Home Australia Steve Smith Excuses Iraq’s WMD, and John Howard Apologizes for ‘Ball Tampering’

Steve Smith Excuses Iraq’s WMD, and John Howard Apologizes for ‘Ball Tampering’

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Bombs v Balls

by Dee McLachlan

The news this week is all about ‘ball tampering’, with headlines like: “Steve Smith heckled in ‘walk of shame’ as big-money sponsors cut cricket ties,” and “Captain Cry Baby: No sympathy for Steve Smith from British press.”

The lesson here is: if you tamper with a cricket ball using sandpaper — Beware. You will be a pariah, and lose millions. Ostracized.

However, if you’re a politician, and you invade another country on false pretenses — resulting in the deaths of over a million of its citizens — well, that just “embarrassing.”  And you will still be held in high esteem, and paid handsomely to speak at events.

What a twisted world we inhabit.

The Smith apology puts Howard’s “embarrassing” excuse into perspective.

In the video below, the sound for the Steve Smith press conference gets mixed up with the John Howard Weapons of Mass Destruction interview with Janet Albrechtsen (Ch7).

 

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37 COMMENTS

  2. LOVE love love this video! Represent Oz & break an international rule = Ban for LIFE…..

    And to quote John Howard on WMD: ‘That wasn’t made up….It may have led to an erroneous conclusion’……And maybe just a few hundred thousand dead Iraqi citizens Howard?…..

    Howard makes me physically ill after his part in the Port Arthur Massacre & his subsequent disarming of our citizens of which he is SO proud…..But will he fess up the truth on his death bed? Sadly the answer will be ‘NO’, leaving an innocent & intellectually disabled man to rot in jail…..
    AJ….

    • Dear John, you can’t say you are ’embarrassed’ about your Port Arthur/ gun control stance, you knew. Don’t you remember? I gave that presentation to your office manager, Tony. He had all the hard copies and even a video. You guys were in on it, remember your Attorney General (the person tasked with implementing the guns laws) Daryl Williams giving all that money to the Coalition for Gun Control?

      Oh, and don’t say you are ’embarrassed’ about sending troops to Afghanistan after 9-11. Don’t you remember the year before 9-11 DOUBLING the defense budget in preparation for what was to be called ‘The War on Terror’. The Defense budget was already the biggest part of the Federal budget and you guys up and DOUBLED it without any debate in Parliament nor mention in the media. Perhaps it was just a ‘coincidence’, just like you being in Washington DC when the attack occurred.

      And then there is Iraq. The Australian citizenry was beginning to have demonstrations against any involvement in Iraq, so you talked to George Bush on the phone about the resistance you were facing. I know because I read the NSA transcripts of your conversation. Bush told you “I’ll see what I can do” – and then the Bali Bombing occurred at the Australian night club, not the American club down the street.

      Here’s some memories of your Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction speech in Parliament –

      You’re a hack, John. A little man with a big ego, a failure. You aren’t going to be able to argue ‘I didn’t know’ – because you clearly did. About the best defense you can muster is that you were completely incompetent to be an Australian Prime Minister.

      I could buy into that argument as you are just a lying psychopath without any redeeming features. I agree, you should have never been near the reigns of power.

      That will be your legacy. Your family will eventually know the entire truth. Perhaps some of them will even change their names so as to try and distance themselves from you. History lessons in school will use your example of what NOT to be. You really blew it during this incarnation, better luck next time.

      • The scores of Attorney General letters that I’ve accumulated over the last 14 years all say “I am advised” at least once. Not a single one says anything akin to “records confirm”.

        And who, exactly, issues this advice ? Invariably non-elected bureaucrats & administrators who have a big fat investment in the matter at hand: The culture of the Age is simply not evidence-based.

        Howard’s guilt lies according to taking here-say on board. What he did or didn’t “know” is irrelevant

        • Nothing new about taking here-say on board of course:

          “And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life” GENESIS 3:17

      • I agree with every word you say Terry.

        For future reference, I would like copies of any surviving evidence of Howard’s betrayal of Australia and humanity. One day he must stand trial for this.

        My dream is to see a law that makes it mandatory for a fully-informed electorate national referendum to precede any declaration of war

  3. Two enormous embarrassments to Australia by two so called ambassadors to Australia.

    Apparently, once certain people reach the dizzy heights of fame they see themselves as being able to do anything and “it’s alright”. When you are caught out, too bad.

    In John Howard’s case, he has too big an ego to admit that he knew at the time that he was about to be involved in a War Crime. As was Gordon Menzies in the Vietnam debacle. Being in company with the Big Boys of the World makes it alright, as I know I will never be charged as a War Criminal. That only ever happens to the enemies of the UK and US.

    Never mind how many civilians will be murdered in the process.

    Never mind how the followers of cricket will be let down. Never mind the reputation of players following your era. Never mind that this sort of behaviour used to be called CHEATING. But then again all sports, seem to condoning cheaters.

  4. Will try once more with a different comment.
    ‘Sandpaper: the latest weapon of mass destruction’
    Ban sandpaper.
    Sorry John Winston et. al. 🐒

    • Nah cannot ban sandpaper Howard is a known cricket tragic …., loves tv videos of himself in the member’s stand at SCG
      Now would someone put up Turnbull’s meaaculpa on the dreadful sand paper weapon?

    • Please Mary, your link is rubbish and irrelevant to the present.
      Please readers: just search: Malcolm Turnbull comment on cricket cheaters.
      I will if necessary put up the link when able.
      Just smell the hypocricy within our PRIME MINISTER’S comments.
      He is what he spouts and represents those behind the fence.
      Sickening person.

  5. Conspiracy theory:

    I think the whole cricket episode was cooked up by the South Africans to give Dee her debut with this hilarious video

    so that all persons could finally understand the John Howard war crime AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

    NOW who’s wearing the tinfoil hat.

    (To readers of Gumshoe who have watched the video. Watch it again a few times. It gets really shocking around the third go.)

  6. We need to keep the cricket ball saga in perspective, the act of tampering of a ball is to those who are detached from this game is somewhat laughable, this is because of the publicity and for what to many who are outsiders for sport in general being a game riddled with game fixing, politics, money, and the distraction from serious news, in the time of this news possible hundreds having died in war.
    Steve Smith who had no problem with ball tampering had declared he was staying on and no apology or concern was shown, as the media and public did not have the same view and as this saga got going Smith from being bumptious saw his career going down the pan and he became remoseful and the tears started flowing for what he saw as to what he was about to understand his end, it had nothing to do with letting down Australia, it was all to do with Smith, one other point why it should be somewhat of concern to Australians is his attitude is a reflection of a arrogant culture, the normality of Australians to be so up themselves in his attitude of what it is to him, that is he was to remain the Captain of the cricket team, when he reaized he was in a moral dilema he began weeping and had his father to stroke hime, the fact that most Australians were taken in by thei play act is condemnation ofa Australian who forgives criminal actions with be taken in with the choking sobs of a pervert.

  7. Dee brilliant -maybe you could make a series about Howard “at home” and his part in establishing a divide and conquer, have’s and have nots, win at all costs culture— and all that means—his refusal to apologise to First Nations peoples–the military intervention in the NT- tanks rolling in- cyclone componds erected-closing bilingual education programs,removal of staff with no due process, cultural and other genocide, failure to respond to RC recommendations e.g. Deaths in Custody and closing successful community driven initiates–his Aboriginal Affairs Ministers- John Herron Phillip Ruddock Amanda Vanstone et al.
    Not to mention Mal Brough– Downer—–
    Children Overboard—. aargh and his ongoing influence–his special Queen’s honour.
    Mary will watch again

  8. Don Bourke, Barnaby Joyce and now a cricket scandal. This is where we’re at in Australia in 2018. This doesn’t seem real. Hopefully I can get back to my own planet soon.

  9. Wouldn’t it be a marvellous thing if Aussies would walk the walk, and not just talk the talk, and be just a little bloody bit..FAIR DINKUM –

    thanks Dee.. for showing the way.

  11. Isn’t organized sports all about sublimating and redirecting energy into useless arenas? Smith is the bigger fool for allowing himself to be used as a media distraction, but then I doubt he’d know.

  12. I guess the spinners should be happy the Pope just delivered a reverse swinger and clean bowled Hell. Although the umpire may have stumped them all by declaring their balls will be sandpapered from history and retired to the same boundary as the never existed WMDs. How about drawing out an act of contrition before they all disappear into the ether, Frankie. A spell in the outfield would mean heaven on earth for the rest of us.

  13. I read this morning a legal view of the Oz cricketers penalty. That it was disproportional.

    Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi was banned from two Twenty20 internationals after being found guilty of ball tampering during a One Day International in Perth.

    Aussies love snipping of the tall poppies (except their pollies). But Michael you are right. Send Canberra and other governments to the outfield.

  17. The media and political commentators need to stand back and see the ball-tampering saga for what it was… arrogant cheating in big business.

    This was no amateur game with simple moral implications. These guys get paid millions and this was green/yellow-collar crime… to coin a phrase… but criminal, criminal, criminal.

    Like all criminals, these guys should be prosecuted and convicted.

    The ramifications do not stop there. I recall a time when the words Honour and Respect and Honesty and Integrity had actual every-day currency. Three generations have now grown up to witness these imperative values denigrated, ridiculed, and rejected. So, it is no surprise that the newest generation sees the world in terms of Winners and Losers, with the words Right and Wrong superimposed over these whenever morality or ethics are discussed.

    Most of my generation appear to have capitulated to the media-led attack on pro-humanity values but not me. I will fight to my last breath to reclaim Australian values. And at a purely symbolic level, I quietly celebrate Australia Day on December the 3rd… Eureka Stockade Day. Unfinished business. Contrary to the recall of revisionist historians, Eureka was about establishing democracy in Australia; and from genuine democracy and adjunct egalitarianism flows prosperity for all.

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