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KILL THREAT FAILS TO CORRECT CARE DEFICIENCY
Australians don’t care about kidnapped Douglas Wood, argues The Age’s Jo Chandler. Her evidence? Well, if we really cared, we’d be happily negotiating with terrorists and demanding our troops withdraw from Iraq:
If the object of the exercise in kidnapping Wood was to rouse political or social passions over the presence of Australian troops in Iraq, as kidnappings of nationals did in Spain, Italy and the Philippines, it has failed.
The terrible images of Wood, an Australian citizen who has committed no crime, beaten and bowed, pleading for his life, have failed to galvanise Australians to call for a change in policy. Why?
Because we believe in the cause and aren’t about to be swayed by murderous blackmailers? Just a theory. To support her claim, Jo hunts down always-quotable talkback expert Peter Maher:
For a scientific reading of Australian attitudes, turn to media analyst Rehame. At the request of The Age, Rehame reviewed talkback radio sentiment this week and managing director Peter Maher was staggered by what he found. “Don’t get kidnapped in Iraq,” he says. “The public aren’t going to help you very much.”
He means “the public won’t back down on the war.”
What stunned Maher was that 65 per cent of callers supported the Government’s handling of the Wood abduction. Only four callers nationally suggested that Australia should pull troops out of Iraq. The tone is increasingly accepting of Australia’s involvement in the war. “It’s as if it is no longer an issue. It’s gone under the radar. I couldn’t get over it - so much so that I went back and asked my guys to check it again,” he says ...
“Poor old Dougy, I am staggered by this, I really am. I can’t get over the difference of opinion on this (Iraq) in 12 months. This is getting up near Tampa figures in terms of community support.”
The guy’s job is to monitor public opinion. Yet he’s staggered by support for policies that last year saw John Howard returned to office with an increased majority.
After reading transcripts of talkback calls, Maher wonders whether the community is growing harder, or more self-interested: if it doesn’t directly affect us, it doesn’t much matter. “It seems as a nation we’re changing so dramatically. As far as sympathy for these sorts of things - it’s not there,” he says. Was it ever? Maybe not, Maher admits.
Maher thinks we lack sympathy and are purely self-interested. The liberation of Iraq doesn’t directly affect us, in the short term; yet apparently we’re prepared to see it through, even at possible grievous cost to Douglas Wood and his family ... and potentially others, servicemen and civilian contractors alike. (Incidentally, the Asian tsunami didn’t affect us either. And we donated to tsunami causes like drunken Rockefellers.)
According to the one-dimensional Chandler/Maher Caring Index, American Sara Berg—sister of murdered Nicholas Berg—had no concern for her brother, because she supports the war and doesn’t want troops to withdraw; in fact, she wants them to continue killing terrorists:
Some things are unforgivable. What Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his many accomplices did to my brother Nick is unforgivable. It was not an act of war; it was a cold-blooded, premeditated heinous crime. To call it anything else suggests that it is an acceptable act of war, an acceptable response to America’s military action. It is not.
The world would be a better place if al-Zarqawi was no longer in it. He is pure evil. I don’t think someone like him is capable of any human feeling anymore. The only way to keep people like him from harming thousands of other people is to eliminate them.
Before this happened, I did not comprehend the magnitude of his evil and of people like him. But to experience the heinousness of what he did to someone as good and as innocent as my brother has totally changed my perspective. I don’t know how to respond in a humane way to such inhumane acts. I don’t think a humane response is necessary.
She’s right. It isn’t. Berg also has this message for the press:
What the media did to my family is also unforgivable. They made the worst week of my life infinitely worse. Decision-makers in the media need to make more humane decisions about what is a story and how they get it. Someone should have thought of a shocked, astounded and grieving family when they made those decisions. They spoke of their sympathy for us, but not once did they think the sympathetic thing to do would be to stop harassing us and allow us to grieve in peace.
More on this at the excellent Environmental Republican, source of the Berg link.
I’m very sorry for Douglas Woods and his family and loved ones. I truly am.
But it the kidnapping of one individual is enough to have a government change important decisions or policies, can you imagine the chaos that would reign? Hell, I might even consider doing it if I thought Australia or some other country would give me anything I demanded.
I wouldn’t mind they changing the name of their country to wronwrightolia. I might even capitalize it if the whim hits me. And if they don’t? Well, Margo gets it.
Posted by wronwright on 2005 05 14 at 02:40 PM • permalinkBut I care! In fact, I care so much that I hereby demand Prime Minister Howard exchange Jo Chandler for Douglas Woods.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 05 14 at 03:22 PM • permalinkIt seems Fairfax has found a new leading idiot in their cast of dozens.
I’ll make it simple for you Jo: Supprt For Australian Involvement In Iraq = Opposition To Terrorists = Opposition To Innocent People Being Threatened By Terrorists. Doug Wood is an innocent person being threatened by terrorists, Therefore: Australian Public Cares About Doug Wood.
Like Chandler & Maher, I support negotiations with the terrorists, except I support killing them first.
Those scum licking fucks. Men and women the world over are risking their lives because they don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves, that makes perfect sense.
Actually, you’re right, we don’t care, we don’t care about insulting little pricks like yourselves with no perception of reality beyond your fucking latte.
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 05 15 at 12:27 AM • permalinkThese hypocrites call people like Douglas Wood ‘mercenaries’ and then pretend they care so much that they demand we should pull our troops out.
If he’s murdered they’ll blame the government. If he’s released without troop withdrawal he’ll be called a mercenary again. They’ll never blame the terrorists.
What happened in Spain, Italy and the Philippines nothing less than disgraceful appeasement.
Thankgoodness most of the MSM live on another planet.If the aim was to get Australians demonstrating in their millions against the government and demanding that our troops be brought home, then yes, it has failed miserably. In fact, I think this kidnapping has woken up many Australians to what a murderous bunch of savages we are fighting.
Many Australians are also quite dubious about al-Hilaly, whose stated mission is to free Woods. Nobody I’ve spoken to buys this - most think that its a bit of self-promotion by this extremely unpopular ‘Islamic cleric’ (who has been in Australia for 20 years and cannot converse in English, who is on public record for making vile racist speeches about Jews and Australian society and who should have been deported years ago).
Maybe Australians are more mature than the French, Spanish etc - maybe we know instinctively that you dont bargain with murderers, that you dont show weakness to those who hate your country and all it stands for - with the exception of Chandler and her idiot friends, who would no doubt be more than happy to see Howard grovelling to Islamic religious fascists.
These are the sort of people the civilised world is up against:
From IOL - see link below
Srinigar, India - Suspected Muslim rebels detonated a grenade on Thursday as children left a Christian missionary school in Indian Kashmir, killing two women and wounding about 50 people including 20 pupils, police said.
“Please save me, I don’t want to die. Call my parents,” screamed a girl, her leg covered in blood, outside the school in Srinagar.
Distraught parents, many of them weeping, searched for their children at the scene of the blast in the centre of the main city of Kashmir where separatist rebels are waging a 15-year-old revolt against Indian rule.
“The grenade exploded as the schoolchildren were coming out of the gate of the school as it closed for the day,” a police officer told reporters.
(by Sheikh Mushtaq)
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=qw1115908561989B225
Those who advocate negotiation with such as these are sadly deluded.Come now, Australians! Clearly Jo Chandler knows what you should be thinking and why! How so? She’s a leftie with an opinion, which meanst that it’s universal law!!! Or should be, in her opinion.
Really. I thought everyone here understood the leftie moonbat thought patterns. Get with it, people!
:^D
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 05 15 at 08:11 AM • permalinkDee — There’s one big difference between Australians and French, Spaniards, Germans, etc.; when the tyrants came for you, you fought them off, and rejected the ones growing within.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 05 15 at 12:17 PM • permalinkTo be more precise, we couldn’t be stuffed having a tyrant around :P
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 05 15 at 12:21 PM • permalink
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My prayers are with the Wood family, and also with those Bergs who have seen the light (the mother and sister, apparently).
Refusing to back down before murderers doesn’t mean you don’t care about their victims. But some people are simply incapable of understanding that.