Australia’s role in the American Inquisition.

The revelations of a once secret 2006 report by the International Committee of the Red Cross on the use of torture and "cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment" on prisoners at Guantánamo and secret CIA jails came as a shock to many. This is odd, because anyone with a keyboard, modem and half a brain, quickly discovered that in the panicky aftermath of 9/11, the West had forged a pact with the Devil. It was not only Dick Cheney who felt the call of the dark side - it was virtually the entire governing class of America, Britain and Australia. Yes, even Australia, a former penal colony that started life as Britain’s Guantanamo. By RICHARD NEVILLE.

It also leads into a need to exaggerate the importance of the occasion - exemplified by John Howard being given a 119 room mansion, Blair House, for his one night stand (with his wife) in Washington. John and Tony are willing to endorse George W's conceit that there is nothing else more important happening in Washington this week just as they were willing to endorse whatever George's unelected regime wanted to do in Iraq and willing to have their soldiers handover prisoners for the Americans to torture.

George W is obviously still in intense denial of the vast mess of dire problems he is leaving for Obama, thinking it's funny to put as many big and little obstacles as possible in his way - one of the games between administrations is to leave as many boobytraps as they can hide in the offices. So why would Obama need a mansion to gather his team and prepare when, in Bush's mind a good president should do nothing but give contracts to his business buddies or money to big banks. Bush's done all that. These other plans Obama is working on are just ‘left wing' evil ideas that have no place in the West Wing and George, with Howard's help, will slow Obama down as much as he can.

There is a relentless internal consistency to Bush's anti-thinking blindness and with Blair and Howard's willingness to play along. With all the evidence against such self-delusion there must be a deep vanity and desperation in all three men, hoping for their version of reality to be written into the history books. They have already lost. The scale of their failure has submerged them and left them with an empty ritual - Medals of Vanity - only equaled by the Presidential Pardons for George's criminal buddies.

Meanwhile the person that has to clean up all of George's nasty, dangerous messes is told to go and find a hotel room, like John should have done. The legacy - vanity.

It looks like Johnny Howard's been teaching Daubya about "Mateship" and the lesson has sunk in as the former Aussie PM has been booked into the Blair House, a high security guesthouse across the road from the White House from the 12th in order to be on hand to recieve the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to be presented to Howard on January 19.

The Blair House is tradidionally used by the President-Elect in the lead up to the inauguration and the Obamas has asked to be moved into the Blair House earlier so their two young children could start at their new school on the first day of the new term but have since been booked into the Presidential Suite at the Hay-Adams Hotel.

Comments from various blogs have not been complimentary:

"What would possess Howard to not at least publicly offer up his stay at Blair House to Obama. Then Obama could graciously say no thank you. By keeping his reservation and being silent Howard showed himself to be not that bright of a person and one can understand how he would pal around with george in an illegal war or two.
It would not be above george to threaten Howard with not giving him the medal if he didn't stay at Blair House and it would not be below Howard to respond to the threat in the way that he did, sort of like a cowering dog. The Aussies must really be proud of their guy. Any body got a shoe." - Conrad C. Elledge

"George couldn't make this idiot stay at the hay-adams?" - Joe"no doubt Howard is receiving the honor for driving his country's currency into the abyss." - Urbuhlship

"Ah...the administration that live and died by the belief that loyalty trumped competence, clarity and every other imaginable factor-hands out a last few favors to the brown nose gang of three.
With the former prime minister of Australia getting the nod to stay in the Blair House-instead of making way for the incoming President.
How fitting. G'day-as they say-down under." - Don Duval

"Handing out medals by the dozens to his supporters is about the only thing this president seems capable of actually doing. What is the cost to the U.S. taxpayers to bring these guys to Washington so ding-dong in chief can hang a goofy medal around their necks, or pin them on their jackets, or whatever one does with them? At least the national medal budget will likely be significantly reduced after January 20th." - Bill

With the announcement of the Australian Government's enquiry into mandatory detention, here is activist group GetUp's call to action to finally put an end to this inhumane system.

The International Criminal Court, active since 2002, is getting busier, though much of its activity still remains buried in preparatory paperwork. It has begun fielding petitions on a growing list of war criminal suspects with some regularity. The first sign that more work would be coming its way came in March 2003 when the invasion of Iraq took place. The war crimes dossiers in the hands of activists and non-government groups began thickening...

The candidates as potential bench warmers for the Hague dock are of course, President George W. Bush, and ex-Prime Ministers Tony Blair (Britain) and John Howard (Australia), an Anglo-centric, some might even say Anglospheric cabal that is now receiving the attention of innovative jurists and enterprising activists.

The latest update in the prosecution machine lies in a brief compiled by activists based in Australia on the subject of charging John Howard with an assortment of crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC. This should not come as a surprise to Howard. As early as March 20, 2003, he was put on notice by 41 affiliates of the Victorian Peace Network, acting through the Australian firm Slater and Gordon, that government ministers would, in the event of an invasion of Iraq, be ‘investigated and, if appropriate, prosecuted for being complicit in excessive and unjustifiable loss of civilian lives and devastation of non-military infrastructure'. [More]

JOHN PILGER reports on Australia's hidden empire - a 'sphere of influence' that stretches from the Aboriginal slums of Sydney to East Timor and Afghanistan. The arrival of new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, offers important continuity.

In its initial response to the 'Bringing them Home' Report in 1997, the Howard government argued that 'We do not believe our generation should be asked to accept responsibility for the acts of earlier generations.' But many of those acts occurred within the lifetimes of generations now living.

Mick Dodson: “Who are these people, who is this generation that took my grandmother, my father, my mother and my grandfather and my two sisters? Who is this generation that tried to take me from my family in 1960? What generation do we look to if Mr Howard says it wasn't this one? Where is this mythical group of Australians who made these laws, adopted these policies, put them into practice, who took the kids?”.

Critics of the 'Bringing them Home' Report believe the report demonises the white officials who were involved in removing indigenous children. The late Editor of Quadrant magazine, P.P. McGuinness, reiterated this point in an editorial.”To denigrate the honest and sincere efforts of so many people who thought they were doing the right thing”, says McGuinness, “is merely a historical ignorance.” But according to philosopher Raimond Gaita, this view represents a kind of moral blindness about our immediate past. [More]