Baghdad Blues

Thursday, 20 March 2003

I've spent most of today in a state approaching mental paralysis. It's been coming on since Monday. There are too many topics to blog on today. The biggest of course is that the war in Iraq is finally underway and there have been plenty of events since noon (Melbourne time) that invite comment that I'm not yet ready to write. Most of that comment has already been provided, in part at least, elsewhere. My list of candidate blog topics started with George Bush's letter to the US Congress, providing his justifications for going to war. Tim Dunlop tips a much-deserved bucket on it here. Gary Sauer-Thompson has anticipated my post on John Howard's total failure to convince the majority of the Australian people that this war is right. Right now, my belief is that expecting us to trust in the moral convictions of a chronic liar and self-righteous humbug finally turned out to be too much of an ask.

James Russell asks:

Now that the warbloggers have pretty much got the war they were looking for, what will they write about?

He'll find one answer at Tim Blair's site: it's not too different to blogging the Melbourne Formula One Grand Prix as it happens.

Another topic that I won't be writing much about today is John Howard's address to the nation. I caught a part of it on radio: Howard's attempts at a soothing tone reminded me of an old BBC radio show called "Listen with Mother" which the presenter always began with the words "Are you sitting comfortably? Good, then I shall begin." I was also reminded of Sir William MacMahon, unsung architect of Gough Whitlam's 1972 election victory - all that was missing was Macmahon's querulous tremolo.

Finally, there's the Federal Government's decision to reintroduce its ASIO Bill to Parliament today. The debate on the Bill should be interesting to say the least: Simon Crean has said that our involvement in the war on Iraq increases the risk of terrorist attack on Australians: in his address John Howard said it will make no appreciable difference in the short term and in the long run will make us safer from terrorism. I might come back to this one tomorrow. On the other hand, I could wait till next Friday: I think we'll be seeing some excellent dummy spits over the next week or so.