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REGISTER TO VOTE 27-Jul-2007 At 6:45:13 PM BigMike

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On 27/07/2007 dave h. wrote:

>
>Are these issues for anyone else or is it just me...

Hmmm ... Iraq.

I saw a news bulletin on either SBS or ABC last week (no ways it was on a commercial station) about US troops in Iraq, and how stressed they are getting as their ``tours'' are repeatedly extended.

The camera followed them on a raid into a house. Inside was chaos. Barking dogs surrounding an old woman with little more than a chair and a Zimmer frame, who was yelling and wailing in anguish at the troops.

Then outside again, and on deserted shattered streets, the soldiers try to flag down a civilian car that is ``acting suspiciously''. It takes off. They shoot it up. Soldiers approach driver lying in car. ``He moved, he's still alive'' one says. ``Nope, he's shot through the throat,'' another says.

He dies. Nothing suspicious in the car. Later a woman in a nearby house tells the troops the car was an informal taxi she'd ordered. He was trying to find her house in amongst the carnage.

That evening, one US soldier is venting at the camera, saying he's done 15 months but he would gladly, and for free, do another 15 months if George Bush or another senior government figure would come and do it with him.

And what I have to say is going to get censored, but there's no other word for it, the story made me so f---ing angry and depressed. About the intolerable human cost of the Western powers' arrogance and stupidity. Australia has backed the US in this insanity and continues to do so.

But to answer your question. ... it's not an election issue. Not really.

For me, the 2004 election was summed up by a cartoon in the Manly Daily, of all places. Two voters in two polling booths. Over one is a thought cloud with the words: ``Iraq, Free Trade Agreement, Children in detention'' and the like.

Over the other voter's head is a simple symbol: ``%''

The voters will vote according to what's in it for them.

So it's to be hoped that voters will realise how the WorkNoChoices laws will hurt them, and vote the conservatives out. And then perhaps win the additional bonuses of a more compassionate and honest government.