"We hold these truths to be self evident,that all men are created equal,that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights,amongst these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." Beautiful words John E Carey, always so inspirational to the rest of the world ... until they were trashed by your Supreme Court. Nine Judges, speaking for 250,000,000 of your Americans,took away the'right to life' with their Roe versus Wade decision resulting in the killing of 1.5,000,000 American babies annually for the last 40 or so years! That's when the sanctity of life, the'right to life' was whiteanted in the West...and we here in Australia are every bit as cavalier now about this once bedrock principle.(Just listen to the squeals that will emanate from my posting,John!)1000 babies would have been killed in Australia this week....more than in the entire recent conflict in Lebanon dare I suggest? And their killers were payed by Australian taxpayers!The great humanitarian Dr.Albert Schwietzer was said to have warned: 'When you loose respect for any part of human life you loose respect for all human life'. And this has come to be. In terms of sheer numbers and rank injustice, the most horrific loss of life is in the war on unborn children,a virtual silent holocaust. But take heart John E Carey, you have some very valiant, resilient, dynamic Americans, moved with compassion, slogging their hearts out right now, to overturn your infamous Roe versus Wade decision!
Denny.

Denny the right to life is not so simple.On a purely religious basis your arguments may stand up,but how can we legislate the right to life of all beings when their existence depends upon anothers well being and health.

I think it is best left up to the judgement and conscience of the individual.Let them meet their perceived maker and be judged accordingly.

Why should I live in a Burka in Saudi Arabia because I point out quite correctly that the US has committed more war crimes and invasions than any nation on earth in the last 60 years?

Talk about demented. Then we bring in the abortion issue and forget the 30,000 real children who die every single day of the week each and every day of the year while we throw out enough good food to feed and save them all.

Stop talking utter drivel guys, you are tedious.

I dare one of you Roe V Wade critics to be a 13 year old girl, pregnant and with nowhere to go. You would have an abortion in a heartbeat but try and pretend you wouldn't only because it is your precious little sperm.

How ludicrous you are. As for smashing and killing everything that moves, well that sure shows a sign of maturity in the 21st century doesn't it?

It is a fact that the US have killed over 16 million people in wars and invasions since 1946. Why should Carey sue me because he is spinning a fanciful yarn of "we are better than them".

The US still has the primitive death penalty for goodness sake.

David Latimer,

I must admit that I find most of your posts on the middle east very informative and interesting, but I must take issue with several of your statements above.

You claim that strategic civilian bombing is heinous and useless. Considering that it ended the Pacific War in 1945 with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, saving millions of allied and Japanese lives in the process, it can hardly be called useless. The only reason that Germany was not atomic bombed was that they surrendered before the bomb was ready.

You claim that capital punishment is contrary to western values. Considering that it has existed in the west since before recorded history, and has been abolished in places such as the European Union by a process that could hardly be called democratic (very little in the EU could really be called democratic), and is considered by most observers to be supported by a majority of voters in most western countries, it must surely be regarded as a part of western values. In fact the liklihood that if citizen initiated referendum were ever to be instituted in Australia the first referendum to be put to the people would be one for bringing back hanging is usually quoted as a principal reason for not enacting it. I do not believe that the elitism associated with abolition has any basis in western values.

I would consider that the best political comment in recent Australian history on capital punishment was given by Henry Bolte:

"If you want to win an election, put on a hanging".

This whole article strikes me as somewhat dubious. It seems as though all the rhetoric of the cold war against the threat of communism has been redeployed against terrorists.

We have to fight the terrorists (commies) in Lebanon (Vietnam) before they come to destroy our peaceful freedom-loving USA. The terrorists (communists) are motivated by an inhuman code of beliefs that threatens nuclear destruction by Iran (China/Russia/Cuba). We cannot let the niceties of the Geneva Convention get in the way of our WAR ON TERROR (COMMUNISM). So therefore we must assist the peaceful democratic freedom-loving people of Israel (South Vietnam) smash the scourge of Hezbollah (Vietcong) despite the collateral damage that ensues.

In this Newspeak world Eastasia is the enemy and Eurasia is the ally, until of course this is reversed and Eurasia is the enemy again. It must be comforting for Americans to be able to focus on a new enemy to defeat, after all the WAR ON DRUGS seems to have been won by the drugs.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather live in a secular democracy than an Islamic theocracy (or a Communist dictatorship). I cherish the personal freedoms of Australian society. But this article by John E. Carey is simplistic pap. "Israel moved humanitarian care and caution in war to a new level." With over a thousand civilians dead, humanitarianism has reached an unusual "new level". Big Brother would be very proud.

So I said: "The military value was dubious and yet powers such as the United States continued the practice in South East Asia and Iraq."

I thank John E Carey for his reply: "The United States generally uses precision guided missiles on militarily significant targets. Not unguided rockets on civilian population centers."

The US military has bombed civilians and caused the death of civilians. Precision-guided weapons have only lowered the number of civilian deaths when compared against World War II and Vietnam. The practice of using strategic bombing and maintaining large nuclear stockpiles is still current in the US military. I do not understand why the United States chooses to tarnish its reputation, encourage nuclear proliferation, risk the lives of its own soldiers and give terrorists groups the moral arguments to recruit and/or seek support.

The US military does argue that it does not kill innocent civilians deliberately. Surely when the orders are given that bombs be dropped, it is known in advance that civilians will die? Will the survivors (neighbours or family) conclude, oh, those Americans believe in life and justice, so it must have been a little accident?

Response to Plerdsus:
In World War II, nuclear weapons gave the United States the military option of completely destroying Japan absolutely. I agree that strategic nuclear bombing is "useful" if it is useful that every country knows it can be utterly destroyed by the United States or Russia. No surprise that North Korea wants them too.

With the advantage of hindsight, it could be said killing the citizens of two Japanese cities, of itself did not end the war, but the new strategic reality so demonstrated. If only that new reality could be turned back off, when the war ended.

Of course, if nuclear weapons ever do end up used by terrorists, then any saved lives from World War II may be at the cost of horrific loss of life in the future. Under this scenario, the "war on terror" is an ever-escalating self-fulfilling prophecy. Therefore will pay in the long-term to adhere fully to the NPT.