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The Forum > Article Comments > Don't mention the war > Comments

Don't mention the war : Comments

By Ed Coper, published 23/11/2007

Australia is in the middle of a wartime election, but you wouldn't know it from either side's campaign.

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in a parliamentary society, you can not hold the pm accountable for anything. subjects only get to vote for one choice: which gang should be your master.

so ozzies very sensibly vote for their bank account. if both parties appear equal there, they look at the prospect of environmental disaster. if both parties appear equal there, they look at hospitals, roads and schools.

however morally bankrupt the iraq adventure may be, when you have just one vote you don't waste it on something that doesn't appear to have any personal effect.

if we were citizens in a democracy, citizen initiative referenda would cure this political impotence. direct election of ministers would prevent it.

the swiss were not always a democracy, they got there by patient pressure on parliament to transfer ultimate power to the electorate. we can do it too.
Posted by DEMOS, Friday, 23 November 2007 8:42:04 AM
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The reason we're not hearing about the war, is beacause we're winning. Violence is down 55% in Iraq. The elite media hate - hate - the fact that Kurds want Bush to stay too. Deal with it.
Posted by History Buff, Friday, 23 November 2007 9:31:17 AM
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The first thing history buffs need to do is to look at history in the buff.

55% of anything looks pretty good on the face of it. I'm sure we could spin this all over the place. McNamara tried to run the Vietnam war on percentages. He took the production line approach, using the talents he had acquired in the auto industry.

Production line figures for that enterprise totalled 2 to 3 million Vietnamese dead, 58000 US dead and 520 Australians dead.

I'd call that mission accomplished - wouldn't you?

So to Iraq. Over 1,000,000 dead it would seem:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18765.htm

As for our own oily fascists:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O76L4rHX-IA

For them, this mission won't be so easily accomplished.

I hope it will be a trip to the gulag via the Hague this time.
Posted by Chris Shaw, Carisbrook 3464, Friday, 23 November 2007 10:50:36 AM
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History Buff

You say: "The reason we're not hearing about the war, is beacause we're winning."

If 'we' are winning, wouldn't you expect John Howard and Brendan Nelson to be trumpeting this 'fact' all around the land during an election? They had so little else to talk about, why not take some credit for a war that's going so well? And, if it's going so well, maybe John could have told us what the exit strategy looks like?

By the way, who's 'we' who are winning? Halliburton?
Posted by FrankGol, Friday, 23 November 2007 11:02:08 AM
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So you reckon we are winning the war in Iraq, History Buff?

Well, it's news to me because after hearing about US gunships protecting the main Sunni enemy from Iraqi government Shiite troops, thought George Bush had surrendered to Saddam's former Baath Party forces, 200,000 of them having been reported four years ago to have taken to terrorism.

Reckon the main reason we haven't heard much, History Buff, is that such news from Iraq would be really hard to fathom during an election.

Could say that Howard has done the same as he did to us fat lamb breeders when George Negus gave the pot away on SBS about a load of foot and mouth suspected Brazilian carcase meat landed in New South Wales, and when we checked with SBS, were told that the news about the carcase meat had been already deliberately suppressed by the Howard Government?

Reckon you'd better take History away and leave the Buff, mate, because you're apparently no dinkum historian.
Posted by bushbred, Friday, 23 November 2007 1:08:58 PM
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I've just finished reading "Vietnam: Australia's War" by Paul Ham, an excellent read for anyone interested in Australia's longest war. While reading it I was struck by the eerie similarities with Australian involvement in Iraq. An American force (with massive firepower, but not enough troops) trying to fight a guerilla war. A small Australian force fighting in their own province (though al-Muthanna was a much easier prospect than Phuoc Tuy) liasing more closely with the locals and less inclined to shoot suspicious civilians.

The war of attrition fought by Westmoreland, the infamous "Five O'Clock Follies" and the endless assurances that the war was being won; all of these have parallels in Iraq.

The Tet Offensive of 1968 was a major military defeat for the Viet Cong. They failed to raise a popular movement in the South and were repulsed with heavy losses. But, by striking at Saigon, the Viet Cong showed that the Americans weren't remotely close to winning.

In 1968 the Viet Cong could strike where and when they liked in South Vietnam. In all honesty, is the situation much different in Iraq?
Posted by Johnj, Friday, 23 November 2007 3:27:51 PM
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