Bushwacked in Canberra by the Greens : Melbourne Indymedia

Photo: Halls of Parliament - Senator Kerry Nettle, attempting to reach Mr Bush on the right with a letter about the illegal detention of an Australian in Guantanamo Bay. (Sydney Morning Herald)

Thousands protested Bush and the invasion of Iraq outside parliament today. The police had tried to ban any marches from occurring and to ban Public Address equipment from use. In defiance of a march ban people marched first to the US Embassy, then to The Lodge, the Prime Minister's permanent residence in Canberra, really just his holiday house, as he lives at Kirribili house in Sydney.

At one point people broke through the police cordon outside the USA embassy, and it seems that two or three people may have been arrested.

In parliament house, the Greens Senators managed to cause some attention by interjecting during George Bush's speech. Senator Bob Brown interjected: "I call on you to return our Australians (and) treat them as the Americans do (and) we will respect you." Senator Keery Nettle shouted protests about the US-led war in Iraq and interjected urging Australia not to sign a free trade agreement with the United States. Mr Bush smiled and responded, "I love free speech". But the Prime Minister, John Howard, was not amused!

Afterwards, in the corridors of parliament house, Greens Senator Bob Brown shook Mr Bush's hand - this must have reallly outraged the conservatives, that Bob Brown should think he was the equal to the US President and shake his hand.

The 18-year-old son of Mamdouh Habib, one of two Australians being held at a US military prison in Cuba without charge after the Afghan invasion, was dragged out after yelling: "Hey Bush, what about my Dad?". He attended parliament as a formal guest of one of the Green Party Senators.

Greens Senator, Kerry Nettle, attempted to reach George Bush to give him a letter written by Maha Habib, the wife of a detainee in Guantanamo Bay Concentration Camp in Cuba.

Evidently Ms Nettle did manage to almost reach Mr Bush and offered him the letter, which he refused to accept.

And where was the Labor Party voicing its dissent from the War on Iraq? and the policies of George Bush and John Howard?

When Health Minister Tony Abbott demanded that Senators Brown and Nettle be suspended from Parliament, some on the Labor side said "No". When Senator Brown called for a "division" so the matter could be voted on the government dropped its demand.

As President Bush shook hands with MPs, Sydney Labor MP Tanya Plibersek walked around and gave Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice a book of speeches by Labor MPs opposing Australia invading Iraq without UN approval. Ms Rice shook Ms Plibersek's hand and took the book with a smile.

Forty-one ALP federal parliamentarians have written an open letter to George Bush. Read it at the Sydney Morning Herald

The only Labor politicians with the guts to speak out, in the great tradition of Jim Cairns, were Harry Quick and Carmen Lawrence.

Bush has refused to give a customary joint media conference during his sleepover stay in Australia. Australian Journalists have been denied the ability to be in the close up media pool following the President around, all 4 places being allocated to the Whitehouse press corps.

Basically democracy in Canberra has been severely curtailed during George Bush's visit. Rights to protest and march have been severely limited. Read Margot Kingston's column in the Sydney Morning Herald: Howard cancels democracy for Bush and beyond: Can we stop him?

but the australian government does not.

top coverage takver, wish they'd give you a page in the Age.

brian,

On a number of occasions over the last few days you have come to the support of 'bkmc' and Changeling's statements regarding 'the redeeming features in "National Socialism" (Nazism)...'

See bkmc's (Richard) comment
"Mind you, I don't mind admitting that I see many redeeming features in "National Socialism"...."
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2003/10/56201_comment.php#56480

What, from your perspective, are the "redeeming features" of Nazism as they relate to "freedom of speech"?

And in which ways have Bob Brown's freedom to speak been curtailed in your view?

He's been on radio and TV internationally expressing his views more or less continually since yesterday. Is this a constraint on his ability to speak freely in what he himself calls a democratic society?

Also, as an ouspoken supporter of Mahathir Muhommed, the disgraced Prime Minister of Malaysia, what is you view of civil rights as they apply to free speech in Malaysia?

Also, will you be joining in any protests against the President of Communist China visiting Canberra today?

just wondering.

thanx to US cameras i got to see Brown and da other chick give bushy bush a piece of their mind, gee ozzie camera's got censored, hmmm censorshit. ANyway im glad someone rocked da boat as da protesters where placed somewere where they couldn't, but hey paul bongoirnio or whatever his name is still said it was a 'stunt'. We KNOW what we r up agianst. People, why don't we play smart as our government does! IDEAS people IDEAS, think!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WE CAN make things happen between the lines as we aren't the majority who can only see the conceptual end points of the modern world. WHat the fuck, fuck shit up!

"The Greens received overwhelming support for protest action at the Parliament House address by US President George W Bush," claimed Senator Bob Brown, 24/01/03.

Both Senators Brown and Kerry Nettle, were ordered out of parliament yesterday after interrupting Mr. Bush's speech. Some government MPs tried to physically prevent the Greens senators from approaching Mr. Bush after he addressed parliament. Their website claims "calls to The Greens had been running 80-90 per cent in favour of the protest. People say they're proud to be Australian, that they feel we've made the parliament into a democratic place, we had a right to stand up and make submissions for Australians being treated differently and appallingly by President Bush in Guantanamo Bay," he told Channel Nine. Bush has already 'repatriated' Americans from Guantanamo Bay.
Sen. Brown said the action achieved much, "It achieved a recognition that two Australians are being kept in that tortuous hell-hole of Guantanamo Bay."

President Bush has repatriated the Americans out of that torture camp and ...the issue was raised by Prime Minister Howard as a result of the Greens' actions. President Bush has agreed now to fast-track the process of bringing these men to trial. "I feel very strongly about this," said Sen. Brown, "I'm an Australian. I do not want to see Australians being treated second class by anybody else, nor would President Bush allow that as far as Americans are concerned. It took the Greens to stand up for Australians on that issue."

Ode' to George W.

Good morning Mr. Bush, what can we say?
Except please do what you have to, then be on your way!

'Cause I kinda feel sick, got a gigantic frown,
Even since I realised your private jet had touched down

To thank and enlighten us with yet another drawn out speech,
With your gaggle of cronies keeping you far from our reach

You're in Australia now Mr. Bush, what on earth could you fear?
As our journalists have been informed not to worry 'bout bringing their gear.

Cause it's all taken care of, so please stay away,
We've bought our own people, handpicked needless to say.

Whoopsy! Almost forgot your also here for Free Trade,
However, in the words of young Zearle "Who really gets paid?"

Now I must digress Mr. Bush with little regret,
To voice my opinion on what's got me truly upset.

Way back in March when Mr. Rumsfeld told us to check out the sky,
I could have been forgiven for thinking it's the 4th of July

As you cower behind desks with the rest of your hoard,
Plotting and pillaging as though the world's your own chess board

Now I guess one of the things that pisses me most,
Is your $2,000USD dinners, which are missing the roast

Cause a drink and a hot dog will maximise your profit,
Kindly donated by BIG Corporations who piss into your pocket

It must be so lovely to reach in and find change,
The likes of which most of us can't fathom to gauge

While I have you're attention, what about Mr. Habib and David Hicks?
Surely you're keeping them locked away for your own twisted kicks

Charge them with something, or set them both free,
It saddens me to say it shouldn't be me asking if I lived in a real democracy!

Now even though, you're a 6-shootin' Texan, who publicly shows us no fear,
What about the likes of Mr. Moore as the crowds always cheer!

For the man's a true role model for celebrity status,
By simply reporting the news that does really matter!

Whilst I should leave you now Mr. Bush to maximise effect,
One more question if I may, you'd be unwise to reject

What's the go with this campaign your running fueled with disguise,
Young lads and lasses have died for their flag, and even more tragic some have taken their lives

DO NOT insult us by silently accusing them of being meek,
What on earth did you think after you told them they'd be there for one week!

So the time is up Mr. Bush, please be enough of a man,
As good old Rumsfeld just publicly, accidentally admitted the things aren’t going as planned.

Copyright © Kris Johnson (http://www.jackzizz.com)

Shaking Bush's hand? Election hopes? Bob Brown and the Greens are just another opportunist capitalist party. In the long run they will show their true face as the Greens in Europe have.

Burn parliament house burn.

Hooray!

Bob Brown has done us proud!
As nation-state democracies wither into national-selfishist aristocracies, we need people with the courage and decency to stand up against the mounting forces of coercion and covert oppression.

Bob saved us from being seen as a(nother) nation of ignorant fools.

Thank you Bob!

Burn the White House first! You don't shake hands with a war criminal! Reform exploitation? No thanks!http://www.greens.org.au/g1economicssummary.htm

The latest polls. 60% of Europeans in the Northern Hemisphere have labelled Israel as the country most likely to start a war, in front of Iraq, Afghanistan and even North Korea. America has been labelled the 6th most likely.
In New Zealand pre-George Bush, over 59% of Kiwi were in favour of support with the USA, post George Bush that number has fallen to 29%. Strange what a new president can do toworld ratings.

From the NZHerald site http://www.nzherald.co.nz
Case for war made up, say top names

10.11.2003
By ANDREW GUMBEL in Los Angeles
An unprecedented array of United States intelligence professionals, diplomats and former Pentagon officials have gone on record to lambast the Bush Administration for its distortion of the case for war against Iraq.

In their view, the very foundations of intelligence-gathering have been damaged in ways that could take years, even decades, to repair.

A new documentary circulating in the US features one powerful condemnation after another, from the sort of people who usually stay discreetly in the shadows.

They include a former director of the CIA, two former assistant secretaries of defence, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia and even the man who served as President George W. Bush's Secretary of the Army until just a few months ago.

The two dozen interviewees reveal how the pre-war intelligence record on Iraq showed virtually the opposite of the picture the Administration painted to Congress, to US voters and to the world.

They also reconstruct the way senior White House officials - notably Vice-President Dick Cheney - leaned on the CIA to find evidence that would fit a preordained set of conclusions.

"There was never a clear and present danger. There was never an imminent threat. Iraq - and we have very good intelligence on this - was never part of the picture of terrorism," says Mel Goodman, a veteran CIA analyst who now teaches at the National War College.

The case for accusing Saddam Hussein of concealing weapons of mass destruction was, in the words of the veteran CIA operative Robert Baer, largely achieved through "data mining" - going back over old information and trying to wrest new conclusions from it.

The agenda, according to George Bush snr's ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Chas Freeman, was both highly political and profoundly misguided.

"The theory that you can bludgeon political grievances out of existence doesn't have much of a track record," he says, "so essentially we have been neo-conned into applying a school of thought about foreign affairs that has failed everywhere it has been tried."

The hour-long film - Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War - was put together by Robert Greenwald, a TV producer in the forefront of Hollywood's anti-war movement who never suspected, when he started out, that so many establishment figures would stand up and be counted.

"My attitude was, wow, CIA people, I thought these were the bad guys," Greenwald said.

"Not everyone agreed on everything. Not everyone was against the war itself.

"But there was a universally shared opinion that we had been misled about the reasons for the war."

Although many elements in the film are not necessarily new - the forged document on uranium sales from Niger to Iraq, the aluminium tubes falsely assumed to be parts for nuclear weapons, the satellite images of "mobile biolabs" that turned out to be hydrogen compression facilities, the "decontamination vehicles" that were, in fact, fire engines - what emerges is a striking sense of professional betrayal in the intelligence community.

As former CIA analyst Ray McGovern argues with particular force, the traditional role of the CIA has been to act as a scrupulously accurate source of information and analysis for Presidents pondering grave international decisions.

That role, he said, had now been "prostituted" and the CIA may never be the same.

"Where is Bush going to turn to now? Where is his reliable source of information now Iraq is spinning out of control? He's frittered that away," McGovern said.

"And the profound indignity is that he probably doesn't even realise it."

The starting point for the tarnishing of the CIA was a speech by Cheney on August 26 last year, in which he told the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Nashville that Saddam was reconstituting his nuclear weapons programme and was thus threatening to inflict "death on a massive scale - in his own region or beyond".

Numerous sources say Cheney followed up his speech with a series of highly unorthodox visits to CIA headquarters in Virginia, in which he badgered low-level analysts to come up with information to substantiate the extremely alarming - but entirely bogus - contents of his speech.

By early September, intelligence experts in Congress were clamouring for a so-called National Intelligence Estimate, a full rundown of everything known about Iraq's weapons programmes.

Usually NIEs take months to produce, but George Tenet, the CIA director, came up with a 100-page document in just three weeks.

The man he picked to write it, the weapons expert Robert Walpole, had a track record of going back over old intelligence assessments and reworking them in accordance with the wishes of a specific political interest group.

In 1998, he had come up with an estimate of the missile capabilities of various rogue states that managed to sound considerably more alarming than a previous CIA estimate issued three years earlier.

On that occasion, he was acting at the behest of a congressional commission anxious to make the case for a missile defence system; the commission chairman was none other than Donald Rumsfeld, now Secretary of Defence and a key architect of the Iraq war.