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Letters may be e-mailed to guardian@cpa.org.au.
Letters of 300-400 words are preferred.

Letters to the Editor:

Is Bush bushwhacked?

Bush's "war on terrorism" and campaign against Osama bin Laden is 
running into troubled water. There must be growing grass-roots resistance 
to his war budget that has slashed welfare; opposition is growing to the 
tacit US Government support of Israeli's ruthless onslaught on the 
Palestinians.

But opposition to Bush's policies has also come in three very high ranking 
areas.

On April 19 at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Robert Mueller, 
Director of the FBI, made it very clear that the FBI did not have a scrap 
of evidence linking Arab hijackers to the air attacks on the World Trade 
Centre and the Pentagon.

"The hijackers also left no paper trails. In our investigation we have not 
uncovered a single bit of paper ... that mentioned any aspect of the 
September 11 plot."

On May 14, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Thomas 
Moore, headed a powerful delegation to Congress to express outrage at the 
high-level whitewashing in 1967 of the premeditated Israeli attack on the 
USS Liberty electronic surveillance ship, when 34 US sailors were killed, 
and 170 seriously injured.

The delegation demands Congress investigate the incident.

In media leaks on May 24, the Joint Chiefs of Staff publicly warned Bush 
against attacking Iraq. By all media accounts the six Chiefs stood 
"shoulder to shoulder" against an invasion of Iraq. What will Bush do?

Information from Joe Vaille.

Vic Williams

Perth, WA

When will the Australian people wake up to the fact that the Australian 
Government is the enemy of the people?

As long as Howard and his pseudo capitalist cronies treat hard working 
people like a milch cow, they will, without resistance or protest destroy 
the good health of the Australian economy to the best of their ability.

What right has this government to the billions pilfered from the pockets of 
consumers by the GST? None at all! Unless it is the apathy of a demoralised 
and subdued electorate.

I anticipate with pleasure of a daydream the abolition of the federal 
government, the destruction of its army of parasitic bureaucrats and the 
liberation of the people from oppressive, involuntary and unjust taxation.

Is the Australia economy in free fall, out of control and hurtling towards 
ground zero and the "greatest" depression the world has ever known?

Need we wonder why? Let's destroy the ability of the destroyers to destroy 
us! Let's deprive them of our hard-earned dollar! They have no right to our 
money.

Chris Rath
Redfern, NSW

Why are there still Australians who support the Coalition Governmentms 
Refugee Policy, that is the Border Protection Legislation, the Pacific 
"Solution" and Mandatory Detention?

Amazingly, many still appear not to know the facts. These policies are 
unnecessary, inhumane, costly, shortsighted and internationally damaging.

Unbelievably, current budget proposals even suggest that the sick, the 
disabled and the environment are expected to foot the bill for this 
unintelligent behaviour.

The recent decision to declare more islands to be non-Australian territory, 
so as to circumvent internationally agreed refugee obligations, is 
hypocritical.

The UN Inspection Team's preliminary report on the Detention Camps is 
plainly devastating. For the Howard Government to arrogantly reject that 
criticism on account of the UN's mixed record in solving major problems 
elsewhere, is quite wrong.

Australia should be a country that defends the humanitarian values of the 
UN, not undermines them.

With 23 million refugees in the world, Australia has a moral responsibility 
to take in a much larger number than it does.

The mendacity of the election campaign has been exposed. No apologies from 
anyone. No change in policy either. Opposition Senators, isn't it time for 
a fresh election?

Klaas Woldring
Pearl Beach, NSW