Words of Mass Deception by the Maniacs of Spin

The Pine Gap Spy Base
Given the rulings by the Judge Sally Thomas in the Pine Gap Four pre-trial to protect the Defence Minister decaring places like Pine Gap prohibited under the Defence Special Undertakings Act (1952), the PG4 defence team should advance another (yet to be tested argument) concerning the DSU Act 1952.

Put simply, the argument I am talking about is that the special defence undertaking outlined in the government gazettal of Pine Gap in 1967 is a lie.

This lie is no different really to the lie about there being WMDs in Iraq or that the invasion of Iraq was intended to bring democracy to that country.

Subsequent events confirm such lies … sooner or later.

Only one example is necessary:

George W Bush, speaking from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, told the world that the Americans had had a great victory in Iraq and the war was over. Bush said, “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq the United States and our allies have prevailed and now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.”

In the past week (15-21 October 2006) it has become clear that the current Australian government is being hurt politically by these lies.

The Australian Government now concedes that the exit from Iraq does not depend on reconstruction. Nor upon “democracy” being installed in Baghdad.

The American president is now claiming that the Iraqis have mounted a Tet-style offensive against the coalition of the willing. Foreign Editor of the Weekend Australian, Greg Sheridan eagerly interprets Bush:

“This is what President George W.Bush meant … that the present spike in violence in Iraq may be analogous to the Tet offensive in Vietnam in 1968.”

Is Sheridan actually saying that the architect of the Tet offensive, General Giap, has emerged from retirement (or resurrected from the dead) as shining beacon for ‘Jihadists using lessons of Tet‘ to lead the insurgency in Iraq? Sheridan gets worse.

In the same article he now says:

“They (the US public) doubt whether there is a coherent and effective plan (by the US administration).”

I’ll bet Sheridan was not saying this a year ago; he may not have been saying it two weeks ago.

A conservative Australia with a reactionary judiciary and a biased press, along with the numerical lack of Australian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, have prevented recent revelations such as the ones in the book “The Weapons Detective” from doing more damage to the government.

To quote a barrister commenting on the PG4 case:

“To prove the case against the accused (the PG4) it is necessary to establish each element of the offence, including that the conduct complained of occurred in a prohibited area. I would have thought the onus on the Crown to establish that the conduct occurred in a prohibited area, requiring (the Crown) to show a nexus between the property in question and the gazetted undertaking would have provided a means to raise the issue of whether the gazetted undertaking (space research) existed at all.”

Even if the defence lawyer had argued this in her pre-trial address to the judge that should not be the end of it. There should be a challenge against the judge (Sally Thomas) on the basis of prejudice and bias shown at pre-trial and the fact that she was a Lt. Col. in the Army Cadets.

This judge has been educated to accept the lie upon which Pine Gap was founded.

The defence should take every opportunity they can to highlight that the gazetted undertaking by the government through its defence minister, Fairhall, in 1967 was a lie.

It is this lie that the PG4, by their actions, have tried to reveal.

As we know, Pine Gap is not now and never has been a space research facility. The Crown and its witnesses should be strongly challenged about this. Evidence that the 1967 gazettal of Pine Gap as a space research facility was used as a cover for its real purpose should be advanced by the defence.

A CIA operative admitted this to Bob Plastowe in 1986 on the documentary “Inside Pine Gap“.

There are other witnesses who can give evidence of this lie by the American Defence Department.

One is Rod Barton (pictured here), the author of the book “The Weapons Detective” (Black Inc. Agenda).

Bob Plastowe’s 1986 TV report “Inside Pine Gap” should be viewed by the jury. In particular, the defence lawyer(s) should shown the interview with the CIA operative admitting that the US has lied about activities at Pine Gap in the first few minutes of this report.

How and at what point this argument is run is up to the defence team.

My view is that this argument should made to the jury before the close of the crown case (in other words, the allegations made in the report should be put to relevant crown witnesses) and also should be a focus for cross-examination of these same crown witnesses.

The maniacs of the Right, whether they write for newspapers, make speeches in parliament, or give judgements in court will be found out in the end; whether it will be in time to prevent the PG4 from paying a high price for their idealism remains to be seen.

Ian Curr

October, 2006