Best letters from today's Age

How many dead children make it a 'war crime'?

July 18, 2006

We show "restraint", it seems, by killing 10 children, not 100. We "minimise civilian casualties" by killing 100 children, not 1000. We make a "proportionate response" by bombing the generators that power the humidicribs that keep scores of infants breathing and the bridges over which the ambulances bring pregnant women to hospital. We don't call it "mass murder", "massacre" or "the slaughter of the innocents', though this is what Israel is up to, surely, in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

For approving the killing of 142 innocent people, Saddam Hussein and others will hang. The total of innocent dead under Ehud Olmert's campaign has already passed 120. When it reaches 142, will he and his associates hang? Or would that be "disproportionate"?
A crime as large as the Beslan massacre, or the Bali bombing, and three times as large as the London Underground bombings, is being applauded by George Bush's UN bully John Bolton and his roving blitherer Condoleezza Rice - and a billion Muslims are taking note of their arrogant stupidity.

"Enough of blood," Yitzhak Rabin roared more than 10 years ago. The kidnappings, murders, torture cells, big lies and Biblical bombast of his successors shame his people. A just UN would try them in The Hague.
How many dead children is a "disproportionate response"? How many dead children a war crime? And who gets the naming rights? We should think on these things.

Bob Ellis, Palm Beach, NSW

On Israel's head

ISRAEL needs to be put on notice that as its warplanes are those that are bombing Lebanon and its navy is shelling Lebanese ports, it will be held responsible for any loss of Australian life in any organised rescue evacuation.
At the moment, the Israelis have signalled they do not value the lives of any other nationality except their own and consider all others worthless.
Canadian tourists have already been killed. It shouldn't be a matter of "asking" the Israeli generals to accommodate the evacuation of tens of thousands of foreign tourists but rather warning that loss of life - tourists and innocent local civilians alike - will further shred the fast-diminishing morality of the Israeli Government.

Brian Haill, Frankston

The big question

WHO cares whether it is John Howard or Peter Costello who is lying about some done (or not done) deal on leadership?
The big question voters should be asking themselves is whether they want - or whether Australia can afford - a prime minister against whom it would be easy to compile prima facie cases of war crimes (an illegal war on Iraq resulting in thousands of documented deaths), child abuse (detaining innocent infants for long periods in detention centres) and human rights violations (detaining genuine political refugees in detention centres for unreasonably long periods).

Bob Hawkins, Tinderbox, Tasmania

Victoria grabs the clean energy nettle

CONGRATULATIONS to the Bracks Government for increasing the levy on industrial waste from $30 to $130 a tonne (The Age, 17/7).
If this creates a burden for struggling manufacturers, then perhaps they should start thinking innovatively about how to re-use or reduce their waste, rather than whingeing about disposal charges.
While industry cries poor, toxins are accumulating in living systems around the planet. In the end, we're all paying for their waste.

Andrea Pape, Neutral Bay, NSW

Come in, guzzler

SO, HOLDEN has launched its new-generation Commodore (The Age, 17/7). Are we supposed to cheer, or weep?
Can we look forward to fuel efficiency, modest design and greenhouse and safety awareness? No, we get six or, unbelievably, eight cylinders and retuning to make more power. We get the quasi-sexual launch trimmings, with the tantalising glimpse of disc brake or sensually curved wheel. We get the desperate attempt to say that nothing's changed and we can go on consuming resources and producing greenhouse gasses.

It's because Australian males have small dicks and need some bullshit compensation

Michael Howes, Ascot Vale

bullies are rarely brave; dragged to the depths of moral bankruptcy by John Howard; we are morally impoverished

My selection from today's papers

Fight or flight?
Now that the electoral commission's written distribution proposals are out, making the Prime Minister's seat of Bennelong a 3 per cent marginal seat, the big question is: will John Howard "cut and run" or stand like a man and face the people? He should not resile but confront his constituents so they can pass judgement on his damaging industrial relations legislation and a litany of untruths.
It is one thing to slap our brave, departing soldiers as they head off to Iraq to risk life and limb for the Howard Government's Iraqi wheat deals, to grossly mislead all of us on his mythical weapons of mass destruction for crude, political purposes, create racist divisions amongst us, and peddle lies on children overboard. It will be another thing for him to stand a fight. My belief is he will cut and run.

The reason is very simple: bullies are rarely brave.KEITH REMINGTON, Ascot Vale

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The sound of silence
In writing about the David Hicks case (Sunday Age, 2/7), Michelle Grattan quotes former High Court chief justice Gerard Brennan as saying that, "we are morally impoverished". We have accepted - and Brennan refers to it as "supine acceptance" - the imprisonment, without trial, of David Hicks by the Bush regime in the Guantanamo concentration camp. What a sad indictment this is of us Australians, who take pride in the fact that we are always prepared to give others a fair go.
Why have we allowed ourselves to be dragged to the depths of moral bankruptcy by John Howard in this and so many other issues where justice is jeopardised?
We are prepared to take up arms for whales, trees, "abused" sheep and chooks but when the issue is one of simple justice for a fellow human being, our silence is deafening! Does our silence imply our consent for what Howard is doing to our country?

ELWYN BOURBON, Mulgrave

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Sorry mate, no such thing as a fair go
PerspectiveBy Terry LaneJuly 9, 2006

Remember when the Man of Steel tried his hand at writing a preamble to the constitution? How he managed to go right to the heart of essential Australianness?
Australians are free to be proud of their country and heritage, free to realise themselves as individuals, and free to pursue their hopes and ideals. We value excellence as well as fairness, independence as dearly as mateship.
It is true that there is a want of poetry here. And how we laughed at the time at this feeble attempt to define the true spirit of Ozness. But one has had reason to take another look at Mr Howard's words these past few days and one has spotted a semantic error in the juxtaposed qualities a dinkum Aussie must keep in tension. We understand that excellence and fairness are euphemisms for profit on the one hand and a damn good thrashing if you ask for a decent wage on the other. And we understand that independence and mateship are code words for well-deserved wealth over dole bludging.
However, the opposite of mateship is not independence - it is paranoia. And if there's one thing the Man of Steel is good at, it is paranoia. Not only has he elevated it to the status of a virtue but he has almost succeeded in wiping out the last vestiges of the good old bush socialism we think of when we hear the word mateship.
The essence of mateship, as a universal virtue, is that it is an impulse to help strangers, assuming the best of them until they prove themselves unworthy of an altruistic helping hand. Mateship is a shorthand way of describing a system of social organisation based on the moral imperative of doing one for others without calculating that one day you may need them to do one for you. It is a sort of bucolic golden rule that even affects social interaction in the cities.
It is, of course, the very socialistic weakness of spirit that the Man of Steel and his cronies so despise. Here is what set me thinking along these lines. Last week, the Spouse took one of her occasional trips to Adelaide and before embarking in Melbourne she was gone over with the explosives sniffing device. This is the third time that this has happened to her at Melbourne airport. Now she is a cruel woman, but you would never know that from just looking at her. So why is she singled out for the explosives treatment?
In Adelaide, she has a small accident. A water bottle in her bag leaks and items in the bag get wet. She asks a shop assistant for a plastic bag into which to separate the wet from the dry. She is told that she can't have a plastic bag because she will use it to steal merchandise. She asks another assistant. And another. Same response. (Harris Scarfe, in case you're wondering.) Then she misses her bus and a stranger, seeing her distress, tells her to hop in his car and he will take her to the next stop. Who is this man, ready to help a terrorist shoplifter in distress? A white-slaver? A mate?
When the Prime Minister reads the parable of the Good Samaritan, he probably despises the Samaritan as a sentimental fool and cheers the priest and the Levite who had the good sense to pass by on the other side.
Why have we allowed ourselves to be dragged to the depths of moral bankruptcy by John Howard in this and so many other issues where justice is jeopardised?
We are prepared to take up arms for whales, trees, "abused" sheep and chooks but when the issue is one of simple justice for a fellow human being, our silence is deafening! Does our silence imply our consent for what Howard is doing to our country?