Response to Yabby:

You raise the Dafur. Firstly, I question that 3.5 million have been killed as my sources say it is 400,000. This is a mere clarification, as this number is still far, far horribly larger than Iraq or Lebanon. It is still a number too large to fathom - four MCG grand final crowds! The point you make is an excellent one to raise.

According to the article, the West believes in life and liberty, but should be unconstrained by values in order to defeat terrorism.

The Dafur is an example of the West being slow and weak asserting its own sense of justice and defence of life and liberty in a measured way. This example shows that the West has ignored its own values and by embracing them could again act with justice.

Part of the problem is that the United States does not trust the United Nations, despite having a veto, and also the veto of allies France and the United Kingdom. We can see that when Carey implies Iranians saying "UN was only serving US needs" is discrediting.

An effective response of the Dafur requires strong UN US co-operation and all the US effort to fight terrorism is not enough to bring this about, which is consistant with the view that toppling Sadam was a higher US priority than defeating terrorist groups.

Response to Plerdsus on Capital Punishment: I don't remember any opinion polls suggesting 60% support for the bi-partisan appointment model put to the people in the 1999 referendum. A referendum on captial punishment would not succeed, whether it be to ban it or to enshrine it.

I had a young friend stuck in Beirut for the first two weeks of this illegal demolition of Lebanon. Savage pencil if you don't think it has been bombed to bits I suggest you look again at world news services.

There is hardly a building left standing in places like Bint Jbail that used to house 7,000 people. There is a blog from a reservist on the Haaretz website boasting about how they broke into Lebanese shops to get food and then broke into their houses to hide from the bombs. I wonder what they were hiding from considering the IDF had by then forced every Lebanese person to leave their own homes without too many possessions and then started blowing them up on the roads.

I suggest you widen your reading.

This latest breach - the IDF are boasting about wearing Lebanese uniforms, encroaching into Lebanon all the way to Baalbek, from where not one rocket was ever fired, to launch a strike. They went in helicopters and such. Mark Regev the liar extraordinary, educated in Melbourne, tells us without evidence that they had "intelligence" that weapons were coming in.

Considering the first big lie about this being a sudden invasion instead of one planned with Bush and Blair earlier this year after lobbying started in February last year why would we believe Regev now and why do people bother to ask him? He is only going to lie.

As for Darfur - go and ask our pollies why they have not sent troops or proper aid money for the people starving in Chad or Sudan.

David and Marylin,

Quite amazing that you think that our pollies or the US should be
the world's policemen and problem solvers. Considering that its
Arabs who are doing the killing, what say the Arab world gets off
its proverbial arse and does something to stop their brothers doing
al the slaughtering? They are not short of money, they also have
plenty to say about Lebanon, they also might have more influence in
Darfur then us humble infidels.

Firing Squad
By John E. Carey
August 19, 2006

My friend Amir Taheri asked, “Was it Tacitus who said, ‘Defeat is an orphan while victory has a thousand fathers’?”

In fact, that Roman historian had it just about right.

Argue, if you will, that Israel is the victor in all of this. Meanwhile, we’ll assemble the firing squad.

Even Saddam Hussein has said he prefers the honor of the firing squad to the other more ignominious forms of death meted out as judgment for conduct unbecoming.

There are some simple rules of accountability in the U.S. military and in other places in the world. These can be rather ruthless as they enforce strict guidelines of ethics, personal performance and professional achievement.

http://peace-and-freedom.blogspot.com/

Yappy,

Apart from the connection in your 'mind', what has Darfur got to do with al-Qaeda?

Marilyn, there are family friends of my son's girlfriend who are still in Lebanon. If the country had been "bombed to bits" as you suggest would they have stayed?

As logic noted, if you don't take away some of the malice in your posts you will lose whatever credibility you have left at this forum.