SELF-HELP IS THE BEST HELP

Like many other Australians we have great concerns with respect to the implications for Australia stemming from the Gulf War. Again, like most Australians we do not want to see our own role in the Gulf escalate any further. The Prime Minister, Mr. Hawke, has given an assurance that this will not happen; yet this was before the Australian Navy divers were released for Gulf duties. It appears obvious to us that we have entered a more unstable era in world politics, and that there will most probably be no going back to the past eras of the 60s, 70s and 80s. An unhappy thought, yes.

The American led alliance will, no doubt, eventually win the military war against Iraq (although this may take many months; a year; two years. Who can predict?). Even so, what about the peace? Can there be peace? Talk about charging Saddam Hussein/Iraq with War Crimes does not help. They have seen what happened at Nuremberg War Crimes Trials are for the victors to organise; and that means an army of occupation!

The Gulf War is not a type of "civil" war, as was the European conflict 1939-44. This Gulf War brings two different cultures into conflict: one observer we respect says that the Iraqis will fight to the death. What will be the (political) effects on the U.S.A. if and when the body bags come home in their tens of thousands? Peace marchers are assembling now in hundreds of thousands: a quarter of a million in one German city only a few days ago.

What is our point? This: Australia's Defence Systems must be expanded. Why? The growing world instability that will be with us from now on. This could most easily spread to the Pacific Rim. We have a militarily strong Moslem neighbour (Indonesia) whose friendship we have sensibly cultivated. India? She has a huge navy. Pakistan and Malaysia are Moslem countries.
Who can guarantee future political/ military initiatives in the Pacific Rim? So, there should be a sensible policy of compulsory national service for our young men and, arguably, women. There must be the industrial/commercial infrastructure to sustain an expanded Australian Defence System, and, of course, this does mean a shift, a big shift in Australian financial policy. The rundown of Australia's economy must be reversed. If the Hawke Government cannot/will not do this, then there will be other alternatives forced upon Australia by coming events.

THE FRUITS OF MULTICULTURALISM

from David Thompson
While almost all attention is focused on the war in Iraq, rising discord at home also commands attention. Many countries making up the Western invading alliance find that they have a burgeoning internal problem with Muslim populations. Threats of terrorism are taken very seriously. In the U.S.A., the F.B.I. has sparked ethnic Arab hostility for interviewing members of the Arab community in a search for information on potential terrorist activity. In France, the unrest is much worse. The Prime Minister, Rocard, is openly worried over the effect of the war on the 4 million people of Muslim, Arab and North African origin living there. A report from Paris published in The Australian (23/1/91) describes France as a "cosmopolitan" nation (if that is not a contradiction in terms). Such are the fears of inflaming the Islamic French that the authorities appear to be censoring the media coverage of the war. For example, television images of French Jaguar bombers striking in Kuwait were withheld from the public for about three days - at least until after the Muslim holy day - Friday. French television stations are also watched in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco - countries with former colonial ties with France.

AUSTRALIAN FRICTION
The firebomb attack on the Rooty Hill Islamic Centre in Sydney's west last week demonstrates that, whatever the dreamers and multicultural ideologues maintain, Australia is not exempt from such tensions. This first became evident with the publication of Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses", with the threat of bombing booksellers. Even before the war, relations between western Sydney people and the Islamic immigrants were very poor. At the outbreak of Persian Gulf hostilities, Mr. Griener warned that no discrimination against the Islamic immigrants would be tolerated, but tensions have inevitably risen. Some security firms have received instructions from large American corporate clients, to the effect that security guards with Arab or Moslem backgrounds must be replaced, because of the security risk. The unions have objected strenuously, threatening

THE LIBERAL DEATH WISH
When the League warned that dual loyalties would be a major problem in the event of conflict, the critics sneered. A year ago, the suggestion that we would soon be at war with a significant trading partner would have met with derision. Unforeseen events apply tremendous tensions on social structures, and war must be the ultimate pressure. Such is the stress on those with dual loyalties that passions are inflamed and violence is threatened even at this distance from the Iraq conflict. Even young Australian Jews are being recruited to go to Israel, freeing Israelis for combat duty. It is increasingly evident that Western societies are becoming more brittle because they have accepted the liberal 'line' that any objection to multiculturalism is the height of immorality. Our immigration policies must be modified immediately in order to minimise the effects of what Muggeridge called the great liberal death wish.

FOOD IMPORTS - BLEEDING RURAL AUSTRALIA
The ultimate in trading insanity must surely be that a country, which relies so heavily on food exports, undermines its own food growers by importing their products. The annual import bill for food topped $2 billion last year, and is growing. The figures for food imports to September 1990 reveal that fruit and vegetables cost us $415 million. This includes fresh, frozen, canned and bottled vegetables, and fresh, dried and canned fruit, juices and concentrates. No wonder the citrus and market gardeners are feeling the pinch! Altogether, $331 million was spent on imported tea, coffee and similar products (although we do grow tea). And then $304 million was spent on other beverages; sparkling wine - $29.2 million, still wine - $26.4 million, and mineral water - $10.2 million, among others. Although Australia does not produce enough of some specialist foods, all the above could have been provided by hard hit primary producers here (except for coffee). The range of imports covers the full spectrum of foods, and it is now entirely possible for an Australian family in any capital city to live solely on a diet of imported food. Many families are nearly doing so without being aware of it!

THE INSANITY INTENSIFIES
The dairy industry is in steep decline, with numerous cheese factories in N.S.W. and Victoria being closed, and the importing of bulk milk from New Zealand now beginning. Yet we import over $86 million of cheese. Although the beef industry underpins rural Australia at the moment, we are doing our best to destroy it, too, with about $8 million of beef imported last year. It mainly came from Korea and New Zealand, but we even imported some from Japan.

Australia imports a significant amount of textile fibres each year. The final insult to farmers, who are shooting millions of sheep, with the once great wool industry in tatters, is that the largest single import of textile fibres last year was wool, worth $47.6 million. This was in its degreased state - not made into yarn or fabric. The figures do not clarify its purpose (it may be for carpets?), but it is a textile fibre. The Australian Wool Corporation has over 4 million bales of the stuff that they can't sell.

Australia is in recession, and we are again being forced to 'tighten our belts'. Thousands are losing their jobs, and thousands losing their savings in financial scandals like the Pyramid collapse. And yet we live in a land of magnificent abundance. Why does Australia import so much food? Partly because we have signed so many foreign agreements, like that for a New International Economic Order, and the Lima Agreement. We are not only bound by such agreements, we are being strangled by them. The first essential to restore any element of national self-sufficiency is to rely upon our own resources, including food.

POWER FIRST - FACTS LATER
Those who challenge the environmental doomsdayers for hard evidence for such phenomena as global warming or ozone depletion are usually derided as 'flat earthers'. While governments all over the West have been stampeded by prophets of doom into tough new environmental legislation, with rigid penalties for the slightest transgression, very little attention is given to competent scientific - but dissenting opinion. The number of such dissenters, although studiously ignored, is legion.

One of American's leading climate researchers, Professor Fred Singer, says that the countries that have moved to draconian new legislation to cut carbon dioxide emissions and C.F.C's. risk huge economic penalties on the basis of scientifically unproven threats. Singer confirms that the 'ozone hole' is a natural phenomenon, and explains that scientists began measuring ozone at its peak, and was alarmed at the rate of depletion. "No matter what we do with C.F.C's., the ozone hole will remain, unless the temperature of the stratosphere warms - and that is something no government can legislate for," he says.

Professor Singer, of the U.S. Institute for Space Science and Technology, also challenges the scientific evidence for global warming, saying that although scientific models suggest it, the claimed increase in temperatures for this century had all occurred before 1940. There has been no significant warming in the last 50 years.
(End of David Thompson Items)

David Thompson adds a post script to his item on Greenhouse and Professor Singer: Singer, director of the U.S. weather satellite programme, hits the nail on the head when he says "The trouble is, world moves to control C.F.C's. and carbon dioxide have acquired political momentum of their own and can't be stopped by any scientific evidence to the contrary..."
This is obviously correct. Forget the facts; create a crisis, and centralise power! In the process, some groups stand to make an enormous amount of money from the new legislation. Last week, DuPont unveiled a new range of refrigerants designed to replace C.F.C's. under the trade name Suva. Said to have low or no potential to deplete ozone, Suva and Suva blends will replace all C.F.C's. in refrigeration systems. Unfortunately, they will be more expensive... No doubt DuPont has a patent.

NOT ALL OF US ARE RATBAGS

A DIFFERENT STORY

from The Age (Access Age), Melbourne, January 24th
"The resolution in the Parliament about Australia's Gulf commitment would almost certainly have fallen far short of being passed if all those that supported it were required to immediately go to the Gulf as participants in the war. The members, of course, are no more hypocritical than most of the rest of us." (John Rawson, Greensborough, Vic.)

VICTORS ALWAYS JUDGE
"U.K. Defence Secretary, Mr. King, said the question of war crimes would be decided after the war. Naturally. "And as in World War II, everything will be decided by the victors. Otherwise, how could those responsible for Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Dresden have escaped indictment?" (Daphne Joseph, Ferntree Gully, Vic.)

DOOM STRIKES

I'M GLAD IT'S SO SIMPLE

HAWKE'S ACTION HAS DISEMPOWERED US

NOT 'IVAN THE TERRIBLE'

The Age, Melbourne, January 25th, carries a report, datelined Kiev (Soviet Union), January 24th, that John Demjanjuk extradited from the U.S.A. and sentenced to death, in Israel, by an Israeli court, for alleged war crimes, is NOT the person he is alleged to be (i.e. "Ivan the Terrible"). An investigating team from the United States states that the Soviet authorities have a file proving the error. The American Congressional delegation has asked the Soviet authorities hand over the file concerned, as it could overturn Demjanjuk's death sentence.
There will be some highly nervous American and Israeli authorities if John Demjanjuk's death sentence is overturned, and he is able to seek the justice of massive compensation for his years of official harassment…