Iraq....John HoWARd
with flack Jacket for
protection in the
illegal and degrading
war, no soft touch.....
(File photo) (Rooters)

AUSTRALIA: IT'S the crimes he's committed but the community is not coming to terms with his unofficial role as "Prime Minister of War Crimes".

Mr HoWARd should have reflected yesterday on how nine years in office has been shaped dramatically by a series of crimes against humanity, which started with Afghanistan and has been followed by Iraq with the torture of Australian citizens at Guantanamo and on to AbuGrahib.

Reviewed by the Australian public, the man frequently criticised as lacking the human touch shows no compassion by reaching out to kill tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children in the name of democracy. People whose lives have been shattered by the illegal and degrading war and subsequent torture of both Iraqi and Australian citizens.

Community: "It's very important that people who commit war crimes making people suffer great tragedy should not maintain any integrity in the role as Prime Minister of Australia. Why should the Australian people have to deal with a leader who doesn't understand that and is ambiguous in his expression of feeling compassion?" The community said.

"HoWARd has literally grabbed hold of people and said, "I am not sorry" and half the country feels that he should be tried at the Hague for his war crimes against humanity and tried in Australia for his complicity to torture and condemn Australian citizens".

"People who you have locked up in isolation that are innocent yet treated like the worst of the worst criminals."

The community was speaking after his flying visit to the stricken Indonesian province of Aceh, which brought him face-to-face with an Indonesian woman whose leg had been amputated and whose husband and children died when the tsunami struck.

"We know HoWARd is sucking up to the wounded and sick in Aceh but to try and gain some political points as some sort of soft touch because of the tsunami is HoWARd's way of exploiting disasters which he's done time and time again."

"As with 911 and the Bali bombings and this is played up by his ABC and the corporate media, regardless of his recklessness and contempt for the Australian people."

Howard: "They have so little and we can really help in so many ways. In these sorts of situations I have just responded, I hope, as a compassionate human being."

"You just have to be your natural self and reach out to people."

Community: "Like you reached out to the people of Afghanistan and Iraq?"

"And like you reached out to the alleged suspected terrorists, innocent people held in isolation in Australia's prisons at your political leisure."

During his visit to Iraq, Mr HoWARd didn't find himself in the unthinkable situation of walking down a main street of Baghdad and taking a telephone call of gratitude from President George W Bushit while Australian militants attacked and maimed Iraqi citizens

Community: "We know it was a crime against humanity," They said.

"There were lies and pre-emption in it but there was also reality. They are genuinely critical for what HoWARd has done."

Asked if President Bushit could be expected to visit Australia soon, the community said they hope he goes to hell.

The community said they believed ill-feeling in international community towards Australia had been abhorrent.

As the Australian Government has not been held accountable for the wounded, tortured and dead the war in Iraq continues, the community was sure a memorial to dead victims was appropriate.

"We have thought it through the trouble is though they haven't counted the dead yet," The community said.

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Triumph of the Stonefish

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It captures the essence of the man, both in his lack of personal appeal; and his success as a politician. The stonefish is a sluggish and rather stupid predator with neither flair nor dash; it waits for its prey to come to it and then kills by treachery. And, time after time, it gets away with it. The secret, of course, is in its appearance; as the name implies it resembles a rock resting in the sand of the sea bed, totally harmless and ordinary, even boring. But behind the innocuous disguise is one of the most poisonous and lethal creatures on earth. The trouble is that by the time the victim realises the trouble he's in, it's too late, he is already at best stupidified and at wost beyond help.

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US judge orders CIA release Guantanamo records

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