Skip to main content

Howard ever the used-war salesman

Phillip Adams in his weekly column in The Australian challenges PM Howard's truthfulness and says that Howard is in the same league as a used car saleman when it comes to the Iraq War. Even George Bush appears a tad chastened by it all. Not our Johnny Howard!

"I'm not going to mince words," said John Howard, signalling that rare occasion at a prime ministerial press conference. A moment of truth. A degree of candour. Surprise, surprise, neither eventuated. Instead, words were minced as never before into the political counterpart of hamburger grind while truth and candour were crushed into dust, specifically bulldust. But you had to admire Howard's chutzpah, standing there feigning rectitude. How does he do it? How can he continue to talk such twaddle? One felt the same trust you'd have in the shonkiest second-hand car dealer. Would you buy a used war from this man?

Where George W. Bush took the blame for the failures in Iraq on himself, Howard, as usual, kept his distance from the catastrophe. Fifth Yet Howard admitted to the coalition of the willing having a few minor problems. But nothing another 20,000 Americans couldn't fix. Yet there would be no more Australian troops to share in the triumphs he still regards as inevitable, or pretends to. Seems a pity really, not to be better represented in the victory motorcade in Baghdad as cheering locals lay down their rocket-launchers to toss flowers and take up democracy.

Comments

Anonymous said…
yup, it's funny all right, aside from the carnage. but shouldn't we be doing something about it?
January 19, 2007 10:37 am
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives?  In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t
Post a Comment
Read more

The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) goes on hold.....because of one non-Treaty member (Israel)

Isn't there something radically wrong here?    Israel, a non-signatory to the NPT has, evidently, been the cause for those countries that are Treaty members, notably Canada, the US and the UK, after 4 weeks of negotiation, effectively blocking off any meaningful progress in ensuring the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.    IPS reports ..... "After nearly four weeks of negotiations, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference ended in a predictable outcome: a text overwhelmingly reflecting the views and interests of the nuclear-armed states and some of their nuclear-dependent allies. “The process to develop the draft Review Conference outcome document was anti-democratic and nontransparent,” Ray Acheson, director, Reaching Critical Will, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), told IPS. “This Review Conference has demonstrated beyond any doubt that continuing to rely on the nuclear-armed states or their nuclear-dependent allies for l
Post a Comment
Read more

#1 Prize for a bizarre story.....and lying!

No comment called for in this piece from CommonDreams: Another young black man: The strange sad case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter. Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas  stopped  him and two friends, found some marijuana, searched put Carter, then put him handcuffed  behind his back  into their patrol car, where they say he  shot himself  in the head with a gun they failed to find. The FBI is investigating. Police Chief Michael Yates, who stands behind his officers' story,  says in an interview  that the death is "definitely bizarre and defies logic at first glance." You think?
Post a Comment
Read more