Hellfire
Now that John Howard has seen the results of the conflagration in the ACT where hundreds of homes, public health laboratories, a fire station, a sewerage treatment plant and a high school have been destroyed perhaps he has developed an awareness of what is about to happen to Iraq.
On January 17, 1991, the first day of the Gulf War, Iraq was hit by the explosive equivalent of one Hiroshima atomic bomb and by the war's end, 140,000 tonnes of high explosives (the equivalent of seven atomic bombs) had been slammed into mainly civilian-populated areas. 300 tonnes of this contained poisonous and radioactive depleted uranium which got into the air, soil and water.
It is this battered and bewildered country that one of the largest invasion forces in history is now poised to pulverise with the Howard government, but not the Australian or American people, an enthusiastic participant. John Howard has seen what bushfire can do; it's time he withdrew from inflicting hellfire on innocent people.
Gareth Smith
Byron Bay
Water bombing not fire bombing
I live in the suburb of Curtin in Canberra and on Saturday January 18, when the devastating firestorms hit, three of the homes destroyed were in Curtin less than 100 metres away from mine. We cheered on the water-bombing helicopters, whose pilots skilfully doused the flames and prevented the fires from spreading.
One of the helicopters was a Navy helicopter. What a welcome sight — the "defence" forces actually doing some defence of people's lives and property instead of preparing to take part in the Bush/Blair/Howard axis-of-oil-profits crusade against Iraq, which will see military helicopters, not water-bombing fires but fire-bombing the homes and people of Iraq.
In Iraq, the sound of helicopters will not lift hearts and hope but will signal the cold-blooded devastation of a society which has the misfortune to be sitting on the world's second-largest reserves of oil, whilst being ruled by a thug who is not as compliant to the wishes of the oil billionaires in the West as the axis-of-oil-profits would like.
Howard's post-fire, photo-op tour of Canberra merely added insult to the tragedy in the ACT, the Prime Minister ever-ready to embrace "worthy" victims of tragedy whilst at the same time planning to unleash an even greater tragedy against "unworthy" victims in Iraq.
The people of Canberra did not deserve to lose their homes and lives. Neither do the people of Iraq. Let's keep out of Bush's war and turn the Navy helicopters and other military Grim Reapers into bushfire defenders and other ploughshares.
Phil Shannon
Curtin ACT
Money for education not war
At a recent council meeting, the Students Association of the University of South Australia passed a motion against the war. In essence, its intention was to see the Uni SA Students Association support any anti-war movement in South Australia, and to lobby for peaceful and political means to be used in solving international situations such as the one that has developed over Iraq. We also passed a motion to establish an anti-war working party.
The students association is against Australian involvement in the war effort against Iraq as we view this war to be an attempt by the United states and its coalition of the willing to gain control of the resources in the Middle Eastern region, an to entrench its globalisation agenda in this region once and for all.
Since 1996, funding for Australia's armed forces has been continually increasing. A recent research paper from the National Tertiary Education Union found that, "Universities receive approximately $1200 less per subsidised student place in 2001 than they did in 1996", "it costs the government approximately $2300 less per subsidised student place in 2001 than it did in 1996", and "the average student paid approximately $1750 more toward the cost of their education in 2001 than they did in 1996".
In summary it is obvious — universities get less, students pay more, and the government pockets the difference and, coincidently, finds money to boost the war budget.
The students at this university find this situation totally unacceptable and will continue to fight the conservative federal government to ensure adequate public funding of public universities continues into the future.
Andrew Christie
Education vice president
University of South Australia Students Association
Labor and the war
Our federal politicians must think we are all gullible fools.
Amongst the untruths uttered during the debate on Iraq in the federal parliament was the statement that the Labor Party position has been consistent since last April. It has not.
As recently as late January, opposition leader Simon Crean was declaring on ABC TV that Labor would support an attack without UN approval providing that a majority of members of the Security Council supported it but it was vetoed. His position now is that any attack must have UN approval.
It was also alleged from both sides of the House that the ANZUS treaty was activated by the September 11 attacks in America. This is another lie. Unfortunately for them the treaty is on the internet for all to read.
The attacks were not external attacks required under the treaty because they came from within the US. An external attack would be an invasion, a missile attack or an air raid from an aircraft carrier or from a foreign country, none of which has occurred.
What that lie really means is that both the Labor party and the federal Coalition are leaving themselves a weasel hole to align themselves with the US right or wrong, using the ANZUS treaty as the path.
Col Friel
Darwin
Left unity
I refer to Jeff Sparrow's letter (GLW #521) on the Socialist Alliance. I do not have information on all the issues Sparrow raises in his letter, however, on matters I know, I can say Sparrow is not speaking the truth. To the best of my knowledge, the Democratic Socialist Party has never maintained that political differences have vanished among Socialist Alliance members.
The struggle Sparrow speaks of has been going on in the columns of Green Left and circulars in the Socialist Alliance, which is, to put it mildly, a curious way of conducting a "subterranean" struggle. Sparrow might be well aware that even within a single party there is a struggle between different tendencies, as a reflection of the class struggle in society. Far from decrying such struggle, anyone interested in a lively movement will invite such struggle and debate.
As for evidence of attracting members outside existing and ex-organisations, to my limited knowledge, there are at least three such members of the Socialist Alliance in the ACT.
While working together is important, working for unity cannot be left to chance and spontaneity. The task of the left is to build mass movements, not recruit individual members to little masonic lodges.
Narendra Mohan Kommalapati
Spence ACT
[Abridged.]
London meeting
Your report on the London Stop the War Coalition conference wrongly reported that, "a motion calling for an end to Islamic speakers at anti-war rallies was defeated" (GLW 29/1/03).
In fact the motion was for Stop the War to no longer co-sponsor events with the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB). This is because MAB is the Muslim Brotherhood in Britain a fundamentalist party — a fact confirmed by a MAB speaker at the conference.
The movers of the motion were quite clear about wanting the active involvement of Muslims in the campaign — but argued that this will not be achieved by pretending that MAB are the representatives of Muslims in Britain.
Paul Hampton
London
From Green Left Weekly, February 12, 2003.
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