Fortress Australia slams door on nice guy image

msnbc ^ | June 11 | Reuters

[maui_hawaii]

bump one to you

[maui_hawaii]

bump

[Live free or die]

Outstanding. I love he Aussies...esspecially when they make sense :-)

[dougherty]

I envy the Aussies. They actually have a leader with some common sense when it comes to immigration and protecting their country. More power to them.

[yankeedame]

''This is a radical departure from Australia's open foreign policy of the 1990s,'' political analyst Tony Burke from Adelaide University told Reuters.

More like they sobered up.

[xJones]

You do have to appreciate Reuter's spin:

Since September 11, Howard has used the threat of terrorism to justify an existing policy of mandatory detention of asylum seekers, many from the Middle East and Afghanistan, in outback camps.

Translation: The Austrailians haven't completely lost their minds and realize that Middle Eastern and Afghani immigrants may not be the most desirable around - unless you enjoy the possiblity of bombs going off and all that. And the rape statistics by Middle Eastern immigrant males on Austrailian females are reason enough to start keeping them out.

Does anyone ever wonder why these Muslims are so desperate to leave their home countries? At least some Western civilized countries are wising up to start restricting them. They seem to want to impose their crazy values on their host countries, instead of assimulating.

[another cricket]

Australia is slamming the door on its nice guy image, sealing its borders to asylum seekers and turning its back on international pacts to tackle global warming and punish war criminals.

Welcome to the club, Australia. It is small and very select group made up of the countries that are actually producers and contributors to the world rather then takers only.

You will now, naturally, be blamed for everything that goes wrong in the world. From third world debt to the bugs that ate some Asian farmers rice crop, it is now, officially, entirely your fault.

Victims and failures are never at fault so wear the blame heaped on you proudly. It means that you are truly a success.

a.cricket

[mgstarr]

The United Nations has regularly criticised Australia over the past few years...

Good, I shall enjoy living next door to them.

[Savage Beast]

Good for Australia! Now if North America and Europe will come to their senses!

[pierrem15]

All we need is 5000 miles of moat...

[shaggy eel]

1 Howard has no time for the UN
2 Nobody complains about the Arab League of Nations, so what's wrong with Aussie setting itself up as the 51st State?
3 Taking a stand like this will increase Aussie's stability.
4 All the above sound good to me.

[fogarty]

Now if only Australia will give back to their people the right to own firearms...

[shaggy eel]

,,, tell me about their loss of firearms rights.

[shaggy eel]

,,, red dirt realty prices are on the way up.

[MinorityRepublican]

Now if only Australia will give back to their people the right to own firearms...

Australia is getting their act together, so perhaps with some help from FReepers in Australia, they will gain back their right to own firearms in the near future.

Remember we must be optimistic. And be patient too. That is how socialism became so powerful in the West.

[MissAmericanPie]

Time to move to Australia? I don't like their gun laws much.

[Governor StrangeReno]

at $8000 for an FN only a goose wasn't gonna hand it in,then buy something else as 'spare parts' on the net,we're bristling with guns trust me.We were founded on civil disobedience and continue the tradition when faced with stupidity ;in packing grease in buried pvc pipes from one end of the country to the other.