I’ve decided to republish Mark Latham’s speech to Parliament on the eve of war in Iraq, on March 19, 2003. It scrubs up damn well on the eve of the first anniversary of the toppling of Saddam’s statue on April 10, 2003 (see Whose flag?). Pre war political speeches by the father of the US Senate Robert Byrd also stand the test of time – see A lonely voice in a US Senate silent on war and Today, I Weep for my Country…. And see his powerful post-war speech on 21 May, 2003, The Truth Will Emerge.
Contrast the blind certainty of John Howard, who, on March 9, 2003, in the countdown to war, was asked: How hard have you wrestled with it (going to war)?
Howard: You always anguish over something like this, but I have never thought of changing my position. Never.(From Howard: Never in doubt on Iraq)
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The march of folly
by Mark Latham
In her outstanding book The March of Folly the American historian, Barbara Tuchman, looks at the reasons why nations and governments often act in a manner contrary to their self-interest.
She writes that throughout human endeavour “government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others – only to lose it over themselves”.
For Tuchman, persistence in error is the problem. When leaders abandon reason and rationality, when they fail to recognise mistakes, when they refuse to withdraw from bad policy – no matter the damage they are doing to themselves and their nations – this is the march of folly.
Vietnam was an example of this process. Fearful of McCarthyism and right-wing opinion at home, successive American leaders – from Eisenhower to Nixon – refused to be the first president to concede ground to communism.
This is why they fought an unwinnable war for so long. This is why they pushed their country deeper and deeper into the folly of a counter-productive foreign policy.
I believe that something similar is happening in the United States today. Post-September 11, the American people want revenge for the attack on their country and the Bush Administration is determined to give it to them.
It is determined to wage war on Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Even if this means damaging America’s long-term interests. Even if this means diverting resources from the real war against terror. Even if this means trashing the UN system. Even if this means dividing the Western world and gutting NATO. Even if this means generating a new wave of anti-American sentiment around the world.
After the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, people were worried about what Al-Qaeda might do next. Today they are worried about what President Bush might do next.
This is the march of folly and shamefully, the Australian Government is following the United States down this path. This is the worst piece of Australian foreign policy since Vietnam.
The Prime Minister has made a crude judgement post-September 11 that the world has just one super-power and, in the war against terror, Australia needs to get with the power, no matter the cost to our independence and international standing. He is not interested in arguments about the soundness of US policy or the need for global power-sharing and cooperation. The Howard Government is determined to follow the leader.
This approach is spelt out in the Government’s recent Strategic Review, a remarkably simplistic document that even goes as far as endorsing the Son of Star Wars: American missile defence. Incredibly, this is not to protect Australian cities and territory. Rather, it recognises that under this Government, wherever the US army goes across the globe, the ADF will automatically follow.
This is not a white paper but a tissue paper, to cover the Government’s radical shift in defence policy. The old DOA was Defence of Australia. The new DOA is Defence of America.
The Howard Government has turned Australia’s national security upside down. It has handed over our sovereignty to the United States and left our country exposed to the adventurism of the Bush Administration.
For some of the media-elites, to say these things is seen as anti-American. In my case, I greatly admire the achievements of the United States people. I’m not anti-American. I’m anti-Bush. I’m anti-the right-wing hawks of the Republican Party. I’m anti-war.
The United States is a great and powerful nation. But being powerful doesn’t always mean that nations and politicians get it right.
It is in Australia’s interests to question US foreign policy and the competence of world leaders. Australian lives are now on the line. Our troops in Iraq are effectively under the command of George W Bush. No nation should just sleepwalk into war.
An unnecessary war
When people ask: what is the alternative to war, I say that the answer is quite simple. The alternative to war is peaceful disarmament.
On 7 March the chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix reported that substantial progress had been made and that Iraq could be disarmed peacefully within a matter of months.
He said: “We are not watching the breaking of toothpicks. Lethal weapons are being destroyed.” He refuted US intelligence claims about the use of mobile production units for biological weapons, stating that, “No evidence of proscribed activities has so far been found.”
There is a huge credibility gap in the argument for war. We now know – as incredible as it may seem – that large slabs of the British Government’s dossier on Iraq were plagiarised from university students.
In this country, a senior ONA officer, Andrew Wilkie, has blown the whistle on the true nature of Australian intelligence reports. In his assessment:
“Iraq does not pose a security threat to the US, the UK, Australia or any other country at this point in time. Their military is very small, their weapons of mass destruction program is fragmented and contained and there is no hard evidence of any active cooperation between Iraq and Al-Qaeda The bottom line is that this war against Iraq is totally unrelated to the war on terror.”
So why the mad rush to war? Why does Australia need to act outside the UN system when the independent report of the weapons inspectors has said that peaceful disarmament is possible?
Why does Australia need to launch an unprovoked attack on another nation – a nation that doesn’t threaten us? Why have we sent our best troops and equipment to the other side of the world when they should be here, guarding our country against real threats, against the real terrorists?
Why do we need to be part of a war that involves the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians? Why are our military forces striking a country where half the population is under the age of 15? That’s 12 million boys and girls, their lives now at risk because of George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard.
None of these things need to happen. Peaceful disarmament is possible. This war is simply unnecessary.
More problems than it solves
It will create more problems than it solves. It will cause enormous suffering and instability in the post-war reconstruction of Iraq. It will breed a new generation of terrorists and increase the likelihood of terrorist activity on Australian soil.
The war against terror must target terrorists, not the women and children of nation states. It must solve problems, like catching Bin Laden, wiping out Al-Qaeda and addressing the Palestinian question. It must attack the core reasons for terrorism, rather than being diverted into conflict in Iraq.
The Republican Right in the United States has tried to legitimise its policies by talking of the so-called Clash of Civilisations – the struggle between Western values and Islamic culture. I regard this theory as nonsense.
The real clash is within a civilisation – the civil war within Islam itself, the struggle between militant fundamentalists and moderate Muslims. We need to do everything we can to ensure that the moderates win.
We need to find a lasting peace in the Middle East, not start a new war in the region. We need to address the burning problem of Third World poverty, overcoming the injustices that fundamentalists thrive on. This is why the invasion of Iraq is such bad policy. It is contrary to each of these goals.
A dangerous doctrine
There is another reason for opposing this war: it is based on a dangerous doctrine.
Sixty years ago mankind developed the capacity to destroy itself, most notably through nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Since then the world has managed to survive, mainly through policies of deterrence and containment. In the post-war years, this was known as the Truman doctrine.
The United Nations has also played a role. It may not be perfect, but it is still the best system we have for fostering international goodwill and cooperation. To ignore and then belittle the will of the United Nations at this crucial time represents an appalling shift in Australian foreign policy.
Even worse, and without any real debate, the Howard Government has embraced the new Bush doctrine of pre-emption. This doctrine overturns 60 years of successful US foreign policy, 60 years of deterrence and containment. It gives the US a mandate to launch pre-emptive strikes on other nations – nations that it deems to be evil. Bush has abandoned President Clinton’s emphasis on multilateralism and gone down the dangerous path of unilateralism.
Make no mistake. A world based on threats of military action, a world based on pre-emptive strikes is a world about to do itself terrible harm.
The folly of this approach can be seen on the Korean peninsula. Two-and-a-half years ago at the Sydney Olympics, the North and South Korean teams marched together. This was seen as a wonderful sign for the future. It gave the world hope for political and economic cooperation, resolving an international trouble spot.
Eighteen months ago, the North Korean leadership was in China studying the benefits of economic openness and liberalisation. Again, it seemed that the North Korean problem would solve itself. Like other communist regimes, under the weight of economic failure, it was going to reform from within.
Then 14 months ago President Bush included North Korea in his Axis of Evil speech, threatening military pre-emption. Not surprisingly, North Korea is now racing to defend itself, weaponising its nuclear power. In response, Japan has said that it too needs nuclear weapons.
This is the problem with pre-emption. It creates an international environment based on suspicion and escalation. In our country, bizarrely enough, the Prime Minister has said that we need a nuclear missile shield to defend ourselves against North Korea.
This is the madness of escalation. And none of it has anything to do with the war against terror. Not the development of Japanese nuclear capacity. Not the creation of an Australian missile shield. Osama bin Laden must be laughing himself silly.
We cannot run the world according to threats and first-strike thinking. Not a world in which 26 nations have chemical weapons and 20 have biological weapons. Not a world in which India and Pakistan both have nuclear weapons. Not a world plagued by the non-stop violence of the Middle East.
History tells us that deterrence and containment are the only answers. Along with the age-old hope of cooperation between nations.
This is where I fundamentally disagree with Bush’s policy. In outlining his new doctrine in September last year, he said that, “In the new world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action.”
I believe in this new world, as well as the old, the only path to safety is international cooperation. Multilateralism, not unilateralism. Containment, not pre-emption. Peace, not an unnecessary war in Iraq.
International power-sharing
Along with most Australians, I do not want a world in which one country has all the power. I do not want a world based on Axis of Evil rhetoric and the constant threat of pre-emption.
There is a better way. It is called the United Nations. This means respecting the findings of Hans Blix. This means respecting international opinion – in this case, the position of France, Germany, Russia and China. It means sharing power across the globe, instead of allowing one nation to appoint itself as the global policeman.
There was a time, of course, when George W Bush seemed to believe in these ideals. During the 2000 Presidential campaign he said that he wanted the United States to take a lower profile in international affairs, to be “a more humble power”.
His radical shift in policy has, in fact, humiliated his nation. He has provoked anti-American sentiment internationally. He has divided the Western alliance and badly damaged NATO.
I ask this simple question: who was the last world leader to unite France, Germany, Russia and China? This is an unprecedented coalition. From the right-wing Gaullists in France, to the social democrats in Germany, to Putin’s Russia, to the Communist Party of China, international opinion has united against the United States.
Around the globe, people do not want a world in which one country has all the power. They want power-sharing and cooperation.
This should be the basis of Australia’s foreign policy. The Howard Government believes in a uni-polar world in which the primacy of the United States is beyond challenge. I believe in a multi-polar world, recognising not just American power but also, China as an emerging super-power, plus the supra-national power of the European Union.
Australia is one of the few countries in the world well-placed to have strong relations with all three. In the Labor Party, this is not just an opportunity for the future. It is part of our political legacy.
Just as Curtin established the US relationship, just as Calwell established the European migration program, just as Whitlam established relations with the People’s Republic of China, the next Labor Government will have to realign and rebalance Australia’s foreign policy. Nothing is more important than getting these relationships right.
The US relationship
The great irony of the Government’s strategy is that it actually weakens our relationship with the United States.
Like any alliance, ANZUS works best when it is based on an equal partnership, when both partners bring something to the table. Under the Howard Government, Australia brings nothing but subservience. This is hurting the strength and viability of the relationship.
In practice, we matter to the Americans when we matter in Asia. The alliance is strongest when Australian diplomacy is able to influence outcomes in our part of the world. This is when the United States has reason to rely on us, to treat Australia as an equal partner.
Under this Government, of course, our influence in Asia is minor. Our neighbours shake their heads in disbelief when they see Australia echoing the American line, when they see our Prime Minister calling himself a deputy sheriff.
These are Asian nations that fought long and hard against colonialism. They are proud nations with little respect for countries that act like client states. They have independent foreign policies of their own, and they expect the same from Australia.
Mr Howard thinks the ultimate guarantor of Australia’s security is the US alliance. That’s nonsense. The ultimate guarantor of Australia’s security is the soundness of our foreign policy and the strength of our armed forces.
We need an alliance with the United States. But we also live in a new world, with new threats and new doctrines. The Howard Government has not handled these challenges well.
The next Labor Government will need to repair the damage, to rebalance the relationship. I support the American alliance, but it must be an alliance between equals – a genuine partnership, rather than the deputy sheriff role we have today.
Conclusion
The key divide in Australian politics is now clear. The Liberals have become an American war party. Labor stands for global power-sharing and cooperation. We stand for national security based on collective security. We stand for an independent foreign policy.
The Liberals stand for war. They stand for unprovoked attacks on other countries, because the United States wants it that way. The Prime Minister is too weak to say No to George W Bush.
This is the march of folly. The folly of bad foreign policy. The folly of a government that refuses to concede its error of judgement. The folly of a government that is sending Australia into an unnecessary and unwanted war, with all the horror of military and civilian casualties.
This is a war that will create more problems than it solves. It will create a new generation of terrorists. It has already divided our nation and broken the Western alliance.
I urge the Government, even at this late hour, to change its mind. Listen to the words of Barbara Tuchman: “In the search for wiser government we should look for the test of character first. And the test should be moral courage”.
Surely there is someone in this Government who can pass the test of moral courage, who can stand up and oppose this war. If just eight Government members were willing to cross the floor, the will of this parliament, the will of our democracy would prevail. We could stop Australia’s involvement in this unjust and unnecessary war.
Six months ago in this place, 24 Government members voted against stem cell research because of what they considered to be the sanctity of life, the sanctity of embryonic stem cells.
Today we are not talking about single cells. We are talking about real human lives. We are talking about the lives of 12 million Iraqi children, little boys and girls and their families.
Where are these 24 MPs today? They’re no longer defending the sanctity of life. They’ve joined the American war party.
I oppose the Government’s motion. I oppose the war in Iraq and I urge members opposite – those who can find the moral courage, those who truly believe in the sanctity of life – to do the same.