On bearing standards

Whoever was popping over here by proxy to click the "flag this blog for objectionable content" button seems to have changed their mind and unflagged it.

Coincidentally I only noticed after I checked Fayrouz's google cache to see what she has published over the last three months as I have not bothered to read her diary since her post about migrants (the one where she proclaimed to be a good hardworking migrant and all other migrants are bludgers and wear the mark of Satan, which I challenged her on, and which she then threw a wobbly about and told me she was filing my IP to give to the FBI).

What I noticed, when I was looking at Fayrouz's google listing, is that, like my diary once was, her blog seems to now be flagged for objectionable content. Curious, I skim read her google cache and found she has completely flip-flopped from her former "yay the new democratic Iraq thank you America" stance and posted that "it's time to pull the troops out of Iraq". I guess some people might find it tempting to wave this around and announce the pro-war Iraqi blogger republican support base has withered away. But not me. Because frankly I don't trust her as far as I can throw her. She also seems to have turned off her comments completely.

Apart from the FBI threat incident (in which Fayrouz threatened me that I would be "the first to go to the prison jail" - for having merely been sarcastic) I am fairly critical of anyone too keen with the "troops out of Iraq" mantra. It's a cop-out for people who support some wars but not others and I am a pacifist against all wars including civil ones. Besides, it wasn't especially effective during the Vietnam war. People chanted "troops out" for 10 years over Vietnam, hardly a standout war-stopping success, I can't really say I'm keen about Iraq having to endure a whole decade of war just because a stubborn and un-imaginative faction couldn't come up with a better slogan.

My war update, redeclaration of boycott

After some few drafts on the topic and lengthy thought, I have decided to withhold publishing and resume my strike against war.

I re-instate my passive boycott of blogging until I see time fit to return.

There is nothing I can do to make Israel stop and as far as I am concerned Hezbollah are being hypocritical in complaining about "zionist aggression" when Hezbollah provoked the current conflict and continue to launch rockets into Israel.

As usual, I am disappointed in everyone.

Note to Greg: Greg Felton, my reply to you shall have to wait. This blog is inoperable during my boycott resumption.

I anticipate this may be a shorter boycott then the last one.

Emigre, zionist against war.

Economy update

My hair is almost long enough to tie back. So is a lot of other peoples. I have been looking around for short haircuts in the streets but I see fewer then I used to. Public transport in Sydney is full of women with shoulder length hair. Even cafes are full of women with low maintenance hairstyles and regrowth.

Hair is one of the first things to tell the tale, when people cut down on their grooming budgets. It could just be winter, but I'm not so sure.

My enquiry into Kovco and Sinanovic's head injuries

It looks like the Australian government has accidentally revealed what it was trying to cover up. Apart from their bodies being accidentally swapped in a Kuwait mortuary, Kovco and Sinanovic both had head injuries. Head injuries that were being kept under wraps in a civilian mortuary instead of in the usual US military morgue.

What seems to have happened, so far:

A deliberate effort to prevent Private Kovco's death from making the headlines "at home" failed. Private Kovco's body was supposed to have arrived back in Australia, in a hurry, before the press heard about it. The use of a civilian mortuary for processing non-civilian bodies with head injuries may be off the record standard practice.

Brigadier Cosson found the army had tried to get the body home too quickly. read more

Normally, apparently, a foreign cadaver in Iraq would take eight days to return home. Australia, the defense force enquiry says, planned on having Private Kovco back within four. The enquiry line is that this was "to meet the wishes of Private Kovco's family".

Except that Private Kovco's family say they were complying with the army's wishes. Blaming the family for the Australian government's political desire to rush an Iraq war body home and there-by avoid the Anzac day press, is low. Military families rarely question the letter of the law and it seems the Australian defense force had been hoping to take advantage of just that.

A dog ate our tag

Defense association excuses get worse, and reveal more.

"It was a badly lit morgue, the digger in question was emotionally affected, the surname of both Private Kovco and the Bosnian fellow are not dissimilar, they both had head injuries".

An Australian defense association spokes-person explaining, to the ABC, how one rushed home body got mixed up with another rushed home body.

1. "It was a badly lit morgue".

Defense forces are armed with torches, are they not?

2. "The digger in question was emotionally affected".

The platoon sergeant in question was private Kovco's platoon sergeant. Emotional or otherwise, a platoon sergeant should be able to recognise his privates and a digger should be able to recognise his mate. Unless the platoon sergeant was not that familiar with his privates, and not that emotional. Or, unless the mate a digger is trying to recognise has died from a point blank shot in the head. A point blank shot in the head rendering facial features somewhat unrecognisable. Point blank shots in the head are generally self applied.

In any case, blaming "the digger" for a military stuff-up shows poor form on the part of the defense association.

3. "The surname of both Private Kovco and the Bosnian fellow are not dissimilar".

Private Kovco's surname is Kovco. The surname of the contractor he was mixed up with is Sinanovic. Suggesting the two names are not dissimilar is akin to suggesting Schmidt and Bernstein are similiar on the basis of being spelt with an s and a t. That "Kovco" and "Sinanovic" are supposed to be not dissimilar and therefore somehow are a contributing factor in a body mix-up makes the co-alition look very very stupid, very very racist, and very very bad at making up excuses. Kovco starts with a K. Sinanovic starts with an S. The only consonant these two names have in common is "v".

4. "They both had head injuries."

Kovco and Sinanovic both had head injuries. And therein lies one coincidence too many. Presumably Sinanovic's head injury was the cause of Sinanovic's death, as was Kovco's. I wonder, how did Sinanovic's head injury happen. Are privates and contractors wearing their helmets to work? Or was Sinanovic, like Kovco, shot in his room, when he had his head gear off.

The mortuary

The defense force enquiry seems to be suggesting that Australia used an independent civilian mortuary, instead of the usual military mortuary, to speed up the usual eight day return. As if this was some sort of deviation from standard practice. Yet there was another body from another country, of a man working as a contractor for Halliburton, also with a head injury, being kept in the same independent mortuary. Is this a mortuary that is regularly used, to speed home bodies of soldiers and contractors with head injuries?

Juso Sinanovic's head injury

The Australian defense force enquiry into the swapping of Private Kovco's body with Halliburton carpenter Juso Sinanovic's, states that Juso Sinanovic's body had a head injury and suggests that the similarity between Kovco and Sinanovic's injuries contributed to the mixing up of their bodies. Yet a May 12 ABC transcript states that Juso Sinanovic died of a "brain haemorrhage". A brain haemorrhage is sometimes used to refer to a type of stroke that accounts for less then 15 percent of stroke cases. A brain haemorrhage of this type rarely leaves visible outside lesions or marks on the head that might resemble a bullet hole. In it's simplest form, a haemorrhage is the rupturing of blood vessels. I guess at a stretch a bullet wound could be said to cause haemorrhaging, but it is a descriptive stretch in determining a cause of death. Questions remain, was Sinanovic's haemorrhage the same kind of haemorrhage as Kovco's, if it was then why was it not described as a gun-shot injury and if it wasn't then how could it have contributed to the bodies being mistaken one for the other.

Why the defense force tried to cover it up

Private Kovco died from a head-injury when his own gun discharged in his barracks during an unpopular war. The first known Australian Iraq War defense casualty, he couldn't have died in a less heroic manner.

"Private shot with own gun". A far cry from the usual national roll out, when Australia's Anzac day parade goes to print.

It doesn't take much of a conspiracy theorist to understand that getting Kovco's body back quickly to avoid the press as Anzac day approached, would be a pretty high priority. Unfortunately it was all just too rushed.

On April 27, two days after Anzac day, Private Kovco's mother told The Age that her son's body got mixed up on the way home from Iraq. At the time, she said, with justified anger; "I have shut up for the army... we have shut up and we let the army handle it".

Had the bodies not been accidentally swapped, everything may have passed quietly for the army as planned. Kovco's body would have been cremated or buried and another Anzac day parade would have passed without reality hanging over it to remind everyone that once apon a time, Anzac day was a reminder of how crap war is.

Archived articles
SMH
ABC
ABC transcript

The truth about Al Muthana

Some time ago, in February 2005 actually, I wrote that I didn't think the world was being told the entire whole truth about what the co-alition "of the willing" were doing in Al Muthana. The claim, at the time, made through mainstream media outlets in highly questionable press releases, was that non-combatant Japanese forces, supported by Australian troops, were conducting civilian engineering projects in the province.

At the time, this seemed highly curious to me. Because Al Muthana is a rural area. Why the big deal about engineering projects in the restive province of Al Muthana, which at that time hadn't seen much of the bombing and things that were going on in other areas. Surely Baghdad would have been the engineering priority, with it's infrequent electricity supply, near non-existent telecommunications network, and water purification concerns. After all, there are a lot of people in Baghdad and we hear frequently how disgruntled it's bloggers are by lack of power and intermittent net connection.

Back then, a bit of a research told me everything I needed to know, but not quite everything I wanted to know. I found out relatively easily that Al Muthana was the site of one of Saddam's biggest weapons production plants. A factory that was built in 1975 and had been active through out the eighties, was severely bombed during the 1991 gulf war** and had produced nothing through out the nineties but a health hazard. No one need much of an imagination to picture the environmental mess a former weapons factory oozing chemicals would be after an allied bombing.

What were, I wondered, non-combatant Japanese troops assisted by Australian troops, up to. What were they up to in the place where Saddam had built his weapons.

I dropped the hints. But no-one in the mainstream seemed to pick it up. Paul McGeough ran a piece about there being oil in the south, and this he concluded might be a plausible explanation. I was not satisfied. True, there is oil in the south and every man and his grain merchant is interested in it. But Iraq's southern oil fields are to the east, and Al Muthana is south-south. The supergiant oil fields Paul talked about are in Basrah and in Maysan - not Al Muthana. I know, I think some of us went off on a tangent at the time. Perhaps we were imagining roads being built to truck oil from Basrah through Al Muthana in a detour around Kuwait to get to Saudi Arabia (we would not be without reason, in entertaining these ideas).

What I mean, is, the oil explanation didn't totally convince me, in this particular case. There must be some other reason and, I was fairly sure, it had something to do with a defunct and toxic weapons site. No, I did not think Japanese troops would be tidying up the place and doing an environmental clean-up. A cursory one had already been done, in 1992-94 according to some sources. Besides, had an environmental cleanup been the reason, it would have been all through our headlines and Bush, Blair, Koizumi and especially John Howard would have been hypocritically pillocking on about how green they were being and how green Saddam was not.

Something fishy was certainly going on.

But I didn't have enough information at the time to support my suspicions, I couldn't get into Iraq to check it out myself and all the independent journo's in Iraq were hanging about Baghdad avoiding car bombs and looking for "human interest" stories. As far as I could make out, there were no embeds with the Al Muthana coalition military team. At least, there are no mainstream news reports about Al Muthana from embedded reporters. Hmm.

So what has happened now is, I have just coincidentally read Rod Barton's book about his role in UN weapon's inspecting and am observing that Australian mainstream media is reporting that Australian forces are moving out of Al Muthana, and that the Japanese "engineering" non-combatant forces are moving out too (which is why Australian military support is no longer needed there).

I am also reading that a batch of "old" chemical weapons have been recently uncovered. Which the blogosphere loves of course - all the rightwingers can weakly rant "Saddam had WMD" and all the Scott Ritter fans can happily proclaim "they were OLD weapons and UN-USEABLE".

Sooo. Anyway. When I read Rod Barton's book, I got the impression that while UN weapons inspectors had thoroughly inspected quite a lot and gotten to basically riffle through all the files they could find, and had concluded that Saddam's weapons program was basically over and that there was no way he or anyone else could restart it as long as sanctions were imposed while weapons inpectors were present, I got the impression that there was more that intelligence wanted to know. (Intelligence, always wants to know everything). There was more intelligence wanted to know, specifically, there was more intelligence wanted to dig up. That is, there was more buried intelligence. Pre-war inspections fairly much came to an end in 1998, two short years after the oil for food program began, so no further digging could be done, None of much consequence anyway.

In 2005, the occupation provided the perfect cover to go and do the forensic excavations that could not of been done before. And now those excavations seem to be over, in Al Muthana anyway. Australian troops were deployed from about May 2005 for two rotations of six months (one year) in Al Muthana. And, almost as timetabled, they are now leaving the area. While the rest of Iraq is still full of troops.

Evidence is suggesting to me that Australian and Japanese troops were stationed in Muthana to check out an old inoperable weapons facility. And seeing as they are the only troops withdrawing from any area in Iraq at all, I would say there is nothing more to be found there.

What did they find in Al Muthana

The most, it seems, anyone could find was a bunch of old casings and some degraded chemicals. The most anyone could find, is exactly what a lot of people have been saying all along: Saddam had no WMD . The weapons that he did have, at one point, long ago, were fairly poor and supplemented by a lot of bluffing and pretending he had more cards in his pack then there actually were.

What they wanted to hear

What has come out of the war in Iraq is not what everyone who wanted war, wanted to know. Or hear.

A lot of Americans probably wanted to hear about liberation. Some Iraqis probably wanted to hear Saddam choking while he swung from a pole. Oil monopolies, would have liked the sound of oil gushing.

Intelligence wanted to hear (it does seem they rely on hear-say) about Iraq's history; weapons, dissidents, politics, how Iraq's military history connected with other histories. It seems, the war has been a fairly fruitless exercise for intelligence operatives. All there is to know was always fairly plain; the war was went to on a lie.

Nobody found any WMDs. Instead, what has been revealed by the war is a global network of extraordinary renditions, abduction and torture. A network in which western governments and their intelligence operatives collaborated with eastern governments and their mukharabat.

Is the war over it yet

Some press releases are being bandied about at the moment, plugging the withdrawal from Muthana as a "handover" to Iraqi forces. As I have mentioned before, Al Muthana is a low population area. There was no fighting there from the start. The area was declared, 16 months ago, by Howard, before his troops even got there, to be a "benign" area. The idea that a formerly benign area is now suddenly restive enough for a "handover" is ridiculous.

Anyway. What this also means is that while some sectors may take an Australian military exit from Muthana as a signal that Australia is backing out and the war might be over soon, no such thing, unfortunately, is really happening. Britain is certainly saying that British troops leaving Al Muthana may be redeployed in other areas rather then returning home.

Basically, Australian troops have now been freed up by some 450 (the 450 that were in Al Muthana) and those "spare" troops may shift to more populated areas now. There were, at the time those 450 troops were stationed in Al Muthana , 900 other known troops operating in Iraq. And there is no word, of any of them returning.

**Footnote. I won't call it gulf war one as others do in jest, because there are too many gulf wars that preceed 1991 to turn a blind eye on. Just because 1991's gulf war was the first our generation experienced, does not mean it was the first other generations had to endure.

Related links

My first article about it.

Navigate to here to read an archived copy of the February 2005 "rebuild" article that I referred to as dubious. In it, Howard says troops are to stay for about a year and are to "to assist Japanese forces engaged in the rebuilding process, such as constructing new roads and schools." Note he doesn't say they will actually be building roads and schools, only engaged in some sort of a building process "such as roads and schools". Which gives him the normal wriggle room he requires when he is telling a whopper. Anyway. One year sounds like a pretty good length of time to do some excavations and things, on an old weapons facility site.

Maps

Click here to see a map of Iraq and it's provinces.
Click here to see a map of Iraq and it's oil fields.
Click here, for a map of Iraq airports.

Other interesting facts: a new defense airbase was opened March 07, 2006 next to Iraq's international airport, it has been named "Al Muthana". It is miles away from the province Al Muthana. Two military "building" projects that were going on at the same time with the same name. HMM.

Revisiting the past

I read the comments on Iraq Blog Count for the first time in ages today and was horrified to find Salam Adil fairly much confessing to be posting without focus. The purpose, Salam Adil stated, had been "lost in the mists of time".

Fortunately, Salam Adil’s description of what Salam Adil thought Salam Adil was doing seemed relatively accurate although I would say Salam Adil seems a bit staid about it all. Adil says Adil wouldn’t add military blogs or foreign contractor blogs, Adil may just mean Adil won't link to obviously false US representations. Which is a bit hypocritical.

Although I never actually "counted" blogs of a US military nature I did sometimes link to some soldiers blogs if they seemed to have seen something interesting. I would still certainly be keeping an eye out for that sort of thing although as usual I would treat it all with some considerable neutrality along the lines of this may or may not be so until such time as it was clearly one way or the other.

I have met ordinary people who have happened to be in the military and have said things that have the ring of reality about them. "Off the record - It's shit" one guy told me. And then looked uneasy and glum. Still, having to think about linking to military blogs shouldn't be too much of a problem for you Salam Adil, there seem to be fewer soldiers around with blogs these days. After the Abu Ghraib scandal and a few other incidences, their activities might be a bit more restricted now. Or perhaps PR up on high decided it didn't look so good that there were oodles of US soldier blogs and stuff all Iraq civilian blogs.

Fortunately, blogspot has archives and if anyone really wanted to have a look back at Iraq Blog Count’s formative stages and intent, all a person would need to do, would be to go back to the original first few posts.

About the recruitment drive. That will not be necessary. Iraq Blog Count was never about evangelism.

Jeffrey pledges to shut down his blog

It is time for Jeffrey Schuster to close down his blog. By his own words he shall be deposed:

"While it lasted, Cry Me a Rubarb had been the only place where one could go to actually discuss and debate what had been written by the Jarrars and Riverbend.... ra ra ra... comments... importance of debate... email... blow blow blow...

The Jarrar family (Faiza, Raed, Khalid, and Majid) and Riverbend, however, do not have comments pages... etc etc etc

The day they enable their comments pages is the day that 'Jarrars up a River' terminates."

Jeffrey May 21, 2004

His remit is overdue. By about two years.

Majid has comments, Raed has had very popular comments (which Jeffrey and Bruno and all of their pseudonyms ruined) Khalid has had comments on at least three different blogs and has blogged with "the opposition" (an American and a secular Zionist) on at least two blogs and has many comments to this day on his own personal diary. Riverbend claims she had comments once. Faiza is out of Jeffrey's league.

Don't you think it's time Jeffrey, for you to pack up your kit.

In case Jeffrey decides to edit his own promise and pretend he never said he would shut down his site, I have taken a screenshot of his words for evidence and published it below. You will probably need to use a magnifying glass.

There is something to be said for reading the first few chapters in the book shop, before purchase

Tariq Ali (who considers himself a leftist) might like to know that when I bought his book "Bush in Babylon" I was looking forward to something really good, but I threw it down and didn't bother reading past the intro when he started on with his anti-Zionist crap. And Phyllis Chesler (who also considers herself a leftist) might like to know that when I bought her book "The new anti-semitism" I was looking forward to something that might reflect what I felt when I tossed Tariq's book into the "read later - maybe next century" corner. But I threw her book down too, when she started on about being a proud American. At about the first page. I did pick it up again though, and persevere. And she certainly had some things to write which I would agree are saliant points, although her American bias was a turn-off. Perhaps I may pick up Tariq Ali's book again although his mania, Jungvolk, Jugend and anti-Zionism are certainly off-putting.

Sooner or later I'll get around to reading Andrew Wilkie's "Axis of deceit", but I shouldn't promise myself it will be any more edifying. Especially after I just finished Rod Barton's "The weapons detectives" in which Rod Barton, a weapons detective, remains puzzled up until almost the last minute when the American and United Kingdom leaderships are making public statements about weapons of mass destruction which do not match up with the intelligence he is writing for them. It's a thriller alright. Right at the very point when it's nearly too late and after thousands of Iraqis have already been imprisoned, tortured and killed and after a colleague of Barton's has died in circumstances that somewhat might suggest assassination, Rod Barton comes out of the shadows and declares "we went to war on a lie". I read the whole thing.

Australia declares end to war on terror

DETAINEES captured by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan are not being given prisoner of war status under the Geneva Conventions, because the Federal Government says there has been no declaration of war and it is not an armed conflict more

In that case, the detainees had better be released immediately. If there is no war, then there is no war on terror and if there is no war on terror then there are no terrorists ergo the detainees are not terrorists ergo Australian soldiers are holding Afghan civilians captive. Not a good look.

At any rate, looks like the war on terror is over. Somebody must of won the war on semantics, I guess.

Junk news

If I wanted to present a crude and inaccurate view of the world I might write “Christians mix their proteins, Jews mix their starches and Muslims mix their oil”.

And that would be that. Three simple gross inaccuracies, helpful and infinitely useful. I could apply them over and over again. Every time a world event happened I could just run it through the filter; if it smelt of rotten meat and rancid cheese the Christians must of done it, if it made someone fat the Jews did it and if it’s full of greasy lies the hands of Muslims must have been at work. What a happy content diarist I would be. Logging one misdemeanour after another and attributing it to one of these three causes by virtue of gastronomy. Or by casting aspersions on Saudi Arabian oil monopolies. But mainly with a nod to inedibility and bias.

It hasn’t stopped some writers. Crude inaccuracy. Only last week I read that falafel selling had been banned in Baghdad. Most likely, the writer implied to the world at large from behind a news column, the work of Jew-hating fascists (whether Christian or Islamist is anybodies guess). As falafels are the only thing that bring Jews and Muslims together (the writer knowingly assured the globe with the satisfaction of having investigatively passed on hearsay from inside sources) and because the only fast-food left to eat in Baghdad is pizza and burgers (now that falafel sellers have been forced underground) this must mean (the reader is left to deduce) the Jesus killers have been driven right out. Because everyone knows no Jew will touch pizza or go anywhere near the mac franchise that is sure to spring up any day now, in Iraq. A wedge, and not a potatoe one, has been neatly driven between Muslims and Jews in Baghdad (some fear) by the murder of falafel-sellers.

People mean well, I’m sure. I hope. I can’t quite find the words to describe right now the incredulity I would like to express about having read this sort of thing in the news in the world section. A pox on "investigative journalism" – a euphemism for repeating things that other people have said reliably and word for word no matter how speculative and untruthful.

ABC wedges Ruddock on David Hicks

ABC national just did an excellent job of grilling Philip Ruddock, who came across like a stumbling liar full of bees-shit. Ruddock didn’t even sound like he bought his own lines.

Boycotting the war – how to not talk about it

"I have been going around trying to film for this video blog for five days now and it has been a constant struggle. People do not want to talk..."

justzipit.blogspot.com

This hardly is surprising. Nobody wants to talk about anything unless there is something to be gained from it that does not include immediate death. I counted blogs for about three years and nobody in Iraq really wanted to talk. Well, maybe one or two.

Facts and figures to prove this mute point.

This time last year there were over 60 million blogs in the blogsphere and 151 of them were "Iraq" blogs. One month later there were 70 million blogs in the blogsphere. Virtual-Iraq today has 203 blogs. The rest of the blogsphere grows by at least 10million blogs per month and "Iraq" blogs grow by about 4 per month. Hullo-oh.

Anyway. I suppose you could always do with your filim what everybody else does – just make it up. Doesn’t stop the Whitehouse or the Pentagon and it doesn’t stop a good deal of diarists either. It certainly doesn’t stop John Howard in Australia. This week he is organising a two faced sided debate about nuclear power. First Howard tells us about how green it will be, and then he weighs up the cons and tells us how green it will be again.

Actually if you ask me, people not wanting to talk is a god send. People are notoriously biased and untruthful when given attention (just look at the blogsphere). In fact if I weren’t busy being silent over here, I would be busy being silent with a camera in Iraq. Probably with a noir fly on the wall approach. Half-empty glasses, long shots of unfocussed figures (silhouetted against crumbling dwellings or loitering near gaunt commercial shells) scavenging animals. Smoking ruins (this century's). That sort of thing. An occasional flap of my all concealing garments obscuring the edges, because it’s not always easy operating a camera in a tent. A silent video, set to the music of distant artillery. After all, the world has hurtled back several decades. In some aspects. Thinking Erich Von Stroheim, Cecil B. De Mille, King Vidor, Chaplin and Harold Lloyd. It was a man’s world then and nothing much has changed.

Evidence of human activity, can be so much more informative then interrogation.

Update on my boycott against the war

My boycott against the war seems to be going fairly well. I haven’t mentioned it in months. Enough said.

PS, most of the blogs on Iraq Blog Count are fakes. Which makes the "Iraq Blogsphere" probably about as full of garbage as the rest of the web. I used to think most readers could spot a rort but seems like no. Just thought I'd mention it again. Seeing as some mainstream journalists seem to be not checking their source material. The AP might like to think it's being clever when it plants a wopper to see which bloggers just copy paste without fact checking but sadly many mainstream journos do not hold themselves to the same high standards they expect of everyone else.

More truth again

Well another day and still no apologies. Not from Howard and not from "Firas Al Atraqchi" either. Or whatever other pseudonym he uses in the mainstream these days as a smalltime feature writer publishing his propaganda in what I now consider poorly substantiated outlets. Let me just say that his antics on the web do not lend a whole lot of credibility to any of the online publications he contributes to. In my eyes.

Meanwhile "Bruno" seems to have disappeared into the ether in shame after insulting a female commenter who disagreed with him. Once again, Bruno has come off the worse for wear by showing his true colours. No prizes for guessing which part of the anatomy he couldn't help himself from fixating on.

A short post about hypocracy

Hilarious. Fayrouz Hancock "in Beaumont" has been hitting the "notify blogger about objectional content" flag on my blog. Talk about no backbone. First she reports me to the FBI for being flippant (on the web!) and now she's reporting me to blogger. Free speech, as far as Fayrouz Hancock goes, is something she seems to think only she should have. What a complete and incredible bore.

Well, here goes, more "objectionable content" - the war is wrong, Fayrouz Hancock acts like a Baathist and her husband is ex-mil (US). Oh dear, however did I guess.

I should point out once more, for Fayrouz, seeing as she can't seem to help herself from popping over here with a proxy (again, spineless) that I find her to be dull and somewhat repellant. Don't mind me, I just slipped a truth serum into my porridge this morning and can't bring myself to post any lying sweetness for her to read.

I suppose this is going to get a copy of my blog sent to the pentagon now. For them to read again. Seeing as my opinions are such a deathly threat. Ie that I believe all immigrants ought to be treated fairly and not put into camps behind razor wire or forced into illegal occupations and paid two cents an hour (or whatever the less then minimum wage is these days for unskilled workers with no "citizenship").

Gosh. I'm becoming a bit of a Latham here.

A near furious post about prejudice

Formerly titled "Fayrouz Hancock hates migrants". This post was originally written in a near state of fury. It seems almost funny at this point (that I bothered writing about it to myself). Still, I am furious about several things and Fayrouz Hancock knows very well what they are now. Namely, I'm not a great fan of people running around drubbing others who don't even have internet access ie can't exactly answer for themselves (I am thinking of people held in immigration detention centres, for one thing).

Since my exchange with Fayrouz about migration and prejudice, more then one million people from Miami to Seattle (in Fayrouz's residential country of choice) have marched in support of migrants. I wonder how comfortable Fayrouz feels now, having sold out to the migrant-haters in previous episodes. Perhaps Fayrouz imagined hating migrants might have given her credence in some "assimilated national" way. As Fayrouz only ever bows to the status quo, or what she perceives it to be, I wonder how she feels now that Catholic Bishops are as concerned about the stereotyping of migratory peoples as I am. Will she change her tune? Or will she continue to post anti-migrant drivel during her happy-war downtimes.

Spokane Bishop William Skylstad, leader of U.S. Catholic bishops, is urging justice for legal and illegal immigrants in Washington state.

In a letter to parishioners, Skylstad noted that his father passed through Ellis Island in 1927, and that it is wrong to stereotype illegal immigrants read more

Note to "Cile". Seeing as I have mail asking me about Fayrouz Hancock's "emigre attacked me" post, I thought I might as well publish a public reply instead of sneaking around forwarding email behind everyone's backs like Fayrouz Hancock does. Yes I questioned Fayrouz, I questioned her prejudicial cow-towing and slimy grubbing and the way she frequently disses migrants in the hopes that she shall be rewarded with extra citizen chips. Much as Baath grubs betrayed friends and neighbours in return for paltry nest linings, so does Fayrouz Hancock besmear the migrant community in return for an imagined national acceptance. Yes I challenged the pitiful and gutless material Fayrouz Hancock produces. Because I think it's important. And because I am not afraid of speaking out or leading a case against Fayrouz Hancock's tunnel visioned view of the web and wider world.

More truth about Fayrouz Hancock

Goodness. Fayrouz Hancock seems to have published another entry on her blog claiming I have been verbally "attacking" her. Ironically, after drubbing her readers for the sympathy vote she wrote me an email claiming that I am playing the victim by publishing her threats to report me to the FBI. I am being reported for creative writing. What a lot of fun the officers in the sedition department must be having, following up web log tizzys. There certainly must be a lot of material to work with. A whole internets full. I hope this isn't the sort of work that accounts for Germany's 24 kilometre long Nazi archive.

What happened: Fayrouz published another of her one-eyed opinion pieces about migrants. These generally run with the theme that although Fayrouz has migrated herself, she is somehow better then all the other immigrants who, she says, are bludgers and quote "queue-jumpers". There was a time when I would have patiently humored Fayrouz, and gently explained to her, probably with Christian thoughts, that the immigration detention system is a horror on earth in Australia and not as easy as it is for people like herself who married ex-military service men to gain green-cards. There was a time when I would have taken that tack. But those days are over. Fayrouz claims she has changed during the last three years. And perhaps she has. If that is so, it's time she learnt that sarcasm is warranted where sarcasm is due and in healthily democratic countries sarcasm is not a hanging offense. At least, that is what Fayrouz and other pro-Bush pro-war bloggers used to like to tell everyone as they busily filled the comments sections of pro-peace Iraqi blogs with rot and hate-filled sarcasm "America is a free country, we are free to be horrible" they chimed. "America is a free country", Fayrouz echoed.

I have seen too many people with a site more sense and compassion then Fayrouz Hancock go through hell online for being brave enough to do such things as speak out against war, film war as it really is, record civilian war casualties, raise money for hospital supplies in war torn districts and put their lives on the line to publish live without pay from Iraq. People who have done all these things have done so under a barrage of the most appalling smut ever written this century. So the very idea that three comments calling Fayrouz's prejudicial stance about immigration into question have prompted her to threaten me with imprisonment, is ludicrous. Yes really. I have been threatened with the FBI and prison for seditious behaviour on Fayrouz Hancock's blog. Fayrouz has informed me that she is saving my IP for the FBI and that I shall be "the first one to go to prison".

All my wishes have been granted at once. I am officially a seditious threat worthy of imprisonment. Of course, the moment I land there, Fayrouz will be publishing entries about what a heaven on earth prison is for migrants and that I shall be served three meals a day, have my own toilet, and not have to work in an office. I shall be one of those bludging migrants she so happily claims not be. Roll on Villawood.

Bibliography, selected threats from Fayrouz:

Fayrouz's first threat on her blog in which she announces I shall be imprisoned. Nay, I shall be "the first to get into the prison jail". I expect this means Fayrouz has been collecting other IPs as well and I am the orange alert. Goodness knows what the other terrors have done. Blogged in Comic Sans?

I'll continue to post your IP address so the FBI wouldn't have a problem finding you if something happens to me. Actually in this case, even if someone else harm me, you'll be the first to get into the prison jail.

April 23, 2006 10:01 AM

Fayrouz's email in which she threatens to report me to the FBI (condensed version, summarised part in italics):

From Fayrouz Hancock
Mon Apr 24 05:40:18 2006

Your posts will be safed in a separate directory and ready to be sent to the FBI (etc etc asylum etc re-education thought crime etc.)

After making threats to my physical person, Fayrouz later states she believes in verbal assault as well. At first I took this to mean she doesn't believe in verbal violence, but on a second reading she actually writes she believes in it. The hypocracy:

From Fayrouz Hancock
Mon Apr 24 18:29:17 2006

(Paragraph about saving all her emails for the FBI etc first place people look is an email etc etc it's in the news etc etc)

I'm one of those people that believe that abuse isn't only about physical violence. It's about verbal violence too.

(Victim etc etc credibility real Iraqi etc etc.)

Why people wants to know the truth Update

Update. Fayrouz is reporting me to the FBI for disagreeing with her. Looks like I get to go to jail for being a deviated pacifist afterall.

Fayrouz Hancock's latest email to me:

Your posts will be safed in a separate directory and ready to be sent to the FBI when something happens to me. You're no difference than the canibbalist blogger... (etc etc something about a mental institution for thought reprocessing etc)...

BTW, even if you post as anonymous, your IP and all information are attacked to the message on the server. Have you heard of the Chinese blogger who was turned by google to the authorities? He was anonymous too.

I don't read your messages any more. I just safe them for the authorities to find you.

My crimes: thought ones. As usual. I admit it. I did it. I was seriously sarcastic and did an awful awful thing and now I am being turned over to the authorities for telling Fayrouz what I think. Uncensored (finally). Strangely, I told her she was a toady to authority. Tragically, it was not nearly as creative as what I would of told Truth About Iraqis (the fraudulant Austrian who is not, and not an Iraqi either) so as you can imagine this is somewhat of a god-send for me. But not much of a surprise.

It doesn't take much really, to get turned in to the authorities these days. Funnily enough, Fayrouz mentioned Anti-Jews. Which is just what TAI said (but having chosen different words). And most oddly of all, the time Stephen Whatsis name excommunicated me (from his Iraq elections purple fingers blog) was the same time as when I mentioned about how erm, how, much like, well, how much the whole neo-conservative ethic reminded me of early onset Nazism. And that I could see muslims being sent off to camps by the bucketload if we weren't careful. Heck look at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib I probably said, at the time. Gosh. I never thought it was so across the board though. It's just like the old days, in 1942. Everyone hates you bringing up the Jews. The right, the left, the centre - there is no place for it.

Oh well, here I go. A pacifist. Chalking up my third "Ye shall be exiled" experience. In conjunction with having said something Jewish probably. Which is odd. Seeing as how I don't have a religion, and have no idea what I should be doing that's so Jewish. I mean, if there were more Jews about I could probably ask one and find out. But alas, most of them were extinguished last time. And as far as I can make out, the Jew in me was largely bred down to a quarter (or something) under generally acceptable assimilation policies. I guess I got the quart that does all the bad things that ought to be nailed to the cross. I suppose I have no choice but to turn to passive extremism, being a pacifist but having made no impact thus far. I must get myself arrested, preferably for thought crimes.

Anyway, as it stands, so far as Fayrouz is concerned I now eat babies probably, and drink the blood of Aryan prima donnas.

Division

Was just reading an article saying about how other articles are appearing saying that Al-Qaida is under attack from resisting insurgents (because of unnecessary civilian deaths attributed to Al Qaida) and that US strategists have been fomenting this division for some time now. No kidding. Anyway, it had me pause for thought.

No twentieth century "divide and conquer" exercise could be more successful then the rift plotted between Israel and Palestine. So successful has it been that many on the left have bought the bait hook line and sinking plumbline and have become by consequence the greatest ally imperialism could ever have hoped for. Israel was a sticky problem from the start, and not just because of all the usual stickiness tossed up around middle eastern politics - it was a sticky prob because no-one in the "free" world could afford to deny Zion and risk looking like little Hitlers (a name I can't say I have ever uttered out loud). Because of the shock everyone was still suffering after the bad publicity around Europe's deathcamps, no-one in the free (no point using inverted comers, the irony is too tiring to bother) world of capitalism could afford to knock Israel - and yet Israel was a socialist state practicing communism and full of politically aware laborers, the antithesis of capitalism. If Israel became successful as a communist state it would pose a threat to anti-communist capitalist propaganda post WWII. Think 1950's redscare and paranoia - a new state founded on communist principles and recognised globally for having been founded on those principles could only prove a counterpoint to anti-communist material being pumped out by the Joseph McCarthys of that time.

Meanwhile, in the 1950's, no-one (no-one much anyway) in the world espousing communality and socialist principle could afford to endorse Israel, because while Israel was founded on communal and social principles it veered away from the mantra "nothing to kill or do for and no religion too" by being a communist and religious state. Both at the same time. In apparent paradox, according to marxist doctrine. While the new Russian plutocracy was busy exiling and incarcerating all it's Christians and Jews (one spirit good, holy spirits bad) it could hardly be seen to support a whole country full of the practicing faithful. But like western capitalists, Soviet opportunists couldn't at that point afford to look like Hitlers either. So mostly, at that point, the USSR just pretended Israel didn't exist and withdrew assistance, having little more to do with the place except to send out spies, in case Trotsky was hiding out nearby in Jordan or something (until things started hotting up in the 60's and everyone who was anyone had some sort of militant spoke in the wheel).

In the end, the commercial world's hawks seized on the ideological division between Zionist communism and the rest of the other communists and sought to chafe sensitivities by providing money. Which Israel took, having none, being a country populated by people with little on their backs other then the rags they survived Europe's camps in and with no money forthcoming from their other non-religious communally inclined brothers and sisters. It's a miserable fact but not even Osama questions where his money comes from. Or Hezbollah. Or Hamas. Nobody does, if money is forthcoming and people are desperate they generally take it. And so the seeds were sewn and the divisions increased and the same old fearmongers intent on wiping out Judaism come out with the same old arguments. And still do. "Jews are rich" (they live off world bank fat). "Jews are gold-diggers" (check their teeth). "Jews steal" (land, homes). And even "Jews torture their own babies" (yes this too, anathema but people still buy it).

Oh what a feat in divisivity. Zion can never be socialism's poster child now, not a hope in hell, the kibbutz will never spread throughout the Mid East and into Europe, oil merchants can relax, Israel is cornered by war and that's all that matters.

UPDATE: I realise this was a contentious post, and I did it on purpose. The truth about Zion is hard for some left land intellectuals to accept. No I don't think war is the answer, yes I do think it's a tragedy what has happened in Israelistan/Palasrael - but let's get one thing straight, Israelis were provoked and they fought back. If socialists want to do some big rah-rah for Palestine by implying that Palestinians were provoked and have the right to fight for their homes then it's imperative to understand that fighting Israelis are doing exactly the same thing as fighting Palestinians for exactly the same reasons (and that Israel as a state actually sprung up to some extent out of socialism). I oppose the idea that some wars are wronger then others - they're all wrong to me, all armies (whether state or "peoples") are all fighting for the same thing and all army recruitment drives use the same propaganda (defend your land, your homes, your people). Someone suggested there might be less war and the world might be a better place if everyone critiqued their respective home lands. But I have no home land to critique. Unlike a Chompsky, who might for example choose to criticise just Israel, or a Faiza who might choose to just criticise Egypt, I am in the unfortunate position of having no real land to call my home or to criticise. This is why I sometimes criticise communists - I have no especial allegiance to soil to make my criticism seem especially powerful but I did grow up with alternative party voting parents. I grew up in a world with comparatively few borders (no Noam, you can't claim responsibility for fewer borders, the blurred borders I grew up with are a direct result of depressed economies, war and subsequent migration). This is why my generation do outrageously conservative and straight forward things like tell a Baathist when he is being a dork. Because he is. And why we also know that Bush is a dimwitted third rate pawn. We are unfortunately almost impossible to brainwash and infuriatingly naive in our simpleminded belief that people could share if they tried hard enough but first stop bossing us around ok - otherwise we will go and chat with the rightwingers.

With compliments

Well it's my lunch break. My lunchbreak at the beginning of the week at the start of new year. I stayed up all last night planning a plan and I'm dead tired and look like - well never mind what I look like today, the important thing is that you can't see me and I can congratulate myself and anyone else who looks as haggard as I do after three years of waging peace against all odds. Because by god if there is one - we've done it. We've waged peace when there is absolutely no show on earth that we can stop the killing and the maiming and the torturing and the looting of loot and unearthing of oils and trodding down on rays of hope. Congratulations everyone, congratulations the dead dearly departed and living corpses wasting away on cell floors and in cargo holds. Congratulations the lot of you. Three years later, a lot of dead bodies, more kidnappings then I could count blogs (including all the fake ones) a mash of meaningless words and spent emotion and courageous courage and strawmen blown over in the wind - after all this futility we have made it. I have made it. I have made it thus far, and probably shall continue till I perish. Which is a comforting thought, for I know that all over the world people are waging peace, in their small ways, with their cups of tea and moments caught between word and reality.

And now, having congratulated myself and anyone else who passes by on our frailty and utterly utterly ridiculous task (might as well try spinning gold from hay) - I am going to go and eat my sandwich.

Today, is a day in which I look about me at my disrepair and feel satisfied, so satisfied with my unrelenting ineffectuality that I spread my imaginary arms wide and cheer on every one of you who achieve as little as I do while forfeiting sleep sanity and even frequent mealtimes, to following the war on terror and thwarting it in every way possible that is possible to creatures digging our own death pits with teaspoons. There is probably a better way, but it might not be as fun. I hope I wrote "fun" in the right intonation, you know, the weary but damned if I let on war is hell tone.

Iraq war, officially lost

Nobody ever wins a war, but I'm not sure a war has been lost as many times as the war in Iraq has.

• WMD - no comment. Intelligence lost, Bush lost.

• Human Rights - Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and subsequent revelation of extraordinary rendition network. Civil liberties lost, Bush lost.

• Democracy - patriot act, increased police powers, sedition legislation. Multiple democracies, Bush, Blair and Australia fair, lost.

• Money - the one that matters most to men of war;

THE Bush Administration has scaled back its ambitions to rebuild Iraq after the devastation wrought by war and dictatorship and does not intend to seek more funds for reconstruction.

The decision signals the winding down of an $US18.4 billion ($25.1 billion) rebuilding effort (read more).

Many many dollars lost. The war for oil is failing, rebuilding Iraq costs too much. The damage dealt to Iraq by war and sanction is low priority. Securing oil (and a broader consumer base by default) is the goal and when money is tight all the trimmings are stripped away - exposing war's end aim. At this rate, it is likely the oil will eventually be lost as well. In just a few more years alternative fuels will probably be taken more seriously, when it dawns that developing alternative fuels probably costs less then war and that the market for pepsi and tim tams in the ME is hurt when the customer base is half dead.

A middle case scenario

The US will pull out of the ME badly burned and humiliated, and Saudi Arabia will be left sitting on cut-price oil fields when alternative fuels gain a marketable foothold. For a while ME oil tycoons might survive by establishing an ME market independent from the global one, ME environmental green damage will continue under internal pressure where external pressure left off. "Terrorism" as we now know it, a form of vengeance, will shift. "Terrorists" will become experienced mercenaries for hire, selling their experience. No longer required to quell western interests in the oil stakes "terrorists" will hire themselves out to parties with a greater vested interest in industrial sabotage then in civil unrest. The subway threat will ease in far western cities and the roadside IEDs ease in middle eastern cities. Industrial espionage will increase, especially where competitive alternative fuels are concerned. The world will reject war, like the world did post 1918 and 1945 and in the 1960-70's and in February 2003, and it will be a few decades before anyone decides to try it out again, which might happen if some desperado thinks he can swing it.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, at home. While Dow Jones bombs out on the Aus stock exchange (more loss attributed to the Iraq war) BHP and Woodside petroleum have profited. BHP has oil lots sewn up along the Iraq/Iran border between Basrah and Ammarah, including Missan and Al Hafaya (appears the marshlands are due only a short respite between regimes, no sooner have the marshes been re-irrigated then oil enterprises pop up). Woodside signed a deal in November 2004 with the Iraq Oil Ministry for oil and gas projects in Kurdistan, Northern Iraq and was posting "record" Aus stock prices by December 2005. It seems that those companies that are profiting in Iraq are doing so in regions less hard-hit. Ie, where there is less war there is more profit and where there is more war there is loss (BHP originally sunk when war broke out in march 2003 but appears to have "bounced back" by brokering deals in the relatively low-conflict south-east). Newcrest's fortunes also seem tied to Iraq, though how directly depends on my doing more searching and my lunch break is over now so I have to go.

Prove me wrong

Well that was shortlived. My work with the American people appears to be over. It could just be that I ran out of impetus. Or it could be the heat wave hanging over Sydney last week just sucked any enthusiasm I had left out of me. Or it could just be that I find the American people an uninspiring and lost cause. There was a time when I might have allowed for you know, individuality or something, before coming to rash conclusions like this. But those times are over. Without exception the American people seem to me to be rude, loud, many other things my sensitivities preclude me from putting in words and convinced that their liberality is the only liberality. A lot like Australian socialists really, who I also consider a lost and degenerative folk.

I was going to make room for a sentence about Americans who don't feel especially American, and how it might be to feel about as American as I do Australian, and how I can relate to having a birth certificate and citizenship but there being, well, more to life then that. I was going to make up some kind of sentence like that, offering up the universality of souls in hope. But I just can't bring myself to do it - I am just reminded of that fink TAI who parades around pretending he is not American and sounding every minute more American then ever. And anyway, I would rather go and have a pot of tea and finish my mint slices then think anymore about Americans. I am uncertain if this means my own liberality has given out or whether I am turning into a witch or could this be early onset menopause or have I just finally had an absolute gutsfull and can I be bothered ticking off whoever is next on my smite list.

Unbelievable

I cannot believe what some apparently serious publications will print without fact-checking. Come on people, don't you smell a rat? Or don't you care.

Ils ont changé ma chanson Ma.

Covert communications

These are just some pictures I am posting so that I can re-post them over at Daily Kos (my new life's work with the American people, for as long as I can manage).

Woops! Anybody know wot this is?

Was fluffing about cleaning and think I accidentally knocked something of my pc. Not being especially tech-literate you can understand my concern in wondering what the heck I have done and is something broken now. So far everything still seems to be working, but still wondering what this is and what it connects too.

Anybody can recognise it and tell me what it does?

Update: it's about 2-3cm long.

Update update: am I imagining things? Nope, scroll down for more.

Side view.


Top view.


Another side view (or maybe bottom).

UPDATE: Well it looks a bit like one of these, only with a case. Now the trouble is finding out what it fell off and how to plug it back in (kidding).

Further update: There formerly was a picture of a bug here, which I hot-linked from a website about surveillance devices, which looked curiously like my device but has been taken down off the web now.









or maybe one of these.

Never trust a writer

Evidently TAI thinks that his identity is a hot topic. Enough to warrant emails behind my back anyway. And perhaps he is right, there does seem to be some uncertainty out there. I do keep asking everyone to stop writing me about it, but write people do, asking who is he, and what is he up to, and how have I come to my conclusion, and would I please share any information that may have fallen into my possession. Information? Read his blog. Read all "the" blogs. Here, read his latest post: truth-about-iraqis.blogspot.com/2005/12/iraqi-charity-iraqi-community.html

Yes TAI, racism is at work. And ego.

TAI thinks he can pull this off if he claims he is eloquent and educated. "I am eloquent and educated, therefore I must be Iraqi" is the sum of his entire argument. And anyone who suggests otherwise must therefore be ignorant and in-eloquent white trailer trash. As ever, a twisted mutation on borrowed phrase. He manages to warp everything other diarists write, this way. Never having his own experience to draw from he clips anecdotal evidence from other diaries. But does anyone have the memory to place where these things come from? How hollow another person's passion sounds between his teeth. How hollow, like an old man trying to whistle up war through gums and dental plates.

Like every arrogant self important self declared supremist, he thinks if he can manipulate other people's emotions he can have anyone believe anything.

He deliberately sets out to destroy truth by setting others against one another.

He claims Iraqis were demonized and ostracized by right wing radio post 9-11 and yet the inverse was true. Iraqis were championed by right wing radio, much as TAI purports to champion Iraq now. Oh the noble undertrod Iraqis in their fetters! Oh the brave hard workingclass Iraqi, going through the shredders! Tragedy! We must rally! Once and for all deposing their horrid pungent ruling class! WE must, cried rightwing radio, for if we do not assist these brave civilians in their hour of need (splice to sound archive - Iraqis preparing for war, nobly and unphased, locking down their shops, with nonchalant shrug and devil may care stoicism) we MUST remove Saddam, before he blows up the Iraqis and us all!

TAI no doubt reveled in planting rumour, in the feeding frenzy that was rightwing radio post 9-11. And now he lives, free, unmarked, to reap the rewards of his own war. The war he wanted. The war he thinks he can control. The civil war he craves.

TAI, full of it, full of himself, claiming Israeli intelligence wrote with pointed finger to unseat Saddam. Israeli back then, was he?

TAI, never consistent, with one token between his thumb and forefinger pointing at Israeli intelligence while all in the same gesture pointing his index finger at Israel.

He claims to believe Iraqis are right in fighting for land and their homes, and that Palestinians are right in fighting for land and their homes, and yet he cannot afford this same dignity to Israelis. Not while in character anyway, not as TAI.

TAI is racist and this is hardly surprising, considering he was raised in America.

He claims, as TAI, that his mother is Austrian, but he cannot tell us anything about her. He likes to tell us all about how Iraqi he is though, doesn't he. Although he can never tell us anything above generalities about Iraq, every time weedling his way out of it with some excuse about how "this is all about America" (as any American would) from behind his embarrassingly fair complexion.

TAI, Chathab. With a forked tongue, he splices his lies. Creating for himself an apprenticed nightmare - a mickey mouse mockery where he sweeps himself off his feet with multiple half truths and singular vanity. Almost as Tariq Ali might, I bet TAI is a big fan. Having modeled himself so appallingly on reality it's hardly surprising that he would have no room for any sense of inhibition in satirising other people's fictions.

TAI is a writer, not a truthteller. A brainwashed product of his own making. TAI is an American, an American, an American closeting himself in neverland because he never ever ever will be anything more then words on a page. Words where ostracise and demonise are spelt with a zee by an "educated and eloquent" anti(sure)American. Anyone can write. With a bit of research.

Does anyone have any idea how many times it would have been easy beyond TAI's wildest dream for me to claim I am Iraqi and have almost everyone believe it without so much as a nod? I have lost count of the number times I have explained to people I am not - it would be unfair, misleading, it would misrepresent real people's suffering, to let anyone believe otherwise. And even so, all the while, I am left with the nagging feeling that some people really wish I were Iraqi too. Indeed, that some people secretly believe I am and that I have deliberately chosen not to say so that my voice may not be inhibited by other people's preconceived notions.

If visitors can believe I, not Iraqi, am, then how easy it must be to believe that TAI is, just because he says so. Just because he says so.

Later note: to anyone, anyone at all, who might wonder what is going on. "Truth About Iraqis" follows same formula "Baghdad Mistress" did. Ie written by middle aged middle class middle income male with nothing to do but fantasise ("my life in a bordello" "my friend Nicholas Cage" "all the famous ambassadors I have met" "my educated and eloquent life as the child of an Iraqi diplomat" etc etc ad infinitum) use of blogspot (the pauper, miscreant, slumdweller, "rebel", imaginist and ghetto diarist's choice of blog) and reversion to slander when identity called into question("whoever says I am not a mistress is a sexist sexist man" or "whoever says I am not Iraqi is a racist racist racist").

Other note: commenter calling himself "Elie" owned up to being "Tai" during weak moment. Commenter "Elie" known to have frequented Raed's comments in days leading up to the closing thereoff. A known stirrer and "loose with the truth".

Does anyone care who "Tai" or "Truth About Iraqis" is in real life? No, I doubt it. But, I do care that his personality type is deadset on agitation and unethical transgression. Better that people know this then that people don't. I hope in mentioning these things he will be less able to cause harm.

Costello, fluffing it around

Peter Costello, on air:

"I think racism can be easily whipped up in Australia".

Well he should know, being John Howards right hand arm.

Costello, on Cronulla:

"I don't think there's racism on the street, no, I think we're a very accepting country".

On the street, nooo... just at the beach. It's a holiday thing.

Asked if Alan Jones went too far...

"That's not what I mean by whipping up".

And Alan Jones, 2GB, Thursday 8 December:

"I'm the person that's led this charge here! Nobody wanted to know about North Cronulla! Now it's gathered to this!").

That must be cosy wool Peter Costello is pulling, willingly, over his own eyes, he must like curling up in it. I can only imagine, what he might mean by whipping it up.

Back in Kansas

Australia's sedition laws were passed today. There is nothing more to say.

This morning

This morning I listened to translations of Catullus and congratulated myself on my fortnight's self restraint. "What a foulmouthed poisonous hole he was" I thought, how fortunate that I am able to contain my falcer and not be remembered that way, immortalising peers in slander.

O greatest of thieves skulking about the bathouses,
The father, Vibennius, and Vibennius Junior, the catamite son
(For dad is the one with the more sordid thieving hand,
While sonny boy is busy peddling his voracious fundament):
Why don't you both get the hell out of here and go to the devil?
Since the thieveries of the father are common knowledge
And you, son, couldn't sell that hairy ass of yours for a penny.

- Catullus

Otho’s head is quite tiny,
and it’s owner’s legs loutishly unclean,
soft and delicate is Libo’s farting:
if not with all that, then let me displease you
with Sufficio, old age renewed...

- Catullus

Wonder not, Rufus, why none of the opposite sex
wishes to place her dainty thighs beneath you,
not even if you undermine her virtue with gifts of choice
silk or the enticement of a pellucid gem.
You are being hurt by an ugly rumour which asserts
that beneath your armpits dwells a ferocious goat.
This they fear, and no wonder; for it's a right rank
beast that no pretty girl will go to bed with.
So either get rid of this painful affront to the nostrils
or cease to wonder why the ladies flee.

- Catullus

Mentula is an adulterer. Why certainly he is. How could he be anything
else with a name such as his. It is as natural as for a pot to gather vegetables.

- Catullus

Notice

In case anyone is wondering, Emigre has "withdrawn forces" from Iraq Blog Count. In an unforeseen twist of fate, the blog is now occupied by Iraqis. I am still available by email.

Dawn raids

The purges have begun.

Neighbours woken by 'shock' raids
November 8, 2005 - 9:29AM

Residents in a south-western Sydney street have described the shock of being woken by an early morning anti-terrorism raid.

NSW Police Commissioner Ken Moroney confirmed federal and state police raided homes in Sydney and Melbourne today and foiled a "large-scale terrorist attack".

Nine people were arrested today in Melbourne and six in Sydney, with more arrests expected later this morning.

Residents of Renown Avenue, Wiley Park, described their shock at being woken by armed police raiding a single-storey brick home nearby.

The raid was still continuing with police still in the street.

Gabriella Beyrouthy, her husband and three children close to where the police activity was occurring.

Ms Beyrouthy said she believed several families lived in the raided home, and she had often seen them in the street.

"I am surprised (about the raid)," she said.

"I see a lot of people in there (and) they're very good people.

"We've never had any problems with them." read more

I didn't sleep last night.

Calling wolf

This is getting so very nearly funny that I had to start a whole new post. John's storytelling (so many tall stories for such a little guy!) is well, apart from being dull, showing signs of no imagination. He just keeps telling the same whopper over and over again.

Just been listening to one of his dupes on the abc telling all about the "new evidence" and the "filming" and the "borrowed car" in the latest convenient terror scare which is putting Australia on be-aware alert even though there is "no need to panic". Good gawd. This evidence is nothing new. It's a rehashing of the Roche tale.

On June 12, 2000, Ahmed was driving and Roche was sitting in the back, filming embassies with a video camera borrowed from (choose name), a teacher at the Global Islamic Youth Centre in (choose suburb) NSW. He paid most attention to the (choose embassy name) embassy. A voice on the tape, believed to be Roche, urges Ahmed to go slow and comments on the security in the area. If they are questioned, one of them suggests that they say: "We are just trying to get to the mosque. We are lost."

But they were spotted by Jeffrey Harrison, an Australian Protective Service security guard on duty at the sentry box outside the (choose embassy name) embassy gate. He later logged an incident report about the Toyota (or other common car model) with three men taking pictures. Harrison also approached Roche, who by this time was out of the car trying to get better shots of the embassy. "Morning," says Roche, according to the video tape played in court. Roche, pretending to be a tourist, someone interested in architecture, adds: "How's it going . . . Fascinated with the layout of Canberra . . . A bit strange . . . very clean."

"Is that what it is?" responds Harrison. "I didn't think you were going to bomb the joint or anything." "Oh no," Roche says. rest of the tale

Meanwhile the smh are still pretending to be really freaked out by the whole thing and somebody's running around worried that Howard just blew the whistle on a secret operation to catch some mean people about to do bad things.

Oh, plus ASIO is recommending Australians go around filming each other. Good move ASIO, just the way to exacerbate national paranoia. If Howard sees ordinary people hanging about outside his offices with cameras he's really going to flip. Unless he thinks everyone's all lining up for his autograph.

Have to run. That's my schlok of spittle for the day.