Redneck and colinsett have got it right - if nothing is done about world overpopulation all humanitarian efforts are just pissing in the wind.

Tampa Day, the 29th August 2001, when the Armed Forces of the Commonwealth prevented illegal immigrants who had intimidated the Tampa's captain into attempting to disembark them at Cocos Island, will surely be one of the defining days in our 21st century history.

The thing that seems to be repeatedly ignored by the bleeding hearts is that the strongest supporters of John Howard's actions over Tampa were the Labor Party's heartland. They seem unable to realise that the way Iran is going there could be a major war in the Middle East in the next year or so, and this could result in another tidal wave of refugees. The australian people would not countenance any more than a small selected proportion of these coming to Australia, and if security concerns are considered, it might be better to take our quota of refugees from another region entirely. We don't want the British experience of the children of refugees engaging in terrorist acts.

The main thing to be resisted here is the left wing idea of downgrading national borders and creating the idea that somehow everyone in the world is entitled to live here. This is just as insane as the idea that everyone in the world is entitled to our standard of living. One of the most fortunate things Australia has is a sea boundary. In the horrendous decades to come, in which we will see the four horsemen of the apocalypse (War, Famine, Pestilence and Death) riding unrestrained around the third world as nature corrects the population problem, Australia will hopefully be able to shield herself from most of the effects.

Though intruding, thought that our future is now so bound up with America, the apparently lessenning prestige of GW Bush through inept practices by his staff, should be truly worrying to us Australians.

According to Julian Borger, columnist of the Washington Diary, it seems that every day now in the White House, it seems another familiar face pops up with a problem, the latest being the episode of Dick Cheney peppering his friend with duckshot while on an illegal quail hunting expedition.

But much more to tell, the attorney general, Alberto Gonzales going before the Senate last week to defend George W’s wire-tapping scheme, under which the executive ordered calls and Emails to be monitored in the name of counter-terrorism without even an official warrant. It now looks like Congress will ignore a White House claim that the President had a right under the Constitution, and has ordered an official look into the wire-tapping project, a development with uncomfortable Nixonian echoes for Bush.

On to Michael Brown, the disgraced former head of FEMA which performed so poorly when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August last year. Now Brown has lost his post, and must front up as a private citizen, Bush trying hard not to remember who that man Brown was.

Not to forget Jack Abramoff, top Republicam lobbyists and chief fundraiser, who agreed in January this year to plead guilty to bribing politicians and who like Michael Brown later, seemed to slip from the President’s memory. But last Sunday a photograph of GWB and Abraham together was published, only adding to the downhill slope of the Bush regime.

Part Two

We must add that it could not have been a worse week for the vice President to shoot a hunting buddy in the face. The victim will survive, but for the current White House residency it was just one more case of friendly fire, as well as possibly one more Presidential memory lapse.

To be sure it is just more ammunition for whom too many of our contributors are calling whacky academics, many of them Professors and Phd’s. It must also again be reminded that these persons are also competent historians, who will no doubt contribute to any genuine accounts of what has gone on in this 21st century, not only in America and Australia, but especially in the Middle East.

Finally, we could say, that because personality problems of the Bush republican regime are now being criticised by republicans themselves, as well as among Congressional members, it does not herald a bright finish for Bush in his second and last term.

We could also wonder how such a US Republican downturn might affect the other two nations of what many historians are calling the Anglophilic Triology, America, Britain and Australia?

Regards

George C,WA - Bushbred

This article is a shocker in its failure to show consideration for:

Our Government’s right, and duty, to protect our borders and expect all entrants to come through formal channels.

Australia’s fair dealings with a trickle of asylum seekers for many years, which suddenly required much firmer action when this movement was showing signs of massive increase.

Australia’s continued fair treatment of asylum-seekers, while being very mindful of the need to present a strong deterrence factor.

Australia’s acceptance of the vast majority of the Tampa and subsequent asylum seekers as refugees.

The relatively quick processing of most of them, with just the small difficult minority languishing behind razor wire for long periods.

Australia’s commendable intake of refugees – at the time 12 000 per annum, which was and still is very good on per-capita basis - in fact the highest or second highest of any country, over many years.

Australia’s quite commendable input into refugee issues at their sources, in many countries for many years.

Australia’s compliance with the Refugee Convention of 1951, and its strong awareness of its fatal flaw; the number of refugees that a destination country is compelled to deal with open-ended.

The strategy undertaken by the Howard Government has worked, inasmuch as the inflow of asylum seekers is again minimal. What would have happened if Beazley had been in power at the time of the Tampa, and had allowed them to reach our shores, then those of the next ten boats, and the hundred after than, then perhaps the many thousands of people that had heard about Australia’s soft touch. We would have been in a hell of a mess. The number of asylum seekers subjected to detention would have been much greater and you can bet that they would have been treated in a much harsher manner, with a much larger portion being found to be non-refugees. This sort of massive escalation was about to happen. It was curtailed not one moment too soon.

Action taken over the Tampa was one of the few things that the Howard government has done that I strongly support.

There are a lot of "refugees" entering Australia from the Uk and Europe plus Africa ,all in flight from those newcomers who are making their homelands unbearable.
We must be extremely careful in our choice of immigrants because unlike those who are fleeing here now, we will have no where to go if our immigration policies are wrong.
The world is shrinking at a very fast rate.

"the Armed Forces of the Commonwealth prevented illegal immigrants who had intimidated the Tampa's captain into attempting to disembark them at Cocos Island, will surely be one of the defining days in our 21st century history."

Ah, illegal immigrants. You mean all those European fruit-pickers who overstay their visas until they’re caught, then return to their welfare-state homes with a suntan and an Aussie fiancé? Of course you don’t.

When you say “illegal” you mean “brown”. And when you say “intimidated” you mean “observed the common maritime practice of saving people from drowning”.

This wink-wink, nudge-nudge racism is contemptible. If you hate people for not being you, then at least have the guts to say so. After all, if we’d listened to Howard’s faithful 50 years ago, our only ally now would be North Korea: another country where anyone and anything different is considered a threat which must be destroyed.

Those on the right should be happy: the left is starting to realize that Islamic terrorism is a real threat. Instead, the hawks (who know what’s going on and exploit it) and chicken-hawks (who are easily frightened and know no better response than aggression) want to argue that the rise of terrorism is proof that every simplistic, antisocial, reactive idea thrown up by the conservatives is a sober and responsible answer to a complex problem.

The traditional left is blind to the state of the modern world, and the traditional right is blinding itself in order to avoid the dull process of analysis and problem-solving.

Perhaps Muslims will overpower our country and make it their own, or perhaps we will broker a compromise which serves as a model to the rest of the world. Either way, one thing is certain: the fantasy of maintaining a perpetual Anglo, Christian society is as plausible as the tooth fairy.

Assuming that our commitment to environmental degradation and nuclear armament don’t destroy us, future generations will look at this article and its responses as proof that 21st century society had its head up its arse at a crucial point in history.