WTF? Australia sends soldiers to confiscate alcohol, porn....

[benEzra]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0627/p06s02-woap.html?page=1

Sydney, Australia - They are deployed around the world, from Iraq and Afghanistan to the South Pacific, but in an unprecedented move Australian soldiers are being sent this week into their own backyard.

Troops are to be stationed across the Outback as the Australian government launches a massive crackdown on the alcoholism, sexual assault, and social dysfunction that a recent federal investigation alleges are tearing apart Aboriginal communities.

Shocked by the findings of an official report released earlier this month, the government of Prime Minister John Howard has decided to ban alcohol, confiscate pornography, and make welfare payments conditional on good parenting in more than 60 isolated Aboriginal townships.

...

The village has been branded a national disgrace – a forlorn shanty-town ravaged by the scourge of petrol sniffing. But indignant community leaders in Mutitjulu say they need social workers, not soldiers, and, on Tuesday, threatened to stop tourists from climbing Ayers Rock in protest of the government's actions.

[ReadTomPaine]

1. This story certainly escalated quickly... n/t

[atreides1]

2. So could this be considered

the beginning of the genocidal process, after all didn't Hitler and the Nazis place responsibility for immorality on the Jews and other groups that they murdered

[atreides1]

3. I wonder when the Australian government

is going to conduct the same investigation on the non-indigenous population?

[Warpy]

4. No kidding.

and removing the symptoms doesn't cure the disease.

[benEzra]

6. Good point.

Methinks there would be more of a political backlash if Australian troops were confiscating beer and DVD's in Sydney instead...

[SoCalDem]

5. What don't you understand? Onward CHRISTIAN soldiers

:rofl:

the military (and not just ours) is being morphed from an enforcement arm of a SECULAR/modern state, to a religious army , ready to to battle over the fundamentalist religious whims of whatever deranged messianic zealot who manages to grab power.. scary stuff

[porphyrian]

7. Couldn't breed them out of existance, I guess.

What a dream, huh?