It’s time, as usual for Weekend Reflections. The idea is that, over the weekend, you should post your thoughts in a more leisurely fashion than in ordinary comments or the Monday Message Board.
55 thoughts on “Weekend reflections”
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John Quiggin 
Doesn’t Howard know that there are more Telstra shareholders than farmers in this Great Brown Land of ours?
Howard is penalising the shareholders by mollycoddling the Battlers from the Bush. All this argy bargy over complete privatisation and all the hedges that are being built about it for the benefit of nostalgic rural socialist principles is undermining share value. Moreover, these policies threaten to divert Telstra income and erode profitablity for the foreseeable future.
Until the Federal Government spends sufficient money on roads to ensure that I can get from Point A to Point B as quickly as your average Yokel out there in Woop Woop, I’ll oppose Howard’s featherbedding of the rural sector at my expense.
Howard … stop being such a Wet.
But it isn’t the weekend yet. 🙂
What I was going to say, fatfingers. Is this a sign of a return to the long weekends of the more leisured days of the ’80s? Herewith a story from that era…
One stockbroker phones another.
“Let’s do lunch”, quoth he.
“Certainly. How about Wednesday?”, came the reply.
“Sorry, I can’t do that. It eats into both weekends.”
PML,
That reminds me of a Tandberg cartoon re the Hawke government’s imposition of fringe benefits tax on business lunches and other corporate perks in the mid-1980s. One overweight business said to the other “We can still go to lunch at 12 and come back at 2” to which the other replied “Yeah, but we’ll have to do it on the same day.”
From the SMH today, in an article by Jessica Irvine, who helpfully explained how the poor, err, rich are getting richer quicker (by a whole 3%!) than the, err, already rich.
“The rich are getting richer but the poor are getting richer faster, new figures reveal.
“The incomes of low- and middle-income Australians, after allowing for tax and inflation but adding government payments, grew by 22 per cent between 1994-95 and 2003-04 – outstripping the 19 per cent growth for high-income earners.”
Great article comparing Al Qaeda and the C19 anarchist movement @ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1072-1721466,00.html
have a good weekend
If and when (most say only when!), we have a terrorist attack in aussie soil, are we going to realise that it’s hoWARd’s and Ruddock’s chickens coming home to roost? We need to hold them responsible!
Here’s how to to do it: one of the best, most insightful and bravest voices, still saying what needs to be said.
Truth Struggling – By John Pilger
July 21, 2005
In all the coverage of the bombing of London, a truth has struggled to be heard. With honourable exceptions, it has been said guardedly, apologetically. Occasionally, a member of the public has broken the silence, as an East Londoner did when he walked in front of a CNN camera crew and reporter in mid-platitude. “Iraq!” he said. “We invaded Iraq and what did we expect? Go on say it.”
The Scottish MP Alex Salmond tried to say it on BBC radio. He was told he was speaking “in poor taste . . . before the bodies are even buried.” The Respect Party MP George Galloway was lectured by BBC televison presenter that he was being “crass”. The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said the diametric opposite of what he had previously said, which was that the invasion of Iraq would come home to our streets. With the exception of Galloway, not one so-called anti-war MP spoke out in clear, unequivocal English. The warmongers were allowed to fix the boundaries of public debate; one of the more idiotic, in the Guardian, called Blair “the world’s leading statesman”.
And yet, like the man who interrupted CNN, people understand and know why, just as the majority of Britons oppose the war and believe Blair is a liar. This frightens the British political elite. At a large media party I attended, many of the important guests uttered “Iraq” and “Blair” as a kind of catharsis for that which they dared not say professionally and publicly.
The bombs of 7 July were Blair’s bombs…
Isn’t it great. We can now do weekend work on friday night.
Just like with the children in detention centres, the unaustralian politicians we have in government will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to simply do what is just and fair, and what every Australian deserves: a fair and honest trial!
One of hoWARd’s own calling for justice, in the conservative Manly Daily:
Justice on trialJOHN MORCOMBE – 05aug05
TERREY Hills entrepreneur Dick Smith has attacked the Federal Government over its attitude towards terror suspect David Hicks, saying it is un-Australian.
Mr Smith said he was embarrassed that Australia was letting justice and fair play be overridden by the Federal Government’s acquiescence to the actions of the United States towards Mr Hicks, an Australian citizen.
David Hicks was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 and has been incarcerated by the US military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, while awaiting his day in court.
He has been charged with attempted murder, aiding the enemy and conspiracy.
Yesterday former High Court judge Mary Gaudron said she believed the US military commission that will try Mr Hicks was an abuse of the rule of law and conflicted with the nature of Western society.
Mr Smith said he was not a supporter of Hicks “but a supporter of a fair trial for Hicks”.
“If Hicks is a terrorist he should be punished but he might be innocent,” he said.
“Only a fair trial can determine that.”
Mr Smith said the treatment of Mr Hicks showed “the terrorists are winning because they’re dividing our society by causing it to overreact and do things we wouldn’t normally do”.
“When my father went to war and risked his life, it was for a fair society in which this sort of thing wouldn’t happen,” Mr Smith said.
“If we stand by and say this is acceptable because John Howard thinks Hicks is a bad boy, then we’ve lost what is important about Australia.
“Even our highest military lawyer has said the legal process Hicks will face in the US is flawed and every legal expert says it is unfair.
“Even the prosecutors are resigning and leaking emails when normally they would be against Hicks…”
Carlos -so let me understand it. If (and lets hope there isn’t a terrorist act in Australia) but if there is, the culprits bear no responsiblility at all according to your argument?
Yes or No.
Sorry, but one final post to Carlos
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3735
Please read the above link. I keenly await your views Carlos. Is Mr Tanveer Ahmed also wrong.
To quote from the article: “But what is more worrying for me, as an Australian Muslim, is the inability of many Muslims to see the moral difference between the attacks in London and the invasion of Iraq. The purpose of the invasion of Iraq, regardless of the inadequacies of its political justification, was not to kill innocent civilians. The Americans do make an attempt to show regret for civilian deaths.
The suicide bombers in London had the sole purpose of killing innocent civilians. In fact, they measure their success by the number killed, and no group claiming responsibility for an attack has ever showed any remorse for the deaths they caused.”
Hey Liz the Yanks (and the rest of their coalition of lackeys) have killed thousands in Iraq for an original purpose that was an outright lie. It doesn’t matter how many times they say sorry or do some half-assed ‘investigation’ that exonerates themselves, they have been responsible for much more innocent deaths than the bombers in London.
Why is the prime minister concerning himself with what some minor Muslim cleric has to say, while not allowing for the fact that English is not his native language. I suspect he is just playing politics, as if he does not know better, which perhaps he doesn’t, in which case he not fit to remain as prime minister.
As we might give pause to stopping terrorism, and even to the carnage in Iraq, we should give equal thought to those whose interests are best served by permanent war and the erosion of civil liberties, seen in the incarceration and conviction with fair trail and natural justice of David Hicks. The warriors of permanent war have already being identified by President Eisenhower, in 1959 I believe, as the military-industrial complex.
Time for a correction:
I meant to say, “without fair trial and natural justice . ..”
Rechecking, the PM does not appear to be saying much, although he does pontificate somewhat.
Eisenhower’s “Military-Industrial” gave his speech in 1961. This speech, is more relevant now than when he gave it. Here is the speech.
Tex, on your website to refer to a quotation referenced to an anonymous “…silly woman ” (August 5 post). What is that supposed to mean? So only “…silly women” have this view?
Tex
Provided you accept the premise that it is a bad idea to kill innocents, it is unreasonable to say that murdering innocent citizens in London is somehow justified by the claim (even if it was true) that innocents are being killed in Iraq on the basis of a lie. And that is exactly what you are implying.
And on Ahmed’s comments.
One may not believe that the war in Iraq does involve killing innocents on the basis of a lie. But this in itself is unnecessary for opposing the killings in London. The killings in London are wrong irrespective of the motivation for actions in Iraq again provided you accept the premise that innocents should not be killed.
Muslims do not need to draw a distinction between justified and unjustified killings of civilians. They are all wrong and the failure to see this promotes unnecessary suffering. Many Muslim leaders have condemned the killings of innocent civilians in London. But how many have condemned suicide bombers who kill innocent Jews in Israel? Again the implied reasoning… we are only doing it because….and this is always flawed reasoning whether (in a general context) it is employed by Muslims, Jews or others.
One of the problems we have in this crazy post 11/9 world is that nothing can be analysed by itself anymore. Consider the London bombings: The first reaction was to blame it on al-Qaeda or extremists linked to al-Qaeda as a response to the UK’s intervention in Iraq. What then followed was those on the left squeamishly trying to justify terrorism while the right comically embraced it as a reason to abandon multiculturalism (as well as tolerance, freedoms of speech and democracy in general). Blowing up people is wrong, but as far as I’m aware there hasn’t been been much said on exactly why they did it. There’s been a lot of speculation linking it to Iraq and a lot of speculation that they were somehow victims of fundamentalist brainwashing, but really no objective reasoning of why they did what they did. Maybe this is due to political convenience, but I feel it’s more down to how we’ve all forgotten how to think rationally. (Instead of reason defining our political ideologies, our political ideologies now define our reasoning.)
Rational thought it a pretty important problem solving tool. Sure, without it we can still carpet-bomb Islamic nations of our choosing by the push of a button, and conversely we can strap explosives to ourselves and blow up buses, but without rational thought, there is no solution to the problem of where we are today (and without rational thought, we still don’t *know* how we ended up where we are).
So how do we become rational and objective again?
Harry Clarke and others are mixing up their language games, to badly paraphrase Wittgenstein. To say that the London Bombings were caused by the English involvement in the Iraq War is not a justification for an evil act but an observation about why this evil act happened there rather than elsewhere.
After all, if we had pursued al Quaeda in Afghanistan and in Pakistan over the last couple of years rather than launching a war against Iraq we may well have extinguished the power of al Quaeda by now and the London bombings would never have happened. Are the foot soldiers to blame for the incompetence of the other side’s leaders.
The problem is clearly that our leaders are deliberately prosecuting this war in an incompetent fashion ensured to prolong the conflict and repression rather than attempting to achieve any sort of real victory.
Let’s be clear here. The bombing of people in London, Madrid, New York and elsewhere is/was murder – pure and simple. As such, it is criminal activity and can have no ‘justification’ whatsoever- meaning that there can be no possible excusing of those acts. And the same goes for dropping bombs from 30000 feet on Iraquis. The invasion was illegal, unnecessary and based on lies. The one does not justify the other, in either order. This is the problem with violent ‘reach for the gun’ responses to violence. It soon becomes a spiral of death that sucks everybody into its vortex. Now we are faced with possible criminal conspiracies in a number of hitherto democratic countires, and as a result, the powerful and the authoritarian have been handed a heaven sent excuse to crush liberty, freedom of expression and protest in the name of our ‘right to live’. It is sickening, and oh so predicatable, even since the absurd cowboy response of the Bush gang, to the crime of mass murder that occurred on 9th September 2001.
Yes Kyan, the footsoldiers are to blame. Those who kill are responsible for the killings not the designers of US foreign policy even if it was ‘incompetent’. You are falling into the error of logic that I was trying to pin down. It is a destructive error.
Even bad US foreign policy does not justify their actions.
The US are obviously not trying to prosecute this war “in an incompetent fashion to prolong the conflict and repression”. This suggestion is crazy. They want to win (= install a democratic, pro-Western regime in Iraq) and get out of this mess ASAP.
But why did they invade Iraq in the first place Harry? A haven for bin Laden – get real. The Iraq invasion meant that the allies pulled troops out of Afghanistan and left al Quaeda safely in the comfort of dissident elements in ISI, the Pakistani security Agency, able to regroup along with the Taliban and now threatening to disrupt the elections due in September.
Instead the war in Iraq has served to recruit one of the biggest terrorist armies in history which we are ill equipped to defeat. Now that we have plunged Iraq into the chaos of civil war and tied up the bulk of our forward forces there – in a conflict where the US demonstration of how they’want to win’ by humiliating and torturing their captives. Hearts and minds, Harry.
Either the US is prosecuting this war with tactics and strategy that is glaringly incompetent on every level and which they are demonstrably losing on the ground, or their actions stink of conspiracy.
Stop, you limit your abuse to the Bush gang, and certainly the killings. It is exhausting being confronted with this inability to grasp what is happening in the part of our global world which is terror.
I would be interested to see how Bush could be held responsible for the following, not all just goes on and on. Islamist terrorists killing that is.
Lebanon Marine Barracks attack – 250 1983
March 17, 1992 The Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina is bombed by the terrorist group Hezbollah killing 29 and injuring 242
February 26, 1993 A bomb explodes in the basement of the World Trade Center in New York, killing 6 and wounding more than a thousand, believed to be Muslim terrorists from Pakistan
July 18, 1994 A Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina is bombed by Hezbollah terrorists, killing 86 and wounding 300.
March 8, 1995 Two U.S. diplomats are killed by unknown gunmen in Karachi, Pakistan.
December 24, 1994 An Air France flight is hijacked by the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) enroute to Algeria. All four terrorists were killed in the rescue attempt.
(Claimed that some GIA leaders may have had contact with Osama bin Laden while fighting in the 1979-89 Afghan war against the Soviet Union. Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network also includes some Algerians, and European authorities have arrested dozens of Algerian militants suspected of being al-Qaeda operatives plotting attacks on European cities, perhaps involving chemical weapons.)
October 6, 1995 The GIA explodes another bomb, this time on the Paris metro rail, wounding 16.
October 17, 1995 Another GIA bomb explodes at the Orsay station in France, injuring 30.
November 13, 1995 A bomb planted by the Islamic Movement of Change explodes in a Riyadh, Saudi Arabia military compound, killing more than 40.
November 19, 1995 A suicide bomber drives a truck into the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan killing 16 and injuring 60. Three militant Islamic groups claimed responsibility.
(Throw this one in because of ETA muslim terrorist relationship. )
December 11, 1995 The ETA bombs a truck in Madrid, killing 6 . ETA established contact with the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in 1970. A number of ETA militants were trained in various PFLP camps both in Lebanon and Libya.
February 23, 1997 A Palestinian gunman opens fire on tourists on an observation deck at the Empire State Building, killing one and wounding others.
June 25, 1996 A fuel truck explodes outside the United States military’s Khobar Towers building, killing 19 military personnel and wounding 515.
November 12, 1997 Four U.S. businessmen are killed in Karachi, Pakistan by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Council.
November 17, 1997 Al-Gama’at al-Islamiyya (IG) terrorists open fire at the Hatshepsut Temple in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor, Egypt. 58 tourists are killed and 26 others are injured.
August 7, 1998 In near simultaneous explosions at U.S. Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, Al Qaeda terrorists kill 291 and wound 5,000 in Kenya and kill 10 and wound 77 in Tanzania.
October 12, 2000 The U.S.S. Cole, a destroyer in the United States Navy, is rammed by a boat full of explosives in the harbor of Aden, Yemen. 17 sailors are killed and 39 more are injured. Al Qaeda is suspected.
January 22, 2002 Armed terrorists on motorcycles fire on the United States Consulate in Calcutta, India killing 5 Indian security guards and wounding 13. Islamic
January 23, 2002 Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journalist, is kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan by Jaish-e-Muhammad, an Islamic separatist group opposed to U.S. control of Pakistan. On February 20th, a videotape shows Mr. Pearl’s death.
And they are not at war with someone. it maybe that Osama is still about taking out the Saudi and other ME governments. So he and his acolytes are somehow driven to it by Bush!
Radio National just aired an extraordinary program.
It described how some young Australian citizens (some still at school and some without the knowledge of their parents) who are adherents of a Middle Eastern religion are being recruited in lareg numbers by foreign nationals (agents?) working for a foreign organisation openly operating here in Sydney(!!!) to travel a ME country.
Once there they are housed in barracks and receive intensive religious, language and military training for up to a year. Some of the organisations involved in this training of Australians are fundamentalist in nature and at least some members of those organisation advocate the ethnic clensing of people native to the ME country.
After their year most return to this country. Some of them are actively encouraged to retrun to the ME country and give up their Australian citizenship. Some of the young people say that they are keen to return to the ME because they now feel alienated in this country and openly state that they wish to take up arms and fight in a conflict in which Australia is in no way involved.
I would be interested to learn what those who advocate stringent action against some Australian citizens from the ME think about all this.
The ABC links is: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/history/streets/stories/s1422299.htm
I would be interested to learn what those who advocate stringent action against some Australian citizens from the ME think about all this.
I bet that’s the kind of fundamentalism, ethnic clensing and violence they approve of.
Because, you see, this is the case when those who feel being under attack have the sacred right to defend themselves – as oppose to all the other occasions where those who are under attack must surrender and stop bothering us, innocent civilians.
While I was busy enjoying my Saturday with a nice walk in the Sydney sun… Others tried to put words in my mouth with a pretty crappy effort, surprise, surprise.
Very lame!
Elizabeth, of course those who physically pull the trigger, or drop/explode the bombs are guilty. Killing is killing is killing is killing is killing.
And it is wrong!
The religious ones among you may remember… “Thou Shall Not Kill.”
No ifs, or buts.
However, to pretend that no responsibility ever goes any further than those doing the actual killing, is simply wrong and deceitful.
Leaders (and presidents!) should know it very well.
Before I return to my heavenly Cohiba Siglo VI and my JD, I will make a few more comments and a few parting wishes:
Sooner, rather than later, truth comes to light and with it the full chain of responsibility: whose incompetence allowed disaster to happen, where the weapons came from, who financed them, who “called the shots”, and all who benefited from the carnage.
There is the intellectual responsibility, for the planning; the political responsibility for justifying and selling it; and the historical responsibility of all people involved and the trends and events that led to any such horror happening. Criminality may depend on whose law is doing the judging, but immorality and full responsibility is only ever properly determined because of decent people speaking out.
Sure, things never happen for a single reason: Reason and Circumstances of the Hiroshima Bomb. But the ends do not justify the means.
The real disaster is that if you did get a brave soul who decided to humanly “refuse orders” to kill (especially innocent civilians), there would be another dozen or two ready to take their place, in all armies or terrorist groups of all colour, race and religion.
Hence, my parting wishes:
First, that for once, we stop trying to justify the unjustifiable, just because some lives are valued more than others.
Second, at least lest we forget: Killing is killing is killing is killing is killing.
Like that famous philosopher, Bartholomew Simpson said: WAR IS HELL!
And my most simple and humble wish, but even least likely than any of the above:
Bloggers! let fellow bloggers speak for themselves, without BS and lame word games.
I’ll drink to all that!
Carlos,
“Thou Shall Not Killâ€? is an inaccurate translation of the commandment. The correct interpretation is “Thou Shall Not Murder”. Which means that legal state sanctioned killing is still very much allowed and okay.
It would seem that God recognised that the government needs to be allowed to kill people for the greater good. That is why God says that abortion is okay in China.
Terje.
In Carlos perfect world noone would be prepared to kill another, so according to him all would be sweetness and light and the world would be a better place. As long as Carlos was only tortured within an inch of his life, to follow the tenets of the torturer, Carlos would be happy. If Carlos and his family had their house bulldozed and forced to take to the road and eventually died of starvation or cholera in a refugee camp, again Carlos would be happy noone killed him. Likewise if he spent his life in a Gulag. For Carlos the most important thing is noone kills him and he doesn’t kill another. Happy Carlos.
A quick thought on the UN Security Council:
It seems to be fairly widely accepted that the permanent membership of the Security Council is looking increasingly outdated and inappropriate, reflecting as it does the principal nations on the Allied side in 1945.
Given the difficulty in getting a consensus amongst the five current veto-wielding members on contentious issues, there seems to be agreement that any expansion shouldn’t result in more countries having the veto.
One way to resolve the contradiction between these two points would be for one or more of the existing permanent members to give up their veto.
Considering that France is committed to “an ever-deepening union” with Europe and to a common EU defence and security policy, what would be more logical than for France to hand its permanent Security Council seat over to the EU (or to have it rotate amongst the EU members like the EU presidency).
(I should point out that this is more an exercise in mischief-making than s serious proposal.)
Hey Terje,
Just where does it say abortion is okay in China or any other country for thst matter in the bible?
While I can’t quote the relevant verse I believe the old Testament starts (probably in Leviticus) that causing a miscarriage is only murder if the mother also dies.
Terje is correct BTW in his translation – if all killing were automatically sinful its kind of hard to see how the same text could prescribe death penalities for so many offences.
To build on Alpaca’s comment – part of the problem is that it is very difficult to speak honestly because the traditional public figures are engaged in an obvious propaganda war.
One example: the Left has largely managed to avoid demonising the US army, though the Right wing press would dearly like them to condemn the soldiers, thus repeating the old meme that we attacked the soldiers over the Vietnam War.
Another example: the Right is trapped into a position in which its leaders can never be honest about its motives, particularly in Iraq.
Complicating the issue: the governments involved want to demonise their opponents as traitors. At the same time they are taking advantage of the situation to increase state powers of control and surveillance.
The governments set out to do one fairly simple thing in domestic politics: to convince an unwilling but largely indifferent population that a foreign war of aggression was a good thing. They accomplished that to the extent that they all bar Spain remain in power. They did not create anything like the frenzy of hope and hatred that usually envelopes the start of a war – think Falklands from both sides. Or even the generic support they used in Kuwait.
Now of course they are forced to deal with the fact that not one single justification produced before the war was true.
So I think that becoming rational and objective again is a special project in this context. Here’s a couple of obvious rules:
1. every single blaming word should be removed from the debate except in the limited case of: X is described as doing Y because they believe that A is bad. That is, blame and rage is a cause of the participants’ actions.
2. every projection must be removed from the debate. That is how people get angry; while anger is fine, it is utterly pointless to get angry about something that hasn’t actually been done or said.
3. sets of facts cannot be selectively quoted.
4. it is fact of life that war is conducted by people who hate each other. They don’t care about civilians, or the civilian/military distinction. Saying someone has committed an atrocity does not help the debate but confuses it.
At the end of the day, beyond the opportunistic propaganda battle which is necessary to the survival of the Left, there are only two really important questions. a) how are we going to get out of this mess and b) what were the points in the long journey to it at which there were political choices.
It is understanding those that gives us a political philosophy to carry into the future. It is my personal belief that this philosophy is inherently moral. One of the starting points, for instance, is probably the West’s acceptance of Saddam’s attack on Iran in the first place. Another is the West’s determination (largely through the US) to exclude “bad regimes” from participation in the world, and aid. Commy China, Cuba, Vietnam, Iran and Iraq are obvious examples.
These thoughts come from the fact that we are holding this discussion on the 60th anniversary of the fact that the good guys blew up two Japanese cities with atomic bombs.
I can’t find a transcript of the piece but on Saturday, Ruddock was on ABC Radio saying that Hizb-Ut-Tahrir, an Islamic group which is about to be prescribed in the UK, could not be banned in Australia because its Australian branch could not be shown to be supporting terrorism.
The question of whether HUT should be banned is a difficult one and the Independent has a pretty good article disucssing the issue:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article304296.ece
I find Ruddock’s rationale pretty disturbing (assuming he wasn’t simply speaking off the cuff): it seems to me that if there’s sufficient evidence an organisation is supporting terrorism anywhere in the world then that should be a suffiicent basis for banning it.
It is my personal belief that this philosophy is inherently moral. One of the starting points, for instance, is probably the West’s acceptance of Saddam’s attack on Iran in the first place. Another is the West’s determination (largely through the US) to exclude “bad regimesâ€? from participation in the world, and aid. Commy China, Cuba, Vietnam, Iran and Iraq are obvious examples.’
The Cold War effect comes to mind as part explanation but I accept that the Cold War is now erased from our geopolitical recall, prior to 1989.
Ruddock’s rationale is disturbing?
Is there any reason to believe that the following is not true Ian
“A number of civil liberty safeguards were incorporated into the original act, as the result of the Labor opposition’s insistence. One of these was that the government would only be given the power to ban groups listed as terrorist organisations by the United Nations — which in practice meant al-Qaeda and its affiliates
While this ensured that governments could not abuse the power to ban unpopular political organisations, it had the unfortunate consequence that the Lebanon-based Shi’ite group Hezbollah could not be banned in Australia, since it is not listed by the United Nations. This was despite the fact that the Hezbollah foreign terrorist arm was banned in other democratic nations, including the UK, Canada and the US.�
As best I can tell hizb ut tahrir is not banned by the UN. So Ruddock should?
This British Muslim was of the view that of Jul 13 2005 hizb ut tahrir was not banned in the UK.
“ I have had arguments with hizb ut tahrir members who do my head in 24/7 uff they stupid! they site here dissing uk but if you tell em to ###### off else where they wont move.. hizb ut tahrir is banned un europe why not here?�
As Gerard Henderson pointed out this morning on the Insiders to his fellow opinion havers, if they chose to argue that ASIO should be doing its job by raiding the suspected Islamists terrorists they should remember that the civil rights brigade complained with vigour about the raids after Bali.
Ros,
I believe that the Hezbollah External Security Organisation, the military wing of the organisation, IS classified as a terrorist organisation. The Hezbollah political party – which is a legal political party in Lebanon with a significant Parliamentary representation -is not.
I know that Hizb Ut Tahrir isn’t banned in Britian – yet. That’s why I wrote “about to be proscribed” and linked to an article describing the debate ongoing in England over whether it should be banned as Blair wishes.
I guess taking the time to read and comprehend what I actually wrote would have slowed down the regurgitation of your pre-digested talking points.
My point is that if the current situation is that only those organsiations banned by the UN can be banned in australia then that may be unacceptable.
I know this is probably alien to your personal experience but it is possible to support a political party (in my case the ALP) without slavishly and uncritically accepting every position that party adopts.
Meantime I now see that the ABC is reporting that Ruddock has confirmed that Australia is indeed considering banning HUT – and apparently sees no need to amend current laws to do so.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200508/s1432081.htm
You might want to try it soem time.
My point Ian, the UK hadn’t until bombs went off moved to proscribe this group so that we hadn’t done so here in Aussie doesn’t make orphans of us. Further there appear to be legal difficulties in doing so. I ask again do you know if we are able to proscribe this group given the current laws or would we need to change our law. is it your expectation that the labour party will not object.
My quote referred to the Hezbollah foreign terrorist arm.
The article you direct us to says
“Mr Ruddock has said he is not aware of any reason why the group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, should be banned in Australia, but he has asked for a report.”
Sounds like standard lawyer comment to me and tells me nothing about the difficulties or ease of proscribing this group in Australia.
Sorry not sure what it is that I might like to try some time, but am curious.
So, again I try to go and enjoy a nice sunny Sydney afternoon and guess what happens…?
The lame ones try to put words in my mouth, with a pretty crappy effort, again. Surprise, surprise.
Very lame, again.
Guys, try to get out more! Enjoy the sun!
Observa, GROW UP!
Please, if you want to raise an issue, do it properly, ask the questions and allow me to respond. Instead, you continue the long standing tradition of pushing crap down people’s throats and feel the need to speak on my behalf.
You are entitled to think my opinion or ethics are too simple or an illusion, or that I got my facts wrong. Yet, these opinions and beliefs are MINE, and many others hold them also. The one thing you can do, is to try and ague why it’s wrong, etc.
Maybe, even make it interesting and funny… I may even agree with some of your points! Observa, note to self: dialogue is actually useful.
No, not monologue!, D-I-A-L-O-G-U-E. You know, conversation.
Reminds me of someone…
Eli…?
Elide…?
Elision..?
Effluvium…?
Effrontery?!
Nah, it’s the effigy to RWDBs and such: Elizabeth!
Let’s see if we can make this third time lucky:
My point, Ros, wasn’t that HUT should have been banned earlier – in fact, in my first post I specifically said that this is a difficult case to decide either way.
My point was to express concern that current laws might limit the government’s ability to ban HUT or other groups if it thought it was necessary to do so.
The report which I linked to in my second message suggests that my concerns may be unjustified.
Again I know this is hard for you to understand but try for a moment to conceive of the possibility that I was expressing a genuine and non-partisan concern for national security not attempting to advance my standing in some internet dick-measuring contest.
As I haven’t got a dick neither was I.
Come off it Carlos. You were tripping out smelling the flowers and I was just reminding you there are thorns and manure in the garden too. Naturally we all prefer the flowers.
Having accused Carlos of getting a bit too black and white here, I’ll nail my colours to the mast for him to pick out the manure. I’ll address some of the broad issues that have been floating about the ether here, which also carry over from Monday Message Board.
Firstly let me direct you to John Ray’s discussion of racism here
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com/2005_07_31_dissectleft_archive.html#112325408770260972 which is inextricably linked to the notion of culture also.
“The deeds of Hitler showed the world what colossal evil can be done in the name of race and, in their usual way, the Left hopped onto that bandwagon and pushed the idea to simplistic extremes. Not only unreasonable uses of ideas about race were condemned but ALL ideas about race were condemned. So the Left absolutely shriek and go ballistic about any mention of race.” Read this again substituting religion or culture for race and the critique would be just as relevant. All cultures/religions are equal, but if some are more equal than others, then you’re obviously a racist bastard.
There is a fallacy of composition here for tolerant, liberal democracies of course. Keep adding the intolerant and you could end up with democratic Sharia Law for all, which is something the multiculturalists at any costs are having to face up to now. If not a democratic fait accompli, then certainly the high social costs of an explosive, intolerant minority.
A good analogy here would be the Amish, with their ritual clothes, horses and buggies, no TV, mobiles, etc. Liberal democracies can tolerate such quirky religious behaviour, although if carried out at a national level, it may have some serious economic shortcomings. The Amish believe such religious mores should be voluntary and even give their teenagers time out in the big wide world of liberal progressivism, to make up their own minds. They would strongly preach and advocate their lifestyle to all of course. No problems, unless the Amish believe all outsiders are non-believers and evil mobile phone users need blowing up to see the true light of God. If other more moderate Christian sects quietly acquiesce to this behaviour, (we know they’re wrong but….) it would be understandable if other cultures and religions view them all with some suspicion. Welcome to Islam’s current PR problems here.
I was accused before of wanting to deport the Bakrs and Omrans. As tempting as that may be for obvious reasons, it would be somewhat counterproductive. It would give the Mugabes and Saddams carte blanche to do likewise with their ‘problem’ citizenry. Unfortunately, if we gave the Bakrs and Omrans citizenship, we’re stuck with them, but many of us question the wisdom of letting them in here in the first place. Like the moderate Turkish Islamic representative on Lateline, we’d be happy to pay their airfare home, if they have trouble with our values and culture. I note here that Bakr(here for some 16 years) has joint citizenship with Algeria, which I wouldn’t exactly classify as a model of tolerant liberal democracy. Herein lies the answer. We shouldn’t accept immigrants from intolerant theocracies or tyrannys, any more than we should seek moral justification for our international stance against them in the current UN.
That brings me to the point Ian Gould raised WRT changing the power of vetos in the UN Security Council. Any power of veto is undemocratic, as is allowing the undemocratic a vote at the table. The notion that Mugabe’s vote is equivalent to a Howards, in determining your moral stance to international sanctions or actions is ludicrous. A United Liberal Democratic Nations, with no individual country power of veto, would be a much better body to rely upon for such decision-making. The gaggle of gangsters could have their say but no vote, until they meet certain agreed liberal democratic standards. Australia as a member would only agree to reciprocal rights with like full voting members. Interesting to note that intervention in both Iraq and Afghanistan would probably have got say a 2/3 majority nod under such a regime. The left reliance on the current UN voting for their moral compass is silly, but there is a case for a ‘more democratic heads are better than one’, censure of the use of US hegemonic power.
In summary I think multiculturalim at any cost, is counterproductive for tolerant liberal democracies. Tolerating the migration of the intolerant into our societies, weakens our ability to fight poverty and intolerance globally, by diverting scarce resources to internal security. It’s time the left wet multiculturalists understood that.
Observa,
How do we go about weeding out the ‘intolerant’ from those that are tolerant when people front the migration officers desk? Do we do a bit of cultural profiling? You know, if you are a Muslim, you are intolerant by definition, and therefore can’t migrate? But if you are say, a citizen from the US you are OK because we assume you are tolerant? But wait, what if said US citizen is another Timpothy McVeigh? How would we know? What questions would our trusty DIMIA employee ask? What if our would be Muslim citizen is a democrat from Iran, a religious liberal from Syria? How would we know? What questions would we ask? And how could we ensure that people didn’t get smart with the questions, and know how to give the approved answers?
Isn’t it better to select on the basis of skills etc; and let a tolerant and democratic polity have its way with all those come here? And I know some fail to get the ‘message’. Indeed Timothy McVeigh seems to have learned some very strange things indeed. But did he learn them from Muslim citizens of the US or was his particualr brand of quasi fascist violence more ahem, home grown than we care to acknowledge?
STR,
Unfortunately you don’t get any money back guarantees in this life, but smart shoppers shop with reputable traders. So we should only take skilled immigrants from secular, liberal democracies of some standing, to give us the best chance of success. For starters they at least know who their citizens are so we don’t get confused about where they’re from. Can’t think of any countries in the ME other than Israel that would fit the bill to be sure, but perhaps Iraq or Afghanistan one day. Bad luck Vietnam, China and NK, but Taiwan is OK.
We should take the same stance with ownership of nuclear weapons- only for secular liberal democracies of some standing, that belong to an ethical ULDN body. Sorry China, NK, Pakistan and Iran, but India and Israel,etc can be trusted. The rest of you know how to earn that trust and become full voting members of the national ethics club. Time to hang our true values out there as a beacon of light for all to see don’t you think STR? I’ll take your point that we might have to hang tough with some of these gangsters, in order to help their citizens long term, to achieve the membership benefits we do. Might even have to sit around the table and contemplate which regime needs changing next, with the dollars we save from lining the pockets of some of the filth we have in the past. We should also nourish democratic freedom movements across the globe and place sanctions on the tyrants. It’s all about values. OURS!
Let’s see:
Timothy McVeigh came from a liberal democracy. He’s in.
The London bombers came from a liberal democracy. They’re in.
The two French Securite Agents who sank the Greenpeace came from a liberal democracy. They’re in.
Hey, this profiling caper’s working a treat.
Kamahl, we know you can sing a bit. But you’ll have to stand in line with the rest of them and get your buttocks measured.
NEXT!
Katz,
You have a black face, brown eyes and whiskers. You purr as well.
NEXT!
Osama bin Laden, the complete and utter wanker that he is, and his backward ilk have not perhaps begun to fathom what it will be like to challenge the rising power that is China. If these creeps think they have found a powerful enemy, I can’t wait to see how they deal with the world’s biggest producer of pork and beer, the world’s biggest army, the largest most ethnically homogeneous nation, the untelevised handler of secessionist scuffles on its western border and the world’s greatest supporter of religious freedon, not. Maybe they’ll just wait for a change of government.
moving from the absurd but dangerous to the ridiculous but harmless, I have to post the most wonderful soccer headline of all time (and to think English is an official language in CH !!! 🙂
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/headlinenews?id=337901&cc=3436
Observa,
I don’t think any reply is needed to your latest post, other than to say your analogy between the sources (countries) of prospective immigrants and reputable traders says it all, and you big capitalised reference to ‘OURS’ when you speak of values speaks volumes. Just make it “MINE” and not ‘OURS’ next time – it would be more honest and closer to the practical reality of things.
>Osama bin Laden, the complete and utter wanker that he is, and his backward ilk have not perhaps begun to fathom what it will be like to challenge the rising power that is China.
Yes but he has a powerful ally in the Chinese government itself which has done so much to alienate its Uighur population in Xinjiang and other muslim minorities within China.