Don't think twice, don't think at all.
Same day as Alexander Downer says the Hutton Report "also vindicates Australia's decision to go to war", the former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, Dr Kay, "blamed US intelligence agencies, rather than the Bush administration, for the false information circulated about Iraq's weapons capabilities"
So a British parliamentary enquiry suffices as an investigation of the Australian government and its "intelligence" agencies, showing the evidence for Iraq's WMD wasn't dramatised, while an American investigation is told by an expert that there WAS NO EVIDENCE. In other words the governments are off the hook because their spy agencies lied to them, and that is OK?
Self-contradiction is not necessarily hypocrisy, but there is no doubt that obfuscation, distraction, and deceit are the preferred methods of current governments for manipulating media and public opinion.
Another beautiful example is last week's insultingly arrogant attack on public schools by the Australian Federal Government. Education programs dealing with environmental issues were labeled "anti-farmer and deep green" without any evidence to support the assertion, and the PM went as far as to criticise the notional lack of "traditional values" in Public schools.
[Private schools receive more funding that public schools while having far less students. This is apparently equitable and supportive of "tradition" - the tradition of privileged wealth, many would say.]
By the end of the week, however, the PM had decided that it would be "Orwellian" for a government to "impose values", when it came to Labour's proposal for Citizenship education. Either the PM was being deceitful about Public Schools, or its actually acceptible for a government to force value-systems on its citizens.
Let's just remind JW Howard of his Liberal Party's standing in Queensland at this election: three elected representatives in the parliament. Count 'em again: 3, out of 80-odd seats, representing "traditional values". The state Liberal party was decimated at the last election. How they can claim to represent a "mandate" in the Federal arena is beyond comprehension.
Item posted by AutoEditor at 11:12 am ::
