Shooting the Messengers

It seems there is no grater sin for politicians than telling the truth. Australian Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, is proving the fact. Vanstone was caught out giving a rather insightful address to Adelaide Rotarians, unaware of the presence of a journalist. During the speech she questioned federal airline security measures and questioning increased spending on national security.
The senator, in dismissing many commonwealth security measures as essentially ineffective, said;

"To be tactful about these things, a lot of what we do is to make people feel better as opposed to actually achieve an outcome..."

The Federal opposition, who should be looking for the truth in Vanstone’s statements, is instead baying for her blood. The fact is, the revelations show the majority of legislators willing go along with these extreme measures, knowing they are a sham.
Window dressing, for the sake of assuaging public concern, is playing a greater role than ever at present.

Fowl Problems
Not surprisingly, the other great issue is about public safety as well. Avian flu has the potential to cause wide spread devastation, similar to the 1918 ‘Spanish’ flu pandemic.
To show how far we have progressed in addressing these health threats, the sorts of ‘remedies’ so far put in place are nothing short of window dressing. They protect nothing, and simply don’t know how to counter the threat.
China has announced a plan to inoculate their domestic fowl population. That hardly addresses the wild bird population, the carriers and spreaders of the disease. Australia has vowed to throw ‘millions’ of dollars at the issue, although no effective plan of action has been revealed.
The US has announced closing their borders to foreign fowl. That sounds as effective as Canada’s farm quarantine Program, which relies on controlling farm to farm transmission by vehicles and people. None of the programs can effectively control the wild bird spered of the disease.

Efficacious remedies
So in both cases, window dressing is offered in place of the realistic, if more difficult approaches. In the case if bird flu that could well be a much needed improvement in health care delivery around the world. While it flies in the face of monetarist policies, which spread faster than flu and deplete public services, improved public health care might be the only viable answer.
A former British colonel who served in Iraq suggests that the ill founded war, part of the ‘war on terrorism’ “…was a mistake, and history will judge that". Speaking of Iraq, he says, "The Americans really only understand subjugation.” ”It now falls on Australia and the United Kingdom to persuade the Americans not to blight the 21st century with a war which involves future generations."
Rather than continue to build barriers, called security, against the threats of terrorism; rather than fashion more and more window-dressing to cover this fraud, it is time we started talking about how wee meet the concern which drive the attacks.
To be sure, there will always be hot heads and terrorists. Let us not forget that America and Israel were founded by terrorists. But the core of terrorism is small, and depends on support from the wider communities they are engaged with.
By looking to the needs and justice within those communities, by giving those people less reason to be dissatisfied, the head of the terrorism snake is isolated from any base of support.
These are the hard roads, but they are also the right roads to take. The world does not need placebos, we need truly efficacious remedies.
Rather than shooting the messengers, we should be praising the likes of Vanstone and Collins for revealing the truth. The waste being generated on public relations games must be redirected to solving problems.