A “spat” occurred this week when the Groveller General broke with longstanding international convention to meddle in the domestic politics of another country, saying that if he ran [tag]Al Qaeda[/tag], he would “put a circle around March next year and pray”¹ for US [tag]Democrat[/tag] and [tag]Presidential Candidate[/tag], Senator [tag]Barack[/tag] [tag]Obama[/tag], to win.

His comments have raised a storm both in [tag]Australia[/tag] and the [tag]US[/tag].

US Senator Ron [tag]Wyden[/tag] said,

“The most charitable thing you can say about Mr [tag]Howard[/tag]‘s comment is it’s bizarre. You know, we’ll make our own judgements in this country with respect to elections”

The Groveller General, the paint flaking off him as he visibly crumbled and deflated, appeared nonplussed by this remark, being unused to the concept of making judgments without directions from the Americans or the [tag]Indonesia[/tag]ns.

However a [tag]Liberal[/tag] colleague unfortunately came to what he thought was his rescue.
[tag]Queensland[/tag] [tag]Liberal[/tag] backbencher Cameron Thompson [Member for [tag]Tony Blair[/tag]²] says he is proud of Mr Howard’s statement and pulling out of Iraq would herald

“the greatest disaster since the [tag]Rwanda[/tag]n genocide.”

“To throw people into that kind of abyss is, I think, amoral and I think John Howard is absolutely correct when he says that Barrack Obama’s policy is not just wrong, it is I think fundamentally evil.“

[tag]Values Australia[/tag] was moved by the MP’s remarks and determined to learn just how bad things would have to get in [tag]Iraq[/tag] to be as bad as the Rwandan [tag]genocide[/tag], because anyone who could help to create or to support such horror and calamity must indeed be evil. Values Australia’s research produced some alarming comparative figures.

Rwanda
In the Rwanda genocide it is estimated that:

up to 800,000 had been murdered, another 2 million or so had fled, and another million or so were displaced internally

Iraq

…whereas in Iraq a study by the [tag]Johns Hopkins[/tag] Bloomberg School of Public Health published in the prestigious and influential [tag]Lancet[/tag] medical journal estimated that in 2006

655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.

or more accurately,

654,965 excess deaths related to the war, or 2.5% of the population, through the end of June 2006 [with] a 95% confidence interval of 392,979 to 942,636 excess Iraqi deaths.

In addition

The [tag]U.N.[/tag] High Commissioner for [tag]Refugees[/tag] estimated in a report last month that there were as many as 2 million Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries, primarily in [tag]Syria[/tag] and [tag]Jordan[/tag]. An additional 1.7 million people are displaced within Iraq, the agency said.

So it would seem that the situation in Iraq is already at least as bad as Rwanda was during the genocide.

And, as Cameron Thompson, MP’s, remark suggests, anyone who aids, abets, supports, urges, fails to speak out against, but especially anyone who contributes to and participates in “throwing people into that kind of abyss” is “fundamentally evil”.

Values Australia, which has always been a staunch sychophant of whoever is in government, does not know where to look or which way to turn.

Meanwhile, the increasingly hysterical, but sadly increasingly irrelevant, Minister for overseas affairs and getting really stroppy with the Pacific blackfellas, Robin Boywonder, has done a predictable “me-too ditto”. Nothing more can be expected. In parliamentary, media and particularly international circles he is becoming known as “The [tag]Pilotless Drone[/tag]“, even on [tag]YouTube[/tag]

____________________________

¹Unnamed Liberal Party sources claimed that that wouldn’t matter because everyone knows their prayers would not be answered because they pray to the wrong imaginary friend in the sky.

²Blair encompasses [tag]Kingaroy[/tag], ex-Qld Premier Joh [tag]Bjelke-Petersen[/tag]‘s old home town (not to mention [tag]Pauline Hanson[/tag] territory) where – not to put too fine a point on it – they have ‘a certain turn of mind’. It’s a bit like [tag]Tamworth[/tag], only nuttier.
In his maiden speech the MP shared the unwritten code of the [tag]Australian values[/tag] we all respect: “[tag]mateship[/tag], a [tag]fair go[/tag], a helping hand and a fair day’s work”. Mr Thompson surely knew enough about his government’s [tag]industrial relations[/tag] agenda when he left off the now redundant words “for a fair day’s pay”.
Mr Thompson can be contacted on (02) 6277 4412 at [tag]Parliament House[/tag], (07) 3813 0088 in his electorate office or send him an electronic message.

[tags]John Howard, Downer, Alexander Downer[/tags]