THE SHAMEFUL WAR

by Jeremy Lee
The war against Iraq has started. The first civilian casualties have occurred. It has taken over a twelve months of brinkmanship, with a number of lies and plenty of deception, to bring us to this point. In Australia the greatest casualty has been any sort of genuine representation by the major parties in the national parliament. The following open letter has been sent to the Hon. Robin Cook, former Foreign Secretary in the Blair government in the UK:

The Hon. Robin Cook, The House of Commons, Westminster, London, UK,
Dear Mr. Cook, I have noted with respect and appreciation your resignation, together with two other ministers and five parliamentary secretaries, from the government led by Prime Minister Tony Blair over the current war against Iraq. Your decision has somewhat reassured me that truly representative government in the English-speaking world, though mortally wounded, is not completely dead.
As a former soldier in Her Majesty's forces with four years' active service, I am in good company with hundreds of ex-servicemen who see this war as unnecessary, unjust, and against all the traditions normally surrounding our participation in active warfare. For the first time in Australia's history our servicemen and women have been dispatched into action without the endorsement of our Christian churches. The Roman Catholic church, in keeping with the expressed views of His Holiness Pope John Paul II, has expressed through its Australian leadership the belief that this war fails to meet the criteria of a "just" war. The Catholic Social Justice Commission has released a l18,000-page analysis of United States and Australian rationale for war, finding it fails on several theological counts to meet the ins ad bellum. Its author, Rev'd. Bruce Duncan, stated there was no "just cause".

He added: "Since World War II, the only cause has been in defence against an unjust aggressor. However, the US has not engaged in a war of self-defence. They haven't shown their grounds to be true. They haven't made a connection between terrorism and Saddam Hussein and they have failed to show that Iraqi weapons present a clear and immediate threat to the US. For the first time in their history the Western democracies are going to war without the blessing of their churches. This is a completely unprecedented situation".

Both the Anglican Primate and the Archbishop of Adelaide have condemned the present invasion as contrary to the Gospel and against the criteria of a "just war". The spokesperson for the Uniting church stressed that body's belief that our actions contravened the rule of law, adding, "Theologically we put our trust in God and not in weapons; we don't let fear dictate the way we live". Australia's former Service Chiefs who led our forces during the first Gulf War have each expressed the strongest reservations about our current involvement. Former Chief of Defence General Peter Gration, former Naval Chief Admiral Michael Hudson, former Army Chief Lieutenant-General John Coates and former Air Force Chief Air Marshall Ray Funnell have each expressed their reservations.

General Gration said: "I have strong objections to the coming war as both unnecessary and likely to produce unpredictable and potentially disastrous consequences. The real threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction is much exaggerated and that threat can continue to be contained and deterred". General Gration added his conviction that the real US agenda is at grand strategic level. He said: "It is to seize a window of opportunity, created by the events of 9/11, to reshape the strategic geography of the Middle East, and in doing so to secure America's mid to long-term strategic interests in this oil-rich but troublesome region."

It should be added that former leaders in every field have expressed similar reservations – from one-time Prime Ministers to intelligence officers and commercial executives. To confirm these fears and reservations Australia has been the scene of some of the biggest peace demonstrations in our history. Marches of up to a million people have thronged our major cities. These expressions have been too large to pin on sectional interests. They have spanned the political spectrum.

While staunchly supporting our servicemen and women, Australians do not support the aggressive war on which they have been embarked. By far the biggest failure in this sorry affair has been that of our representatives in parliament. Traditionally, the duty of each member of parliament under the Westminster system is to keep in check and, if necessary, rein in the Executive. So derelict has party hegemony made individual members in their performance of their duty that they have rendered the parliamentary process inoperative. The final decision for war was made by an inexperienced and dominant cabinet, none of whose members have ever served in war. Parliament was treated with contempt, and though guided debate was allowed, it was made clear that no vote that had any subsequent bearing on the decision for war would be contemplated. This was only possible by the assumption that, whatever views individual members may have held, their votes would be regimented by party discipline to the required end.

We have over 200 Federal members of parliament, which costs the nation $500 million a year. Two debates were held between September 2002 and the outbreak of war in which hundreds of speeches were made, passionately and strongly expressing a variety of views. But when it came to voting, such views were suppressed and party discipline asserted. The result, in a tragic modern re-enactment of Gilbert & Sullivan's Mikado, led all government members to vote one way, and all opposition members to vote another. Few honest opinions got as far as the vote. This is an absolute travesty of all the principles inherent in the Westminster system bequeathed to us by Britain.

From Edmund Burke on, notable of leaders have warned what would happen if the parliament relaxed in its duties of bringing the executive to account. Unlike Britain, not one member of Mr. Howard's coalition has dared step out of line. It is hard to believe there is not one National or Liberal member who does not have misgivings about the current war. But only one that I am aware of expressed such misgivings, which he valiantly quelled when a dissenting vote might have jeopardized future pre-selection or promotion. In consequence, the opinions, beliefs and views of individual members of parliament did not exist. Nobody said anything, leaving all statements to the prime minister and his cabinet cronies. On the eve of the most controversial war in our history, opposed by millions, all members of parliament save one or two ministers remained anonymous. Not one dared to ask his own electorate how he could best represent their views on this issue – although that is his duty. It is for this reason I am writing to commend your position.

While we still have one or two members prepared to forego position and high office on a matter of principle, the Westminster system is not dead. As yet we have no such members in Australia. They are, and are widely seen to be, mere ciphers. They vote as they're told. They have no honour. I have been surprised how many noted your actions in this country, and have commented favourably. Many were surprised that such members still exist. I hope you don't feel yours was a "futile gesture". It will have wider implications than you yourself may realize. Why? Because there is a growing minority in this country (and, I suspect, Canada, New Zealand and Britain itself) who are beginning to realize that properly-constituted representative government has been compromised almost to the point of no return.

One of our Cabinet Ministers, the Hon. Amanda Vanstone, recently confessed to this situation in a speech last September, in the course of which she said: "... Every member of Parliament has two personalities, that of a parliamentarian and that of a politician. Believe me, these are very different creatures. The parliamentarian is interested in all views, the politician simply wants to win. When the politician overtakes the parliamentarian, the desire to win overtakes the desire for rational, civil and reasoned argument. To some politicians, beating an opponent down is more important than getting their policy up.

Every sporting nation loves a good contest. But even an ardent boxing fan will turn off if at every match the loser is brain-dead. And so it is with politics. When messages are constantly overloaded with malice and hatred, politics has become a blood sport rather than a battle of ideas. Everyone who has the luxury and pleasure of participating in public discourse should understand that when they participate as a gladiator in a battle laden with hatred, malice and invective, they force everyone else to be just a spectator. They plunge another knife into the great conversation of public discourse ..."

In this context, Mr. Cook, you are, by your actions, a parliamentarian. Thank you.
Would there were a few more. ......... Yours sincerely, Jeremy Lee.

THE MAID AND THE OGRE

by Israel Shamir – from Israel, March 17th, 2003:
"A dreadful monster assaults the city, kills its brave defenders, and advances to devour the citizens. At the last moment, a young maiden demurely walks forward to meet the monster. Her very sight, the sight of feminine innocence, vulnerability, spirituality, certainty of the right cause, stops the ogre in its tracks. The beast suffers her to tie her belt to his mighty neck and walks away, tamed. It is the story of St. Genevieve and of other beautiful and virtuous saints; a part and parcel of human heritage, and the subject of many gorgeous tapestries and paintings. Courageous and noble maidens are still with us. They stopped the US Army trains with soldiers during Vietnam War, and they stopped Russian tanks in Prague 1968 and in Moscow 1991. Drivers of French, Russian, American and German tanks and trains knew: even a monster stops when a girl placidly places herself on his way. It is a biological law that we all are subject to.

Rachel Corrie was murdered by a monster from another tale. This young American girl, an ISM activist, tried to stop with her fragile body a Zionist bulldozer from ruining Palestinian homes. She could not imagine that the driver will look at her and calmly ride his ten-ton steel machine over her body, and back. Nothing in her life prepared her (for) the encounter with a monster born and bred in the Zionist labs, a monster that is totally alien and hostile to humans. She wrote to her parents: "no amount of reading, attendance at conferences, documentary viewing and word of mouth could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here. You just can't imagine it unless you see it, tank-shell holes in the walls of their homes and the towers of an occupying army surveying the [Palestinian children] constantly from the near horizons."

Though she saw dead bodies of Palestinian children with their heads split by the Jewish sharp-shooters, she still had some illusions of "the difficulties the Israeli Army would face if they shot an unarmed US citizen". She was mistaken. Her country's President is about to send the US Army to destroy Iraq and turn the killers of Rachel into the undisputed supreme power of the Middle East. If Bush would be guided by America's interests, he would demand extradition of Rachel's killer. But the driver is not exclusion (exclusive?). The people behind the bullet-proof windshields of Caterpillars are the final product of Zionism.

At the beginning of (the) Zionist movement, its eugenic task was expressed in a poem: 'Mi dam umi eza Nakim lanu geza' - 'out of blood and sweat we shall breed a new victorious and cruel race', sang the Zionists. With (the) murder of Rachel Corrie the experiment came to its fruition. The 'cruel race' is not a dream anymore, it is a new geopolitical reality... Rachel's dreadful death should open America's eyes to the real danger to the world that grew in the Middle East. Her killers possess nuclear weapons, not only bulldozers. If Bush is so keen on a Middle East intervention and on removal of WMD, his troops could land here, on the shores of ar-Rafah, where is a real threat to the world's peace, and forcibly remove all the weapons of mass destruction.
PS: A friend of Rachel, an ISM activist Susan Barclay was deported a few days ago to the US by Sharon's regime, and now she is touring the US with lectures about the unfolding Palestinian tragedy.
She can be contacted at stbarclay@yahoo.com or
https://www.voicesofpalestine.org/outrageous/Jenindozer.asp

WELCOME TO THE 'WORLD WAR' ORDER

by Betty Luks
A recent nature programme on the ABC, which, in some scenes, focused on a pride of lions herding their prey of wildebeest in the one direction before corralling them, selecting their victims, and then going for the kill, might be of use to people struggling to get the true picture of what is really happening in the world. The nations, the peoples of the earth, are being herded in just such a direction and positioned 'for the kill'. 'The kill' in this case was clearly spelled out by Tony Blair's speech in the House of Commons this last week, "Iraq was just one stage in a new world order." ("Giant leap to the new world order", Adelaide Advertiser, March 20th, 2003.)

For many people it is like sitting down to a movie half way through – they find it hard to gather up all the threads of the story. The following is but a summary.

The Social Credit Secretariat summed up the situation up to 1977: "Zimunism": "It is of the utmost importance to grasp the magnitude of what we are up against. The first phase (1914-1918) of World War, the Great Depression (1929-1933), and the second phase (1939-1946) of World War, are merely peaks in a continuing war against existing civilisation. There has been no peace with the 'end' of World War. We are currently in phase III – in a way, war by proxy, in Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East, and Africa, and guerrilla wars elsewhere.
The objective, under cover of the threat of an annihilating atomic war, is to take ''the West'' intact, without destroying its industrial base, but with the enslavement of its peoples.

Under cover of that threat, we have had the Cold War. During which the USSR moved towards strategic superiority, while the West was lulled by assurances of safety under the American nuclear ''umbrella", and NATO was alleged to be superior to the USSR. Now we have détente, meaning relaxation; but the French meaning is 'trigger'."

USSR The millionaires of the Soviet Unio
In September 1981, Ivor Benson in The New Times wrote of one of the best kept secrets of the Soviet Union years. The great socialist republic, dictatorship of the proletariat, where private enterprise was a crime, was swarming with millionaire capitalists! ("Underground Millionaires of the Soviet Union.")
Asked Ivor Benson, "Is it not strange, and most significant, that this fact should have passed unnoticed by the Western media for more than sixty years, a fact of major importance that did not qualify for as much as a mention in Time magazine's most exhaustive 45-page presentation "Inside the USSR" in its issue of 23rd June 1980!"

The story of "Russia's Underground Millionaires" was first told in Time's sister magazine Fortune on June 29th, by no less an authority than Konstantin Simis, a former international law expert in the Soviet Ministry of Justice, by then a resident of the United States. He told of an 'underground' network (tens of thousands) of privately controlled factories, spread across the whole country, operating at great profit.

Capitalism and Communism have never had any problems working together at the highest levels. Simis wrote: "For historical reasons, the underground business milieu in the large cities of Russia, the Ukraine and the Baltic republics has been predominately Jewish. While my clients included Georgians, Armenians and members of other groups, the great majority were Jewish – like myself."

Benson wrote of Solzhentisyn's inexplicable silence
"It is significant, surely, that although private enterprise carried on in secret must be regarded as the most dangerous and destructive form of sabotage, being the exact antithesis of Marxist socialism, there is no mention of this class of big-fish offender among the hundreds of individual cases discussed by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in the three volumes of his Gulag Archipelago; indeed, Jewish prisoners are rarely mentioned by Solzhenitsyn, whereas, judging by their names, there was no scarcity of Jews among the slave camp bosses – Aron Solts, Jakov Rappaport, Matvei Berman, Lazar Kogan and, most notorious of all, Naftaly Frenkel who appears to have master-minded the whole technique of slave labour.
Nor have big businessmen figured at all prominently in the great show trials which the Western media were permitted to report and dramatise.

Editor's note
Solzhenitsyn has only recently insisted the Jewish community must come to terms with the part played by so many of them during the Soviet years.

Next question
Why should this kind of activity with its almost fabulous rewards, plus attendant dangers, be confined almost exclusively to Jewish citizens of the Soviet Union?

Dollars for Israel with love from the USSR
Simis gives us an important part of the answer
"The sense of national identity among Jewish underground businessmen is strong – much stronger than that of the Soviet Jewish intelligentsia. There may not be many among them who understand what Zionism is about – even fewer who are prepared to relinquish their fortunes and emigrate to Israel – yet I never met a single one who was indifferent to the fate of that country and who did not feel a blood relationship with it. It came as no surprise to me that during the Six-day War the underground businessmen in many cities donated large sums in dollars – not rubles but dollars – to Israel."

1982 - The Zionist Role in former Rhodesia

The League of Rights considered Ivor Benson's November 1982 Intelligence Survey article "The Zionist Role in Rhodesia" one of the most important to be published.

Benson wrote: "A significantly different version of the Rhodesian drama, in which the Zionist role is explained at some length is presented in a book published recently in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) – Majuta by B.A. Kosmin (Mambo Press, PO Box 779, Gwelo, Zimbabwe, 1980).
Dr. Kosmin writes: "The scene was thus set for the intrusion of racial politics in all spheres of social action. In June 1964, Ivor Benson, a 'far rightwing political theorist' was imported from Natal as Government Information Adviser. Up until that time there had been no coherent RF (Rhodesian Front) ideology but merely an updated amalgam of the thinking of those groups and factions which had opposed Huggins in the past.

At the 1962 election the RF had fought on the type of programme which would have been advocated among the more enthusiastic Tories of the English shires. Law and order was advocated and the war service of their candidates was well featured. Benson, however, offered the new Government a coherent radical rightwing policy which would suit both their internal and external problems. Rhodesia began to be presented as the last bastion of Christianity and Western tradition against the attack of sinister forces directed from joint headquarters in New York and Moscow. (emphasis added...ed). This type of insidious propaganda began to infiltrate the Government controlled media of radio and television with attacks on the ever ubiquitous communists and international financiers... The Jewish community which had been in the forefront of the liberal multiracial camp felt very vulnerable in this heightened political atmosphere... At the 1964 proceedings of the Board of Deputies Congress, I.R. Rosin spoke optimistically about the Jewish community 'helping the emerging African..."

Get the picture? White Rhodesia was described by Dr. Kosmin as "herrenvolk democracy" with political trends "dangerous to Jews", among these dangerous trends being "a greater and more exclusive British patriotism" engendered by World War II, to be further enhanced when British forces were drawn into a struggle with Irgun and other Zionist terrorists in Palestine. In 1952, therefore, it was firmly decided at the annual congress of the Jewish Board of Deputies to urge Jews to become more actively involved in Rhodesian politics. Which they did.

South Africa was next
While pro-zionist Bob Hawke demanded at the Commonwealth leaders 1986 meeting to impose comprehensive sanctions on South Africa, his Israeli prime minister friend Simon Peres, was opposed to sanctions because they might hurt the large South African Jewish community. Former League national director Eric Butler (The New Times, February 1987) wrote that what the Israeli Prime Minister Peres did not explain was that Israel enjoyed a unique trading arrangement with both the European Economic Community and the United States and that for many years Israel had been used as a type of conduit through which South African goods had been sent to the United States and the EEC. A massive international campaign had been conducted against South Africa with the main architects being Zionists and Communists, but desperate South Africa was being 'herded into the position of 'closer ties' with Zionist Israel and in time accepted 'majority rule'.... To be continued.

FROM A BRITISH CORRESPONDENT

The Middle East situation is appalling. One former Minster, Chris Smith, summed it up well on television:
the Americans have decided to have a war, and the rest have no choice but to fall in behind. It is a total stitch-up, illegal, and simply a demonstration of American lynch law, materialism at any price whoever suffers, and oil. My own concern is Blair, and who is programming him. (Australians need to know just who is programming Howard...ed.) Neither he nor Defence Secretary Hoon have ever held office before, or run an organisation of any magnitude in their lives. They deploy armed forces like a couple of children playing with toy soldiers, with not the slightest idea of the complexities or consequences for men and families' morale. All you hear about the chaos and equipment shortages is quite true (we haven't heard or read of this in Australia). Our son went out a month ago and told of 2,000 men queuing for 4 showers. The only defence chief who stood up for them was Admiral Boyce, not surprisingly early retired. General "Kosovo" Jackson, his replacement, went out and said all was fine and dandy!!!

Another factor lurks behind the scenes; that of those involved in the Dunblane school massacre, and the cover-up that has resulted in certain documents being in baulk for 100 years; something quite exceptional. Freemasonry and paedophilia at the highest levels have been cited. Names linked are Gordon Brown, Blair and Lord Robertson of NATO. I was never impressed by some of the rather wild theories being bandied about earlier, largely because they were not properly substantiated. However, the Glasgow Sunday Herald apparently has some hot evidence, and the Police have been investigating paedophilia in Westminster circles that has dug out high-level names. I suspect that whatever is known has been suppressed by "D" notice.

TO ALL ANTI-WAR ACTIVISTS

from Evan Troussé, Murray Bridge South Australia, Tel: (08) 8532 4722
The decision by the Federal Government, in acting against the expressed majority WILL of the Australian public, has, effectively, given the lie to much of our beliefs. To the best of my knowledge, there is still one person in the Government of this country, who has an undisputed responsibility and the constitutional AUTHORITY, to over-ride government decisions – on behalf of an appeal from The People. I refer, of course, to HE The Governor-General of Australia, who as the Constitutional Supreme Commander of all the Australian Armed Forces, I believe, thus has the power to COMMAND the immediate return home of all Australian Military Personnel, and their equipment.

Hence, if all (committed Anti-War activists) were to respectfully APPEAL to our Governor-General, His Excellency, The Right Reverend Peter Hollingworth, AC, OBE, for the immediate repatriation of all our forces from the Persian Gulf, he may well be persuaded to act accordingly on our behalf. He must be fully aware of the deep divisions being caused, to our Australian communities, by this Howard government decision – to be party to the inhumane use of military force, against all Iraqi people who oppose the foreign takeover of their sovereign country. He will also know that a WAR (in order to depose their present cruel government) will only impose further suffering and death to unknown tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis, Men, women and children, who have already suffered enough from their own government, the UN imposed Sanctions, and the merciless devastation of their country carried out by American and British aircraft in "policing" the UN Sanctions.

The Governor-General can be contacted: His Excellency The Governor-General Of Australia, The Right Reverend Peter Hollingworth, AC, OBE., Government House, Dunrossil Drive, Yarralumla. ACT, 2600. Tel: (02) 6283 3533; Fax: (02) 6281 3760; E-mail: governor-general@gg.gov.au

PS: Letters and 'phone calls informing all media of your GG appeal, may also be helpful !

PROTECT YOUR PROPERTY RIGHTS - FREE ASSOCIATION MEETING

The Mackay FREE ASSOCIATION is holding its AGM and a PUBLIC FORUM, 7.15pm, Thursday, April 3rd, 2003 – after the AGM which commences at 6.15pm. Venue is: Fairview Tavern, Farleigh. Guest speaker will be Narrabri's Bevan O'Reagan of the Constitutional Property Rights Committee.
Topics for discussion include:
• The appointment of an advisor of Constitutional and Common Law.
• The lodging of a CLASS ACTION in the appropriate court; funding this type of action is beyond the capability of the individual.
• To review the Community Rights to control and direct elected representatives of Local Government.

Ample time is allocated for constructive questions and answers. Come and hear the facts! Further information: Mick Hodge Phone/Fax 4954 6607 or Neville Halliwell Phone 4942 2776

BOOK.......