Topic: aust govt
The Rudd Government here in Australia has tried to mitigate their craven silence on the obvious war crimes of Israel in Gaza (by targeting civilians and UN facilities regardless of spin and hollow excuses) by announcing some significant but small compassionate policy decisions on a handful of refugees here in Australia.
Arrival of first visa recipients in ALP's asylum regime imminent ... 17 Jan 2009
But it's too little too late for a PM who likes to think of himself as a courageous Bonhoeffer, ie brave against political orthodoxy on matters of high morality: Rudd has probably destroyed any diplomatic credibility he had with the UN membership for a future career there for his silence literally as UN facilities are being shelled in Gaza, just like Lebanon in 2006, by the Israeli Defence Force using conventional and phosphorous explosives killing civllians and aid workers.
In a way this is Rudd's summer 2005 tsunami tragedy in South East Asia killing several hundred thousand, that in turn killed off Mark Latham's leadership amongst his rivals and critics in his own federal ALP. But actually the moral values of Rudd are under even more intense scrutiny. Latham had the excuse of illness and shock of losing the federal election to cope with late 2004 and cynics in his own party willing him to fail and shove off.
Rudd is in the ascendant as an elected PM, but here is the crucial point: He was elected as a Howard clone in a global and Australian boom. With a nice turn of Mandarin for our biggest future export market China. But he is NOT the right man for the job in a depression after the Global Financial Crisis. He's a free marketeer centre right ideologue unsuited to social welfare issues which will be paramount in the next economic cycle. His colleagues can cover for him but this callous handling of Gaza shows he's insensitive to the real plight of little people. He's just another ruthless clever ambitious rich man climbing over peoples' faces. His ALP federal MP colleagues will take due notice and the loathing will grow.
And his VC ceremony 'stunt' will be seen in time as too clever by half, evidencing John Howard's fatal flaw - the smart arse factor which Australians find repellant in anyone let alone leaders.
As the defeated 'man-o-steel' Howard correctly noted about rival Rudd in the 2007 election contest - Rudd effectively supported the invasion of Iraq as then shadow Foreign Minister in March 2003 with pandering to the Bush regime, undermining then ALP leader Simon Crean for careerist reasons. Contrast Barak Obama who spoke against the Iraq war:
Barack Obama's Iraq Speech - Wikisource 12 Nov 2008 ... Delivered on Wednesday, October 2, 2002 by Barack Obama, Illinois
Barack Obama and Joe Biden: The Change We Need | Iraq Barack Obama opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning. ... Washington lined up for war, Obama had the judgment and courage to speak out against the war. ...
www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq/
No wonder he made the front page of the local Sydney Arabic press in December 2008 before the Gaza scandal:
And no we don't read Arabic and would be interested to know what it says.
There is no equivalent speech or policy view by Rudd not in the press, parliament or wherever. There is by his then party leader Simon Crean but not Rudd. Google can't help no matter how many keyword searches.
Contrast PM Rudd with this press conference "hosted by Google", as well as this direct YouTube via Al Jazeera news network (which is very impressive) at our lead in above:
Jordan's queen's Gaza children plea
Jordan's Queen Rania is questioning whether children in the Gaza Strip have the same rights as others in the world.
The UNICEF activist, whose parents are Palestinian, urged the world to pay more attention to the plight of children in Gaza.
Queen Rania spoke to reporters during a meeting of UN regional chiefs in Amman.
She demanded that there be a humanitarian ceasefire so that wheat, fuel and medicine could reach Palestinians civilians trapped in Gaza.
The queen also called for emergency financial aid to be given to UN agencies.
She says the children of Gaza and their parents are "not acceptable collateral damage" and their lives do matter.
........................................
Rudd has deliberately bought into the Howard, and even extreme right winger local cleric George Pell, clash of civilisations agenda of Islam world religion versus the West by parading with a VC winner for heroic/defensive war actions against the Taliban in Afghanistan. It's an analysis replete with convenient selectivity and moronic simplifications which boil down to a free pass for the military industrial complex to screw the social services budget of every western country across the world.
Significantly Rudd also supported Hilary Clinton over Obama.
Rudd will play extremely well amongst the 500,000 strong extremist illegal squatter movement in Israel, but that's no achievement. They also praise Yigal Amir serving a life sentence for the murder of Labour Israeli PM Yitzak Rabin, and 30% of Israeli society want him to be pardoned according to reportage by Haaretz.
These are the extremists that hold the coalition politics of Israel - in an election season - hostage to their ruthless agenda of expulsion of Arabs from so called 'greater Israel'. Many of these criminal sympathisers have their finger on the trigger killing UN and civilians in Gaza at the time of writing - just like Blackwater in Iraq.
To the sly Israeli Squatter movement Gaza is all about fighting dictatorial extremist Islam on the home front in Gaza. Palestinians have no legitimate rights to a nation of their own at any time. For this ideological struggle any number of Palestinian children killed is "a just war".
No wonder the monarch of Jordan was forced to speak for them that their human rights are not indivisible. Her words condemn Rudd as a very small man like John Howard with a walnut for a heart.
