To begin, a piece I wrote for the Herald:
I’d just lifted my head out of my hands after hearing the leader of the free world announce he was leading his allies into “a crusade” – the Christian term for a holy war – when I received an email from an army bloke I’d locked horns with many years ago during the debate on gays in the defence force.
Brigadier Adrian D’hage has retired to write a novel. Winner of the military cross in Vietnam, he’s a larger than life figure who ran defence public relations before heading defence force security planning for the Olympics.
He wrote:
“WANTED – DEAD or ALIVE !?? Whilst our heartfelt sympathies are with those whose lives have been shattered by this truly criminal act, the rhetoric from the US President gets more disturbing each day. Already, US citizens have been promised a decisive victory – and decisive victories against unseen enemies can never be delivered.
The Australian Government has signed a blank cheque – without the foggiest notion of what might be planned. Whatever happens, history will question the wisdom of that course. And whatever we do, we will have to do it without the Army Engineers who are exhausted on Nauru.
It is time to take a very deep breath.”
Just how blank the cheque is became clear yesterday, when John Howard announced on ABC radio: “We leave open the option of any kind of military involvement which we are capable of and would be appropriate. And yes, that includes troops.”
That brings the reality home, as do comments by Afghan-American writer Tamim Ansary: “Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don’t move too fast, they don’t even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn’t really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban – by raping once again the people they’ve been raping all this time.
“What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops.”
“We’re flirting with a world war between Islam and the West. And guess what: that’s Bin Laden’s program.”
“Read his speeches and statements. It’s all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he’s got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that’s a billion people with nothing left to lose, that’s even better from Bin Laden’s point of view. He’s probably wrong, in the end the west would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours.
Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden does. Anyone else?”
Maybe we do, maybe we don’t. But our leaders better start preparing us for it instead of filling us with puffed-up, emotional indignation.
And maybe we’d better realise that we’re already fighting our own war. Our fleet is patrolling the high seas boarding and repelling leaky boats. We have our own prisoners of war on the Manoora., We’re building our own prisoner of war camps in Nauru and Christmas Island. It’s costing us millions a day. War time powers are invoked as civil liberties and the rule of law disappear in the cause of, according to John Howard, “our national sovereignty”.
Labor has just agreed to the first case of mandatory sentencing in federal law. It will apply to only to Indonesians – the poor sods at the bottom of the people smuggling chain who bring the boats over. They’ll spend a minimum of three years in jail for a first offence. Labor has also agreed to exclude our Courts from any role in the fate of our prisoners.
Most strangely, our war is against the people fleeing the terror of today’s equivalent of Nazi Germany, the Taliban. As we back the USA in bombing the bejesus out of Afghanistan, as Australian citizens face execution for carrying the bible in Afghanistan, we wage our own war against Afghan refugees. And as in any war, we demonise “the enemy” by pretending they are really Taliban terrorists sent to infiltrate our detention camps.
Our defence force exhausts itself on a war against Afghan refugees before the war begins against their oppressors.
This is bipartisan policy. There is no mainstream political debate on the merits of this crazy farce. In the vacuum, prejudice, hatred and ignorance flourish. There is no space for reason.
Brigadier D’hage, in response to my request this morning for a thumbnail sketch of his career, replied: “I also hold an honours degree in theology. It has given me an insight into religion. I went in at one end as a Christian and after eight years of study came out the other ‘of no fixed religion’ but a fan of Shelby Spong (much to the chagrin of some of my lecturers!). I do, however, hold the view that in our search for meaning, each of us should be able to hold (or not hold) a faith of our own choice (my own is anchored in the mountains and the streams – but that is related to my earlier training as a scientist). It would be tragic if in this rush to ‘even the books’ we dragged religion into this – because history shows wars are ugly – wars over religion can be downright horrendous!”
Tonight, contributions on the world crisis from: Linda Kerr, Sean Richardson, Don Wigan, John Price, Luke Stegemann, Brendan, Bryan Law
Linda Kerr in Hillsborough, NSW
I have tried to get my head together and my emotions under control to write this. I am more of a lurker than a contributor, but here goes. I am an avid Webdiary reader, but I was moved to actually write something in the past few weeks, despite feeling painfully inept amongst the quality of regular contributors.
The Tampa crisis created in me a fear of my own silence. I felt that to say nothing was dangerous, that if I didn’t speak up I was complicit in the oppression of the already oppressed men, women and children on that boat.
In the wake of the attacks on the USA I feel the same fear, but added to that is the fear of the language being used in much of the discussion. Emotional outpourings of grief and anger are completely understandable, but now I think we need to consider every word as potentially dangerous, and in particular, the words used by our national and international leaders.
I’m no expert in linguistics, but I started to think about the use of language, not as a cynical exercise in semantics, but rather as an exploration of the language of conflict in this particular context. I think it is time for unambiguous dialogue, a kind of ‘ethical’ use of language, because in valuing our rights of Free Speech we must not forget than words can be as incendiary as bombs.
With this in mind, I think it’s time for our leaders to be forced to come out from behind the rhetoric and say it like it is. We all know about politicians’ ability to avoid answering the question. When the answers don’t matter that much to us it’s easy to tolerate bullshit and even have a laugh about it, but those times are over.
Every time a politicians refer to ‘queue jumpers’ they should be made to state specifically that they are referring to particular men, women and children. They must not be allowed to dehumanize vulnerable people.
In the aftermath of the US atrocities, and given the carte blanche support pledged by our government, there has never been a time when it is more important to scrutinize and question every word uttered by our politicians. John Howard must be asked to specify what supporting the USA really means. Is he part of George W Bush’s ‘crusade’ against terrorism?
What does that mean? A religious war?
If the USA attacks Afghanistan, is our government willing to accept civilian casualties? That is to say the deaths of men, women and children who are already victims of the most heinous crimes in their own country?
Would the government label this as ‘collateral damage’. What exactly does that mean? If they support it they must be made to state: ‘Yes, this means we accept that deaths of innocent men, women and children are justified in this conflict.’
Does the government consider the attacks on USA as ‘Acts of War’ as opposed to ‘International Criminal Acts’. If so, by what process is this conclusion reached?
The West prides itself on its civilization and holds itself up as an example to encourage the third world out of ‘barbarism’. Our government must be asked specific questions about how it intends to deal with the casualties of war and the aftermath.
For example, does this government believe that after using military force, it is acceptable to use sanctions against a country indefinitely, resulting in a death rate for children under five years old from malnutrition, water borne diseases, and treatable childhood diseases to rise from under 9000 per year to over 80,000 per year in the course of one decade? Would this be an uncivilized response from the West? Apparently not when it applies to Iraqi children under five. Why is this?
I think the hard questions must be asked and must be answered NOW. I want to know if my 21 year old son would be pledged by this government to fight, if asked by the USA. Alarmist? I wonder if our Vietnam vets think so.
Sean Richardson
I too received the Tamim Ansary e-mail (see Labor falls into line). There’s some salient points but the military analysis is flawed. Frankly, most people don’t have much of a clue as to what soldiers do, or how they do it.
I was going to engage in some Tom Clancy style scenario guessing for the Webdiarists, but I’ve read something today which would shift that from guess work to informed speculation, and I’m not prepared to telegraph any punches, however unlikely it is that Mr Bin Laden is reading this. Suffice to say, the likely members of the coalition have the capability to get into Afghanistan without invading Pakistan, if they do indeed choose to do so.
People are scared, which is understandable, but there’s no need to panic. Before Desert Storm, many western journos were putting the wind up the civis by showing footage of Iraq’s “fanatical” population (read “government organised protests”). One I remember well showed an Iraqi man chewing on his arm: “Americans! We eat them!” This illicited what I call the Lionel Hutz Response from the journalist: “Ooooh, they’re gonna win!” Now think of what actually happened. The image to bring to mind is not the smart-bomb slamming into a bunker, it’s the US tank-dozer rolling unmolested along the Iraqi trenches, burying alive any Iraqi soldier not smart enough to turn and run like hell.
Of course NATO is predominantly armed and trained for conventional war in the open, and Saddam gave them just the fight they are best at. It would be tougher in Afghanistan. I don’t think I’m giving away any secrets by revealing what sort of war it would be: small units of “leg infantry”, hunting down the enemy in the hills, and then attacking or better yet ambushing them. This is exactly the game at which our own grunts are world beaters. The US Army is not so well trained in this sort of stuff, but the US Marine Corps is markedly better, as are the poms. And of course, the surveillance equipment would give them a further massive advantage. Still, infantry fighting is a chancy affair and yes, there would be casualties on our side. Any 12 year old can point an AK-47 and get lucky. But in the end, the operation would be militarily “do-able.”
The more important question than tactics is strategy: ie what’s the point? Our problem in Vietnam was that we could only fight the communists in the south, cold war politics making it impossible to invade the north and depose the communist government there.
Similarly, the Soviets in Afghanistan had the whole Afghan population against them and no clear end point, and had to go home when they went broke. So the most important point of this conflict is deciding on the mission. If we’ve got the will, it should be an East Timor style mission: destroy the trouble makers, assist in nation building (including a constitution which separates mosque and state), and hold UN supervised free and fair elections, all the while making it clear that the coalition military forces will go home when the Afghan people are free and have a stable government in place. Such a mission would not, it seems to me, cause all out war with the Muslim world. Most of them find Osama and co as worrying as we do.
We have no clue if this sort of mission is even envisaged. It may be that the entire response will actually be given over to the “spooks” and daggers in the night. But if the yanks are serious about “war” in the true sense of the word, it would probably pay to change the rhetoric right now.
Bush could go some way to addressing John Wojdylo’s concerns about engaging the moderate Islamic world if he started talking about freeing the Afghan people from their oppressors. The fact that he isn’t doing so might indicate that invasion isn’t planned after all.
Our grand parents got through worse than this, folks. As they say in the army, dry your eyes and harden up.
Don Wigan in Warrnambool, Victoria
Since the triumphs of Thatcherism, Reaganomics, Hayak and Friedman twenty-odd years ago we’ve maintained the attitude that the market can do everything for us. There’s no such thing as human values, only market worth.
This has cut deep across our communities’ infrastructure and caring capacity. In further education, only MBAs and Law matter now. Humanities and the arts are being wound down as serving no useful purpose. Which is a pity because we desperately need some reflection, analysis and logical reasoning right now. That is their value to our civilisation.
If we want to realise the bankruptcy of Thatcherism we only have to look at the spectacular collapses of HIH, One-Tel and Ansett. All worked on the philosophy of lavishly rewarding their senior executives and directors right up to the time of the crashes. The incentives/rewards systems have simply been a pathway to the trough, not of improving company performance.
Howard has at least stepped back a little from the brink with his statement that Australian Muslims are law-abiding. But not before he had ignited the flame in the first place (as he did previously with the ‘Aboriginal
Industry’, Pauline Hanson, and Asian immigration).
Sadly, Reith and Ruddock have carried on the line that there is a link between our boat people and terrorists. We deserve better.
John Price in Melbourne, Australia
The current situation is extraordinarily complex but it doesnt hurt to take different cuts through history.
From the time of the Industrial Revolution the base energy source turning our wheels of industry has consistently reduced in price, albeit with the occasional hic-up.
According to M. A. Adelmans estimate (in the early sixties), the total cost per barrel of oil from the Middle East was 4 to 10 cents against $1.56 for American oil. (Petroleum Press Service, May 1966)
Since the US oil industry kept going and didn’t just fold this means the oil companies profited greatly from the Middle East margin, investing in every conceivable oil consuming technology. This is the dynamic that shaped the last fifty years of the 20th century, punctuated by recessions that have always followed oil price hikes.
The good side of this observation is that the whole make-money-by-burning-oil equation means that there is an incredible amount of waste in the productive system that can be profitably eliminated, if anyone notices.
The bad thing is that, just as no-one seems to have noticed that there is a limited supply of oil on this Earth, no-one will have noticed that there is a clear link between the economy and burning oil.
And so the whole house of cards built on the holy dollar will likely collapse.
Then we will descend into absolute misery the die off that some expect.
It neednt happen but it probably will.
GWB hasn’t noticed apparently, that you need oil to fight wars, or that it is plainly stupid to fight wars in countries that you import the stuff from.
The US went into WWII as the worlds major supplier of oil. Now, as he is apparently going to take us all like lambs into the next war, the US is the major importer of oil. He doesn’t see the significance of this change.
And he hasn’t noticed that President Ford pulled the US out of Vietnam in 1975 after the cost of prosecuting the war went through the roof due to the quadrupling of the oil price, which concurrently induced global recession.
If the US is unable to prevent the high-jacking of planes on its own soil and their transformation at low cost into extremely destructive weapons, pray tell how is it going to be able to prevent the blowing up of oil wells, in Iraq or in Libya or Nigeria or Saudi Arabia. It will take considerably more intelligence than is currently on display.
Without in any way deprecating American entrepreneurship and ingenuity, its power stems from its command of money and what money can buy. Take away what drives the money making machine and what have you got, impotence, and a serious survival problem.
Against all current wisdom, those who survive now with relatively little money will be much better off than those who absolutely depend on it, those of us (in the Free world) whose invisible article of faith is: In Money We Trust
Watch the stock-market. Watch the banks.
I am a 58 year old PhD (in Physics) who has been tracking the relationship between oil and the economy since working as an Energy consultant in 1974-5. I was a senior bureaucrat in the Victorian State public service before falling victim of the economic rationalist rightsizing fad that flourished in response to the oil induced recession of 1991. I have been a management change consultant since then and know how difficult it is to get those at the top of all our pyramids to have any appreciation of reality. But they are not alone.
To sum up my experience, wealth is created by sowing beans, not by counting them. And bean counters have brought us to where we are, following money-based formulas that no longer apply as we pass through this unseen discontinuity.
Take Care, and prayers for some display of wisdom at this time could well be in order.
Luke Stegemann in Brisbane, Queensland
Within hours of the attacks on Washington and New York, Osama bin Laden was being named as a possible suspect. So far, so good; that’s as to be expected in terms of a US government response.
As the days passed, there has been a tremendous inevitability about the way in which bin Laden has been constructed as prime suspect, to the point where very few people seem to have any doubts. Our news bulletins are full of comments regarding the growing evidence of the links to bin Laden. But as I hear all this, a very simple question occurs to me again and again: What evidence? We’re told it’s there, but it hasn’t been shown to us, much less proved.
If there is so much conclusive evidence that has emerged so quickly that can pinpoint bin Laden’s responsibility, how was it possible that the clues weren’t detected beforehand? What, did all the clues suddenly become apparent only after the attack? If that is the case – and it is barely credible – it doesn’t say much about US counter intelligence capabilities.
Furthermore, there’s no doubt that we’re just going to have to take it on faith that the evidence points to bin Laden, because if asked to produce, one imagines US intelligence agencies will no doubt claim that the public production of such evidence would compromise on-going covert operations.
How will we ever know what evidence is genuine, what evidence remains hidden, and what evidence is simply manipulated and false? I may be naive, but I smell a rat here. Was anyone other than bin Laden ever going to be blamed for this? The on-going public construction of bin Laden as guilty murderer is following a carefully scripted path.
I for one won’t swallow it. Just being told, and asked to accept, that the evidence is there is not enough. Not in a world where the manipulation of truth is one of the finest of arts.
Brendan
Yes, there will be a war. It will be a long one and it will be called a war against terrorism. Others will frame it in religious or cultural terms and so on. But I think we are at the beginning of a very long conflict which fundamentally will be about reshaping the way resources are distributed in this world.
The twenty first century starts now. You can’t have instant, global communications so that everyone is visible to everyone else and at the same time massive and growing inequities in global wealth distribution. Or more specifically, you can’t have some of the poorest people in Asia watching Neighbours on the village television and pretend that this is not going to have them asking questions about the order of things. And no amount of border protection legislation is going to change that reality.
Bryan Law in Cairns, Queensland
Thank you Rick Pass in The boatpeople and the war for your exposition of U.S. military/foreign policy behaviour. We ought realise that a Crusade Against Terror will sow a terrible crop of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and inevitably create more terror.
No thanks to John Wojdylo in Terror unlike movies for illustrating a U.S. Military/Foreign policy sequence that could ignite a bitter regional war, along with escalating world-wide terror. It’s possible, of course. But John I found your “mad plan of the mad bomber” and the “fanatic nihilists” rhetoric too overblown, and not as sensitive to the currents of history as you most times are. Perhaps it’s the fear.
Now is the time for thinking and action aimed at achieving genuine security. The best thing I’ve read recently comes from Tim Jackins, who is leader of the International Re-evaluation Counselling Communities. (This is an emerging global organisation with a theory and practise on human emancipation.) Tim is a U.S. citizen and resident, and Re-evaluation Counselling has many communities there.
One thing I really like about his statement comes towards the end: ” We must develop policies that end poverty and oppression everywhere and for everyone. We have both the intelligence to develop these policies and the resources to carry them out.” Simple truths, but how rarely we hear them spoken in these times. Enough from me, here’s Tim:
“The government of the U.S., other governments, and much of the media are making statements aimed at generating support for policies of revenge. This is to be expected in these circumstances, but can and must be actively opposed if we are to end, throughout the world, the likelihood of such attacks continuing to happen.
“The destruction of the persons responsible for the terrorist acts will not make us safe. The military punishment of small countries with any connection to the terrorists will not make us safe. We can easily understand the feelings that lead in these directions, indeed we may have some of these feelings ourselves. We know, though, that these feelings must not be acted upon, instead we must find intelligent policies and solutions that will actually move us and the world forward.
“Desperate, destructive, irrational acts of terrorism are done by people who have been terribly hurt by the conditions in which they have had to exist. The conditions of life for a large fraction of the world’s population remain so very desperate, as they have been for generations, that some of the minds of those who endure those conditions simply lose their sense of humanity.
“As long as these desperately poor, dangerously unhealthy and oppressive conditions exist for any people in the world, we all will be in danger of someone’s irrational acts of violence. Finding and killing those who have committed terrorist acts will stop those individuals but it will not stop more people from the suffering that creates such individuals.
“We must develop policies that end poverty and oppression everywhere and for everyone. We have both the intelligence to develop these policies and the resources to carry them out. We, together, must actively develop and pursue policies that will value every person, no matter where they live, no matter what their religion, race, or nationality is. This is something that we are capable of, but we must give up the well-established pattern of life that has had sections of the world’s populations benefiting from the enforced poverty of others. We humans have developed enough resources so that no one needs to live in poverty. That can never provide security. There is enough for all of us.”