Howard justifies war, Crean finds passion, DrShrink pushes buttons

Shame this leaked document didn’t come out before today’s, parliamentary debate, ahh well I’m sure we should see some good use of it by the front benchers and speakers in tonight’s parliamentary debate.

If you haven’t heard , a document has come out which records a official conversation between Alexander Downer and a NZ official.
Downers lines are thus :

'Obviously we would prefer a UN backing...However and this was not a point which could be made publicly, Australia was not in a position if the UN process broke down, to withdraw our ships and other presence from the Gulf.'


Read that again. Not only is the government showing its locked us into war, destroying again Howard’s wafer thin claims he wanted to avoid war. Not only that, but worse its showing the government has been deliberately lying to the Australian people. They lied last month through press conferences, they lied today IN PARLIAMENT. they've lied to the Australian people over whether we will be involved in a war.

Disgusting isn’t it, War is the ultimate issue in the continuance of a nation, and Howard lies to us about it. Go John Go.
We've long suspected they were lying. This documents just further proof. Question is how much do we still want ?. A few months ago, the PM said that if the USA asked for troops he would send them. Suddenly now he's become a UN convert, on a 'mission for peace'.

Yet today, in one of the most important addresses Howard will make, at the opening of parliamentary debate on Iraq, J.Howard a man who 'hates war' spent his address today in Parliament, justifying war, not demanding peace.

He never listed why, instead saying Saddam had chemical weapons, broke treaties and that under ANZUS we have to help.
Shame he was wrong about that too. Article 1 of the ANZUS treaty stats that 'ALL alliance decisions must be in conformity with the United Nations'.


People - whether you want a war or not, face it. You've been lied to, we are going to war and NOTHING will stop it now.


In other news, I’m loving my job, having spent the afternoon, separated by only a small sheet of glass from the chambers floor, comfortably in the soundproof audio booth in parliament today as Howard and Crean made their vital speeches.
Hell i would have watched these speeches happily anyway, yet i was paid to be there. how cool is that :)

Shame they wouldn’t let me cut off Howard’s microphone mid-speech just to piss him off ... :P

It was nice today to see some passion by Simon Crean about the issue, he made a good speech, though the TV crews didn’t give it much coverage. Most gave him 1 line, however in light of the leaked document over downers comments proving the governments lies then its not too bad a result.

When Crean’s in a fight and got something under his skin, he doesn’t hold on and often proves himself an effective leader of the opposition. But too often he slips back into the easier mode of monotone bob that turns the public right off.
Lets hope he keeps the passion, its the only chance he's got.