Oh the horror

For all those planning a holiday to a tropical paradise, I´m not sure I could recommend Cuba. After all, journalists keep on telling us that Guantanamo Bay is a hell on earth, with searing temperatures that would fry the toughest peace loving Islamic aid worker who was mistakenly arrested while innocently trying to help his fellow man.

The Democratic Party apparently agree, with news that they´re planning not to resume funding for the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay.

Now while it has been suggested (by fools and the criminally insane) that all the detainees should simply be sent home, there are problems with such a plan. One is recidivism. A high percentage of detainees released earlier have been recaptured in combat or in other actions associated with terrorism.

The second is home itself. Most countries don´t actually want these nut jobs back and will refuse to take them!

I have a solution, why doesn´t Australia take them? We could build a camp in the middle of the Woomera range (the middle, not the edge) and put them all to hard labour. In fact they could build the camp themselves. And good luck trying to run away when it´s hundreds of kilometres of nothingness all around.

We won´t have to worry about journalists either. The only reason they bang on about Gitmo is because of the mojitos they´re drinking in the bar while writing up their fevered imaginings of what goes on there.

As an added bonus, such a plan could be used for all of Australia´s high security prisoners as well. They wouldn´t have time to stab each other in the showers when they´re doing 12 hours per day of manual labour in the middle of desert. They probably wouldn´t get showers anyway, not much water out there!

cheers

Harry

more taking responsibility

In my last post I spoke about the need to take responsibility for your actions, especially when it comes to changing the law.

You could also look at this from a political viewpoint as well.

Suppose the citizens of Clarendonvale elected to government a party that had as it's stated aims the complete destruction of the city of Hobart, including the death of all it's residents and the assimilation of it's land area into a state that incorporated bogans and housing commission residents from all over Tasmania, no matter where they lived. This would include areas that the bogans had resided in years before but hadn't called home for a long time, potentially even two or three generations.

Suppose the new government of Clarendonvale (let us call the party Bacon-us) than started attacking the people of Hobart. They might start with suicide drivers, VK commodores with one door the wrong colour, with 10 passengers and a drunk driver travelling the streets at high speed, doing burnouts and looking for a way to cause the most mayhem.

Than, once Bacon-us got more sophisticated they might start erecting giant catapaults and firing them into the city, using the trash accreted on the front yards of their resident's houses as ammunition.

Do you imagine after a little bit of this the people of Hobart might be a bit over it? Do you imagine that the police might come round and arrest a few people, bust a few heads and break a few catapaults? And than, because this always happens, the people of Clarendonvale would complain about how they're being victimised by police and it's not their fault they have no money and there's nothing for their kids to do because there's no jobs and they don't have a skate park.

The people of Gaza voted for a political party than has as it's principle aim the destruction of the state of Israel, the death of all the world's Jews and the consolidation of Israel's territory into a greater Islamic entity, a new Caliphate.

They backed this up by launching attacks designed to kill Jews and weaken the state of Israel.

Now they're not happy because the party they voted for is doing what they said they would and Israel has responded? Admittedly, Hamas did get elected on a platform of getting rid of corruption and improving welfare, but always with the over-riding policy of killing Jews, wherever they might be found.

Take responsibility for your actions. You voted for the Jew killing, now that the Jews are coming around trying to stop it get out there and fight them instead of running away like a little bitch.

It doesn't take a genius to work out that this was going to happen eventually.

It's very easy to have the courage to vote for the Jew killing, but when it comes down to it, unless you're going to back up your words with actions than your opinion has less validity.

And when it comes to that, you have to respect Hamas. They might be a bunch of murderous fanatics, but at least they say what they think. They're not saying one thing and doing another, or saying one thing in Arabic and another in English, like most of the Arab states. They know what they want and they say it loud and proud.

Like them? No. Agree with them? Never. Respect them? Yes, I respect them, albeit grudgingly.

cheers

Harry

Gaza redux

Today I heard on the radio that the UN were complaining that Israel were killing too many women and kids in their attacks on Gaza and that Israel was totally to blame for this situation. No mention was made of Hamas, except to say that they were continuing to fire rockets into Israel.

Now the laws of war are pretty clear on this matter (such laws codified in various international conventions throughout the years, the most famous being the Geneva Convention). A military force has to do it's best to prevent civilian casualties, however, the safety and well being of it's own forces are ALWAYS paramount.

They are more important than civilian lives, important cultural buildings or vital infrastructure. There are very obvious and simple reasons for this.

Firstly, it's going to happen anyway. No soldier is going to let himself or his comrades be killed because they are being fired upon from a position that they cannot return fire to.

Secondly, if it wasn't codified like that, it would in fact encourage combatants to use human shields as a part of their military options.

Possibly the most famous example of this in action is the case of Monte Cassino. In Italy, during WW2, the allies were confronted with the difficult task of capturing the town of Monte Cassino, including the very famous and very ancient monastary, which dominated the surrounding landscape and provided an excellent view of the western lines. Despite the irreplaceable nature of the monastary and it's artistic contents the allies chose to level it to the ground, to ensure that it couldn't be used for military purposes. Ironically, the rubble they created provided an excellent base for the Germans who then occupied it and fought stubbornly to hold it.

However, the principle is very clear. The military objective is paramount.

Now the Israeli army is a modern, westernised, military force, with respect for the rules of law and codified rules of engagement. Hamas are a bunch of gangsters with no such things and only one objective, the complete destruction of the state of Israel.

Hamas are actively utilising schools, hospitals and civilian housing as places from which to launch rockets and fire on the Israelis. One prominent Hamas leader who was recently killed was actually keeping his extended family close to him, on the assumption that the Israelis would never accept that many civilian casualties to take him out (he was wrong and his family joined him when he went to receive his 64 virgins). The Israeli forces have to combat Hamas and they have to do that wherever Hamas presents itself.

Therefore, the only people who can be criticised for these women and children dying are those members of Hamas itself.

By the UN and the international media blaming Israel and pouring forth condemnation on it's head, they are effectively encouraging Hamas and other similar groups to utilise human shields as a valid weapon in their fight against the west.

The only other option is for Israel to accept the ongoing launching of rockets into it's territory, rockets that continue to improve in payload, range and accuracy.

If you think that that's the best option let me know. I'll come around to your house once a day and punch you in the face. Sometimes I might miss, sometimes I might knock you out. One day I might bring a baseball bat. But still, you shouldn't have a problem with that. It's not like I'm going to do any real damage, is it?

Harry

Gaza

As everyone knows, Angus (the A is for Awesome, his name is actually Ngus) blogs a damn good read, when he manages to stop droning on about gangsta rappers and cheesy pop.

Anyway, I highly recommend his site and I highly recommend this post here about the situation in Gaza right now.

I completely agree so I really don't have much to say on the matter, however I will say this. Gaza was once Egyptian territory. Gaza shares a land boundary with Egypt. The people of Gaza didn't vote for an administration that has as it's principal policy aim the destruction of the state of Egypt and the death of all Egyptians, preferably by "driving them into the sea".

We all know that Gaza shares a land barrier with Egypt because we regularly get told about how bad Israel is for attacking the tunnels that have been built to enable arms smuggling from Egypt through to the Gaza strip.

So tell me this. Why is Israel internationally vilified for imposing a blockade on Gaza when Egypt is in a position to provide everything that Israel currently doesn't? Egypt also provides a blockade but nobody says anything about that.

Israel doesn't occupy the Gaza strip any longer, therefore they have no responsibilities towards it. If they want to close off their border than that is their business. Lets spread the vituperation around folks, Israel is the good guy, deal with it.

cheers

Harry

Labor, Kevin, George and Obama

While watching Insiders on ABC this morning (the BEST show on politics in Australia and one of the best of TV full stop) Lindsay Tanner made a very interesting statement.

He was being interviewed regarding our man Kevin and his experiences in Washington. I'll give you the background first and then get back to Lindsay.

A little while ago, the editor of the Australian (the best paper in Australia) was having a dinner with Kevin Rudd and some other people. The Australian later published an article regarding a Kevin Rudd phone discussion with George W Bush. The most important part of the piece was this: apparently while talking about the global financial crisis Bush asked Rudd "what's the G20?" The article then went onto explain how Rudd was shocked at how stupid George W was. The big problem is this; George isn't an idiot and he was publically talking about the G20 only days before.

So somehow, details of a private phone conversation found their way into a newspaper article that made Kevin look really good and George look really stupid. Of course, the Whitehouse quickly denied this and ever since Kevin has been obfuscating, denying that George ever said a thing, while (very importantly) refusing to deny that the basis of the article was given to the Australian by him. The Australian have been keeping mum about this whole situation, because they know perfectly well where the blame lies, but aren't going to reveal their sources and they continue to back their article, saying that is was based upon impeccable sources (in this case, the Prime Minister of Australia!).

So anyway, after being ignored by most media outlets in Australia for a while, this has finally come to the forefront after Rudd was given the most perfunctory of hand shakes by George while in Washington for the G20. So the rest of the media has finally woken up and Labor is finally being asked.

Now, Lindsay Tanner was being interviewed on Insiders and asked about the article and he made the usual denials, saying that Kevin had denied everything already. Then, he suggested that a far greater gaffe was Julie Bishop, in Parliament, refusing to criticise John Howard for his assertion several years ago that if Barack Obama were elected than he would be the preferred President for Al Qaeda. He then suggested that this was a far greater insult in dealing with the United States.

But the problem is that Al Qaeda have already come out and said that the election of Barack is a good thing!

And of course, John Howard didn't make the point about Obama just because he thought all these radicals hiding in caves hated George Bush. He made the point because Obama at the time was advocating disengagement in Iraq, more importantly he was advocating running away from a conflict that had already been won (ongoing problems notwithstanding). Such following on of the US tradition of running away from everywhere with a hint of casualties for the last 25 years (think Lebanon and Somalia) such an disengagement would have given an enormous boost to Al Qaeda and their associates and once again portray the United States as nation unable to stay the course or follow through with it's own actions.

Say what you will about George (and lots of people say lots of not very nice things) he has turned around the perception of the US, particularly within the Middle East. It wouldn't take much to turn things around again, but right now, if George says he's going to do something, you know it's going to happen and you won't scare him away.

Obama has been very reticent about Iraq recently (because he knows that it's won) and the issue barely featured in the recent campaign, so we'll have to see what he chooses to do. Apparently, the cost of being in Iraq currently is very similar to the cost of stationing troops overseas anywhere else, as combat has dipped so dramatically!

So, if he drops the bundle and does something that encourage the groups who feed on US weaknesses, than it will turn out that John Howard was right. And just because Barack Obama is now the President of the United States still doesn't mean that John Howard was wrong. Of course it might be cause for some uncomfortable moments, but in the end Howard put forward opinion and he hasn't been proven wrong.

Sorry if this post was a bit convoluted!

Harry