1. LINDSAY PERIGO: AFTER THE BOMBING - WHAT NEXT?
2. BUSTED ON TAPE
3. ANTI-SMOKING ZEALOTS EXPOSE HYPOCRISY
4. TOP TEN THINGS YOU'LL NEVER HEAR IN LOCAL BODY POLITICS
5. WEBSITE OF THE WEEK

1. LINDSAY PERIGO: AFTER THE BOMBING - WHAT NEXT?

Thus far, Bush Jr seems to be doing better than his father in comparable circumstances. He is waging a war not of his choosing with greater resolve & moral self-assurance than the man who balked at finishing the job against Saddam Hussein. He has also acknowledged that this war should not be used as an excuse arbitrarily to expand the powers of government at home.
He seems to be aware that, in order to get rid of the Taleban he must not expediently align himself with forces just as bad, that such an alignment would come back to haunt him - witness the fact that U.S. raids have pointedly ignored Taleban strongholds whose removal would allow the ragbag Northern Alliance to march on Kabul with alacrity. But his biggest test is yet to come.
When everything that should be bombed has been bombed, what then? When/if bid Laden & his cohorts are surrendered or rounded up, what then? In my view, the matter cannot be allowed to rest there. The outcome of a just war should be the unashamed conquest of the wrong side by the right side. That in this instance the Taleban are the wrong side & America the right side is beyond reasonable doubt. Moreover, America did not seek war with or declare war on Afghanistan; bin Laden, & by extension, Afghanistan, declared war on America, in a manner most foul & unambiguous.
Afghanistan must now be conquered in the fullest sense of the term. It should be occupied by western ground forces & taken over outright. It should be declared the 51st state of America.
Yes, there would be screams of outrage from all over, but screams do not an argument make & they would die down soon enough as the reality set in. That which is apparently of paramount importance to the wretched indigenes, pro-Taleban & anti-Taleban alike - freedom to practise their silly religion - would be constitutionally protected. They would NOT be free to wage war on each other in the name of this or that variant of their silly religion. They would be free to elect their own state government. They would be free to discard their veils & their shackles if they wished. They would be free to play cards, to watch videos, to shave their beards, to use soap & toilet paper if they wished. They would be free to avail themselves of the evil creature comforts & mod-cons with which the Great Satan would tempt them, if they wished.
If they chose instead to stagnate in stone-age squalor, they would be free to do that also; they would NOT be free to try to impose it on the rest of the world.
What Bush mustn't do is allow an interim government of a different bunch of fanatics who will wage war on him further down the track. At the very least, whatever administration is instated in place of the Taleban must be western-dominated for the indefinite future, & outright colonisation by the United States would be the best, the most just & most appropriate means of ensuring that.
Does Bush have the stomach for this? Probably not, & even if he did he would be told it's simply not feasible in the world of "realpolitik" as it is. But this is his chance to change that world, once & for all, incalculably for the better.
Next stop - Iraq.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Perigo to subscribe, or visit www.freeradical.co.nz for the archive.

2. BUSTED ON TAPE

This story is from Richard Prebble’s weekly "Letter from Wellington" – you can subscribe at www.act.org.nz
After a recent PR botch, Margaret Wilson's press secretary escaped across the road for a coffee and proceeded to tell his fellow staffer exactly what he thought of the Minister. It took 27 minutes to outline Ms Wilson’s faults. How do we know it was 27 minutes? Because the press secretary had put his cellphone on the cafe table and when he said "Minister Wilson" it voice-activated the phone to call his boss.
When they realised the call had diverted to the answer phone, the two secretaries sprinted back to the office. The good news was that the Minister had not cleared her calls. "Oh, Minister," said the press secretary, "I’ve left a 27-minute message on your answer phone but I can tell you in person, so there’s no need to listen to it."
"What’s so important that it took 27 minutes?" the Minister asked. She listened to all 27 minutes.
The press secretary won’t be fired because the PM believes it wouldn’t be a good look to have the Labour Minister in the Employment Court.
Margaret Wilson has now been telling friends, who’ve told friends, who’ve told the Letter that she is finding politics harder than she thought. She’s going to retire at the next election and go back to academia. Good news for working people, bad news for students.

3. ANTI-SMOKING ZEALOTS EXPOSE HYPOCRISY

ACT MP Rodney Hide has accused Labour, Alliance and the Greens of gross hypocrisy for attempting to ram through legislation effectively banning smoking in most pubs.
"This Government wants to outlaw every person's right to light up when they're having a beer in the pub at the end of a hard day's work. The legislation tramples on property rights by denying pub owners the right to set their own rules in their own establishments.
"Labour's voters are going to be horrified when they get to the pub and find the smoking police stubbing out their cigarettes.
"Reformed smoker Helen Clark and her pious friends are trying to impose their Nanny-State zeal on the rest of us. Even the hypocrites in the Greens, who would have us all smoking marijuana, want to outlaw nicotine.
"ACT is the only party that can say none of our MPs smoke. No other party can say that. Yet we are alone standing up for the rights and choices of bar owners to set their own rules in their establishments.
"ACT has surveyed every bar in the country. Ninety-five percent of respondents want this legislation to be halted - they can already choose if they want to be smoke-free or not, and they value that freedom.
"At least twenty-five bars have told us they are going to be forced to fire their staff and close down because they cannot afford the renovations this legislation requires.
"This Government can't find enough money for Kohanga Reo. It can't afford to reduce long-term truancy in schools. It can't deal with hospital waiting lists. But it is perfectly happy to come up with the cash to create a mob of bigoted 'smokefree' police to go around ruining everybody else's lives."

4. TOP TEN THINGS YOU'LL NEVER HEAR IN LOCAL BODY POLITICS

1. "Jim fully supported my decison to stand." Matt McCarten.

2. "I like Banksie. He's a real man." Judith Tizard.

3. "I must see if I can dig out my old tutu for a mayoral float in the next hero parade." John Banks.

4. "That Judith Tizard sure gets things done." Anyone in Auckland.

5. "Bloody cathedral square. I'm sick of it. Flatten the whole damn eyesore and turn it into a Wilsons parking building." Garry Moore.

6. "David Benson-Who?" Sukhi Turner.

7. "Sure, you can build the highway right through my backyard." Russ Rimmington.

8. "I'm just happy to be the husband of the Mayor." Rex Nicholls.

9. "I only lost because the media was biased against me." Thomas Morgan, Wellington Mayoral candidate receiving 129 votes.

10. "If we were wiped out by anthrax, would the world notice?" Mayor of Eltham, site of anthrax scare last week.

Courtesy of St Molesworth, www.geocities.com/stmolesworth

5. WEBSITE OF THE WEEK

http://www.nukeafghanistan.net

Very un-PC, but also very funny and entertaining. This is a website where Americans can vent their feelings towards the terrorists who attacked the US last month. You can email a message to Bin Laden, and ask "Nukie" a question.

Perhaps the funniest sections are the caption competition and the daily top-ten lists.

Any views expressed here are not necessarily those of New Zealand Young Nationals, or the New Zealand National Party.
Contributions, feedback, articles and subscriptions welcome. Email newwrite@national.org.nz
Editor: Phil Rennie

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>