Good Luck, Dino, from a long ago agrarian activist and now much more political.

Regards, BB, Buntine, WA.

What unadulterated rubbsih.

Iraq, once the plaything of a cruel dictator, is now a free and democratic country. Much as the loony-left would like to pretend otherwise.

PaulL, you are ignorant and wrong.
The US created Saddam the "cruel dictator". They also supplied the nerve gas and biologicals for testing. (despite treaties)
Please research the Iran/Iraq war and you may discover that not only was Saddam the US's creation, so was Bin Laden and the Taliban. No Leftist theory here, just history that the Right and the media have (cynically and despicably) ignored in their hate-fest. (Hence, I call you ignorant)

What the article misses is the re-introduction of religious power into politics. Bush destroyed the careers of scientists and technical advisors because working toward truth was "untrustworthy" and the moral guidance of religion was preferred to a rational approach. Real world evidence, and folks who work with it were placed in very difficult situations: Stay true, or keep job?
Ignoring climate change is just a small symptom of the religious influence: banning stem cell research, squashing alternative energy support and general "old boys network" support. This cronyism is typical of the religious network. They don't operate in the open, they skulk around like other tobacco and big oil lobby groups.
They suppress science, they protect known criminals worldwide in a systematic harboring of paedophiles (every country has had this issue. Imagine if any other group group had that record!).
To give *any* religious leader credibility these days is a sin. It is ironic that Bush stoked fears of Islam whilst encouraging his own immoral, ignorant preisthood to more power.
I am quite prepared to accept religious teachings if they don't involve known lies, child abuse (physical and mental), corruption and mass civilian deaths. Until then they are just criminals veiling themselves in virtue.

Good for you, Ozandy, and Dino hope you don't mind me using your thread with important news that our OLO bosses are too bloody slow about.

Clintonian Recklesness - MK 2

Clinton's again Courting Israel.

Patrick Tyler's A World of Trouble, though not yet finished, so far says how Bill Clinton when US President let himself be manipulated by Israel's Netanyahu, and now Hillary is foolishly playing the same game right now, as shown today on Sky TV.

Barak Obama sadly will now not only enter Tyler's World of Trouble through having to hire the Clinton's but
could mean our cocky nasty little Israel now truly dominating the Middle East future.

According to Martin Woolcott, a Guardian journo', there is already a rush to get Tyler's coming book on Obama's table, a book which will keep insisting that foolish US decisions all along have let Israel not only call the tune in the Middle East, but might easily cause Iran to look East, Russia and even China possibly backing Iran.

Going by the particularly foolish attitude of America letting Israel target Syria earlier as if Israel is part of a US plan to prevent war, there is little doubt that Israel also has loaded nuclear loaded rockets pointed towards Iran.

The above is certainly a crucial testing time for Obama, and going by the types of the millions supporting him, he'd be better to look to them than rather than to obvious international failures like the Clintons.

"Please research the Iran/Iraq war and you may discover that not only was Saddam the US's creation, so was Bin Laden and the Taliban. No Leftist theory here, just history that the Right and the media have (cynically and despicably) ignored in their hate-fest."

It's part and parcel of conservative political correctness: never acknowledge the past and never question Right-wing authority figures.

The neo-con vision that PaulL subscribes to requires us to view pre-invasion Iraq as a sort of Middle Eastern Mordor, where the screams of the innocent cut through the dense haze of burning flesh, and everyone lived each day in mortal terror.

In reality, Iraq used to function fine, especially thanks to Alexander Downer's sanction-busting kickbacks. The buses ran, people lived their lives, went to school and got medical treatment. Groups like Al-Qaeda were repressed because the Husseins rightly viewed them as a threat to their authority. If you didn't belong to the right political party you might be in trouble, but that's the way it goes in the Middle East.

I would have more sympathy for PaulL's opinions if, even once, he advocated for an invasion of Burma, Saudi Arabia, North Korea or any of the dozens of other dictatorships that are equally or more appalling than Hussein's Iraq.

But that's not how the conservative mind works. It will take a proper frame-up and a good deal of propaganda from a far Right politician before Paul becomes an instant expert on another country.

There are several segments of the population worse off under US occupation than under Saddam Hussein. Women under Hussein could be professors, in the government or fill any other roles they could qualify for. Under US occupation Muslim reactionary clerics have had a resurge of power and can encourage harassment of women who do 'men's jobs' and shut down girls' schools. Christians and even some Jews lived in Iraq under Hussein. Many non-Muslims have left. 50 fundamentalist Christian 'aid organisations' accompanied the US troops into Iraq according to TIME magazine. This has fueled resentment against indigenous non-Muslims. The US has a graduated income tax. However, reactionary US theorists have managed to get a 15% flat tax on the Iraqi people. Nobody, no matter how poor, is exempt from it.

Hussein, like Tito, was a tyrant. However, Hussein, like Tito, kept a lid on ethnic and religious conflicts in his country. They are now boiling over in Iraq the way they did in the former Yugoslavia. It is nonsense to talk of democracy where political parties form on ethnic and religious lines. Voters can shift from Labor to Lib to Green to whatever. That is the way governments are replaced by new governments.

That process is not possible where one's connection with a political party is due to one's identity as a Shiite, Kurd or other entity. The party divisions are fixed.

Unfortunately, Saddam Hussein is dead.