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Democracy - with a Script!

Much was made in the US of the video conference-link Pres. Bush had with soldiers in Iraq a couple of days ago on the eve of the referendum in Iraq today. Farcical would seem to be a more appropriate assessment of the so-called "inter-action" between Bush and the soldiers. What the viewr was to make of all of this must be a moot point. Read a sobering assessment of the stage-managed "affair" here.

Meanwhile, this sobering article from the Washington Post puts the whole Iraq war into some sort of context. It does not make for positive reading!

In Australia, as we know, the whole Iraq "thing" is as good off the agenda. That gad-fly Alan Ramsay in an article in the SMH this morning writes about the issue of Iraq having been raised by a Labour backbencher during the adjournment debate in the Federal Parliament the other night. The member asked by Iraq seemed to be forgotten and ignored. The response? Deafening silence from almost all quarters.

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