APEC: The embarrassment

APEC is meant to be a meeting to discuss economic prosperity, commitments to benefit future business, trade and research without compromising environmental protection, human rights and international co-operation.

For the most part it isn’t, and it doesn’t.

Furthermore, APEC 2007 was an embarrassment to those ideals; and if Howard hoped to use the summit to boost domestic polls, he failed dismally according to the latest AC Neilson survey.

There were the familiar rent-a-rabble crowds protesting loudly and incoherently about some ill-defined injustices – the traditional signifier of most contemporary meetings between dignitaries of state.

APEC protestors were dealt a legal blow with the Supreme Court ruling against mass demonstrations in key city streets, and then a physical one, with reports of over-zealous police crack-down tactics.

It was the summit’s unprecedented security precautions that provided the bulk of the fracas surrounding APEC '07.

The drone of a police helicopter escort followed United States President George Bush and his official White House press release on a ferry ride to “Kirribbi” House, reverberating across “Sidney” Harbour.

All the fanfare and fuss seemed ridiculous for a man who in political terms is already dead. And anyway, perhaps someone needed to finally put President Bush out of his misery, as he described his excitement at being in “Austria” to partake in the crucial “OPEC” conference.

Visiting leaders of Chile, Peru, Korea and the Philippines also vented their frustration at fanatical security measures, unable to attend scheduled meetings with their countryfolk.

Many activists from local diaspora communities were further angered, when Bush was allowed to venture beyond the APEC security zone to indulge in some trail bike riding in Kur-ing-gai Chase National Park, while their leaders remained trapped inside the “protected” area.

Unfortunately for government officials and event organisers, the $250 million security operation was made a mockery of when eleven crew members from TV comedy The Chaser’s War on Everything easily breached the city’s lockdown zone.

If only the police had stopped to read the fine print on the “APEC 2007 Official Vehicle” sticker which read: “This is a joke. This vehicle belongs to a member of The Chaser’s War on Everything. This dude likes trees and poetry and certain types of carnivorous plants excite him.”

The fake motorcade, with bonnet-mounted Canadian flags and Osama Bin Laden impersonator inside, sailed passed two checkpoints to drive within metres of the InterContinental Hotel where President Bush was staying.

But let’s be fair, nobody knows what Osama’s up to. Maybe he’s a Canadian bigwig nowadays. He might have been at the conference to apologise to Bush.

Whilst The Chaser team outmanoeuvred APEC security, opposition leader Kevin Rudd did the same to embattled Prime Minister John Howard.

Mr Rudd spoke at a lunch honouring China’s President, Hu Jintao, addressing the audience in fluent Mandarin, flanked by two senior members of his staff who were issued with APEC security passes that wrongly identified them as police.

Rudd’s instant rapport with the economically important China seemed as beneficial and gratifying for the Labor leader as Howard’s liaison was luckless for the coalition.

Howard drew conflicting responses from Jintao on several key occasions when discussing economic ties and environmental dedication.

Talk of Free Trade Agreements between Australia and other developing Asia Pacific nations provoked guarded response from China, as President Jintao warned the reluctance of industrial countries to remove import barriers hindered economic progress and created an unfair playing field.

Howard’s push for a new climate change pact was met with equally disparaging remarks by the Chinese President who said that any action to reduce CO2 emissions must abide by the principles of the Kyoto Protocol, which Australia has refused to ratify.

Interestingly, Howard was unwilling to discuss the issue of whaling with Japan, not publicly anyway.

Questions of international security, and not simply that of the summit itself, dogged the Prime Minister, with President Bush using the occasion to publicly undermine Howard on the highly contentious issue of Iraq.

Bush seized the opportunity to sign a new defence treaty with Australia, forcing Howard to commit to “go the distance in Iraq”.

Howard’s policy of going all the way with President Bush over Iraq and climate change has harmed both Australia and the US.

And on security, just as everyone had almost finished scratching their heads over cabinet’s decision to export uranium to India despite their refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Howard government has signed a uranium deal with Russia.

The importance of APEC as a policy development forum is undoubted, with opportunity to meet informally with the heads of some of the most powerful economies in the world, China and Japan, as well as talk to the leader of the world’s largest Islamic nation, Indonesia, and, of course, Russia. But is the policy developed here good policy?

APEC 2007 had it all - protests, accusations of police brutality, ridiculous security precautions – that were breach, Bushisms aplenty, the PM up-staged by the opposition leader, no real development on major environmental issues, failure to pressure Japan over whaling, backward steps on nuclear non-proliferation, side-ways steps as disagreement on trade with China mounted, and further humiliation over Iraq.

Overall, a highly successful embarrassment.

The First Black President of the United States

Can a black man with a name plucked from America’s most wanted list secure an historic presidency?

Probably not.

But the success this presidential candidate is achieving is historic none the less.

US Presidential hopeful and Democratic icon, Barack Obama, has succeeded in generating unprecedented “crossover appeal” amongst strong Republican factions according to survey results released in “Barack Obama’s Republican edge”, an article published on American commentary website, salon.com.

Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster, claims Obama is becoming the unrivalled favourite Democratic candidate amongst Republican supporters.

“I would ask Republicans, ‘Which Democratic candidate would you accept? Who would you consider to vote for?’” Luntz says. “Obama would get more than everybody else combined. Hillary (Clinton) and (John) Edwards have no crossover voters.”

Interestingly, a far larger proportion of Republicans than Democrats view Obama as the best general election prospect, with more Democrats placing their support for preferred front-runner behind Clinton.

According to a US poll, only 22 percent of Democrats thought Obama was the man to lead the party into the general election, with 54 percent flagging Clinton as the preferred candidate to mount a presidential challenge.

However, 37 percent of Republicans thought Obama was the best candidate, and 33 percent said Hillary. So it seems that Republicans are roughly 15 points more likely than Democrats to see Obama as the best shot for a Democratic White House.

Despite the preliminary nature of these figures, with the first caucus five months away, it seems that a pattern is emerging amongst the US electorate.

Clinton continues to generate high negatives among Republican voters, whilst Obama continues to gain momentum with a fresh and less divisive approach that appears to be reaching across party lines.

“The country is hungry for change. It wants something new. We want to chart a new direction for our nation,” said Obama on the campaign trail in Iowa last week.

Luntz believes that this bipartisan approach is attractive to many disenchanted voters who are particularly at odds with the current direction of American foreign policy.

“There is a segment of society that is desperately looking for a less partisan, less divisive approach,” said Luntz. “For them, he (Obama) is the perfect candidate.”

Apparently this “segment” of disillusioned voters is predominantly Republican, with the percentage of Americans identifying themselves as Republican declining from 29 percent to 25 percent since 2004.

Conversely, those who claim to be Democrat has held strong at 33 percent, according to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

Barack Obama’s ability to split the party lines and elicit positive responses from voters of all political persuasions highlights his daringness to distance himself from the current administration. Decisive change and readiness to embrace the unfamiliar are qualities not easy to sell to the electorate.

However, the apparent approval of Obama’s fresh approach and promise to pull America in a different direction perhaps speaks more about the current administration then anything else. George Bush’s approval rating sits at just over 32%.

Whatever the reason, many Americans seem willing to listen and possibly embrace the ideals of Barack Obama.

Ideals that aim to reshape a horribly disfigured foreign policy, and promote communication with, rather than invasion of, unfamiliar regimes in the fight against terrorism. To build stronger international relationships, rather than ignoring those governments that are non-conformist to aggressive imperialistic tactics.

Obama has endured criticism over issues of diplomacy, but insists it is the stance of his rivals on issues of international relations that have created, rather than solved problems.

“I find it amusing that those who helped to authorize and engineer the biggest foreign policy disaster in our generation (in reference to the war in Iraq) are now criticizing me”.

His dedication to racial issues has been commendable, and one feels that if elected, his commitment to New Orleans will not be broken unlike those before him.

Obama pledges a dedication to social services within America’s economic infrastructure that has been sorely missing for too long, and will hopefully close the gap between rich and poor America.

“There are 37 million poor Americans. Most poor Americans are in the workforce, yet still cannot afford to make ends meet. This is something I intend to change”, said Obama.

Coinciding with those comments, Obama has criticised other presidential hopefuls, most notably fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton, for being “too cozy” with corporate America, pandering to the demands of the big business elite.

Obama’s policy on energy and environment has also won applause, with his bid to drastically reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil, and introduce legislation to encourage production and use of biodiesel fuels.

“Environmentalism is not an upper-income issue, it's not a white issue, it's not a black issue, it's not a South or a North or an East or a West issue. It's an issue that all of us have a stake in. And if I can do anything to make sure that not just my daughter but every child in America has green pastures to run in and clean air to breathe and clean water to swim in, then that is something I'm going to work my hardest to make happen,” said Obama, at the League of Conservation Voters' pro-Kerry rally last week.

This support may not transfer to the polls, but it is a positive sign that a man with an Afro-American background and appearance, with such an unfortunate sounding name, can win such significant support.

Especially considering the current political climate, and reality, that America remains a country very much fragmented across cultural, racial and socio-economic lines.

Howard seems set on a nuclear Australia

Anti-nuclear activists from around Australia joined indigenous leaders on traditional Were Terre land outside Alice Springs last week to protest Federal government plans for a nuclear waste facility in the Northern Territory.

The meeting was hosted by the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance (ANFA) near the Federal Government’s proposed Mt. Everard nuclear waste site.

The ANFA formed a national anti-nuclear pact with traditional landowners who oppose plans for uranium mining and radioactive dumping, according to an article published on indymedia.org.au.

Despite notable opposition, the Howard Government seems fixed on going nuclear, and committing to America’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), with further talks to be held at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) forum next week.

Howard is also set to repeal federal legislation banning uranium enrichment, nuclear power and the reprocessing of spent fuel in Australia.

Mounting domestic pressure surrounding nuclear waste disposal and storage have meant Australia and Canada, both uranium-producing countries, have stalled on joining the GNEP that includes many nuclear heavy-weights, including China, Russia and France.

Nuclear by-products are highly radioactive, and GNEP nations would have to find methods to cool, transport, store and isolate the material from the environment virtually forever at enormous expense.

To ease tensions over a nuclear expansion program in Australia, Mr Howard has promised to give communities the ability to veto proposals to build nuclear power stations in areas designated by the Federal Government.

This move is purely a face-saving exercise to claw back anti-nuclear voters.

Prominent indigenous and environmental groups have called on Mr Howard to extend his offer to the indigenous communities of the Northern Territory near sites short-listed for a nuclear waste repository. Surprisingly, to no avail.

Let’s hope Howard’s plan to seize control of Northern Territory indigenous affairs is not a ploy or loophole through which the Commonwealth can conduct unsupervised and unrestricted dumping of radioactive waste on traditional aboriginal lands.

The essential aim of this US driven GNEP initiative is to develop a new generation of fast-cycle reactors that would produce less dangerous wastes than current nuclear reactors.

Its broader aim is to eventually secure the entire nuclear fuel cycle and confine production and reprocessing to members of the group, thus reducing the threat of nuclear proliferation.

New generation “1V reactors” are an integral part of the closed-loop fuel cycle proposed by GNEP, as the nuclear by-products can be “transmuted” into shorter-lived fission yields that have a radioactive life-time of only 600 years, not 500,000.

The safety of the GNEP concept is embedded in the idea that only politically stable and trusted countries will be involved in the closed-loop process, thereby reducing the risk of the spread and increased availability of nuclear materials.

The dangers imposed upon member countries in the transportation, re-processing and storage of nuclear waste is immense, and one could argue constitutes a severe terrorist threat.

Furthermore, considering the radioactive life expectancy of the nuclear waste produced from even the new generation reactors, how long can the “political stability” of member nations be guaranteed?

Howard’s support for an enormous expansion of the global nuclear power industry seems to contradict his stance as a leader deeply troubled by the threat of terrorism.

An expansion that will greatly increase the availability of material suitable for the construction of nuclear weapons.

Cabinet’s recent decision to also supply uranium to India overturned Australia’s long-standing opposition to exports unless India signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Presumably this whole saga is aimed at significantly reducing emissions. If so, thousands of plants would have to be constructed, leaving dozens more countries access to fissile material able to be used in nuclear weapons.

According to prominent US author on globalization – Thomas Friedman, a serious global shift to nuclear power would mean a new reactor would need to come online each day for the next 36 years.

To say that nuclear energy has a great track record in safety is not good enough. When nuclear materials are involved, it only takes one mistake for it to be the last mistake.

Australia’s energy future must be considered gravely. Jumping into bed with the US is not always the answer to all life’s problems.

America’s Second Vietnam – Civil Conflict vs. War on Terror

America will suffer its second military defeat in history when US administration finally submits to mounting domestic pressure and international outrage and withdraws from Iraq.

This week saw the deadliest insurgent attack in Iraq this year, with at leat 250 people killed and hundreds more wounded in the remote north-west region of Sinjar, as reported by The Economist online.

This latest suicide bombing highlights Iraq’s perpetual instability and America’s inability to stem the ongoing bloodshed, as the meekly formed US-backed coalition government disintegrates.

Iraq’s Prime Minister, Nuri Al-Maliki, installed under careful US watch, has failed to win parliamentary support as infighting within the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish blocks of government continue.

The ongoing volatility within Iraq’s deteriorating administration is indicative of wider ethnic tensions and mayhem throughout the country.

George Bush boldly declared on 1st May 2003, major combat operations over in Iraq, the war won and the mission – whatever that was – “accomplished”.

He could not have been more wrong, or naïve.

The removal of Saddam Hussein has created a potent power vacuum in which Iraq’s ethnically diverse population are venting their hostilities amidst the struggle to assert authority.

During the same speech, Bush also said, “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September 11, 2001, and still goes on.”

Well, it still goes on.

Since then, according to reports by the Washington Post and iraqbodycount.org, the number of coalition troops killed in Iraq has risen to over 4000, with over 30,000 wounded.

Total military and civilian deaths as a direct result of military intervention in Iraq now stand at approximately 80,000. It is also estimated that around 700,000 Iraqi civilians have died from causes indirectly linked to the conflict.

The financial burden associated with this atrocity is also unacceptable and unsustainable, with official data from the US Congressional Research Service and nationalpriorities.org placing total US expenditure in Iraq at $US 453 billion.

This figure is staggering when the US budget for Iraq in the last financial year totalled $US 3,749 per Iraqi. This is more than double the per capita GDP of Iraq. It is the equivalent of spending $US 91,000 per person in the US.

Combined with the huge economic and human cost, there has been little evident progress in establishing an independent Iraq in the wake of the 2003 invasion.

The current military, economic and humanitarian crisis represents a severe misallocation of resources that exposes a lack of planning for post-war reconstruction efforts and a total military misjudgement based on unreliable “intelligence” information.

George Bush has created a political quagmire that has engulfed his presidency and presented his successor with a monstrously unenviable task.

The cost of the Iraq war is also mounting in Australian, exceeding $A 3 billion of taxpayer revenue according to figures released in the Sydney Morning Herald.

With such a massive sacrifice of human and economic capital for coalition forces and Iraqis alike, the principles of invasion must be questioned.

The Bush administration went to war on a lie under the pretence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. When the hollowness of these accusations was revealed, the US administration still claimed victory, announcing the successful removal of an “evil dictator”.

This outcome was particularly embarrassing for the Bush administration that had made a mockery of the United Nations and undermined the concept of sovereignty on which our system of nation-states is supposed to be based.

However, despite the uncertainty surrounding the evidence that warranted Iraq’s invasion, it is no wonder Australia committed itself to the fiasco. For you see, despite all Howard’s rhetoric about the need for democracy to prevail over terrorism – or something like that - Australian policy on Iraq has never had much to do with Iraq itself.

It has always been about Washington, and especially about President George Bush.

Howard’s current stance on the situation is simple – “If the United States were to withdraw from Iraq in circumstances of a perceived defeat, that would cause enormous instability in the Middle East and it would be a terrible blow to American prestige.”

It is the latter point which guides both Australian and US foreign policy, and nothing more.

Whatever the truth, Howard seems intent on diverting the blame and responsibility for the consequences of Australia’s involvement in Iraq, while putting the onus on future leaders to solve the problem.

“Whatever you may have thought about the original invasion, you've got to deal with the reality of what is happening now”, Mr Howard said on ABC news radio, “Retrospectives are interesting but they’re not very relevant.”

So while conceding that the original invasion was a disastrous move, Howard is attempting to dismiss past actions as a source of condemnation for himself and his government.

However, this failure is not the responsibility of subsequent governments in Australia to fix, this situation is Howard’s fault, and his political successor would be wise to wash their hands of it.

Just as in Vietnam, America sees this conflict as part of a larger ongoing threat to US prestige, rather than accepting and addressing the realities and specifics of the conflict.

When the Democrats assume office in 2008, they should act swiftly to distance themselves from current US foreign policy, and withdraw from Iraq.

The ABC – A national institution

Australia’s media landscape is like a Mississippi bible club.

Inundated by raging right-wing conservatives; media tycoons who saturate our media landscape with their personal bias, elitism, extremism and corporate obligations.

An article by Felicity McMahon published on Opinion Online entitled, “It’s time to privatise the ABC”, suggests that the ABC network is nothing more than an unbalanced mouth-piece of leftist politics: A waste of taxpayer money and an under-performing organisation that provides an unconstructive role in Australia’s media and should consequently be privatised post hast.

Of course this Liberal Party member of privileged background makes these comments from an entirely neutral standpoint.

Issue settled then. It’s blatantly obvious - the ABC employs a secretive ring of underground tie-dying, lap-lap wearing, dope-smoking-hippie-communists to pollute our precious public sphere.

And yes, you may have noticed the ABC network offers an alternative view on an array of contentious issues, such as Work “Choices” and global warming. It is this alternative that offers a balance of opinion, providing a contrast to the conservative and self interested views of the big business elite.

This balance of opinion is of particular importance given the recent relaxation of media ownership laws in Australia. In a changing media climate where the narrowing of sources and opinions is a consequence of concentration of ownership, the ABC offers a crucial alternative source of opinions.

Opinions and sources free from the pressures of competitive commercial media organisations, tied up in their own vested interests to pursue revenue and ratings above all else.

The need for profit driven media organisations to satisfy business obligations and sell audiences to advertisers generates unwarranted bias that contaminates and colours issue coverage.

The critical balance the ABC contributes to the Australian media at large does not only include commentary on the major and popular issues.

The ABC’s independence and freedom from the need to attract advertisers means the network can also provide programs with limited majority appeal, but that are very important to the groups they relate to, such as Aboriginal media.

Ratings and revenue are not the best measure of the social and cultural betterment and meaningfulness generated by the media. Diaspora media is an excellent case in point.

Furthermore, what the majority finds entertaining, or what pulls the ratings or generates the revenue, does not necessarily constitute quality broadcasting or highlight superior journalistic integrity. An “A Current Affair” segment entitled – “Australian women, do they have the biggest breasts?” might win the ratings, but may not be a pressing socio-political issue.

The ABC network provides diversity in Australia’s media, and promotes a controlled and intelligent forum for questioning and discussion on genuine topics of debate.

It is this balance and promotion of intelligent ideas and pressing issues through quality investigative journalism and intellectual programming such as Media Watch that critiques Australian society and its media, which promotes a healthy public sphere free from the pressures of corporate bias.

The ABC network exists for the social good of the country.

The ABC allows for a wide range of views, promoting difference of opinion, cultural and social diversity. It is a fallacy that the ABC is of the political left – it just isn’t right wing conservative.

In fact, the ABC is far more moderate in its views and programming than other Australian media outlets.

ABC’s presenters and programs do not represent an anti-Liberal sentiment, but simply give a critique of the government at the time. The blow torch would almost certainly turn to the Labor party if it were to win government.

As The Glass House’s Will Anderson proclaimed in reference to then opposition leader, Kim Beazley – “If they(Labor) win the election, I’ve got fat jokes coming out of my arse!”

Incidentally, The Glass House was axed by the ABC in a controversial move that some felt was instigated by reactionary members of the ABC board, which has been stacked with Liberal friendly right-wing conservatives, who felt the program was unnecessarily negative towards government policy.

Additionally, numbers of ABC presenters have gone onto pursue careers associated with right-wing politics. Former ABC presenter Prue Goward now holds a parliamentary seat for the Liberal Party.

Financially, the ABC is hardly an economic burden. According to John Faine, the entire network that includes Radio National; the Local Radio Network – 774, etc; News Radio; ABC and ABC 2 television has a lower running cost than channel 7.

To suggest the ABC is a useless government charity case - “the recipient of more than $700 million of taxpayer revenue” – and nothing more than a burden on the public purse is ignorant, uninformed, outlandish and simply wrong.

The need for a government funded public broadcaster, able to speak freely on issues, unhindered by corporate obligations, is more vital now than ever before in the battle to maintain balance in Australia’s current media landscape.

“Timber” – The fall of an ALP preference deal?

Opposition leader Kevin Rudd is walking a precariously placed tight-rope heading into a hotly contested federal election.

An election in which Prime Minister John Howard has so far failed to manufacture a suitably devious platform to launch his government’s signatory tirade of pre-election propaganda.

“Children Overboard” proved an election winning distraction six years ago, and was later revealed to be as genuine as Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, and as logical as the “Coalition of the Willing”.

However, as the Green Left Weekly online article “Tas forests, pulp mill: Another Rudd betrayal” alludes, Mr Rudd may yet provide his own grisly demise.

Rudd has strategically placed his support behind a $2 billion proposal by Gunns Ltd for the establishment of a pulp mill project in the Tamar Valley, north of Launceston, abandoning ALP policy established under Mark Latham in the build up to the 2004 election.

A policy which pledged to suspend the logging of Tasmania’s native forests, in conjunction with an $800 million commitment towards developing a sustainable timber industry.

Rudd has placed a preference deal with the Greens in serious jeopardy.

Greens spokesperson, Peg Putt, and Greens leader, Senator Bob Brown, have both voiced their disapproval and concern over Rudd’s latest policy shift.

“Kevin Rudd has proved to be a dud on forest protection in Tasmania and… (has failed) to look after our outstanding forests for future generations,” Ms Putt said.

“$8 million to protect the forest industry from climate change, fostered by an industry which logs and burns forests and puts massive tonnages of greenhouse gases in to the atmosphere each year, is illogical and perverse”, said Senator Brown.

Senator Brown’s scathing remarks towards Rudd’s token environmental pledge clearly demonstrates the ALP’s struggle to please both sides of politics.

Wilderness Society spokesperson Geoff Law further highlighted the ALP’s policy shift as a disaster for environmental politics in Australia.

“Rudd has condemned 320,000 hectares of pristine forests in Tasmania that his policy should have protected”.

However, Tasmania’s logging industry has been quick to applaud Mr Rudd, pressing for the ALP to place its support behind future endeavours.

National Association of Forest Industries (NAFI) CEO, Catherine Murphy, welcomed the move, suggesting that previous ALP forestry conservation plans for Tasmania had been ill-thought out.

“After the disastrous Mark Latham Tasmanian forest policy of 2004, NAFI welcomes the new approach Mr Rudd says he will take to forest industry issues,” said Ms Murphy.

Rudd and Howard both cite job security as the primary reason for their support of Tasmanian logging companies. However, the simultaneous neglect of the inevitable environmental impacts and eventual depletion of forest regions will prove the biggest threat to economy and employment.

Rudd must develop some “clear cut” policy that sharply separates the ALP from the Howard government, provides long term solutions to pressing environmental and economic issues, and does not simply attempt to appease all but win concrete support from none.

Furthermore, should Rudd’s vacillating policy making fail to continue to conciliate both sides of Australian politics, the ALP could revert to the political wilderness on a more permanent basis.

Dr Haneef - Jekyll or Hyde?

So, is there only one true Mohamed Haneef, or is this a man of two drastically different halves?

By day, a respectable man of medicine, a symbol of life, and by night, the bearded assailant of the devil?

Unfortunately for the Australian Federal Government and its hunting partner, the United States, both have failed to learn some key facts during their butcher-like Crusade to save all humanity.

Just because you have a beard, appear remotely Middle Eastern and refuse to wear crutch hugging levis jeans, does not mean you support a fanatical religious movement in which destruction of the western world is your ultimate goal.

Haneef, a practising Queensland doctor was "proved" guilty by association.

This is a simple and unavoidable fact for which the Australian Government owes him a great and immediate apology.

No key evidence was avaliable to justify the actions undertaken by the Howard Government. It seems aparent that Howard and Bush feel they are the Sheriffs in charge of a world police, far above the law.

Okay, so Dr Haneef's SIM card was linked to a car bombing in Glasgow half way across the globe. Shaddy yes. Means for a guilty verdict, public humiliation and execution of his professional carrier? Hardly.

Howard refuses the need for an official investigation into the matter. Well of course he does. He wants the withering illusion of his sanity as leader to remain intact.

So, lets just bring back the White Australia policy. That'd keep those damn beardies out in the first place! Don't laugh, if Rudd fails to win the next election it might just happen.