Michael Leunig Quotes
All nations that throw their military weight around, occupying neighboring lands and treating the residents with callous and humiliating disregard, are already sliding towards the dark possibilities in human nature.
Leunig, Michael. The Lot: In Words. Penguin Books, 2008.
The culture of Iraq and the Desert tribes made raiding and looting of other villages or travelers or caravans a way of life. The British occupiers were determined to put an end to it and Harris, a young officer, developed the retaliation of bombing the village of the raiders and their warlords. This appears to be the beginning of destroying of houses in the Middle East as a method of retaliation and punishment which would be adopted so well by the Israelis as a humane method and they often quoted Harris saying: “we put them to the maximum amount of inconvenience, without physical hurt, and they soon stopped their raiding and looting.”
The Arab armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and the PLO were preparing a coordinated attack on Israel. After statements like this, the Israeli’s preempted the attack, routed the Egyptian Airforce and Army, and then defeated the other three. The Arab “War of Liberation” resulted in the Arabs losing more with Israel tripling it’s control of area. The quotation however cast a pall over attempts thereafter to create a Palestinian State as in effect the PLO had announced a policy of a Holocaust—the extermination of the Israelis. The dispute over land was not for the Jewish state a land negotiation amenable to compromise and give and take, but instead was an existential threat to Israel whereby any compromise might result in the death of the entire population. As the ultimate intention of the PLO had been revealed.
He was a brutal, sadistic war criminal who was assassinated by one of his many enemies in 2000 before he could be brought to trial. This statement was typical of his outlook and behavior. He tortured and murdered Croation and Muslim prisoners. His reference to the “slaughterhouse” was to the Second World War in which the Croats were allies of Nazi Germany and created their own concentration and extermination camps where hundreds of thousands of Serbs were murdered. In the eternal memory of the cycle of revenge in the Balkans, Arkan, tried to retaliate against the Croats who had never been called to account for their crimes and even the leadership of Croatia after the Camp David accords celebrated the Fascist times when they were dominant and were able to settle accounts with the Serbs.
Islamic terrorists had killed over 30 innocent Israeli civilians—victims of suicide bombings on the Jewish religious holiday—Passover. The Council even though they opposed the Israeli occupation of The West Bank and Gaza, condemned the brutal and terrorist tactics nonetheless. Most Islamic organizations throughout the world do not speak out against terrorism as the Council does.
It was the beginning of the Zulu War.
In 1812 the United States covertly set up and supported "revolutionaries" against Spanish rule of East Florida, which later became part of the U. S.:
Michael Leunig, typically referred to as Leunig (his signature on his cartoons), is an Australian cartoonist, poet, artist, philosopher and cultural commentator. His best known works include The Curly Pyjama Letters, cartoon books The Essential Leunig, The Wayward Leunig, The Stick, Goatperson, Short Notes from the Long History of Happiness and Curly Verse, among others and The Lot, a compilation of his 'Curly World' newspaper columns. Leunig has also written a book of prayers, When I Talk To You. He was declared an Australian Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia in 1999.
