought the sheep back from Saudi traders (who it seems had come into disagreement with the Saudi government) and pointed them towards Basra. By now, roughly 7,000 sheep had died onboard.No matter, the survivors had a lovely cruise around the Persian Gulf and now seem destined to end up on the grateful plates of Australia's friends in Baghdad and Tikrit. Oh how Australia will be loved in the hearts and respected in the minds of our friends in Iraq.
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
It's good to see that the U.N. is talking...again. It's good to see that W Bush thinks we shouldn't "rush democracy" in Iraq.
It's good to see that the US-implemented Governing Council of Iraq has decided to close al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya stations there, because they "promote terror". It's all good.
It's good to see that the US-implemented Governing Council of Iraq has decided to close al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya stations there, because they "promote terror". It's all good.
Sunday, September 21, 2003
I look out the window of my little sharehouse in inner Melbourne, see the early Spring sun starting to gain ascendancy over the biting Winter wind, and I am sad. I can't fully explicate my malaise. Perhaps, in part, it is a Western guilt that my life can be so comfortable. Even as a univeristy student struggling to get (officially) educated, I live a less than hand-to-mouth existence. I have constant electricity, hot water until my housemates use it all, the choice of books, films, friends. I didn't ask for these 'benefits', nor did I wish for others to not have them, but so it goes. Someone, somewhere, did decide to exert control over others by withholding basic services. They use clean water, electricity and sustenance food as a battering ram to protect their subsidies and satellite television. I wonder how many of the four million Americans who lost power this week due to Hurricane Isabel were able to empathise with the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan. I wonder how many of them still don't know why the rest of the world is so mad.
Compounding my angst is an rising, mutating anger at the state of the world as stage managed by rich, cunning, arrogant and power hungry men in Washington. Of course, all is not lost. The recent WTO meeting in Cancun was closed with no argreements reached, because poor nations refused to negotiate the cutting of Western subsidies. This is a victory by default; now we must wait for the next round of trade talks.
While waiting, one can try to make sense of post-Saddam Iraq. Although warned of the dangers of a Vietnam-like quagmire by a chorus of bleeding hearts, the Bu'shit regime decided it had the momentum to attack and democratize Iraq in a matter of months. The U.S happily declared an end to 'major combat operations' on May 1. Since that date 143 US soldiers have been killed. Hardly a peaceful, thanks-giving transition to democracy. As well as the obvious opposition to occupation, the US has also set in motion a bloody grasp at power that threatens to split Iraq along ethnic and religious lines. Saddam wasn't a nice man, but he kept Iraq secular and he didn't have weapons of mass destruction. Trade sanctions likely killed as many Iraqis as did Hussein's infamous jails.
Today Akila al-Hashimi, a Shia diplomat, and one of only three woman on Iraq's US-backed Governing Council, is in a critical condition in hospital after her car was ambushed and sprayed with bullets. Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, head of a Shia Muslim party represented on the council, was killed in August outside the Iman Ali mosque in Najaf. Violence is erupting as a nation seeks to shrug off its occupier, but also as rivals seek to outmanoeuvre each other for eventual political supremacy. That America did not see this coming is hard to believe.
But then say "September 11" or "al-Qaida" and the world is your shooting gallery. In Spain the arrest of al-Jazeera correspondent Taysir Alouni has highlighted the issue of press freedom, in particular the hostile treatment of that network's journalists. His suspected links to al-Qaida make it very easily to hold him without charge for as long as is deemed necessary. In this war there are no prisoners, so there is no such thing as prisoners rights.
In other news, Zimbabwe's largest daily newspaper was closed down yesterday when the Mugabe government refused to issue its licence to publish.
In the rarefied air of international diplomacy French President Jacques Chirac has kept his image clean by snubbing British PM Tony Blair when the two, and Germany's Gerhard Shroeder met yesterday.
This is the world today, and the sun is still shining.
Commit no nuisance.
Compounding my angst is an rising, mutating anger at the state of the world as stage managed by rich, cunning, arrogant and power hungry men in Washington. Of course, all is not lost. The recent WTO meeting in Cancun was closed with no argreements reached, because poor nations refused to negotiate the cutting of Western subsidies. This is a victory by default; now we must wait for the next round of trade talks.
While waiting, one can try to make sense of post-Saddam Iraq. Although warned of the dangers of a Vietnam-like quagmire by a chorus of bleeding hearts, the Bu'shit regime decided it had the momentum to attack and democratize Iraq in a matter of months. The U.S happily declared an end to 'major combat operations' on May 1. Since that date 143 US soldiers have been killed. Hardly a peaceful, thanks-giving transition to democracy. As well as the obvious opposition to occupation, the US has also set in motion a bloody grasp at power that threatens to split Iraq along ethnic and religious lines. Saddam wasn't a nice man, but he kept Iraq secular and he didn't have weapons of mass destruction. Trade sanctions likely killed as many Iraqis as did Hussein's infamous jails.
Today Akila al-Hashimi, a Shia diplomat, and one of only three woman on Iraq's US-backed Governing Council, is in a critical condition in hospital after her car was ambushed and sprayed with bullets. Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, head of a Shia Muslim party represented on the council, was killed in August outside the Iman Ali mosque in Najaf. Violence is erupting as a nation seeks to shrug off its occupier, but also as rivals seek to outmanoeuvre each other for eventual political supremacy. That America did not see this coming is hard to believe.
But then say "September 11" or "al-Qaida" and the world is your shooting gallery. In Spain the arrest of al-Jazeera correspondent Taysir Alouni has highlighted the issue of press freedom, in particular the hostile treatment of that network's journalists. His suspected links to al-Qaida make it very easily to hold him without charge for as long as is deemed necessary. In this war there are no prisoners, so there is no such thing as prisoners rights.
In other news, Zimbabwe's largest daily newspaper was closed down yesterday when the Mugabe government refused to issue its licence to publish.
In the rarefied air of international diplomacy French President Jacques Chirac has kept his image clean by snubbing British PM Tony Blair when the two, and Germany's Gerhard Shroeder met yesterday.
This is the world today, and the sun is still shining.
Commit no nuisance.
Thursday, September 18, 2003
I've tried to find the al-Jazeera website in English quite a few times in the last couple of years. After an initial success just after the WTC attacks, I have since be unable to find a search engine that can give me access to the network. Finally I've found the link. For me, it is a small victory in the War on Dissent.
*cnn
p.s. I thank 'our woman in Mosul', Riverbend, for both her très chic blog and uber-alles links.
*cnn
p.s. I thank 'our woman in Mosul', Riverbend, for both her très chic blog and uber-alles links.
Tuesday, September 16, 2003
Do I have to pick a side?
A little while ago, what, maybe two years ago today, I heard George Dubya making his point known. America was under attack. If this did not particularly unsettle you, his speech following shortly after that day should have. Because this President would from this day forward make no distinction between "terrorists, and those that harbour terrorists. You are either with us or against us."
Does that mean I, who joked with friends on the night, am aligned with 'fundamentalist terrorists'? Well, so be it. Does it make me the friend of the world's most wanted men, whether Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, or maybe next month when I am aligned with Khamenei or the Sauds or Kim Jong Il. So be it.
Can the world refuse W's ridiculous dichotomies? Yes and no. The intelligent person can not ignore the physical effects of black/white logic as it is applied around the world by its only superpower. So if it comes down to it who would die in our dilemma; the American or the Palestinian? The American or the Pakistani? The American or the Croatian? I am sometimes worried by my answer, for it puts me directly in Bush's sights. I am against him.
Many, many millions of people have held their resentment towards America behind clenched teeth for decades. This world does not have to side with anyone, but the last person they are likely to side with is Monsieur George W Bush.
So be it.
A little while ago, what, maybe two years ago today, I heard George Dubya making his point known. America was under attack. If this did not particularly unsettle you, his speech following shortly after that day should have. Because this President would from this day forward make no distinction between "terrorists, and those that harbour terrorists. You are either with us or against us."
Does that mean I, who joked with friends on the night, am aligned with 'fundamentalist terrorists'? Well, so be it. Does it make me the friend of the world's most wanted men, whether Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, or maybe next month when I am aligned with Khamenei or the Sauds or Kim Jong Il. So be it.
Can the world refuse W's ridiculous dichotomies? Yes and no. The intelligent person can not ignore the physical effects of black/white logic as it is applied around the world by its only superpower. So if it comes down to it who would die in our dilemma; the American or the Palestinian? The American or the Pakistani? The American or the Croatian? I am sometimes worried by my answer, for it puts me directly in Bush's sights. I am against him.
Many, many millions of people have held their resentment towards America behind clenched teeth for decades. This world does not have to side with anyone, but the last person they are likely to side with is Monsieur George W Bush.
So be it.
Monday, September 15, 2003
Letter from Ariel Sharon to a Palestinian soldier,
I don't understand...you say in your letter that you don't think friendship will work and when you know that is all that is on offer you still call [out to] me! I've come to terms with the fact that maybe friendship isn't an option, I've realised that if you still have feelings [of nationhood] then maybe it is unfair of me to expect you to put them aside. Hence why I didn't contact you in order to allow you to take the time you need. I can't be around someone who can't be happy for me and the relationships I persue [and contracts I sign, and the treaties I ratify]. And like I said, maybe that's alot (sic) to expect but I can't change it [nor will I try]. That's why we need to give it time. I think we will be really good friends one day but for that to happen the baggage needs to be emptied. I just want to say that as long as it takes I hope you don't feel that it's been too long to call. I'll leave it to you. When you feel like there is nothing there other than a great desire to persue a friendship then give me a call. Until then...take care.
From Ariel.
I don't understand...you say in your letter that you don't think friendship will work and when you know that is all that is on offer you still call [out to] me! I've come to terms with the fact that maybe friendship isn't an option, I've realised that if you still have feelings [of nationhood] then maybe it is unfair of me to expect you to put them aside. Hence why I didn't contact you in order to allow you to take the time you need. I can't be around someone who can't be happy for me and the relationships I persue [and contracts I sign, and the treaties I ratify]. And like I said, maybe that's alot (sic) to expect but I can't change it [nor will I try]. That's why we need to give it time. I think we will be really good friends one day but for that to happen the baggage needs to be emptied. I just want to say that as long as it takes I hope you don't feel that it's been too long to call. I'll leave it to you. When you feel like there is nothing there other than a great desire to persue a friendship then give me a call. Until then...take care.
From Ariel.
Tuesday, September 09, 2003
"The virtual outlawing of history by the dominant culture has reduced the process of democracy to farce. The result is a mishmash of cynicism, despair and escapism."
Tariq Ali
Tariq Ali
When did American democracy become so transparently farcical? Today, from Iraq, Rumsfeld scolds such 'dissenters' as Al Jazeera and, oh, the American Democrats, for encouraging terrorism by the very act of dissent.
At the same time, George W. Bush can ask, with a straight face, for $87 billion (of which $66b will be for military operations) in the next year for U.S. costs in Iraq and Afghanistan and, most worryingly, "elsewhere". The U.S. military budget already eclipses the next seven largest miltary budgets in the world, and accounts for 17.8% of the total federal budget. American military spending is up 15% on average Cold War spending (in today's dollars).
Who can raise an eyebrow? Who can cough a "fuck off you warmonger" into their coffee. Not you and not I, unless we wish to risk the wrath of the Bu'shist regime currently holed up somewhere in Washington. He did say 'elsewhere' and we we all know terrorism knows no borders. What? Sovereignty? That ideal only applies to the grand ol' U S of A. It certainly does not apply to Iraq, nor Afghanistan, nor Yugoslavia (Serbia, Kosovo, Croatia), nor to the multitude of countries U.S.-funded operations have destabilised throughout the 20th century. It did not apply to Hussein in Iraq (until he forgot who fed him), nor the Shah and then the Ayatollah in Iran, nor the Taliban in Afghanistan (backed by Pakistan, backed by US), nor Pinochet in Chile. In fact, South America was a training ground for American interference in domestic politics. Just ask a Nicaraguan, or a Guatemalan how virtuous and freedom-serving America is.
September 11 2003 marks not only the 2nd anniversary of the first intrusion onto American soil. It also marks the 30th anniversary of the assasination of Chile's elected president Salvadore Allende by CIA-backed and inspired insurgents.
After Iraq, Rumsfeld flew to Kabul to show support for the (hand picked by...America) government of Hamid Karzai, which is plagued by political uncertainty, a record number of opium poppy crops, violent warlord rivalries and an urgent need for basic services after years of Taliban rule. Can we bring history back onto the curriculum, please?!?
At the same time, George W. Bush can ask, with a straight face, for $87 billion (of which $66b will be for military operations) in the next year for U.S. costs in Iraq and Afghanistan and, most worryingly, "elsewhere". The U.S. military budget already eclipses the next seven largest miltary budgets in the world, and accounts for 17.8% of the total federal budget. American military spending is up 15% on average Cold War spending (in today's dollars).
Who can raise an eyebrow? Who can cough a "fuck off you warmonger" into their coffee. Not you and not I, unless we wish to risk the wrath of the Bu'shist regime currently holed up somewhere in Washington. He did say 'elsewhere' and we we all know terrorism knows no borders. What? Sovereignty? That ideal only applies to the grand ol' U S of A. It certainly does not apply to Iraq, nor Afghanistan, nor Yugoslavia (Serbia, Kosovo, Croatia), nor to the multitude of countries U.S.-funded operations have destabilised throughout the 20th century. It did not apply to Hussein in Iraq (until he forgot who fed him), nor the Shah and then the Ayatollah in Iran, nor the Taliban in Afghanistan (backed by Pakistan, backed by US), nor Pinochet in Chile. In fact, South America was a training ground for American interference in domestic politics. Just ask a Nicaraguan, or a Guatemalan how virtuous and freedom-serving America is.
September 11 2003 marks not only the 2nd anniversary of the first intrusion onto American soil. It also marks the 30th anniversary of the assasination of Chile's elected president Salvadore Allende by CIA-backed and inspired insurgents.
After Iraq, Rumsfeld flew to Kabul to show support for the (hand picked by...America) government of Hamid Karzai, which is plagued by political uncertainty, a record number of opium poppy crops, violent warlord rivalries and an urgent need for basic services after years of Taliban rule. Can we bring history back onto the curriculum, please?!?
Monday, September 01, 2003
Spring has sprung! On the very first day of September the ground is wet from a night rain, but the sun is glistening in the puddles and warming my back. Footy finals fever has surprisingly hit my athlete-adverse housemate, although to his defense it is the politics rather than the display of masculine physical prowess that has really got his juices flowing. Yet I feel even he may be unaware that our paltry little game is planning to take over the world, even as we speak. Check it out. However my discussion this morning convinced me further that I hate football more than I ever realised. During the season it can be ignored, but come finals time everyone's a fan. Go the Gunners!
