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