In classic geo-political terms Russia belongs to the land oriented "heartland" and Australia to the maritime orientated "rimland", which is why we often find each other on opposite sides in conflicts.

Love it or loathe it, our deputy sheriff image is well deserved. With the exception of the very limited Suez and Falklands wars we have joined our major ally, originally Britain and now the US in every major war at the first possible opportunity.

Russia is much more like China in its (recent) history. Very inward looking and very slow on the take up of civil liberties. Every now and then Russia makes a big push, such as the victories over Napoleon and in WWII but then it just slips back in repression.

We see the same again now. After the collapse of communism the freedoms of the Russian democracy are slowly being chiseled away.

Imho in political terms we are poles apart.

The basic reasons that make democracy a very unlikely outcome in Russia go back many centuries. When the first christian Roman emperor came to power, he was from a different christian sect to the Pope, and this led to the catholic church functioning as the unofficial opposition to governments all through european history. This also led to the idea of the "Loyal Opposition", a concept that never developed in the orthodox world. There the Czar was hand in glove with the Archbishop, and this led to the current attitude that you are either a total supporter or a complete traitor.

Attitudes such as these seem unlikley to change in the forseeable future.

Suggestions that this century we will abandon the bloody wars that disfigured the last are commendable, but I fear hopelessly idealistic.

The reason we survived the Cold War had nothing to do with idealism, and a lot to do with basic human nature. We had a nuclear stalemate, because nobody wanted to die. Unfortunately today we have an adversary that is very happy to die, and the future looks ominous.

The denigration of Australia and the US for failing to sign the Kyoto Treaty completely fails to point out the fraudulent and deceitful nature of the treaty, which particularly disadvantages Australia. It is a sweetheart deal between the EU, the Third World and Wall Street, with a ludicrous logic for defining emissions. For example:

If we burn a kilo of coal we get the blame. Fair enough.

If we sell the coal to Japan and they burn it, we STILL get the blame.

If we tell Japan to buy their coal from South Africa, and they do so and burn it, NO-ONE gets the blame.

If Australia were forced to acceed to the Kyoto Protocol, and carbon taxes were invoked, this would result in transferring our coal industry to the Third World, with enormous job losses. Not only would this not save one molecule of CO2 from being generated, but the lower efficiency of third world mines would most probably result in far more emissions.

Some Treaty!

Part One

Peter, as one who in his long retirement, has learnt to favour academic reasoning rather than media and political spin, could consider your appraisals on the right track.

Also very much agree with your account of Russia, which under Sovietisation, even with the terrible thrust of Nazi Germany early in WW2
gave an awe-ispiring account of itself, the thrashing of the Germans really contributing to the eventual outcome of the war.

Further, as you mentioned, the Soviets were not finally beaten by war, but virtually a tired financial collapse, with an arranged armistice in which they were still allowed to keep their nuclear armoury, which incidently still may pose a danger to the West, especially with Russia and China not quite in agreement with the US demands on Iran.

However, our fortunes in Australia have been far different, and far simpler, having virtually in our history worked under the wings of far superior powers, first under our parent Pax Britannica, and now beholden to our cousin country, Pax Americana.

Furthermore we have been faithful to our historical family, by making an Anglopholic threesome engaged in the tiresome battle for Iraq, which with the recent change in US politics has indicated the need both for questioning among the rulership as well as from our publics.

Bushbred - Part Two

So up comes the same old question when there is trouble abroad as we say in the bush. Who is really ruling the roost?

Mostly unbeknown to the masses, and more aware among social philosophers, there is a very powerful group, or groups, that we never hear, see or read about in public, the more recent representative organisation, group, the Trilateralists, first arranged and formed by American David Rockefeller back in the late 1970’s - 80’s.

.Most of the information is now available on Google, which goes well back behind the Trilateralists, telling of the passion of Cecil Rhodes who in his later years spent most of his fortune in the endeavour to prove that God in His Heaven gave vouchsafeness for colonial Great Britain and her Anglophile US descendants to be future keepers of the world.

It is thus from the writings of Professor Quigley, who died in the 1970s that we get the information about the Council on Foreign Relations as the largest of several front organisations set up for the purpose of advancing the Rhodes conspiracy which much later inspired the Post WW2 Bilderbergers followed by the Trilaterists which has members such as Henry Kissinger, George Bush, sen’ as well as his son George W. Also many British members, including Tony Blair. Further, as there was such Anglopholic priority in the illegal attack on Iraq, John Howard would no doubt have fully supported the idea of the CFR and its later auxilaries.

As information is available on Google, no need to give more, except to say that families like the Rockefellers and Morgans who dominate the organisation, also pretty well own the US Federal Reserve, as descendants of the European Rothschilds have significant control over the Bank of England.

Note - As according to Google there is said to be people of both right and left political leanings who believe the world needs a powerful prosperous elite organisation like the above, most social philosophers do believe that such an organisation may cause more wars than those prevented

Bushbred, I love conspiracy theories. Are your views of the current "Trilateralists" fomented from being bush-bred or have you been listening to the LaRouche mob who are everywhere at present? The only salvation is through the great Lydon LaRouche, a trotsyite-turned-crypto fascist and when der Tag comes, the purges will follow.

The Putinisation of Russia is no more than re-badged communist tyranny but this time, they have been smart enough to include the Church inside the tent. Communism was a tragic farce - ask Russians themselves. The have a joke: 'What is communism?" Answer - "the longest and most tortuous route between capitalism and capitalism." So much for the great dialectic.

Russia under Putin and the kleptocracy will continue to follow an imperialist course. The regime will be more repressive at home and as recent events appear to show, the bad boys of the old KGB still have a long arm, albeit with plausible deniability at the Kremlin. What now for Chechnya and Georgia? Proving grounds for all those wonderful export-earning weapons systems.

Thanks for your enlightening comments, Perikles. I'll soon be getting on to Google about bogus information.

However, I do resent your comment about my bush origins. Don't know what you do or have done for a living, but it was the city people in the good old days we used to often term as parasites mostly working as auxiliries to keep the farms and stations going which the nation mostly depended on.

This one's going on 86, matey, and got plenty to tell, having also in his retirement got honours overseas in International Relations and Third World Problems.

If you are smart enough to be literary-minded guess you might have read a book by Professor Henry Searle called From Deserts the Prophets Come.

An example of bush insight, Perikles, was me not following Johnny Howard into Iraq even though our grandkids running the farms now support the Libs.

Quite a while back when Bush Mark 2, Blair and Johnny Howard where all smiles about the swift capture of Iraq I did mention to our study group, what the hell had happened to Saddam Hassan's so-called Frontline Force of 200,000 troops?

An SBS Cutting Edge report gave a number of 300,000 thousand troops, which stupidly rather than rounding up the Sunni soldiers, GWB and his Generals apparently were so busy celebrating, they forgot all about them.

Now if they had been Shias, out and good riddance. But my God, certainly not Sunnis because their two-timer histories, and having detested the Shias so much, would surely have had most of them agreeing to go on the US army pay-role.

Looks like their tough military training has now turned them into top frontline terrorists. Our future historians are going to be full of glee over this.

Also proved myself as a good historian overseas, Perikles, so next time be careful who you take on.

Glad if the info' was full of fables. Could never have stood such a mob running our world, especially if GWB, Blair and Johnny Howard happened to be part of it. GWB and Blair were mentioned as members, incidently.