Terrorists
According to George Bush not all terrorists are equal even though their crimes are. Real terrorists, it seems, are those identified in some way with Islam, but those who hate Fidel Castro and smoke Cuban cigars are "good old boys".
Bush has pardoned Cuban exile terrorist Orlando Bosch and granted him US residency even though the US Justice Department verified that Bosch had participated in 30 terrorist acts. He was convicted of firing a rocket into a Polish ship that was on passage to Cuba. He was also implicated in the 1976 blowing-up of a Cubana plane flying to Havana from Venezuela in which all 73 civilians on board were killed.
Other exiled Cuban terrorists granted a Bush pardon are: Jose Dionisio Suarez and Virgilio Paz Romero, who assassinated the Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier in Washington in 1976.
Gareth Smith
Byron Bay NSW [Abridged]
Socialist Alliance
Jeff Sparrow (Write On, GLW #521) argues that the socialist movement should abandon attempts at unity through the Socialist Alliance and continue as isolated groups. He argues that the fact that groups have not changed their theoretical positions leaves the SA doomed to permanent internal division and weakness.
The SA has been able to find considerable unity in action. Confronted with the real challenges of the class struggle, the alliance has been able to answer confidently and in unison. That's a fact that has real meaning for the majority of those activists craving for a stronger and more united left. And it's with this spirit that we would meet the challenge of a new "East Timor" — not with platitudes, but by debate over the concrete needs of the class in a new context.
It's not that there are not differences on the way forward for the SA among affiliates and others. But it's a debate that starts from an underlying understanding of how important socialist unity is to our overall success and values what has already been achieved.
Sparrow argues that the attempt at left unity through the SA has even detracted from the building of the anti-war movement. Yet the evidence would not seem to support his thesis.
The SA mobilised over 200 people in Melbourne the day before the December 1 anti-war demonstration last year to leaflet for the rally — it was a part of our how to vote card. And then we led the large left contingent at the rally. The photos of the rally printed in the daily papers demonstrate this.
Should we abandon the Socialist Alliance? That's certainly what the Laborites and the right-wing of the Greens want. Do you feel comfortable in that company Jeff?
Graham Matthews
Co-convener
Socialist Alliance
Victoria
Hitler and Saddam
The prime minister has recently made references to Hitler prior to World War II when discussing his aggressive policy towards Iraq. This is an amazingly inappropriate comparison.
The armed forces of the US, or other nations, can devastate Iraq at any time. The widely supported weapons embargo, along with limited domestic expertise and equipment, prevents Iraq from developing into a major military power. Today's spying technology and practices mean that we'd know if Iraq were amassing a large new cache of weaponry or preparing to invade another country.
Howard admits that the circumstances now are not "on all fours with the 1930s" but, in terms of looming international threat, there is no significant comparison at all between Saddam Hussein today and Hitler in the 1930s. Phoney fears don't justify war.
Brent Howard
Rydalmere NSW
Bomb Iraq
The most pressing reason why the US must bomb Iraq is that if it used the money it will expend on the Iraq war assisting the Third World then (for this year at least) poverty, malnutrition and starvation would be abolished throughout the world.
The citizens of the United States are the richest people on Earth who are very conscious of the absolute right of the customer and if they want to spend their money annoying, belittling, exploiting and killing people in the rest of the world in the full knowledge that this will lead to some relatives of such deceased people seeking retribution; then who are we to stand in the way of such an absolute consumer right.
Because of the 11 years of US, British and Australian sanctions and blockades of Iraq, which have led to the deaths of half a million Iraqi children under 5 years of age and resulted in 50% of the population existing on food rations under the United Nations controlled oil for food program, Iraq can no longer afford to bomb its own people. Apart from Britain and Australia no other country is offering to bomb Iraq — this is why it is incumbent upon the world's only remaining superpower to bomb that country into smithereens.
The other important reason why Iraq needs to be bombed now is that it is an ideal location to test some of the new American weapons of mass destruction and, in any case, as any American will tell you, all the people living in Iraq are foreigners.
Though some ideologically driven idiots have suggested that the reason the US would want to attack Iraq is to get control of the world's second greatest oil reserve America has, and for the foreseeable future, will maintain an oversupply of oil. In fact, the US has so much oil it has been forced to scrap energy conservation strategies in order to utilise as much oil as possible.
The final reason the US must attack Iraq is to protect the Iraqi people from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
John Tomlinson
Constant advisor to the PM
Inducing paranoia
The attempts by the ruling structures and certain media reports to induce a controlled paranoia within the Australian population seem to be not working as well as those responsible would have hoped.
This failure however didn't prevent me from not taking part in celebrating Australia Day. The focus the ruling right has in bolstering nationalistic feelings and blindly sending our young people to a war for oil sickens and worries me. I hope people realise eventually we are not just Australians, Americans, yanks, Catholics, Jews, Muslims et. al., but are members of the human race, caretakers of the planet and examples to future generations of how to act.
Greg Andrew
Hallett Cove SA
From Green Left Weekly, February 5, 2003.
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