Seventy per cent of Australians would drink recycled sewage

No surprise to anyone, Aussies are quite happy to eat shit.

According to The Australian, which ran a poll:

AN overwhelming majority of Australians would be prepared to drink recycled sewage to help ease a national crisis in urban water supplies that has forced escalating restrictions on water use.

.. Treated effluent is used overseas and has been proposed by water experts as a way to end uncertainty about Australia's water supply amid the drought and difficulty in finding appropriate locations for new dams. ...

Prime Minister John Howard, the National Water Commission, city utilities and scientists all agree Australian towns and cities must consider using recycled waste water to top up dwindling supplies.

Cartoon: Nicholson of "The Australian" newspaper: www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au

Story Source: Seventy per cent would drink recycled sewage

AU Governor General: Australian military over-committed, war sucks, and the US didn't have enough troops in Baghdad

The Australian is reporting an interview with Governor General, Major General Jeffrey. While avoiding directly attacking the government, it is fun seeing the Queen's representative in Australia, the bloke who could disband the government if he wanted to, deliver a stinging attack on the Iraq war:

Australia's Commander-in-Chief, Governor-General Michael Jeffery, believes a lack of troops on the ground in the weeks after the US-led coalition went into Iraq hampered efforts to secure Baghdad.

In an interview with The Weekend Australian Magazine, Major General Jeffery contrasted early tactics in Iraq with the counter-insurgency campaign he led in Phuoc Tuy province during the Vietnam War. "We were charged with winning the hearts and minds of local people and ensuring they were safe, which is the antithesis of what's happening in Baghdad. People aren't safe," he said.

Major General Jeffery served in Borneo, Malaya, Papua New Guinea and Vietnam during a 40-year military career. As Commander-in-Chief he receives regular briefings from the defence chiefs on troop deployments, not policy.

He will not say whether Australia's involvement in Iraq is right or wrong because he won't comment on operational matters(news terrorist: snigger..).

(snip)

"I have a total abhorrence of war now," he said. "Having seen what war does and the causes so often involve stupidity, and understanding the impact on populations ... I'm not saying we shouldn't have an army but I think we have to find far better ways for conflict resolution. "We've got to strengthen the United Nations and reform the security council, the world deserves that."

Between 1991 and 1993 Major General Jeffery served as deputy chief of the general staff, a post he almost resigned from to protest against "massive reductions" in troop numbers. "Now we are seeing people trying to build the army up at a rapid rate because we're over committed."

His comments mirror claims by the Opposition Leader and former defence minister Kim Beazley that the military is more stretched than it has been since the Vietnam War.

Source: US didn't have enough troops in Baghdad: G-G

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Technorati Tags: iraq - australia - war - sir michael jeffrey

AU SAS Leader: Iraq a strategic and moral blunder

The Australian lead with this story today about Iraq. I guess Rupert Murdoch is changing tune.

Highlights:

Peter Tinley, the former SAS officer who devised and executed the Iraq war plan for Australia's special forces says that the nation's involvement has been a strategic and moral blunder.

(snip)

"It was a cynical use of the Australian Defence Force by the Government," the ex-SAS operations officer told The Weekend Australian yesterday.

"This war duped the Australian Defence Force and the Australian people in terms of thinking it was in some way legitimate."

As the lead tactical planner for Australia's special forces in the US in late 2002, Mr Tinley was in a unique position to observe intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program and the coalition's military preparations in the lead-up to the war.

(snip)

In Iraq in 2003, Mr Tinley served as deputy commander for the 550-strong joint special forces task group that took control of western Iraq.

Part of his command was 1 SAS Squadron, which was awarded a US Meritorious Unit citation for its "sustained gallantry", contributing to a comprehensive success for coalition forces in Iraq.

He served 17 years with the elite SAS regiment, leaving the army as a major last year. In 2003 he was appointed a member of the Order of Australia (AM) for "dynamic leadership and consistent professional excellence".

(snip)

During war planning with US and British special forces at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in 2002, Mr Tinley says he never saw any hard intelligence that Saddam Hussein's regime possessed weapons of mass destruction.

"When I pressed them (US intelligence) for more specific imagery or information regarding locations or likely locations of WMD they confessed, off the record, that there had not been any tangible sighting of any WMD or WMD enabling equipment for some years," he said.

"It was all shadows and inferenced conversations between Iraqis. There was an overwhelming desire for all of the planning staff to simply believe that the Iraqis had learned how to conceal their WMD assets away from the US (surveillance) assets."

(snip) 

After the initial invasion, the search for WMD became something of a "standing joke" with neither coalition troops nor the Iraq Survey Group turning up anything of consequence.

"The notion that pre-emption is a legitimate strategy in the face of such unconvincing intelligence is a betrayal of the Australian way," he said.

(snip)

"During our preparations for this war I remember hearing (ex-defence chief) General Peter Gration's misgivings and assumed he did not possess all the information that our Prime Minister did," he said. "I now reflect on his commentary with a completely different view and am saddened that other prominent people in our society didn't speak louder at the time and aren't continuing to speak out in light of what we now know."

He said the Government had broken a moral contract with its defence force in sending it to an "immoral war".

The Government's stance on Iraq and later on issues such as the Tampa had gradually allowed fear to become a motivating factor in the electorate, he said.

Mr Tinley said the Howard Government had failed to be honest with Australians about Iraq and "you can't separate the sentiment of the defence force from that of the people". (snip)

Rumsfeld Under Fire: War Crimes Suit Filed

One of the biggest pricks in America is in more hot water (after resigning last week)

According to German paper Der Spiegel, a coalition of human rights groups has filed a criminal lawsuit against the former US Secretary of Defense.

The coalition, led by the New York-based civil rights group Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), filed a criminal complaint against Rumsfeld on Tuesday at the Federal Prosecutor's Office in Karlsruhe, Germany.

The coalition also feel they have more chance of success this time with new evidence, such as documents from the 2005 Congressional hearings on the al-Qahtani case.

Rumsfeld's resignation last week may also mean that prosecutors are under less political pressure to shun the case, the activists feel. His resignation also means he can no longer try to claim immunity as a sovereign official from international prosecution for war crimes.

CCR and its partner organizations filed a similar complaint in 2004, but it was dropped. They claim the US pressured Germany to drop the case, which was dismissed in February 2005 on the eve of a visit by Rumsfeld to Germany. At the time, then-federal prosecutor Kay Nehm said that there were no indications that the US authorities would "refrain from penal measures" regarding the violations described in the complaint. The activists believe that Nehm's successor, Monika Harms, who took office earlier this year, may be more amenable to their cause.

Former Commander of Abu Ghraib to testify

The coalition have an ace up their sleeve: Janis Karpinski, the former commander of Abu Ghraib, will appear as a witness on their behalf.

"Janis Karpinski is the witness," commented Kaleck. "The plaintiffs can and should testify (about) what happened to them, but on the other hand they cannot testify who ordered and enforced the interrogation methods, and who conducted them. You must have someone from the apparatus, and this is Janis Karpinski."

Karpinski , who resigned from the army in July 2005, wants to shed light on the incidents that ended her army career. "I served for 28 years," Karpinski told the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel. "I was entirely committed to the army. Then they make me into a scapegoat."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,druck-448320,00.html

Hicks abandoned by Australia and tortured by America

Amnesty International has accused the Australian government of abandoning terror suspect David Hicks and doing nothing to ensure sure he gets a fair trial.

Amnesty secretary general Irene Khan last week wrote an open letter to Prime Minister John Howard as part of its campaign to have Hicks released from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where he has been held for five years.

Symbol of injustice

Ms Khan said Amnesty was concentrating on the Hicks' case because it had become a symbol of injustice and the impunity which the US military prison had come to represent.

"We are picking him because he has been now in Guantanamo for almost five years without being tried. He's not likely to get a fair trial in the US, which has just adopted a new law."

Ms Khan accused the Australian government of behaving outrageously in the Hicks' case. "They have basically abandoned him. They have not taken any effort to ensure that he gets a fair trial," she said. "They approved trial by military commission, which the US Supreme Court has said violates American law as well as international law.

"So he should come home, he should get justice here in Australia. Give him a fair go at Australian justice."

'Depressed and disorientated'

US military lawyer Major Michael Mori says Hicks is depressed and disorientated after being left in solitary confinement in Guantanamo Bay for seven months with the lights on 24 hours a day.

Major Mori confirmed his client has been confined to the one concrete room for about 22 hours of every day for the last seven months.

The military lawyer is in Australia to seek a meeting with Attorney-General Philip Ruddock and to conduct a cross-party briefing of federal MPs.

He also suggested Hicks had been subject to sleep deprivation, an action defined as coercion rather than torture by Mr Ruddock.

"There was no valid reason given why he was placed in solitary."

Asked if Hicks was close to breaking, Mori said he hoped the former jackaroo was not.

"We're doing everything we can. We try to get down there as quickly as possible and try to get books through for him, but it does take some time."

But the reality, Major Mori said, was that Hicks was in a terrible mental state.

"I went down and spent my birthday with him at the beginning of October," Major Mori said.

"I see the changes in him, a sense of depression (and) I think that's what they're probably shooting for: they want to break him, they don't want him to resist."

Major Mori said a possible explanation for the solitary confinement could be that Hicks had complained. "The day before he was put in solitary, he met with Australian
consular (officials) and complained, things that were happening to him and also what he had seen. The next day, he was put in solitary confinement."

Hicks, Major Mori said, was now refusing to meet with consular officials.

"They (guards at Guantanamo Bay) have trained him that if he doesn't talk, if he doesn't complain then he doesn't get punished."

Source SBS / AAP

See also:
Minister's doubts over Guantanamo :

Hicks in solitary seven months - Mori | | The Australian

Time to bring Hicks home, Joyce says - Breaking News - National - Breaking News

Govt coy on sleep deprivation tactics - Breaking News - National - Breaking News

Sleep deprivation 'sometimes' torture | NEWS.com.au

Sleep deprivation inhumane - Lieutenant-General Peter Leahy

Amusingly, to me anyway, the Australian Army head, Lieutenant-General Peter Leahy, has contradicted Philip Ruddock, Australia's attorney-general by
stating that sleep deprivation is considered an illegal and
"inhumane" interrogation tactic under Defence Force codes of
practice.

Lieutenant-General Leahy yesterday appeared before the Senate Estimates Committee, and read from the Defence Force's "interrogators' handbook". Quoting from the book he said: "Detainees are not to be deprived of sleep, deprivation of
sleep is considered inhumane."

According to the handbook, sleep
deprivation is against the Geneva Convention.

Army contradicts Ruddock on torture - theage.com.au

Israel, the IDF and State Terrorism

I've been having a chat with my new mate taltalk in the comments of the post on the atrocities at Qana

Whilst searching through the myriad of articles that link Israel and the IDF with state terrorsim and murder, I came across this excellent article written by John Pilger in 2004. Here's a snippet:

Only by recognizing the terrorism of states is it possible to understand, and deal with, acts of terrorism by groups and individuals which, however horrific, are tiny by comparison. Moreover, their source is inevitably the official terrorism for which there is no media language. Thus, the State of Israel has been able to convince many outsiders that it is merely a victim of terrorism when, in fact, its own unrelenting, planned terrorism is the cause of the infamous retaliation by Palestinian suicide bombers. ...

On September 7, a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 16 Israelis in the town of Beersheba. Every television news report allowed the Israeli government spokesman to use this tragedy to justify the building of an apartheid wall ­ when the wall is pivotal to the causes of Palestinian violence. Almost every news report marked the end of a five-month period of "relative peace and calm" and "a lull in the violence." During those five months of relative peace and calm, almost 400 Palestinians were killed, 71 of them in assassinations. During the lull in the violence, more than 73 Palestinian children were killed. A 13-year-old was murdered with a bullet through the heart, a 5-year-old was shot in her face as she walked arm in arm with her 2-year-old sister. The body of Mazen Majid, aged 14, was riddled with 18 Israeli bullets as he and his family fled their bulldozed home.

None of this was reported in Britain as terrorism. Most of it was not reported at all. After all, this was a period of peace and calm, a lull in the violence. On May 19, Israeli tanks and helicopters fired on peaceful demonstrators, killing eight of them. This atrocity had a certain significance; the demonstration was part of a growing nonviolent Palestinian movement, which has seen peaceful protest gatherings, often with prayers, along the apartheid wall. The rise of this Gandhian movement is barely noted in the outside world.

and

"Few of us", wrote the playwright Arthur Miller, "can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied."

Since 2004, there have been many more atrcities conducted by the IDF, the last of course being the disgusting attack on Lebanon. It is beyond my comprehension how someone can say that Israel is not a rogue state.

Israel Used White Phosporus bombs on Lebanon

Just when you think the crazy cluster bombing bastards can't get any worse, now we find that they dropped white phoshorus bombs on Lebanon, like the U.S. did on Fallujah.

White phosphorus bombs are not supposed to be used against human targets.

WP (Wiley Pete is another nick-name) is used by armies for producing smoke screens and as an incendiary. The phosphorus ignites on contact with air and gives off a thick smoke. If the chemical touches skin it will continue to burn until it reaches the bone unless deprived of oxygen.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1919396.ece

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1929007,00.html

Anna Politkovskaya buried - Putin jeered

Last week Russia's most vocal journalist on human rights in Chechnya was assassinated.

The Russian government did not acknowledge it, and there is suspicion of Kremlin involvement.

Putin flew in to Germany yesterday and got jeered by over 2,000 demonstrators.

From The Telegraph:

Angry protesters greeted Vladimir Putin as he flew into Germany yesterday for a two-day official visit that has been overshadowed by the weekend murder of his most prominent critic in the Russian media.   Mourners gather around the coffin of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya before her burial in Moscow Arriving in Dresden, the city where he served as a KGB spy in the 1980s, the Russian president was heckled by 2,000 demonstrators furious over the killing of Anna Politkovskaya, shot dead by a gunman outside her home on Saturday afternoon. As Mr Putin got out of his limousine, one man shouted: "You're a murderer, you're not welcome here." The killing of Mrs Politkovskaya, who was internationally admired for her exposes of Russian military atrocities in Chechnya, forced the Russian leader onto the defensive during a trip that was meant to focus on energy and growing economic ties with Germany. Two hours after the reporter was buried at an emotional funeral in Moscow, Mr Putin publicly acknowledged her death for the first time at a joint press conference with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. Though he described the murder as "a dreadful and unacceptable crime", Mr Putin sought to reject allegations of possible Kremlin involvement in it by downplaying the significance of Mrs Politkovskaya's career. "She was a journalist who was critical of the current authorities in Russia," he said. "But although she was well-known among human rights groups and abroad, she had minimal influence on political life in Russia." .... "Russia is becoming an authoritarian and corrupt country," said Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the opposition Yabloko party. "This killing opens a new phase when the physical elimination of political opponents becomes possible." Fear was as much an emotion as grief for many; a belief that with the death of one of so very few prepared to criticise the Kremlin the last vestiges of freedom in Russia had also passed. "I did not know Anna personally but when I heard of the murder I got very scared," said Alexander Glushenko, a nuclear physicist who recently wrote a book about his experiences of containing the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. "I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that now anyone who writes the truth can be killed." Full story here

Venezuela president plus Noam Chomsky book - sales jump on Amazon

Care of The Guardian: Chávez boosts Chomsky sales

Hugo Chávez holds a copy of Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival at the UN. Photograph: Julie Jacobson/AP

If he ever tires of running Venezuela, Hugo Chávez would make an outstanding book club president, judging by his impact on Noam Chomsky's book sales.Since waving a copy during an address to the UN last week, the Venezuelan president has made Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance a publishing sensation.

What was one of Professor Chomsky's lesser known works has surged to No 1 on Amazon's bestseller list, with bookshops making bulk orders from the thousands of extra copies being printed.

.............

Mr Chávez, who blames the US for backing a coup which briefly ousted him in 2002, used his UN address to brand George Bush a "devil" who had left a whiff of sulphur lingering in the chamber. Later he told an audience, to laughter, that his favourite tome was tainted by being placed on the podium where the US leader had stood. "I had to sprinkle it with holy water."

( See Guardian story link above for full story and related links)