Why would that be? You will have to explain yourself better.

He is black. He has one white parent and one black parent and he’s a black person in the world. And that’s what appears to trigger your wording and your response.

If it is being alleged that there has not been debate in Australia about why the US invaded Iraq then that is simply not true.

That’s not what the writer alleged.

S/he alleged that there was no parliamentary debate over this point, i.e., within and between the governing classes in Australia.

I agree with Chris that an enquiry about the causes of the war would be bizarre and pointless, given the fact that all the decisions were made by US public servants and members of the US Executive.

However, it would be interesting for an appropritately empowered Royal Commission to quiz Australian liaisons with US decisionmakers about their perceptions of the decisionmaking process as it related to Australian dispositions towards Iraq.

Such a Royal Commission would not be possible until the Coalition is voted out of office.

Denigrating a black person is not racist unless that’s the basis of the denigration, which it was in neither Howard’s nor Steve’s case.

You’re as much an embarrassment to anti-racism as you are to atheism.

Am I racist against Barack Obama (your words) because he is part black, or because he is part white?

Idiot.

No review is made of the propaganda campaign carried out by Bush, Blair and Howard, consisting of outright lies

Bollocks. Here is Kevin Rudd yesterday:

He began this enterprise saying that we’re going to war in Iraq to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, which turned out not to exist, we went to war in Iraq to reduce the overall terrorists threat when it’s had the reverse effect – it’s increased it. We went to war in Iraq to liberate an oppressed people and now 61,000 Iraqi civilians lie dead.

Sounds like a good summary of Howards propaganda to me.

No investigation is conducted into why the US invaded Iraq or why the ruling elite considers the war so critical.

If the writer means there should be a Senate inquiry or a royal commission into why the US invaded Iraq thats just silly, since a hell of a lot of US personnel would have to appear before any investigation for it to be adequete.

If it is being alleged that there has not been debate in Australia about why the US invaded Iraq then that is simply not true. One suspects that the writer is simply displeased that many an Australian commentator has declined to conclude that it was all about Teh Oil.

Tell me dear Silkworm, my “racist gleeâ€? at picking on poor little Barack Obama, do you think it is his black half, or his white half, which would be the target of my racist ire?

The fact that you have called him “poor little Barack Obama” is evidence of your racism. The fact that you have divided Obama into coloured halves is further evidence of your racism.

Keep it up, satp. The hole you are digging for yourself just gets deeper and deeper.

Howard points out accurately that Rudd supported invasion on the basis of crediting reports about WMDs.

The truth is that three years ago the only real division between the Leader of the Opposition and me in a formal sense—we both agreed that Saddam ought to go, we both agreed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, because that was the available evidence—was that he wanted us to get yet another United Nations resolution, which it was obvious that the Security Council was not going to give us. That was the only real difference three years ago.

But this is bizarre. Note that this debate revolves around not what should happen next, but what has got the COW into the sorry atate it’s in.

So why doesn’t Rudd say: “It’s immaterial how we got here. The important thing is what should happen next.”

DJ’s reference comes up with a clear but depressing answer. The ALP is itself so deeply implicated in the US project that the ALP cannot criticise the aims of the US. The ALP is therefore restricted to criticising means.

In two years’ time a Democrat may sit in the White House. That Democrat may or may not repudiate Bush’s aims as well as Bush’s means.

But the depressing fact is that unless and until that happens, the ALP is trapped into an academic critique of US performance rather than a repudiation of US ambition.

This is firm proof of the dependency relaitonship between the US and Australia.

You said it, now BACK IT UP.