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Permalink Reply by Bob Stewart on July 10, 2010 at 6:36am

Beverley, responding to your request.

The Australian National Council on Drugs , reporting in the Adelaide Advertiser March 19 2009 of an alarming spike in heroin users, disclosed in part....

....."Ninety per cent of the world's heroin now comes from Afghanistan. Afghani or "brown heroin" is cheaper and purer than the "white heroin" that comes to Australia from South-East Asia.
It first entered the SA market last year. The Advertiser revealed then (2008) that it was being used to lace ecstasy pills, sold in packs as 10 for as little as $150.

Brown heroin is easier to smoke too, so more people may be lured into using it in the belief it is safer. However, with prolonged use (the craving increases) people often start injecting, raising the risk of disease. Professor Ali said this meant people were vulnerable to bloodborne diseases including HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C....."

Bev, I have since learned that packs of 10 were replaced with packs of 6 for $100 after this story made the news in March. Probably to hide the connection with the 10 packs being "different"

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Permalink Reply by Matt Thompson on July 10, 2010 at 7:00pm

Either we should be there or we shouldn't.
We mustn't change our mind because two people have been killed. What kind of message does that send to our enemies? If we didn't understand there could be casualties then we never should have sent our people there in the first place.

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Permalink Reply by Elizebeth Flower on July 10, 2010 at 9:41pm

An issue I find troubling is not so much whether our troops should be in Afghanistan, but rather how much irrefutable benefit there is in our being there, as some seem to be calling it the war that can never be won.

However, if you carefully read Bob's topic, you will see that it is the drug issue that is of concern to him - something that is unlikely to be remedied without agricultural conversion over many years, as opium production is the major source of income.

I have heard the claim that there has been a manifold increase in the production of heroin since the troops moved in as it is no longer being curbed by the Taliban. I may not be correct on this but Bob points to a report of March 2009 that claimed that ninety percent of the world's heroin was being produced in Afghanistan. My impression is that production is continually increasing, so we are losing the 'drug war' in the west despite our troops being there.

Meanwhile as more and more fit young men from Afghanistan come to Australia as 'refugees' and indeed as the Muslim population in the western world continues to increase at an incredible rate, we are also losing in the battle against the Islamic agenda of 'total world domination and a Muslim world ruled by Sharia Law' - against which troops in Afghanistan or elsewhere are totally ineffectual.

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Permalink Reply by Bob Stewart on July 11, 2010 at 7:27am

You have an amazing perception of the real dimension Elizabeth. I filed the ABC Report of March 2009 on the matter but forgot the specific programme. The ABC could tell you.

Did the Taliban ever curb the poppy production? I have extensive files going back to the Russian Situation and can find no record. What does show up is an ideology that is sinister in its method of cultivating the minds of the young to believe that they are the Chosen Ones closing the mind to any other direction than an ultimate end in a prepared version of Paradise for having killed the innocents. But, as an aside....

In 1973, I recall being warned to avert my gaze passing the entrance to the huge mosque in El Marj ,Libya built by an American firm. Yet,while under construction, in posters on almost every post, Gaddaffi is portrayed on a white horse with a lance through the body of Uncle Sam and in a further contradiction, a maverick American DC3 crew contracted to fly personnel and supplies to the irrigation project at Kufra from Benghazi.

From these experiences and subsequent events it is not the big issues that concern me, but the reminder that a comment from Hitler to the formation of Hitler Youth bares repeating, "Give me the children for the first 7 years, and (I) we will rule the World"

As for the different Islamic communities increasing at an alarming rate, females are "barefoot, uneducated and pregnant from the age of 14 in a greater part of the Islamic world. Some never allowed to be seen in public uncovered and/or with a male who is not her brother, father or husband for fear of some kind and in Libya traded in marriage for gold and silver before she menstruates. Invariably to a friend of the family whether she likes it or not, and in Somalia is subjected to female circumcision to deny her any God endowed pleasure from a reproductive act - reserving that only to the male.

We can rely on the notion that if the Islamic world believes it controls half of the world we can bet they are wanting to control the other half and if that is a bit crowded, then a big place like Australia is open for occupation -from within. I taunt you not when I advocate the teaching of our community values to children in the primary years of our education system,

Bob Stewart

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Permalink Reply by Martin Essenberg on July 14, 2010 at 8:40pm

And if what you say is true should we also be in Somalia, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Nigeria, Iran, Kazakhstan, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and all other Moslem states?

You can't invade them all and impose our values on them anymore than we should allow them to impose their values on us.

The best place to defend Australia is in Australia. Stop the Liberals/Nationals and Labor parties allowing unrestricted legal immigration.

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Permalink Reply by Elizebeth Flower on July 16, 2010 at 8:43pm

Bob, I have great respect for your wisdom, and fully agree with you on all these issues, and I concur with your assertion of the need to teach "our community values to children in the primary years of our education system". I see this as a vital need.

If I rightly understood, you did mention on another thread some time back that you were writing on this issue. I have been looking forward to reading your thoughts as this has been an issue very close to my own heart for a long time.

I sought to teach sound values to my own children, but my experience with the education department in Queensland revealed not only an absence of the teaching of our traditional values (based on the Judeo-Christian ethic) on which our great country was founded, but that of egocentric, atheistic humanism without moral absolutes.

This sort of teaching leaves children in a moral vacuum, unless their parents compensate with strong moral guidelines, and we are reaping the results today in widespread disrespect, irresponsibility and lawlessness among our youth.

Without the inculcation of sound values to guide them, young people will have no safeguards against any of the ideologies which are likely to be thrust upon them in greater measure in coming years. I tremble when I think of the future of my grandchildren and their children unless the present downward slide in values is reversed by sound guidance.

Thank you Bob for your own exemplary strength of character and insights into these issues as well as your earnest desire to make a difference.

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Permalink Reply by Elizebeth Flower on July 16, 2010 at 8:46pm

Beverley, I found this site to be quite revealing and well worth the read.

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Permalink Reply by Bob Stewart on July 17, 2010 at 7:02am

Liz,

The teacher reaction here from the notion that values should be part of the primary year education system is to just hand any responsibility back to the parents. But I believe from the stats (1)that it is too late for that when the proportion of dysfunctional youth who, sooner rather than later, will themselves become dysfunctional parents (2) of equally dysfunctional children.

(1) In SA 06-07 over 20,000 calls to Drug Help Line, 92% under the age of 25. Over 4320 children under the age of 16 in Court for various offences last year, an increase of 18% on the previous year and a teacher in a Northern suburb school K.O'd with a brick in the school yard just a few months ago.

(2) I wept unashamedly at the story describing the gradual death of a little 9 year old boy from the neglect of drug addict parents and the failure of FamiliesSA to avert the tragedy. Up to December last year ,over 4000 children had been removed into State Care and if one were to account for the abuse in that area by "carers"alone that has clogged the Courts it merely reinforces the anger. AdelaideNow Children are being handed back to abusive parents by the Court after Police have done their duty to rescue them. The Court is hiding behind the law in dealing with effects when it should use its power to deal with causes.

Are we drifting into a hate phase Elizabeth? It is the title of a write up you refer to that strongly suggests from a collection of stats that such a phase led by political despots is already evident. A junta that Gillardteened its leader. The new leader has a strong ruthless egoheaded group behind her and shortly, I think she will wish they were in front.....where she can see them

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Permalink Reply by Bob Stewart on July 17, 2010 at 8:21am

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/courts-send-chil...

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Permalink Reply by Bob Stewart on July 17, 2010 at 8:43am

Martin,

You doubt what I have written is true Martin? We need to be very clear about what we are to defend our nation from and in that area we have not scratched the surface of our own internal, home grown problems. We must remember that the civilization that gave birth to this Nation has survived and progressed for hundreds of years in spite of many attempts by royal. religious, military and political despots to destroy it.

As for the nations of Islam you have listed, not all of them teach their children to hate or to believe they will dwell in their version of Paradise for having killed the innocents and blown themselves up in the process. Is it a measure of their intellect? unable to debate or argue the virtue of their belief or cause that a bomb is the only one they know?

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Permalink Reply by Martin Essenberg on July 17, 2010 at 9:48pm

Robert, we have no national need to be defending Australia in Afghanistan. We cannot defend Afghanistan from itself

9 years on the Afghan army still cannot defend them. After all this time corruption is rampant (as it was in South Vietnam when the US was there).

Our national interests are best served by saving the money we spend over there and spending it on border protection here to prevent drug importation. We would be better off restricting immigration so there is no internal security issues.

Years back we had a free society. Now everywhere we go there are security guards- most of whom are useless. Remember the guy who got murdered at the airport- 15 minutes of fighting and then the perpetrators left. Where were all the security guards? Where were the Police? The bikies didn't even have guns- just used a metal pipe from the airport itself. All these private security contractors are just after the money.

Why do we have such a drug problem now? We joined the US in the "war on drugs" at least 40 years ago and have been losing ever since. Its a problem of supply and demand. If we successfully stop importation of some drugs the price goes up. This higher price creates more attempts to import.

What does our great civilization fail to teach its citizens so that they use them despite government censure?

Perhaps our political leaders give no one any reason to believe anymore?

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Permalink Reply by Martin Essenberg on July 17, 2010 at 11:08pm

Where to now?
We do as Gough Whitlam did with the Vietnam war- we remove our troops.
We spend the money this war is costing looking after Australia.
If our society is sick with drugs or poverty or alcohol then we need to fix that

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