Iraq War claims another Australian victim

MEDIA RELEASE: Iraq War of "two stupid white men" claims another Australian victim

Web: http://www.safecom.org.au/

Iraq War of "two stupid white men" claims another Australian victim

Media Release
Monday November 27, 2006 9:00am WST
For immediate Release
No Embargoes

"The Iraq war, organised by the Coalition of the Willing, which soon may just be a war where only, in Filmmaker Michael Moore's turn of phrase "two stupid white men" are involved - Australian PM John Howard and US President George Bush - has claimed another victim, a returning refugee on a Temporary Protection Visa," WA Rights group Project SafeCom said this morning, reacting to a report in The Australian newspaper.

"Iraqi Shia refugee Mohammed Sharif al-Saraf was killed in 2003 while suspected by his killers as an Australian spy," the group's spokesman Jack H Smit said, "and his murder shows two things once again; the bankruptcy of Australia's involvement in the Iraq war, and the stupidity and bankruptcy of DIMA public servants following their masters' voice rather than sticking by international country safety assessments by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and other competent agencies in assessing Iraq's safety levels in 2003. It also shows once again how extremely dangerous the notion of a Temporary Visa regime is," Mr Smit said.

"Yesterday Mr Michael Moore wrote to his vast number of newsletter subscribers, that we're now part of the Iraq War for longer than the Second World War, without having achieved anything:
"Tomorrow marks the day that we will have been in Iraq longer than we were in all of World War II."

"That's right. We were able to defeat all of Nazi Germany, Mussolini, and the entire Japanese empire in LESS time than it's taken the world's only superpower to secure the road from the airport to downtown Baghdad."

"And we haven't even done THAT. After 1,347 days, in the same time it took us to took us to sweep across North Africa, storm the beaches of Italy, conquer the South Pacific, and liberate all of Western Europe, we cannot, after over 3 and 1/2 years, even take over a single highway and protect ourselves from a homemade device of two tin cans placed in a pothole. No wonder the cab fare from the airport into Baghdad is now running around $35,000 for the 25-minute ride. And that doesn't even include a friggin' helmet."

"Project SafeCom renews its call for the abolition of the intensely cruel TPV regime, and it also renews its call for Australian troops to immediately be recalled from Iraq. John Howard has presided in the last decade over a bankrupt war and over a bankrupt system of refugee assessment and treatment. It's time Labor raids the coalition at the next election and it's extremely important, that at this time, Labor brings the TPV system to a complete end," Mr Smit concluded.

ENDS

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