sry, chrismac, the length of a lie is measured by the amount of money and guns behind it. the usa has been selling itself as the champion of human rights for a long, long time, and just recently the new oz government subscribed to this hoary lie.

don't blame rudd for bending a knee, he has to, to stay in office.

Christina,

"however slow and inadequate it might be", I would have used the term corrupt and irrelevant. While consuming the resources that would run a small country it has produced almost nothing of consequence in the entire 60 odd years of its existance.

While I agree that there are many important issues facing us today, the GA is not the place to get anything to happen.

"Oh dear - Oliver, and the well-named Plantagenet - don't seem to notice that nuclear weapons facilities immediately become nuclear targets." - ChristinaMac.

I agree with you. Australia's council to the British was not have missile silos, because these sites become targets.

Nuclear weapons can also be used defensively, scorched Earth policy, if invaded from the North.

Saddam smiling more in his Grave

Nuclear strikes possibly due before December.

Saddam’s former Baath Party Sunnis now forgiven by Bush, all part of what can only be called peace in Iraq obtained only by America giving in to the Sunni Iraqis.

A force George Dubya moved in going on five years ago to conquer and the Shia Iraqis she moved in to save now deliberately becoming lumped together with America’s main enemy, Iran, the former Persian nation which has made fools of the US at least three times since WW2.

Although the latest report states that the US has worked out that the forgiven Sunnis are not true terrorists, any social scientist could safely make a bet that the bulk of those forgiven, are part of Saddam’s 200, 000 frontline troops, a force that was never captured by the Americans, and really only proving the historical fact that the Sunnis over the years have been skilful two-timers, American advisers having gladly fought with them during the eventually lost long war in the 1980’s against Iran.

While Bush and Howard, and now Rudd appear to be part of naming the above part of a recent swift allied victory, it must be remembered that though a mostly muzzled media has been presenting such news to an easily dumbed down Aussie public, us war historians in particular did not come down in the last shower.

George Dubya and Dickie Cheney you can bet your life will now be gladly using this shonky Iraqi turnabout to make a hit on Iran before the end of the Bush term, foolish little Middle East pariah, Israel again being used to make the initial attack.

Finally we must thank the Washington Post for being on the side of ethics or truth with a scary report six months ago about the usual scuffle near Baghdad between government Shia troops and rebel Sunnis but with a US gunship breaking up the scuffle, with the Shias being arrested and not the Sunnis.

And so it goes on......?

Cheers - BB, WA.

We need new ways of thinking to cope with the nuclear age. It is here that writers, with their concern for the human condition and their special skills with language, can enable us to imagine the horrific reality of nuclear arms and nerve us to build an alternative future.
The Australian poet, Jack Davis, speaks to the reader simply and openly, trying to reach across perhaps our barriers of ignorance, by visualizing a nuclear attack with his poem, "Nuclear."

"I saw a flash of yellow light
As Titan thunder split the night,
Then darkness.

No sound now, only the starkness
Of flesh uncontrolled
And knowing I'm a cold
Statistic of decaying bone,
Falling hair.

Yet running helter skelter
To the fallout shelter,
They count their dollars
Claw at white collars
And watch their own children,
Dying there."

For most of us, the trauma of a nuclear war would be too extreme.
Few of us have the mental or emotional capacity to imagine a nuclear
war. In this poem Jack Davis blames not the people of the world
collectively, but rather a small "group" of men, who dictate their
terms. And to whom the dollar is of greater value then the lives of
their own children. Harsh, angry words, but appropriate because a
nuclear war will not be kind to anyone. We will all be a
"Statistic of decaying bone, Falling hair..."

Let us hope that our current PM has more humanity and will lead us
away from nuclear - from polluted soil, poisoned streams, irradiated
game ...then we can divert unprecedented energy and resources to the real problems facing us, including poverty, disease, overpopulation, injustice, oppression, and the devastation of our natural environment.

CM,

The fraud that is the nuclear industry seems to have convinced the British gov who has stated recently that it intends to build many more nuclear power stations as it is the only viable alternative to fossil fuels available presently.