Iraq I
John Howard assures us that the Flood report on Australia's intelligence services absolves the government of political interference. However, the decision to wage war on Iraq was a foregone conclusion. 9/11 enabled the Bush administration to blame Iraq, against all evidence, and thus to justify the war. This mindset pervaded the intelligence agencies and was the matrix within which they framed their assessments; they gave the government what they perceived it wanted. It was psychology's famous Rosenthal effect in action, where expectations unconsciously bias observations.
Howard is keen to differentiate intelligence assessments from political decision making, which must mean that his decision to go to war, based as it was on data that, according to Flood, was "thin, ambiguous and incomplete", is an example of monumental and criminal incompetence. Any CEO in a similar situation would be forced to resign. Let's make sure that the Coalition warmongers are voted out: No HoWARd!
Gareth Smith
Byron Bay, NSW
Iraq II
The US-appointed puppet government in Iraq has opened the flood gates for Iraqis to leave their country by obtaining passports for $1.35 per person. At the same time Iraqis in ever increasing numbers are supporting the national resistance in order to overthrow the US-led forces of occupation.
The vast majority of the resistance is made up of local fighters who are determined to see Iraqis gain control of their own destiny. But there are also foreign fighters who have joined with the resistance to oust the US invaders. These foreign fighters have different reasons for killing US soldiers and collaborators. Their's is a far more ideological religious cause. However, the resistance must utilise all the support it can find.
The Iraqi national resistance doesn't have the firepower or expertise to take on the might of the US army in Iraq. It must strike when the opportunity avails itself. Foreign fighters can bring much needed expertise and firepower in the long struggle ahead. An enemy's enemy is a friend in such desperate times.
Support for the Iraqi national resistance can come in many forms. Financial support from abroad will be crucial in the long struggle ahead. The resistance needs to set up channels, that can't be traced, so that the millions of foreigners who support them can give without risking local police state laws that support the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Adam Bonner
Meroo Meadow, NSW
Fahrenheit 9/11
Michael Moore's new movie looks to be an interesting one. Seeing his interview on 60 Minutes on July 18 made me sick to the core, when he said that troops should stay in Iraq. He may be good at showing what is fucked with the system but does he have a political strategy to fix it? It does not look like it. For an example, he supports John Kerry as the Democrats' presidential candidate in the United States and Kerry is not anti-war. In fact he is proposing to put 40,000 more troops in Iraq. Moore should know that the Democrats, like Labor here, are just traitors to everyday people, and are exactly the same as the Liberals and the Republicans — if not worse sometimes!
Duncan Meerding
Hobart
TPVs
Recently I was able to pass good news on to a young mother. Her husband has been recognised as a refugee after being locked in Nauru for three years. You would think this would be the answer to her dream, but her nightmare still continues.
He is not allowed to apply for her to come to Australia because he is on a temporary protection visa (TPV). She has been discovered by the country where she is hiding and will be deported to Afghanistan in a number of days. She will be unprotected in a place of devastation and danger. Her husband was a shop keeper, hardly a skill which will allow him to apply for a permanent visa under Mr Howard's new "pre-election compassion package" so teasingly dangled in front of TPV holders.
Proven refugees need a safe home. What is the point of making them suffer more? Votes?
Elaine Smith
West Haven, NSW
Abortion
In the abortion debate, reignited by the ABC's recent decision to televise a program including an abortion, one of the more bizarre assertions we hear is the paternalistic claim that preventing women having abortions would be desirable because it would save them from post-abortion grief or trauma.
The Archives of General Psychiatry (August 2000) reports on a major US survey of women interviewed before and after a first-trimester abortion. Average depression scores were significantly lower at all interview times post abortion.
Two years later, 72% were satisfied with their decision compared with only 16% dissatisfied. The authors write that various studies have found that severe psychological distress after an abortion is rare.
They further observe that studies of women who gave up their child for adoption suggest that feelings of loss or sadness were common, and that research has consistently found that women who have an abortion are at no greater risk of psychological problems than women who carry an unintended pregnancy to term and then keep the child.
Brent Howard
Rydalmere, NSW
From Green Left Weekly, July 28, 2004.
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