The Axis Of Evidence!

It strikes Elroy that there is a certain amount of hypocrisy abroad in the world, and that double standards abound on some very, very big topics which annoy Elroy more than somewhat. What counts for one issue does not matter for another, so in the name of consistency, truth, justice and the humanist way, Elroy would like to iron out a few of these wrinkles and make the case for applying principles in a manner which is, well, principled.

So, what are the issues? Well, in no particular order, here are three big ones that more or less define the post-modern condition, the axis of evidence that spill from one into the next – the Iraq War, Global Warming and 9/11.

Nothing much then, just the most volatile, contentious and partisan, bi-partisan, cross-partisan and non-partisan subjects of public debate currently on the table, so what’s the problem?

The problem, dear reader, is one of approach, of truth, of working out the who-what-why-where-when of it all. Let’s take the Iraq War. We were told, back in 2002, that Iraq was a threat that could not be denied or ignored, that the cost of doing nothing was far greater than the cost of doing something and, if we didn’t act now, the cost of acting then would be too much too bear, that humanity could not afford the risk, after all, with all those WMD with Saddam, the future of the entire planet was at stake etc etc, blah blah blah, waddaya waddaya, and the naysayers and doves who argued and asked for proof, who found experts that knew full well Saddam had as many WMD as the Easter Bunny, were shunned, ignored, sidelined and ridiculed.

So many people, faced with what they were told was incontrovertible proof that world was in eminent peril, went along with the invasion and occupation of Iraq – shame that it was completely bogus, but that’s not the point – the point is that the threat was too, too great and so literally untold billions of dollars have been spent to mitigate said threat.

Which brings us to another issue which has some similarities with the Iraq war in that it is also a threat that cannot be denied or ignored, that the cost of doing nothing about it is far greater than the cost of doing something and, if we don’t act now, the cost of acting then will be too much too bear, that humanity could not afford the risk because, after all, the future of the entire planet is at stake and we are faced with incontrovertible proof that world was in peril, but the people that sold us this logic to go to war with the WMD menace are the very ones that deny the existence of this other highly pressing subject.

The climate change deniers, those that were the head cheerleaders for war, take all the arguments that the peaceniks used to talk the hawks out of combat – the financial cost, the human cost, the lack of verifiable scientific evidence – and use it to beat environmentalists over the head, despite the remarkable volte face it requires.

The logic used to argue for action against global warming is the same as was used to prosecute the Iraq war, but for some reason those that once urged haste urge caution, and visa versa, but there is a crucial difference – the WMD of Saddam Hussein, if they ever actually existed, which they didn’t, could never have actually turned the lights out from pole to pole, whereas global warming actually can.

Another feature of those intent on lightly poaching the globe in its juices is their sudden expertise on all things climatic; even the most rationally challenged blogger has become ofay with the intricacies of climatologising, and one can hardly peek at a conservative website these days without being barraged by arcane scientific data of the most intricate and obscure variety which desperately tries to prove that it’s all a big con put up by evil, tree-hugging climatologists hell-bent on retaining their funding and living it large at the tax-payers trough.

‘It’s a conspiracy!’ cry these devotees of Newton and Galileo who also generally exhibit a distinctly unscientific allegiance to an all-powerfull, all-seeing, all-knowing unknowable ‘creator’, ‘They’re just after the cash!’, while spurning any suggestion that the Iraq war was set up in part as the mother of all boondoggles for the military/industrial complex. They also whine that they are merely asking for proof, that they have found experts who know full well that the planet is getting colder, and that the are being shunned, ignored, sidelined and ridiculed, yet if the anti-war mob got the kind of media coverage the climate change sceptics have been accorded there would still be running water on the Tigris.

Indeed, one of their ‘experts’, the ‘mathematician’ (cue approving nods) Mr David Evans, has been widely quoted as whining that ‘The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990’, but when one takes into consideration that the entire global GDP is approximately $64 trillion, that works out to more or less $3 billion per year which, when spread across all 6-odd billion, of us is chump change!

$3 billion a year for a whole planet? Where else are you going to get a bargain like that? It’s certainly better value than the warlords plan for global preservation, currently running at $3.5 billion per week.

Naturally there is nothing to prove the climatologist/research complex conspiracy theory, but so what? That just shows you how crafty them there scientists are, but not all scientists you understand – the scientists that deny the reality of global warming are totally altruistic and not really in the pay of big oil. Like our friend Mr Evans, many are not actually climate scientists either, but never mind – they’re clever, that’s what counts, and that’s what makes them eminently quotable.

However, when it comes to the third corner of our trio of tribulation, science is suddenly back in its box and Osama Bin Laden’s true believers return to their faith-based approach to investigation and mercilessly mock those campaigning to discover the truth about 9/11; the ‘troofers’, as they are so sneeringly referred to, have many quite reasonable points to make about 9/11 and what really happened that fateful morn, but their opponents are having none of it – the troofers are as batshit crazy to them as the The Lavoisier Group are to Friends Of The Earth and the US Marine Corp appear to Code Pink.

Suddenly quoting experts, real experts, honest-to-god physicists, civil engineers, architects, jet pilots, demolition riggers, military personnel of every stripe and the fundamental laws of Newton and Galileo is cause for much scoffing and derision, as one is precluded from using any such evidence unless one actually has the relevant doctorate and not even then.

There are many ostensibly sane people who argue that they are not advocating a conspiracy theory so much as viable hypothesises that attempt to include all of the known facts, that are merely asking for proof, and they have found experts who know full well that buildings do not drop straight down through the path of most resistance without help, but they are being shunned, ignored, sidelined and ridiculed.

Of course, like the anti-war movement, if the troofers were granted the same amount of media oxygen as the climate change deniers – there are more docos that go out of their way to slam down the former next president of the United States on the telly than Australian soap operas, all in the name of free speech, doncha know – there would likely be a run on pitchforks as a million man mob advanced on the Capitol Hill with menace aforethought, but those that bleat about scheming weathermen are too busy yelling about tin-foil hats and Elvis driving the Roswell spaceships to care, or notice the irony.

Another problem is that these issues do not break along partisan lines. There are many lefties who originally supported the ousting of Saddam Hussein ¬¬¬but who are committed environmentalists, committed environmentalists who repudiate the alternative 9/11 propositions, pro-war advocates who agree that 9/11 is not all it seems, anti-war global warming sceptics, pro-war troofers and all stops inbetween; indeed, the one common bond they have is that the tactics that they complain are used on them are the exact same ones they use on everyone else.

And so here we are, where evidence is permissible unless it isn’t, the laws of physics are immutable until they aren’t and that cold, hard science is the ultimate arbiter unless God is, where groups that demand to be heard demand others aren’t, where experts aren’t experts unless they are, or not, where quoting said experts is legitimate or proscribed, where the interwebs is either a vital conduit for the free flow of information or a free-for-all cesspool of errant nonsense open to every miscreant nutter to stagger down the pike.

But does it matter? So what if these disparate bands of hard-disk jockeys go adjective and verb at each other? Well, in a word, yes, because if 9/11 was not perpetrated by 19 malcontent Saudis then the entire Bush presidency becomes even more illegitimate than it already is, if that’s at all possible, and because the case for the Iraq war, proven or otherwise, could have been solved in ways other than wholesale slaughter had Dick Cheney not been in charge, if it had to be solved at all.

It was successfully argued that there was no alternative to the chaos, poverty, misery, ignorance, a dark furture for the youth, instability on a generational scale and general death that the Coalition of the Willing™ has visited on Mesopotamia and that, without immediate action, chaos, poverty, misery, ignorance, a dark future for the youth, instability on a generational scale and death in general would be visited upon us.

Well, it turns out that not acting on the so-called ‘threat’ of Saddam Hussein would have actually brought about a wave of wealth, happiness, wisdom, a future for the children and life in general, as would averting global warming. Indeed, NOT averting global warming could well bring chaos, poverty, misery, ignorance, a dark future for the youth, instability on a generational scale and general death in general while action will bring wealth, happiness, wisdom, a bright future for the children and life in general. And if it doesn’t, well, it can’t hurt. Can it? We don’t even have the quaint old ‘diplomacy’ option on this one, so can we risk not doing it?

Can avoiding climate change cause chaos, poverty, misery, ignorance, a dark future for the youth, instability on a generational scale and general death? Surely cutting down on the use of fossil fuels can only help mankind? Anyone out there care to argue the opposite? Elroy assures you that all evidence will be heard and listened to, and challenged where applicable, if you can promise to do the same.

All we, the world, need is the will and the decency to hear the case for and against war, for and against global warming, for and against the origins of 9/11, soberly, sincerely, dispassionately and without regard to our own petty biases and beliefs to ascertain the truth and stop the endless churn of the axis of evidence before we all fry for one reason or the another.

Ejected, Neglected And Unelected – Blair, Howard, Bush And What Awaits Us – REDUX! NOW WITH ADDED BLACKWATER! (See paragraphs 43 -50! It's worth it!)

Hi kids! Sorry about the wait! Anyhoo, here’s what’s going down here in the GSS (Great Southern Sunburnt Country©) and beyond. Things are hotting up some in the Anglophone members of the COW’s (Coalition Of the Willing™) pre-election campaigns as the MOW (Masters Of War®) try anything to cling to what is left of their ever diminishing power.

Australia, Britain and the USA are all up for RC (Regime Change™) over the next eighteen months and, as the MOW® begin to realise that for them the road ahead is hard, yea, and the mountain high, so they start to strategise on how to at least keep their relative parties in control if not themselves.

For Noo Labour’s Tony Blair, the answer was pretty obvious – cut and run. He knew that running in the next election would result in the biggest Labour thrashing since the evil Baroness Thatcher took down a befuddled Jim Callaghan and commenced her ROT (Reign of Terror©) over the hapless Britons back in 1979, and so laid the ground work for his disappearance a couple of years ago by declaring a timetable for surrender.

He now manages to be Labour’s longest serving PM and to leave office with his rep. violently savaged but not entirely negated, while poor Gordon Brown, long-time Blair hostage, tries to convince the wary, jaded, disappointed and downright furious Poms that he isn’t Tony, really, not Tony, Tony who? So Brown gets to either lose the next general election and thus be blamed for throwing away the largest majority in British parliamentary history, or be the guy that ‘lost’ the Iraq war. Actually, in old Blighty, this is probably the best move he could make.

And Tony gets to go and be the new head of the World Bank, or whatever other saving-the-poor role he can rustle up, in an attempt be the friend-of-the-people, finder-of-peace-in-the-Emerald-Isle, dictator-vanquishing saviour-of-the-third-world he wants history to demand that he is.

This quitting-before-the-bucket-of-shite-falls-on-yer-head approach to leadership is a luxury of the Westminster system that Honest John is starting to wish he’d indulged in too. And he may well; Crickey! has reported a few juicy rumours about Little Johnny, one of which is that he will just quit when Parliament heads for their respective ski-lodges come June.

Any excuse would do, dog died, whatever, because folks, don’t forget that he didn’t earn his ‘Honest’ for nothing – it was, and always will be, ironic. And this way he gets to go out on top and avoid the likelier-by-the-day scenario of being the only the second Prime Minister to lose his seat, but as this would also reveal himself to be nought but a craven, trembling coward, Elroy thinks he go to his Waterloo loins girded for a shellacking of the worst possible order.

And the theories continue to swirl around Howard’s ‘We’ll all be ‘rooned!’ speech to the party room last Monday where he said that the Liberals ‘…would not just lose but be annihilated’. What was he up to? Was he just putting a ferret up the trousers of his party and its fan base? After all, Howard never says anything he doesn’t exactly mean; it is very rare for him to just blather off the top of his head and don’t forget that the fear factor is weapon he knows how wield all to well. Or was he, just for a change, actually being honest?

Another thesis correlates with Elroy’s predictions in March, that Howard, win or lose, will bail soon after the election. Elroy still has the house on the Costello, Abbott and Turnbull trifecta for the Liberal leadership, taking turns like good little sausages until someone wins the glittering prize.

However, it has also been ruminated that Howard’s comment about Treasurer Peter Costello and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer’s eleven-year gigs being a ‘weakness’ in reality meant ‘Time’s up!’ for Pete and that, if Johnny was to lose the election then, then the Liberal Party must start its own ABC (Anyone But Costello®) and plonk Abbott in the job. Manipulating the party to gip Cossie out of his dearest desire be Howard’s final act of revenge against a man who has hated him for years but was ever too gutless to take the challenge implied by Howard’s famous mantra ‘I’ll remain leader as long as the party wants me’.

That is if there is a Liberal Party left which whose new party room is not a phone box. Recent media reports say an in-depth examination of the polls reveal a 10% swing to Labor that could mean sayonara to not only Howard but also Costello and Turnbull; the Liberal/National Coalition have been estimated to lose forty-nine of their eighty-nine seats, giving Labor a thumping seventy-two seat majority and sending thirteen of the Coalition’s twenty-three ministers off to an interview with CentreLink.

And as Elroy has previously mentioned, with Federal Liberal sitting in the same gutter as State Liberal, powerless, irrelevant and ripping each other’s eyes out, the Liberal Party will simply implode. Who will take its place? Well, Elroy hears that Pauline Hanson’s back in business and she ain’t frying chips – we welcome to the stage the anti-union, anti-immigrant, anti-globalisation Pauline's United Australia Party! Hmm. The words 'Populist' and 'Demagouge' come strangely to mind...

Bush, however, faces a different state of affairs. George Bush can quit if he wants to, but that as would put him an ignominious club which at the moment consists soley of Richard Milhous Nixon, Elroy can’t see it happening. Bush can’t run again anyway, so his most pressing task is ensuring the success of his successor.

There is plenty of debate over whether Bush should have ever been elected president in the first place or the second place, the 2000 and 2004 elections being full of suspect behaviour, and the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina and a list of other high crimes and misdemeanors that should, by rights, see BushCorp take that long bus ride to the Big House, have irredeemably poisoned the US voting public against the Republican Party for possibly generations to come.

With a popularity rating at twenty-eight per cent and no end in sight to a deeply unpopular war, elections just aren’t going to cut it for the GOP (Grand Old Party™) but they cannot lose; there are not, Elroy believes, enough shredders with the requisite grunt or just enough shredders anyway, in all of Washington and surrounding states, to munch through the evidence so something else will happen.

But what? Aha! Let’s ask Elroy for some wild supposition! Here are a few scenarios: Stealing the next election is going to be most troublesome as they’ve used up all of their tricks; ‘caging’ lists, dodgy electronic voting machines, disenfranchisement of every persuasion, all of their little stunts have been rumbled by a growing army of voters who are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. Furthermore, even if the Republicans did pull out every stop in their possession, they can’t take the chance that it wouldn’t be enough – the 2006 midterms weren’t lost for want of trying – and so we move on the next proposition.

Kill George. It’s simple enough. Assassinating George would generate a huge wave of sympathy for the Republican Party and maybe they could surf that wave back into power, especially if the patsy was a Muslim patsy. As if he’d be anything else! On the other hand, that would make Dick Cheney president, not a good look for the Republicans going into an election; one the other hand, he’s the president anyway so what’s the diff?

However, assassinating George would mean they couldn’t assassinate Obama, as the electorate couldn’t stand two assassinations in one year – it’s ain’t 1968, y’know – and knocking off Barak would steal George’s thunder, but as they have to kill Barak, well, they’re going to have to think of something else.

What? Of course they have to whack Barak! And will! Don’t look so shocked! Waddaya think, they’re gonna let him become president? Puh-leese!

Or, and this one’s really out there, they could just have an election with Mitt Romney as the Republican candidate and lose it, which the market will hate, and the fall-out from the subsequent scandals, impeachments, imprisonments and looming real estate meltdown will be catastrophic for the world economy as China and the Royal House of Saud pull their dollars out of the US and convert them into Euros, a move which will, in turn, panic President Clinton into fast-tracking George W. Bush’s of establishing the NAU (North American Union™) out of the USA, Canada and Mexico in order to institute the Amero as a counter to the Euro’s dominance and thus sparking the second American Civil War as various redneck militias, Canucks and wetbacks up pitchforks and head for the final hoedown.

This next cunning scheme is the nuttiest, the craziest, the most whacked-out piece of pre-emptive conspiracy theorizing Elroy has ever deliriumed and one, by the way, that is already happening. On May 9, George W. Bush signed the NSAHSPD (National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive™) which granted him virtual dictatorial powers in the event of a declared CNE (Catastrophic National Emergency™) such an emergency being defined as ‘any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.’

This directive is in direct defiance of the provisions of the NMA (National Emergency Act™) and the directive’s language negates any requirement that Bush submit to Congress a determination that a national emergency exists and implements the president’s powers without congressional approval or oversight.

Congress can supposedly ‘modify, rescind, or render dormant’ the authority if it reckons the pres has acted inappropriately but the new directive, drafted and signed to supersede the National Emergency Act, makes no reference to Congress; instead it creates the new position of NCC (National Continuity Co-ordinator™), who plans for NEF (National Essential Functions™) by arranging for private sector organizations and all federal, state, local, territorial and tribal governments are function under Bush’s directives in the event of a CNE, without any specific act of Congress authorizing it.

In short, this Executive Order allows Bush to assume power to direct any and all government and business activities without congressional approval or oversight. He has now put in place power to arbitrarily and unilaterally impose martial law, suspend the Constitution, assume virtual dictatorial power, deploy under his command military forces into U.S. cities to round up citizens declared by his regime to be enemy combatants or security threats, and to retain control of all federal, state, local, territorial and tribal governments, military personnel, law enforcement agencies, and private sector organizations until the CNE is declared over, and who declares the CNE over? That’s right…

Meanwhile, the rhetoric ramps up. The fear factor is back as Bush suddenly remembers about that Osama guy. Never forget what George said in ’02, not long after he vowed to get OBL ‘Dead or alive’:

‘Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him, when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban.’

‘But once we set out the policy and started executing the plan, he became -- we shoved him out more and more on the margins. He has no place to train his al-Qaida killers anymore. And if we -- excuse me for a minute -- and if we find a training camp, we'll take care of it. Either we will or our friends will.’

Now, far be it from me to call George II a flip-flopper – a murderous, narcissistic, deluded, functionally illiterate alcoholic sociopath would be far more accurate – but the other day he said this:

‘In the minds of al-Qaida leaders, 9/11 was just a down payment on violence yet to come. It is tempting to believe that the calm here at home after 9/11 means that the danger to our country has passed. Here in America, we are living in the eye of a storm, all around us, dangerous winds are swirling and these winds could reach our shores at any moment.’

‘Hear the words of Osama bin Laden: He calls the struggle in Iraq a 'war of destiny. The war is for you or for us to win. If we win it, it means your defeat and disgrace forever.'

Who? Osama wha? Ain’t he that there dee-moh-krat? For a guy Bush isn’t too concerned about, he seems pretty damn concerned. But there’s one more ingredient needed for such a situation, and of course the White House has not let us down.

In America, right now, internment camps are being constructed by, of course, Halliburton, on a contract from the DoHS (Department of Homeland Security™) awarded in 2005 worth $385m to be used for immigration, disaster relief or the troublingly vague’ ... to support the rapid development of new programs’. Eek! John Ashcroft said they could be used for American citizens who were deemed ‘enemy combatants’ and guess who says does the deeming? Gimmie a ‘G’! Gimmie an ‘E’! Gimmie an ‘O’! Gimmie an ‘R’! Gimmie another ‘G’! Gimmie an ‘E’! What’s that spell? Fucking lunatic! What’s that spell…

Peter Kirsanow of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission said that he “could foresee a scenario in which the public would demand internment camps for Arab Americans if Arab terrorists strike again in this country. If they come from the same ethnic group that attacked the World Trade Center, you can forget about civil rights.’

So it’s not just Elroy! The chances that anti-war dissenters and other neer’do-wells would avoid a holiday in such a facility are about the same as the Republicans winning 2008, so should we be afraid? Not down here, yet, but the denizens of our GAPF© (Great and Powerful Friend©)? Oh boy.

So what is Elroy getting at? Have you all done your sums? Take one election that cannot be lost at any cost, add surreptitious executive orders allowing George to govern by presidential fiat, mix with 600-odd domestic concentration camps, stir in a generous amount of boogey man paranoia and what do you have a recipe for? 9/11 Redux!

No wonder they didn’t want to catch Osama! He’s one pre-selected patsy! Who else would fit the bill? Who else would fit the bill? Ahmadinajad? Hugo Chavez? (Um, memo to self – re: Next 9/11: Possible perpertrators…)

The only reason AHBASNE (America Hasn’t Been Attacked Since 9/11!™) is that the terrorists haven’t needed to, but now they are being threatened with RC maybe they will act. A mini-nuke in the White House? 9/11 is a hard act to follow, but they’ll think of something; another 9/11 would certainly do the job, in fact it’s probably the only way to do the job. Everlasting Bushiness!

There is, however, one more option left open to the Republicans, and for that we cross over to a certain Dr Thomas Sowell – free-market economist, major influence on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and a syndicated columnist in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal and sundry other mainstream establishment organs. He’s a lovely chap, and he wrote this not long ago in the National Review:

‘When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.’

Whoa, Jimmy! Say what? Hey, don’t sugar coat it doc; tell us what you really think!
And he’s not kidding, either. On that bastion of Fair And Balanced™- ness, Hannity & Colmes, he expounded further ‘I’m very serious about whether or not the country can be saved at all’ he intoned. When asked what crisis would precipitate such an action, Sowell said ’If the political system becomes ever more irresponsible, if the education system becomes ever more degenerate, if the race hustlers polarize this country and the schools and intelligentsia dismantle the values on which it’s built’

Indeed, if BushCorp finally get rumbled for their 9/11 chicanery this might well the only option left open to them, and there’s no shortage of military types to put their hand up for such an insurrection, good Bushies more than willing to take up the cudgels for Christ and cast that ‘goddamn piece of paper’ known as the ‘Constitution’ in the fires of hell from whence it was spawned.

Take General William G. ‘Jerry’ Boykin; he is obviously no great fan of democracy or even America’s vague semblance of it. He has no time for elections per se – as far as Boykin is concerned, the only vote that needs to be counted is the one cast by the Big Cheese Himself. ‘Why is this man in the White House?’, Boykin asks audiences about the unikely ascendency of KIng George II, ‘The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there?’ Hmm. Good questions all, Jezza! So, what’s the scoop? ‘And I tell you this morning that he’s in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this.’ Eek!.

Now, be aware, be very aware, that again this guy is no fringe-dweller, no retired old curmudgeon who can’t shut up; from April 1998 to February 2000 he served as the Commanding General, U.S. Army Special Operations Command (Airborne) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, from March 2000-2003 he was the Commanding General at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, and in June 2003 he was appointed Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and he’s still is. Gulp!

Now, I know what you’re thinking: ‘Elroy, you’re a fucking idiot. How’s he going to do that? Arm Sunday school teachers?’ No, Elroy’s afraid, very afraid, that the last piece of the infrastructure is also already in place. Obviously someone will have to round up the traitors, the dissenters, the A-rabs, the ‘unlawful enemy combatants’ and other ‘enemies of the state’ and it won’t be the military – Bush has busted all his soldiers – it will be Blackwater.

Ever heard of Iraq’s ‘private security contractors’? The USA has paid $4 Billion out to ‘private security contractors’ so far, and the biggest of them are to mercenary armies what Halliburton is to meals-on-wheels. There are at least 30,000 Blackwater soldiers of fortune in Iraq, some say more, along with another 100,000 other private suppliers of logistical support working for various other operators.

Incredibly, ‘private security contractors’ in Iraq are not subject to any laws, American or Iraqi, civil or military, which means that there are an unknown or at least undisclosed number of heavily armed, highly trained, utterly lawless mercenaries roaming Iraq with no confines whatsoever at rates of pay many times that of government regulars. 40c of every $1.00 spent by the US in Iraq goes inauditably to the private sector – the world is at outsourced war.

And Blackwater does not just supply soldiers. They run their own training camps in Iraq, have a 7,000 acre facility in North Carolina, another in Illinois and yet another under construction in san Diego, twenty-odd aircraft and helicopter gunships, contracts from the US Federal Government upwards of $750m and are currently setting up an intelligence arm, Total Intelligence complete with their own drone spy planes. Private military intelligence? Uh oh.

But surely this bunch are for helping out in foreign affairs? Not to be taken internally? Export only? Domestic consumption prohibited? The Louisiana National Guard were in Iraq during the Hurricane Katrina debacle, but hundreds of black-clad Blackwater goons in wraparound sunnies toting AK47s were on the streets of New Orleans way before any federal or state military with orders to guard uptown mansions and generally ‘kill looters’, a service which cost the Federal Government $240,000 per day.

But would this operation put itself on the line for Bush? Well, apart from the fact that he is their best customer (although they are setting up an international branch in the conveniently tax-lite Barbados), its founder is one of the faithful. Ex-US Navy SEAL Erik Prince inherited $1.3 billion in cash after the sale of his family’s car-parts manufacturing operation and put it to good use, as befitting a good Dominionist Christian.

Dominionists are to Christians what Islamists are to Muslims; they believe that there is no law but God’s law and seek political means to introduce it – they are, for all intents and purposes, a Christian Taliban and there are millions of them, including the owner of the biggest private army on the planet and, sadly, most of the White House staff and the President of the United States. Worried yet?

So there you go, folks; in a climate where presidents can declare themselves to be above the law, where civilian prison camps can be openly constructed, where even respected men of letters like Thomas Sowell can advocate the establishment of a military junta and not be ridiculed and sidelined but lionized and feted,where top brass generals can openly regard the democratic process as some sort of affront to the will of God and not be cashiered and sent to a home form the terminally bewildered, where an alternative private partisan army can be raised and maintained on taxpayers' millions, well, nothing is beyond speculation. At least the military coup option does away with the need for subterfuge and patsies, and it would sure shut the conspiracy theorists up.

This has been a special souvenir edition of Let’s Ask Elroy!™. Cut it out and keep it, read it again from the bunk of an internment facility near you and remember where you read it first. Before, that is, they take you out the back and…

Denial Is Not Just A River In Egypt – Part Two.

So how do we have an honest discourse? How are all positions to be heard? Not though the media as it stands; with an ever-decreasing amount of companies running the show, and bearing in mind that they are not, by any means, altruistic organizations committed to the well-being of the grazing herd, the divergence of stories in the MSM is minimal.

Of course, Nutbags Athletic are not playing on a level pitch with their elected overlords. Establishment United can only harness the entire fire-power of the Western media – Rupert Murdoch alone can reach 4.5 billion souls – while the Nutbags are clearly have the upper hand as they coax broadband connections into life and lock their wheezing PCs on ‘Argue’.

However, there is no surprise that although the mainstream media are always on the side of truth, that truth is always on the side of the status quo. Be they laying down the Official Word for good and loyal patriots or fighting a rear guard action against wild-eyed anarchists, the MSM can always, up to a point, be relied upon to do Establishment United’s heavy lifting; even the multitude of balls-ups by the Bush administration have been given not much more than a cursory glance but that might just be, considering the multitude of sins they have to choose from, because there simply isn’t room.

The whole situation could change tomorrow if it suited the vested interests for it to do so, but it doesn’t, so the show goes on, and given the unstoppable force of the global media it is no great shock that Establishment United is ahead of the game; they have most of the star strikers and they not only own the rule book they rewrite it daily, and if they don’t like the referee’s decision, hey! They just ignore it!

But as these are the defining issues of our times and they must not be off limits for discussion and debate. Is the Iraq War going to explode exponentially and turn into a global conflagration, or is it the victory for democracy that the Coalition says it is? How can the voters of a liberal democracy be confident in the claims of the government if the tales coming out of the war zone are so diametrically opposed?

The Iraq war could be fought because the powers that be knew that their rationale for it was bollocks, and because of this they could change it around at will. They could never be upfront about the real reason, but fake reasons? Hey, they got them! How many do you want?

The logic that allowed the Iraq War to go ahead – the overwhelming threat of annihilation, the cost of doing nothing, the immediacy of the threat of annihilation, the cost of doing nothing about the immediacy of the threat – was shouted long and loud from every rooftop, and printed on the pulp of every tree.

It was inescapable, and those that argued were fools, cretins, appeasers – if we don’t face the threat head on, cried our rulers, we shall surely rue the day. Those that said we must be careful were brushed aside with a brute force that only the most determined can muster because, shrilled the western warlords, its all so obvious.

Of course we now know otherwise, but at the time, well… The thing is that many, many people at the time knew that the intelligence was dodgy, and it was proved to be; now, however, we have a new enemy, and once again we are face with the overwhelming threat of annihilation, the cost of doing nothing, the immediacy of the threat of annihilation and the cost of doing nothing about the immediacy of the threat, but this time Establishment United are not so gung-ho about its amelioration.

Now, careful is the watchword. Now, they want to make sure that the intelligence is absolutely perfect before we engage the foe. Now, they say, we really need to talk about it, and talk about it some more, because it really wouldn’t do if someone got hurt. 'Histroy' sniffed Australian John Howard just today, 'is littered with examples of where nation have over-reacted to presumed threats, only to their great long-term disadvantage', without it occuring to him for a nanosecond that this comment pertains just as happily to his government's Iraq excursion.

All good lawyers never ask a question if they don’t know the answer. However, the global warmists have asked a new question of Establishment United, and because they don't have an answer they like, our Dear Leaders control the damage by ridiculing the question, but neither Q or A will go away. However, no matter whether you run hot or cold on the subject, at least we are having the debate and the effect of the solar on the polar, once the exclusive preserve of dreadlocked enviro-vegies, is now on the dining table of every household on the planet.

Coming Soon – Part Three – How to clear it all up!

Denial Is Not Just A River In Egypt – Part One.

Denial is an interesting business; it is a phenomenon which has ensnared the modern human and one which threatens, one way or another, to kill us all, and so here at Let’s Ask Elroy™ we say maybe it’s time to dip our tootsies in the water and see what it is we do and don’t believe, and who do and don’t believe it.

The denial industry is thriving at the moment; we have Iraq War denial, climate change denial, 9/11 denial and, shock horror, holocaust denial. Opposing tribes are at war and unfortunately, like all wars, truth is the first casualty, and it seems that whoever controls the truth gets to say who is in denial and who is being full, frank and honest with the population at large.

Lets take the Iraq War. Without the support of one Rupert Murdoch, the Iraq war would be over; in fact, it would never have been started and the War On Terror wouldn’t exit either. They were both predicated on intelligence now known to be suspect, and there were many voices at the time crying out the same message, but those voices were exiled to the wilderness. They were, we were assured, lone nuts and Internet partisans, heretics and traitors, maniacal deniers who had not left their bedrooms since 1996 and not anyone to take seriously.

Well, it looks like the lone nuts were right, but not for everyone. The war’s cheerleaders still believe that WMD are down there somewhere and that the USA will create Geneva-on-the-Tigris, and those that want to believe that do. The White House doesn’t, they know what’s going on, that’s why they have returned to funding Sunni extremists in order to fight the Shiites they came to save, but although the true believers keep on keepin’ on, the tide is turning on them; they are themselves becoming the one in denial.

However, the catastrophe in Iraq is, in some way finite, provable in the most gruesome of terms – refugees, body counts, blood n’ guts, collapsing infrastructure – but global warming is far more fertile ground for obfuscation. The concept of global warming has been around for a while, but as it is only now that it has reached some sort of critical mass, so it is only now that we see criticism of it ramped up to the point hysteria.

But this time the flipper is on the other foot as the establishment finds itself cast as the denier. Oops! Did I say denier? I meant realist! This time deniers are not nutbag partisans hell bent on nobbling the opposition because they are, well, the opposition, this time the deniers are noble crusaders for truth and justice. They are still heretics but more of your ‘Joan Of Arc’ stylee, and those that oppose them are but closed-minded zealots deaf to legitimate arguments and terrified of real debate.

Yes! Behold the brave forces of the Establishment as they dare to take on that mighty army of socialist radicals who hate industry, gasp with admiration as they toil against anti-capitalist commies who want nothing more to than take down the system and reduce us all to serfs whose very lives are dependent on five-year tractor quotas!

And thanks to the Murdoch noise machine this stuff is cutting through, but the next on the list of controversies has not been so favoured. The story of 9/11 is one of The Greatest Ever Told, and for this tale no dissent is to be tolerated. Far from being applauded for seeking honest discussion, those worried that the Legend Of September 11 might be tad iffy are maligned, marginalized and vilified to within an inch of their laptops; suddenly, heretics are back to being burned at the stake and any idea that they may have anything to add to the debate is spat upon. Funny that, eh?

The powers-that-be are also in no mood to be messin’ with the holocaust either. One of Western civilization’s last great taboos, to be accused of denying that the holocaust happened is one of the most potent pejoratives in the arsenal of political insults available to man; it is so serious a smear that all other ‘deniers’ are damned by implication, except for global warming ones who manage to use this association as proof of their victim hood while simultaneously employing it to mitigate their position (‘It’s not’, they whine, ‘as if we’re holocaust deniers!’).

If 9/11 deniers are heretics to be burned at the stake, then holocaust deniers are Satan incarnate. So foul are the connotations of being called a holocaust denier that historians who class themselves as holocaust revisionists are tarred with the same putrid bush; however, the revisionists merely claim that they are, with the benefit of sixty years’ worth of hindsight and technological advances, just trying to work out the truth of what happened.

So just as truth is relative, so is the search for it. You are either a champion of veracity and actuality, or you are an evil subversive heading for a detention camp for enemy-enablers nowhere near you depending on which, or whose, truth you seek. It would appear that the inside running for the truth is with whoever gets their story in first; the CIA, Pentagon, State Department and White House with Iraq, the Greenies and environmentalists on global warming, the White House et al again with 9/11 and the Allies, better known now as the UN Security Council, with the holocaust. Establishment United 3; Nutbags Athletic 1.

Watch out for Part 2 – The rest of the mess!