Does confession clear the soul? Would it help if B,B,H confess as is shown by the publication of UK cabinet proceedings, the record signed by Rycroft, that the war and the intelligence (Propaganda)devised to suit the purpose?
Sure the document only truly nails B and B, but H is implicated, maybe so far only by circumstantial evidence.ANZUS.
That is there is no beloved piece of paper showing Australia’s involvement.
So guilt and people should be -- what brought before the courts. America does not recognise them and I am sure the did not see was not told etc ultimately why should I give material to the opposition as he has stated over AWB, recently will prevail.

What then we are hardly likely to apologise to the Iraq people. Would such help? Your point is that the condition has progressed well beyond this, though warned the Governments chose to ignore the warnings from various quarters of the likely consequences and now finds value in using the predicted increase in terrorist danger, as a means of creating fear allowing easier passage of various laws for control. However definitions of terrorism are essential.
So in this mess in which childish sound bites of must not cut and run hold sway, what?
We could with Howard agree that rule by a powerful nation, the American century?, is the way forward to ? Peace? That the UN is useless and wait for the next debacle when the human spirit gorged in disgust can again turn to some hopeful other way. A new UN?
I am with you in your utter disgust though recognising that Quigley in Ruses for War records the various not very pretty stratagems of the past, showing such to be part of the human condition, involving lies and promises. As Herman Goering has said people don’t want war Governments decide,. Frighten the populace and brand the resistors to war as unpatriotic or worse, seditious.

It was sickening also to see Blair, Howard (and Beazley) acting as if all was going swimmingly in Iraq, and nobody standing up and pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. Where was the intense scrutiny that has taken place in the USA and the UK? Blair is severely 'on the nose' in the UK, but treated here like a Liberal party hero. The case for war (WMDs, remember them?) was a lie, there was no proper debate allowed before we went, and there's been precious little since. In the meantime, there have been between 33,000 and 38,000 civilian killed in Iraq (refer iraqbodycount.org), hundreds of thousands injured, Al Qaeda is now in Iraq, which it wasn't before, and the extremists have been given their biggest recruiting boost ever.

Howard a leader? What a joke.

It is a real chore to wake every morning and reconcile the beauty of one's placid rural surroundings with the insanity of the news from Iraq. Even the morning breeze is redolent with the excrement of the War For Profit Gang. There is no place distant enough to avoid the stink.

Do the carpetbaggers for the Corporatocracy breathe too deeply of the Canberra atmosphere? Does the miasma make their heads swim?

How else to explain the substitution of lies for reality?

How else to explain the bogus "War on Terror"?

How else to explain the corruption of the ideals of freedom and democracy?

How else to explain the stoppering of mouths with sedition laws?

How else to explain the transfer of wealth from the many to the few?

In the United States of America, the symbiosis of politics, big business and organised crime is now in plain view. Indeed the elements have merged into one globalised golem. It does not take any great genius to see that this golem has it's foot planted squarely on the neck of Australia - and that our leaders have not the will or courage to resist.

AMSADL,

There is NO war in Iraq - the 'war' is ended and the correct term is 'occupation'.

The civilians killed in Iraq are mostly killed by so-called sunni 'insurgents' in islamic terrorist attacks.

The war was CLEARLY based on a lie - but it is in the realist strategic interest of the US, and hence Australia.

Iraq used chemical weapons to exterminate its own people, hence, the US is the moral party, whether it lied or not.

IF this were a war on Islam or a war about oil pillage, then, as the hegemon, the US has the power to exterminate every last Muslim in the Middle East and take all the oil fields it likes - this has not happened...

AMSADL, in a naturalistic sense, people and States are not moral - some States lie to their people... and other States use chemical weapons against their poeple, torture, rape, and execute their people, opress their people's freedoms of expression and religion etc....

At the end of they day, we find ourselves in a State of morals relative to other States - a lie does not matter much AMSADL...

a lie does not matter much AMSADL... what matters much is the war taking place in Australian society - Middle Eastern culture and Islam are at war with Australian society.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/03/30/1143441240379.html

"TASK FORCE GAIN [currently slated as the MIDDLE EASTERN Organised Crime Squad] were called in after a drive-by shooting followed by a
fibro home being peppered with bullets left two dead.

"The two dead men are understood to be a 26-year-old amateur boxer of LEBANESE descent who recently participated in a debate on the Cronulla riots, saying he believed that "his boys'' kept out of trouble by playing sport.

"It is understood the victim, from Granville, had a conviction for the manslaughter of a man STABBED TO DEATH in an altercation in an AUBURN hotel around seven years ago.

"The other victim is believed to be a 25-year-old AUBURN man who had DRUG CONVICTIONS. TASK FORCE GAIN [currently slated as the MIDDLE EASTERN Organised Crime Squad] are involved in the investigation.

"Firemen hosed blood and fuel from the road before three vehicles - including a BMW and a Tarago - were towed away. Police said the fuel tank of one of the cars was ruptured by a bullet.

People arguing and shouting

""There were people arguing and shouting with the police so they called for more cops and pushed the people away.''

"Mr Awny said some of the young men were "ON THE PHONE CALLING PEOPLE AND BY THE SECOND PEOPLE WOULD JUST COME - they were saying 'come, someone just got killed.''' (Muslims used mobile phones to a similar effect in the revenge attacks - and NSW parliament passed laws for police to SEIZE mobile phones).

"Insp Sims said police did not believe the shooting was linked to a driveby shooting in Railway Street in the nearby suburb of Guildford less than three hours later.

[Deleted for offensive comment.]

I would expect future and indeed current historians to argue over the rights and wrongs of the second Gulf war for centuries to come. As of course is the way of historians. Why there is still dispute on the question of the Trojan war of three thousand years ago.

A good emotional diatribe against the three daemons (Bush, Blair and Howard) is great for rallying the socialists and their fellow travellers. There is nothing like a good march, with a touch of Larrikinism and/or public disorder, to assure our lefties that that they are saving the world.

The real question is this: What would have happened if Bush had not gone into Iraq. Greg Sheridan in the Australian of 23 March 2006 gives some potent reasons for invasion.

If entry into Iraq is taken as a nodal point in history, then the possible scenarios of the “not to invade path" are counterfactual. Since counterfactual history is speculative and unknowable there has to be endless scope for argument.

The important issue as far as I am concerned was explained in the Wall Street Journal of 22nd March-“What if we Lose?” Clearly, BB &H must stand firm and not lose their nerve to the left orientated whingers.