Next time someone tells you the ABC has a left-wing bias punch them in the face get them to explain this (via the daily flute):

STEPHANIE KENNEDY: Do any Australian agencies, federal or State have a similar shoot-to-kill policy as the British authorities?

JOHN HOWARD: We have appropriate policies.

STEPHANIE KENNEDY: So is there a shoot-to-kill policy?

JOHN HOWARD: We have appropriate policies.

STEPHANIE KENNEDY: The British intelligence agencies …

I’m sorry? Is that it? Perhaps the ABC need to run this checklist past their interviewers, in particular point 7:

Silence is golden. … When you start asking those provocative questions, the answers most likely will be short, useless or carefully worded. You may not get an answer at all. If this occurs, look your source in the eye and don’t say a word.

But then I guess Howard would boycott AM if they started demanding actual answers rather than sound bites. Gotta love this democracy thing, keeping our leaders accountable and all that good stuff.

It was embarassing to watch, quite frankly, when John Howard visited Louise Barry in a London Hospital last week:

LOUISE BARRY: What do you think about all this sort of stuff then? Do you reckon because everyone says that it’s all about because of the Iraq War. Do you reckon?

JOHN HOWARD: No, I don’t. But, you know, different people have different views. I don’t. I mean, they had a go at us and they had a go at other people before Iraq started.

I won’t even grace that reponse with the L word. I just can’t belive Howard thinks he can fool us with this so called “argument” ie. “A happened before B, therefore B has no relation to C”. But of course he can fool us, or at least enough of us.

Although he’s not referring to Howard directly, Juan Cole sums it up well in this interesting piece:

No one is alleging that all the instances of radical Muslim terrorism can be traced to the Iraq War.

What is being argued is that the Iraq War provided the already-existing terror networks with an enormous propaganda and recruiting windfall.

And even if it’s only helped them recruit 4 more suicide bombers, that’s 4 too many.

Let’s not forgot Johnny, Muslims can count too, and last I checked there were somewhere between 22 and 100 thousand reasons for them to be pissed off with Britain, the U.S and us.

Update 2005-07-26: Jack Straw has backed away from his earlier assertions that there is no relationship between the War on Iraq and the London bombings. Alas I doubt Our Leader will be so sensible.