Australians hold anti-war rallies

[cal04]

Thousands of demonstrators have marched in cities across Australia in protest at the country's role in Iraq - less than a week before a general election.

The future of around 850 Australian troops in the Gulf has become an important issue in the campaign. The nationwide call for Australia to pull its forces out of the Gulf has been noisy and passionate.

It has been heard at rallies from Melbourne to Brisbane and from Sydney to Perth. The target of the demonstrators' anger is the conservative government of John Howard.

He has insisted that Australian troops will stay in Iraq until their job is done. The main opposition Labour party has promised to withdraw them by Christmas if it wins next Saturday's election. Labour has claimed that Australia's military involvement in the Gulf has made it more vulnerable to a terrorist attack.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3710946.stm

[Judi Lynn]

1. Wonder what has been done by our gummint to make sure Labour doesn't win!

You know they won't just wait calmly to see what the people of Australia decide for their own future!

This should be very interesting. Wouldn't it be great to see so much opposition organize that there's little _Bush can do about it, even after threats, and bribery?

[fishwax]

2. Paul Krugman predicted on Friday

in his NYT column that if * were to win, then by the end of his second term, we would have no democracies among our allies ... even Britain. When you take account of how unpopular this bullshit war is among the actual people in "coalition" countries, his prediction doesn't seem unreasonable. And that is pretty damn frightening.

[AussieDave]

3. Right or wrong, the war hasn't figured

that strongly in the campaign - it just isn't uppermost in people's minds. Sure, the scare campaign has featured (straight out of the Cheney playbook) but John Howard (the Prime Minister, and Bush's "good friend") has been called a "lying rodent" by one of his own party, and his history of misleading is long.

The economy is the big kahuna, and Howard is spending the entire surplus (and then some) to get re-elected. Fortunately, the Opposition has called him on it and is making a real race of it.

The media here will smell a Karl Rove-type boost from the U.S. a mile away - the U.S. ambassador here is quite unpopular for giving open support to Howard. And though the media is nearly half-owned by Murdoch, it isn't yet TOTALLY subservient.

[murielm99]

4. The Aussies, the Brits and the Americans need to get

together and DO something about Murdoch.

I swear, he is one of the biggest cancers on democracy today.

Just turning our backs on him and exposing his lies has not worked. I don't have any idea what to do about him, but he is such a menace that he should not be allowed to run such a huge media empire.

[izzie]

5. What about Bases?

Are we building any over their?