Category: Morals
Australia has been propagandized.
At the same time, however, Hayden said that a much-publicized White House policy that President Obama announced last year barring U.S. drone strikes unless there is a “near certainty” there will be no civilian casualties — “the highest standard we can meet,” he said at the time — does not cover the current U.S. airstrikes in Syria and Iraq.
The “near certainty” standard was intended to apply “only when we take direct action ‘outside areas of active hostilities,’ as we noted at the time,” Hayden said in an email. “That description — outside areas of active hostilities — simply does not fit what we are seeing on the ground in Iraq and Syria right now.”
There’s a strong whiff of hypocrisy about this new standard for collateral damage.
The Obama administration has been roundly criticized for pursuing an air campaign that cannot possibly destroy the Islamic State. If that is a strategy with limited efficacy, what is the moral argument for continuing to employ it when civilian casualties result? It is one thing when a strategy is well-designed to achieve a specific military objective but quite another when it is not. Obama now is being severely criticized by Isreael. However does anybody even consider that they are all wrong? ISIS hasn’t launched any attacks on American targets (yet), but just the mere potential apparently allows Obama to jettison the same standard he applied to Israel while our ally was under direct and continuous attacks that qualify as war crimes in any sense of the word — from an Islamist terror network not dissimilar at all to ISIS.
The decision not to put a force of ground troops to push ISIS off its ground guarantees that we will create collateral damage like this for months and years to come. If the mission is to “degrade and destroy ISIS” while they remain embedded in these cities and towns, there is no other possible outcome than massive civilian casualties. ISIS will not withdraw under air attack to the desert where they can get bombed and strafed into oblivion, after all, and without ground forces, we won’t have the means to hold any ground we might liberate anyway. Nor will we have the specific intelligence needed to avoid mistakes that happen in any war.
Remember this name Tony Abbott you voted for him I didn’t. He will kill not some “devil cult” but he will kill a lot of families like yours and mine.
Fanatics, not Muslims, are our enemy
Amanda Vanstone reminds us how in history we stood shoulder to shoulder with Muslims during various wars. That’s well and good and she reminds us that non-Muslim Australians would do well to ensure that any criticism is focused not on Muslims generally but on fanatical Muslims. Equally, Muslim Australians need to be loud, strong and clear in their condemnation of the fanatics.
This is a time to show disdain for the shock-jocks and jingo-junkies who whip up rednecks with their rubbish. In doing so, we will remind ourselves of the best of Australia.
The problem is that the fanatic shock-jocks at home the real dividers of this country are right in front of us and Vanstone fails to name and them. Which makes her gutless and she should be ashamed as she has the platform and the voice but fails to use it. “Shame” was an Ingmar Bergman film done in 1968 during the Vietnam war. It is about a couple who try to isolate themselves from a civil war that is going on around them by moving away as far as possible but get caught up in it nevertheless. It was about guilt the Vietnam war and not doing anything. Not doing anything is supporting the worst and we all stand accused.
“Men, women and children — familiar like mine — are being burnt and blasted to death in Vietnam and I have absolutely no idea what may be happening to me and the few people I love ten years, five years, two months from now. SHAME is central to the experience we are living now”
Vanstone’s article ends where it should have begun naming and shaming those agents of hate Newscorp 2GB those that are glorifying this war that is so complex that it defies any of our political class to explain it other than the futile slogan of annhilating ISIL.
Bolt, Devine,Henderson,Rule Jones are cloned Fox News media puppets that give rise to the shadows that our security forces find so hard to realize. They more than anybody amplify the darkness the doom and gloom portrayed by our current government for the past 20 years. The LNP has grabbed hold of a chicken little approach to politics and these fear mongers do their bidding in amplifying it. Vanstone fails to name them which is as good as letting them be.
Bolt’s article in the Herald Sun today is written as if he was forewarned of Vanstone’s commentary in The Age. It’s a joke the man who has accused Islam outright for every evil that currently exists. That Islam is a stain on the way we live today turns around and merely says it’s only a fringe element we need to be careful of. Vanstone and Bolt today are like two tag team wrestlers. Bolt has even used Vanstone’s words to name his favorite punching bag the ABC for disseminating hatred. If Vanstone didn’t tell him what her Age article was going to be then Bolt must feel smug that somebody at SMH is his mole. Bolt’s attempt today wear the halo is about as effective as putting on make up, lipstick and a dress and telling us he’s had a gender change. Either way he is an extremely ugly human being. He tagged Vanstone and tried a hypocritical, tongue in cheek body slam.
“We cannot afford any more these shock jocks of the ABC, these inciters of hate”
Wholesale bombing, the pretense that the bombs only harm ISIS a media made enemy is a total denial of what those bombs actually do. The damage done is as much as was done in the missiling of Gaza or the bombing and napalming of commies in North Vietnam. To go in on the ground and fight the mythical ISIS is just as futile ISIS will dissolve to rise again somewhere else. You can’t fight an enemy you can’t identify but an enemy that can clearly identify us. All you do is commit wholesale indiscriminant slaughter. That will only grow sympathy for a political ideology that gave birth to ISIS. The history of stupidity has shown us this.
We need to shut down the warmongers those that give life to this myth. We need to win the hearts and minds of those on the ground who wish to fight it and can see who the enemy is. ASIO finds sweet FA it’s Islamic Australia that’s our best line of defense now that we have decided to poke the hornet’s nest. The Arab nation states our allies are more aware of this than anyone. Do you think for one second anyone of them would syndicate Bolt’s news commentary. History will shame and blame Bolt that is inevitable Vanstone won’t.
News Ltd’s Simon Benson “assumed” the plot involved beheadings. Here he is with his “Canberra source”:
The Chicken Little-in-Chief’s big beheading scare
Shouting ‘fire!’ in a crowded theatre is frowned upon in most societies and thought an example of a limit on freedom of speech we can all agree on. Tony Abbott did something far, far worse yesterday. He told an entire nation they could be randomly beheaded at any moment.
He then told us to calm down, and behave as if he hadn’t said it.
He added to the usual terrors female shift-workers endure on late night buses, late night trains and the long walk from a railway station home at 1.30 a.m. — the ultimate horror of having your head cut off.
He did it by adding the word ‘random’: by not even implying, but saying straight out that you didn’t have to be famous, or politically connected to a particular cause, or a prominent member of a particular faith. You could be an ‘innocent bystander’, beheaded.
He then said it was very easy to do. All one needs, he said, is a knife and cell-phone, and an accomplice with a car.
Is this responsible? Is it the act of a nation’s leader, or a cyberbully? It seems to encourage terrorists, implying they can’t be easily detected and it doesn’t matter who they kill.
Forty-six people ‒ Australian people ‒ died from cigarettes yesterday, none from decapitation.
Three or four motorists will die this weekend, in car accidents.
Before Christmas, two young men will die in pub brawls.
‘Domestic’ terrorism will occur — a father kidnapping and threatening his estranged wife or children once or twice this fiscal year.
I will bet a lot of money no-one will be beheaded here in Australia.
It is because it is not a very Australian thing to do. People who live here don’t do that sort of thing and thereby imperil their families, and the livelihood of their parents, brothers and sisters. It is a long way from the battlegrounds of Baghdad, Mosul, Gaza, Donetsk, where such ‘terrorist’ things do happen lately — incidents in war.
And this is why it hasn’t happened in ninety-nine years and nine months here, since the Battle of Broken Hill in January 1915. It is not a particularly Australian thing to do.
And frightening old women with it is, I think, unbecoming for a prime minister. And possibly illegal, as it ‘encourages the terrorists’.
If the Prime Minister were serious about it, the two big football games this weekend in Sydney would have been cancelled, along with the opening night of The King And I. If he were serious, there would be random body searches of Middle Eastern women entering the Sydney Art Gallery. Most art galleries, given ISIL’s hatred of art, would be closed for six months.
But he isn’t serious, he’s making mischief.
He’s lost most of the policy battles of his first year and he’s thought a joke by many people, by many others a disgrace, and he’s embarked on the biggest ‘scare campaign’ since the Yellow Peril.
He’s become what I call the Chicken-Little-in-Chief. And he shouldn’t, any more, be given the time of day.
And he should be asked to resign by his colleagues (as Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond was a few hours ago and has done), or by the Senate, or by a poll of public opinion.
He’s blown it. May the sky come falling down
Sounds like Abbott’s home grown terrorists are easier to spot than good financial planners. When we had sold our business and were in transition to retirement our CBA business manager turned up with a lady who was a CBA financial planner. She assured us she had our best interests at heart and would turn a profit with our newly liquidated assets. We asked for her qualifications and she said she was an agricultural scientist. I nodded and said that was good as it indicated she could do math and at least use a computer. Obviously my next question was why she thought she had our best interests at heart and could manage our money better than us.
” Because I love making a profit and love making my clients happy”
That was the best she could do.My response was that we could trump her on all counts as it had taken us 30 years of hard work to make the savings 30 years of continuous profit and that we were eager not to make a loss. Hadn’t she noticed we were too old for risky ventures and that our happiness was of far more value to us than her. We never really moved on from that point. Given the recent revelations of the CBA and it’s financial planners now I’m now quite relieved we didn’t take up her offer to be serviced.
FPA has lifted it’s professional standards we are told by Corman. The Finance Minister is telling us to forget the past and move on. Sounds awfully what a ponzi schemer would say and if bold enough would ask to start again. Why weren’t standards lifted 30 years ago the goals of financial planning have remained the same haven’t they. It’s as if the fox owns the hen house and is making lots of promises after being caught out with the umpire on side.
The coalition wants savings built on labour to be given back to Capital to manage we aren’t even invited to the board. Capital already made profit on those savings once if they lose tough luck. Capital just moves on with an oops and Corman saying that’s life. There are no manslaughter charges handed down on the suicides that have resulted in the past
Just launched is the ‘Most Trusted Register’. Planners who clients say are giving them exceptional service and performance. Planners pay nothing to be listed it’s not funded by any body or financial services firm or any association. mosttrustedadvisers.com there is also a free apple app. It all sound like betting to me. The Abbott government just wants it made easier for capital to get at our money. It still all seems like betting to me it’s about risk management. It would be far better to offer self management courses to seniors before being told to swim in a pool with a history of sharks that have in fact caused far more deaths than the real
“Then he said with a look of concern that we had to raise our level of public alert because of David Irvine …Brilliant!!!”
“There are people with the intent and the capability to mount attacks,” he said. So what is new about that? We have always known that. You only have to go back and have a look at some of the news broadcasts of 2001 and 2002 to see that. There is no logic for this public alert.
So if we look at the man and where it’s coming from the Prime Minister Tony Abbott.It smacks of political skulduggery. Our existing security organisations engaged in fighting terrorism are highly trained, well equipped and properly briefed. They have had over a decade to train and prepare. They are the ones who will maintain a vigilant presence and foil a terrorist plot, not you or I. They don’t need a nervous public overreacting, spreading fear and uncertainty, peering curiously at Muslim women dressed in the hijab; people who are simply going about their normal business.
As a cynic I believe it’s a dumb plan by a political party and its leader to strike fear into the heart of the Australian community. However not all of us are it’s a cruel plan the kind of plan a student political bully might go for if his ranking in the polls was lagging
“I don’t believe any thinking Australian would want us to capitulate to moral blackmail”
What sort of PM is Tony Abbott? to come out with a statement like that? It suggest some “moral turpitude” of which the government is guilty & has no intention of stopping even if blackmailed. In a lot of countries eg USA it’s breaking the law. Rolf Harris tried to refuse to capitulate to moral blackmail and he’s in jail.
Eric Abetz comes out yesterday and said yes there were some 11 trivial suicide and self harm attempts by some mothers behind razor wire. However they have been medically attended to now. Both Abbott, Abetz and their right wing media suggest that acts of self harm and attempted suicide are t minor strategical behaviours? Under the Mental Health Act these behaviours are far from trivial patients are generally transferred to ECU. The women have been behind razor wire for 12 months and are clinically depressed and in fear of their children’s poor and deteriorating health. They apparently wanted their children adopted out of detention for their their safety and medical well-being. How hard is that for a mother? Mothers in desperation do desperate things. If Abbott or Abetz found the women in their households doing these minor things would it be a cup otea and an aspirin?
Where is our minister for No Information Scott Morrison? He must be grinding his teeth over the political ineptitude of his leader Tony Abbott and Senator Abetz. There are 120 spin doctors from two departments who are not doing their job, ask Andrew Bolt. No Morrison is in Sri Lanka being tortured by the news from home and the assurance from Sri Lankan police that those asylum seekers returned to face illegal departure charges will get ‘enhanced detention’. What on earth is this special form of detention? No information is available.
Abbott and Morrison also need Malcolm Fraser like a hole in the head who has pointed out that transferring 150 asylum seekers to a navy vessel in International waters and not Australian waters is tantamount to Piracy on the High Seas and another morally questionable act. But I guess Labour has to suffer Bob Carr the media chasing Paris Hilton of their party who stood up to defy Canada, UK and UN by saying he thought Sri Lanka was a fine place to return asylum seekers. They have no record of human rights abuse. Serial rapists would love Carr on the parole board.
olddogthoughts 