Tyrants Near Death

 

"A few children die in the kindergarten, a few old men die in the Happiness Court. If there's no death people can't exist. From Confucius to now it would be disastrous if people didn't die."

Mao Tse-tung.


This is the memorial service in Hyde Park; held, often enough, in the early hours of the morning; cold, wet, surprisingly moving; the general news hook being that around the country these events have become increasingly popular; so that instead of Anzac Day dying out with the old diggers, in fact they have become the most sincere expression of national pride and coherence. In a country which shattered a long time ago; and is being led down new and even more barren paths by our current crop of politicians.

I was at the Westin hotel; women often say, when they enter; "what a beautiful hotel!" and indeed they've done a superb job of refitting the old central post office building. Peter Costello was doing his post-budget tour; waving his placards and giving his spiel to a sea of expensive suits arrayed in the ballroom. This really was the big end of town. This was more a Costello lap of honour than a selling trip, it wasn't the big end of town that needed convincing they were doing a marvellous job of managing the country's economy; the graphs showing the impacts of taxation rates on income scales; the average Australian income of $47,000 being examined through a telescope, a sum so small they couldn't imagine it.

The president of the Liberal Party stood up to thank Costello after his piece.

"We have all, during the last 11 years of a Howard government, seen our houses balloon in value, and indeed in number. We have all seen our share portfolios increase massively. We have all prospered; and in order to protect and to grow that prosperity we need a stable economy and a stable government. That is why you must vote Liberal."

There was solid applause and the event was over, a snip at $250 a head. The haves and have mores headed back to the surface, calling to each other cheerfully as they rose up the escalator.


THE STORY CONTINUES:

"I dreamt of you, out there on the front, David, an old drinking buddy, said, referring to the Gulf War which had fascinated them both. I dreamt we made love, right there on the battlefield. There were guns going off all around, tracers in the sky. There were soldiers, hunky, in all the trenches, and you, with your reporter's pad, and I was fantastically pleased to see you. He laughed and tried to shrug him off; David was always so embarrassing the way he gushed at him. For no particular reason he had always avoided sleeping with him.

"David was always propped on a bar stool somewhere, an artist of sorts, sympathetic but useless. It was hard to turn away from someone who was telling you what a fabulous person you were, even if he was drunk and tiresome.

"You had ash on your face, and grease, and the sky was turning white from a Scud missile, and you were just fabulous, you loved me so much.

"He tried to look away, embarrassed, and David grabbed his face in his hands and said, 'Don't be like that with me, I'm jiust telling you how I feel.'

"A few more drinks and he escaped. It was nice to go home, to sleep alone."


THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/21/wirq121.xml

Iraq is haunted by fear, warns US envoy
By Alex Spillius, Washington Correspondent


Fear is the word that best describes Iraq's mood and crucial political and security targets will almost certainly be missed, according to the new American ambassador.

Addressing 90 members of Congress by satellite link, Ryan Crocker said: "If there is one word I would use to sum up the atmosphere in Iraq -on the streets, in the countryside, in the neighbourhoods and at the national level - that word would be 'fear'."

Mr Crocker, who speaks Arabic and Persian, became ambassador to Iraq in March.

The assessment offered by the ambassador and senior military commanders was the frankest admission so far that President George W Bush's stubborn approach to the war is not delivering results anything like as quickly as Congress and voters would like.

Gen Raymond Odierno, the second highest ranking US officer in Iraq, also told reporters that he would need more time to evaluate whether the "surge" strategy was working.

The administration has agreed to report in mid-September on the success of the decision to send 30,000 more troops to Iraq.

But Mr Crocker and senior commanders have made it clear that September is not the turning point. "In order to do a good assessment, I need at least until November," said Gen Odierno.

Meanwhile Hillary Clinton reacted angrily yesterday to a Pentagon official who accused her of helping the "enemy" in Iraq. In a leaked letter, Eric Edelman, the defence department's undersecretary for policy, criticised her for asking about contingency plans for withdrawing troops.

Mrs Clinton, who is Senator for New York and the Democrats' frontrunner for the 2008 election, said that Mr Edelman had "made spurious arguments to avoid addressing contingency planning".