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BUCKS TO BE MADE

Richard Ackland on Douglas Wood, businessman and kidnap victim:

The hero of the day is now a product being ripened by a platoon of PR agents, managers, stylists and personal trainers. There’s a buck to be made with this boy.

Not that Douglas Wood doesn’t understand how to trot out a volley of cliches all on his own: “It’s great to be an Australian … God bless America … Any chance of a VB? … It’s bloody good to be home … How are the Cats going? … Waltzing Matilda.”

Not bad for a guy who’s lived away from his proud homeland for 25 years.

And Richard Ackland on David Hicks, Jew-hater and conflict-seeking idiot, who himself long ago left Australia:

John Howard says the military commissions will deliver a fair trial for this Australian. The Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, thinks so, too. This stands in bleak contrast to the caution Howard urged in respect of the Corby case: “It is tremendously important that people be circumspect in what they say.”

Of course, Howard didn’t say of Hicks, as is his expressed sentiment for Corby: “I do feel for him, the whole country feels for him.” Possibly that is because there are no huge ratings and TV shows with worms to be drained out of Hicks’s dreadful plight.

Hicks went to the Middle East to kill people. Wood went to the Middle East to work. (Oh, and speaking of “bucks to be made”, consider the $433,000 of taxpayers’ money that funded a Hicks-friendly documentary.)

UPDATE, via Aaron at Free Will:

The military raid that freed Douglas Wood was “stupid” because it had almost certainly cost the lives of two Iraqis taken hostage with him, Australia’s most senior Muslim cleric claimed yesterday.

Returning to Sydney from his mission in Iraq to help free the Australian engineer, Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali said the raid that rescued Mr Wood from a Baghdad house last Wednesday foiled negotiations with the kidnappers to release Mr Wood with his Iraqi driver and a local engineer.

Those negotiations were going so well that al-Hilali had earlier abandoned Baghdad for Cairo.

(Via reader Dan L.)

Posted by Tim B. on 06/21/2005 at 01:40 PM
  1. “Not bad for a guy who’s lived away from his proud homeland for 25 years.”

    Wait a minute—I thought visiting other countries was a sign of inteligence and superiority?

    Posted by SeanP on 2005 06 21 at 06:54 PM • permalink

  2. You have to wonder if Richard Ackland’s piece would’ve been completely different had Wood denounced the coalition of the willing!

    Posted by cal on 2005 06 21 at 06:56 PM • permalink

  3. Of course, Howard didn’t say of Hicks, as is his expressed sentiment for Corby: “I do feel for him, the whole country feels for him.” Possibly that is because there are no huge ratings and TV shows with worms to be drained out of Hicks’s dreadful plight.
    Ackland may be able to read, in fact he allegedly read Law. Like the rest of the left media, however, he cannot read the Australian people, who have no sympathy for the touring terrorist.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2005 06 21 at 06:58 PM • permalink

  4. There is something decidedly anchovic about a guy who was ‘kidnapped’ for forty-seven days, eating nothing but bread and water, yet still manages to look like 400 pounds of pure donut oil.

    Even at Dubai airport after nearly 8 weeks of tossing off into a hankie this ‘Aussie’ sits as far away from his ‘relieved’ American wife as one could get.

    Shiekh!, what f..ing shiekh?, never heard heard of him…ROTFLMAO

    Posted by Jay Santos on 2005 06 21 at 08:18 PM • permalink

  5. I was wondering how long it would take before the loony left showed their real hand;

    Wanted DEAD: D Wood

    Wanted ALIVE: Sheik Hilalli

    Long live Islam!

    Posted by rog2 on 2005 06 21 at 09:21 PM • permalink

  6. Can I quote you on that?

    Posted by blogstrop on 2005 06 22 at 05:59 AM • permalink

  7. At last, a letter in support of Wood in the SMH. http://www.smh.com.au/letters/index.html

    Only room for one it seems.  Here’s my failed effort:

    From the moment Douglas Wood praised Iraqi and Coalition policy it had to get sadly predictable. Richard Ackland (Opinion 21/6) ploughs the familiar ruts of snobbery and personal vilification.  Wood was in Iraq to help reconstruction and make a living so he must be a capitalist mercenary and suspected Halliburton staffer.  Wood likes VB and footy, vulgar prole staples.  Wood says ‘It’s good to be home’ and is therefore a mother of cliches.  Wood calls murderous kidnappers ‘arseholes’ and only a foul-mouthed low life would speak ill of those who kidnapped and abused him. 
    Ackland believes he is above cheque book journalism but is well-versed in its gutter variety, it seems.  I’m sure he will be checking to see how Wood holds his fork next Sunday.

    Posted by Inurbanus on 2005 06 22 at 11:42 AM • permalink

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