THE CORROSIVE EFFECTS OF EGOPOLITICS

by Jeremy Lee
It is November 11th, one of Australia's 'holy days', when we remember with gratitude the sacrifices of those who have fallen in battle for our freedom. One can only think with sadness that yesterday's election was as great an assault on freedom as some of the battles in past wars. The Coalition, campaigning on an openly fear-based platform, not only improved its own position in the House of Representatives, but gained control of the Senate. It can now force through unopposed any legislation which it sees fit to design.
As a result, our Federal Government for the next three years, which has to steer through problems unlike anything encountered so far since federation, may well end up as the most disliked administration in a century - surpassing that of Keating, Hawke, Fraser and Whitlam.

Four days before the election the Editorial in The Australian (6/11/01) described this campaign as follows:
"The phony campaign has run all year. It started when the Government used taxpayers' money for 'educational' advertising. It transformed into the Government using more of our money for pork-barrelling in marginal seats and reversals on policy. Then it extended to the parties delaying their official campaign launches to suck more public money into their own coffers before that had to foot the bill themselves. Now we have two over-scripted, backward-looking leaders who wouldn't risk coming up with a creative idea or policy reform any more than they'd risk showing some leadership on just how Australia should make its way in the world ...."

This description is apt. The Prime Minister's victory speech was a complete parody of everything the Coalition said and did. He told us he regarded himself as "the servant of the Australian people". A true servant would have behaved in an entirely different way. He would firstly hold the Constitution as sacred - not to be changed, distorted or diminished until its basic amending formula, the considered consent of the Australian people on one-thing-at-a-time, had been activated.

Every International Treaty entered into by the Australian Government defies the intent of the Constitution. The Treaties currently under discussion - the extension of the World Trade Organisation and, particularly, the signing of the GATS agreement, due to come into operation in November 2002 - is a profanity in the face of constitutional integrity.

Like a presidential dictator the Prime Minister now consigns young Australians into faraway wars without even asking his own assembled parliament. If there is any debate, it is carefully screened from public view. Such a tactic is dubious, to say the least, in the weeks leading up to an election. It is possible to stampede the electorate, and this was cynically the case in yesterday's election. But such tactics carry huge risks. A backlash when further facts emerge is always a probability.

If our war partner - in this case the United States - has not been up-front in its reasons for war, the consequences in popular anger are likely to be shared by all those involved. The Editorial in The Australian continued:
".... This has been a fake campaign between two politicians whose stance is the same on key issues and so close on others that they pretend to find points of difference. John Howard speaks ominously of dangerous and disturbing times ahead. But he speaks to his empty mantra of economic management .... and national security .... The sad reality is that this election campaign represents a low point in Australia's political governance - a competition for the lowest common denominator. Will it come down to who can fool the most number of people on one Saturday in November?..."

And that is exactly what happened. As events unfold in 2002 and beyond, many Australians are going to ask themselves how they could have been so short-sighted in November 2001.

THE GHOSTS YET TO COME

Having cynically campaigned on defence issues, the reality of Australia's position is yet to break on the public consciousness. The 'boat-people-invasion' continues unabated since the Tampa incident, which could have been activated months before, and should have been. If boats continue to come, and refuse to turn round at the orders of Australian naval vessels, what action will be taken? Will they be fired on? Of course not. What will happen when those island communities which have kindly, and temporarily, given us a breathing space by taking refugees off our hands can take no more? Their capacity, to say the least, is limited, and any law-and-order or security problems will quickly add to their reluctance for any future influx.

What if it is shown that, like the current situation within Australia, the refugees include a quota of organized terrorists? Any suggestion that this is unlikely or impossible is wishful thinking. What happens when Australians put two and two together, perceiving that the dreadful treatment handed out to civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine is a direct cause of the burgeoning refugee crisis on our shores? What happens when the stories filtering back to this country from our troops overseas begin to conflict with "the official line" about what is really happening beneath the massive carpet bombing and in the thousand-foot gorges above the snow-line in the battle-zones of Afghanistan? Will Australians continue to trust the statements of our politicians as the war and the refugee crisis bleed us white?
These are the questions that Howard's administration will have to face.

THE GHOST OF ECONOMICS

These issues are bad enough. But if they require answers at a time of economic deterioration, with its attendant down-sizing, business collapses and rising unemployment, there will be added cynicism and anger throughout Australia. Most already suspect the truth that the unemployment figures are "fudged". Including part-time work and work-for-the-dole in the "full employment figures has been pointed out more than once in the Morgan Poll, and is understood by not a few Australians. There have already been conscious efforts by politicians to ignore or sideline the big and increasing poverty sector in Australia. What an opportunity Beazley and Crean missed in sidestepping these matters, to the advantage of the government. A few ads on "cooking the books" on the unemployment figures would have had a great impact. But both knew that they, in turn, would have had to outline their own policies in these areas - and they hadn't any!

It is impossible to accept the current financial dogmas, and pocket large donations from the corporate world and genuinely challenge the consequences. The suggestion by Will Bailey, former ANZ Bank chief, that it is time for Australia to re-establish a 'peoples' bank' should have been Manna from Heaven for Kim Beazley. It was his own party which established, and used so sensibly in its early years, the Commonwealth Bank. His predecessor in the seat of Fremantle - John Curtin - campaigned on the issue in 1934. But not a peep out of Beazley and Crean. They're globalists and economic rationalists, and know full well where not to tread.

The Australian dollar is hovering round the 50-cent mark, about 25 cents lower than when the Howard Government first gained office. It is kept at that level by maintaining interest rates at least 2 percentage points above the greenback, which is reeling in crisis. If we lower interest rates further - as we should - the price we pay is an even lower dollar. Despite the ever-diminishing dollar, which aids exports, our Current-Account Deficit is still rising. More and more of our export income is needed to pay interest and dividends to overseas investers, owners and multinationals so our Foreign Debt continues to expand. Treasurer Costello's boast that Australia will ride out this crisis will return to haunt him.

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE

We can convince ourselves that the majority of voters are invincibly stupid; but this is not so. Even Hitler discovered that you can't fool ALL the people ALL the time. The period ahead will be extremely painful, but also a voyage of discovery for Australians. The smallest candle glows more brightly as the darkness deepens. The discovery that elections change nothing will be clearer than ever before.
More people will look for alternative mechanisms.

It will take more than political promises and how-to-vote cards to turn things round. The basic education the League offers - the Social Dynamics course, the journals and the educational material - will be seen as the priceless asset they are. Everything must be done to maintain and enhance them.

New generations are beginning to appear that won't tolerate the deceit and compromise. They will want better answers than those offered by Howard, Costello, Crean and Boswell in the period ahead. We knew - did we not? - that such a period was coming. It's here. The faith to move forward will be the biggest test of all.

My father, who I have increasingly discovered was a wiser man than I, gave me this homily:

"Don't mope, if you can't cope.
Put this under your hat.
Faith, hope, and a bar of soap -
You can get through life with that!"

Do we have any Australian-owned-and-made soap left? If not, the future is bleak indeed!

FRENCH MEDIA REPORTS 'CIA MET BIN LADEN IN JULY'

from The European Foundation Intelligence Report London, UK, November 2001.

French media, especially Radio France Internationale and Le Figaro, are reporting that Osama bin Laden received treatment for kidney problems in the American hospital in Dubai in July and that during that period he met with a local CIA operative whom he allegedly warned of impending terrorist attacks. Although the report has been denied by the hospital, the French sources quote a man who is a professional partner of the hospital's management as saying that Bin Laden was a patient there from July 4th-14th, 2001. The surgeon who is supposed to have operated on Bin Laden, Terry Callaway, refused to answer questions by the French paper, Le Figaro.

In March 2000, Asia Week reported that Bin Laden had kidney trouble and, according to other sources, he has had dialysis machines delivered to him via Khandahar. The same sources say that Bin Laden made several trips to Dubai for medical treatment between 1996 and 1998. Le Figaro says that members of the Bin Laden family visited him in hospital and that the local CIA man, who is well known in Dubai, was seen by numerous hospital staff taking the lift up to Osama's room.

Dubai was also the planning centre for a terrorist attack on the American embassy in Paris: a Franco-Algerian was arrested in Dubai on precisely this charge at the end of July. The reporter concludes by noting that the explosives used to destroy the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 came from bombs delivered to the Afghans by the CIA three years previously and that the meeting in Dubai between the CIA and Bin Laden is therefore nothing but the natural continuation of "a certain American policy". (Alexandra Richard, Le Figaro, October 31st, 2001).

SEE NO EVIL, HEAR NO EVIL, SPEAK NO OIL

CAUSE, EFFECT AND CATACLYSM

"The horrendous events in New York and Washington... when three high-jacked airliners almost certainly changed the course of history and modern warfare, need no amplification. These events confirmed once again that when conflict breaks out, those who suffer are for the most part ordinary people. In the United States they were the clerks, cleaners, consultants and clients going about their normal daily business who were injured and died in their thousands... but it was no different in principle to 1,000,000 deaths of innocent civilians in Iraq in the aftermath of the Gulf War of 1991, or the many millions who perished in two world wars. Little changes - what's new?

In the Boer War in South Africa in 1899-1902, where diamonds, precious metals and money were at stake, those who precipitated this conflict were not the ones who died, but those we call today the Global Power Brokers. Western conventions assume two factors - Strategy and Tactics. Strategy is the grand plan, and tactics the means and methods of achieving that plan. These two interrelated terms may be applied in any military or civilian scenario at any level. As a scenario descends in scale to the lower order of its individual components, what were the tactics become strategies in their own right, and so on. This is rather like the analogy of peeling away the layers of an onion to identify the descending scale of elements and interests involved... We may translate these very specific politico-military applications loosely to illustrate the present global situation.

If we stop short of the esoteric spiritual dimension, the ultimate objective is the centralisation of World Power per se; as seen in the drive for Globalisation.

Control of the world's natural resources
The strategy to achieve this includes control of the world's natural resources, with particular reference to oil ... The operational level of this process therefore involves control of the Balance of Power in the Middle East and the Balance of Power between Russian interests, and those Christian and Islamic states of the former USSR, and the control of those peripheral countries with a potential influence on the security and movement of the oil.

The tactical level includes the employment of economic inducements, political and diplomatic machination and military force. The manipulation of conflict and political influence, and the role of Israel in maintaining this balance between Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Egypt and the Gulf States has already been well recorded.

One key element of the global strategy is that of a European Union which harnesses the former Eastern European satellite countries of the USSR. Within this sub-strategy one obstacle has been the economic and political independence of the former Yugoslavia; ultimately Serbia. In the Balkans this culminated in the campaign to enforce the subservience of Serbia in the name of Human Rights 'abuses' in Kosovo. The tactical level was reflected in the ruthless employment of military force by subsuming the role of NATO and the authority of the United Nations.

The potential impact of these countries on crucial Black Sea and Caspian Sea regions
The Balance of Global Power, with its emphasis on oil and the common 'life-blood' of Money Power has divided the world sharply between the predominantly Christian nations of the West, with a powerful undercurrent of Political Zionism, and the mainly Islamic countries. We have seen this in the determined attempts to destabilise the government of Dr. Mahathir Mohamed, in Malaysia... the cynical manipulation of military support in turn for Iran and Iraq, and the continued abuse and oppression of the dispossessed Palestinian people. In each of these cases Human 'Rights' and exploitation of the 'authority' of the United Nations simply become malleable factors in the hands of those who wield the power...

The oil is out there - in Afghanistan
According to a 1998 report "The Oil Wars in the Balkans" by George Draffan, "Wars are often blamed on political, ethnic, religious animosities, but war is more often the inflammation of these conflicts - and war is usually about resources: land, transport routes, and above all resources. What's the most valuable resource in the modern world? OIL. (emphasis added)

Closing the loop to a world in state of shock - "think" Afghanistan
Events of September 11th, 2001, instinctive political and public reactions, and the conditioning processes of the media, have established one dominant position. These processes have evolved only one permissible school of thought; that the Taleban, Osama bin Laden and Moslem Fundamentalism were, and continue to be solely responsible. This has been based upon and follows broadly the line that anything the Western Powers and Western interests and priorities have condoned or done historically may be discounted regardless of arguments of cause and effect. Equally that political and military actions and responses being talked up in the West are justified without further qualification.

No one "on the outside looking in" can be inside the minds of those in exclusive government circles, therefore, they must work from first principles on available evidence. What has tended to follow in the public domain is that Islamic sources of information and opinion are likely to be assumed automatically corrupt or distorted, whilst Western sources are allowed to be accepted in impartial faith. We know this not to be so from our knowledge of the ownership and control of the Mass Communications Media, and from the words of eminent independent observers such as Professor Noam Chomsky. (emphasis added)

It's all to do with need for energy - and 'mega-bucks'
The following Report was relayed to us with the hallmark of the BBC, no less, and we have no reason to doubt its validity. It was dated 11 days after the events in New York, and offers a striking perspective on the strategic significance of Afghanistan and the Taleban.

The BBC quotes Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, as saying he was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October. Why? It is all to do with energy. Pakistan and India require energy for their growing economies. Pakistan had reached an agreement with Turkmenistan that there would be a pipeline transporting oil and gas through Afghanistan. Pakistan and Turkmenistan hired an Argentine company, Bridas, to study the feasibility and manage the pipeline.

But Unocal, a United States company rumoured to have used slave labour in Myanmar (formerly Burma), decided it wanted a piece of this action. It hired Henry Kissinger and George Shulz as advisers. Turkmenistan then awarded the contract to transport the oil and gas to Unocal. However Bridas had reached an agreement with the Afghanistan Government that it would control any pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan through Afghanistan. So, there's trouble brewing here.

Bridas has the contract in Afghanistan. Unocal has the contract in Turkmenistan. Then Unocal hooks up with Delta of Saudi Arabia, who controlled the Taleban with Pakistan. Then the Afghan government is overthrown by the Taleban, nullifying the contract with Bridas. However, the Taleban did not gain total control of Afghanistan and this has deterred investors from financing large schemes such as the oil and gas pipelines. Unocal pulled out of the deal due to pressure from feminists protesting its co-operation with Taleban as one reason. So, you can see what has happened can't you?

The Taleban were financed by Saudi and Pakistan interests, to nullify the contact with Bridas, so that the Delta-Unocal consortium could build the pipelines and supply the oil and gas. However, they have not been as accommodating as their sponsors would have hoped, suppressing women, reducing opium production and so on. And due to lobbying, Unocal, the largest stakeholder in the consortium, had to pull out, putting the project on hold. Pakistan and India want the oil and gas. United States companies want to supply that oil and gas. Only the troublesome Taleban stands in the way of mega-bucks profits.

But now, the United States Government has an excuse to get rid of the Taleban - because it says it has 'undeniable proof' that Osama bin Laden was behind the World Trade Centre and Pentagon attacks. What a blessing those attacks have been - to those companies with interests in supplying oil and gas from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan to the growing Pakistan and Indian economies."

Comment
It is about time the United States and British governments came clean and presented the public with the 'undeniable proof' of Osama bin Laden's 'guilt'.

BRILLIANT ADDRESS BY BISHOP JOHN HEPWORTH TO ADELAIDE CSC

Those who attended the Adelaide CSC's final meeting for the year were treated to an outstanding exposition of what were the arrangements of power in British history and why this was so and what is now the case. Reminding his audience 'apples must be compared with apples', he outlined the differences in the approaches to power between Christianity and Islam. He speaks of the problems encountered within the Christian Church and lines them up with Islam's approach to power. This tape needs to be circulated far and wide. .The audio tape of Bishop John Hepworth's address "The Arrangement of Power in British History" is now available from Mayo Tapes, PO Box 6, Hahndorf, SA, 5245 - $6.00 posted.

The first meeting of the Adelaide CSC for the new year will be held on the first Monday of February 2002.

SYDNEY CONSERVATIVE SPEAKERS' CLUB

BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS

The League has a truly great feast of reading and information for its supporters.

SPECIAL PRICE FOR CHURCHILL'S WAR 2 - Triumph in Adversity: Please note the special price for Churchill's War Vol.2. is $75 including GST. The posted price is $80. Order from your State book service NOW. David Irving's "Churchill's War: Volume 2" was launched at The New Times Dinner. The first volume was published in 1987, and after an uneasy birth, the second volume appears 14 years later. The second volume narrates the middle years of World War 2. This work benefits from the release of thousands of secret files. Thus, says Irving, we now know more about Anthony Eden's role in the murder of Admiral Darlan. The human side of Churchill reaches boldly out - lively, incorrigible, sometimes callous - but meek and subservient to Moscow and Washington.

"Vigilance - A Defence of British Liberty": In his review of the book, Anthony Cooney poses the question, "Why have we not specified the penalties of EU treason which will be exacted from both politicians and high-ranking officials when Great Britain is once more free? Those penalties ought to be plainly specified and it ought to be understood that they will be pursued against both the carcasses and estates of deceased traitors. There is plenty of room where Cromwell's skull stood on Tower Hill!" $45 posted direct from your State bookmailing centre.