John Howard has lost it. At his press conference today, he cut off war questions, turned his back and walked away. Then someone said “Steve Waugh”. Howard bounced back to the presidential lectern, grinned widely, showing his teeth for what seemed like an eternity, and settled in for a rave about the great man. Australia is about to go to war, for God’s sake.
John Howard’s government has been lying to the Australian people about his intentions for so long now that even its most senior ministers are fluffing their lines. In an interview yesterday, Peter Costello refused to speculate about the leadership because “We have a war on”.
Today, Howard was asked: “Can you see any circumstances where you would say no to a request from President Bush?”
“Well if I thought that you had the fifteen of them all saying the sort of thing that I was talking about I think that would offer some hope. But I don’t think there’s much hope of that,” he replied.
In other words, he wouldn’t go to war if the security council had agreed to endorse a strike and Saddam had backed down. This means that he had already decided to say yes to an unauthorised US strike if asked by Bush. All his “hypothetical” talk was just evasion, with the consequence that he has refused to take the Australian people into his confidence and tell them why, in his judgement, it would be in Australia’s interests to walk away from the UN and invade another country without UN endorsement. Perhaps he never will.
And the result of his deception? The Prime Minister has not addressed the Australian people’s core concerns about the war.
Question: “A lot of the community support has been based on the idea of whether or not there would be UN backing. Now that UN backing is looking extremely slim what do you say to the Australian people who are probably the majority opposed to this at the moment?”
“Well I don’t think you really know ultimately what public opinion is on this until the final shape of the final decision is known, and there’s some working out of that,” Howard replied. “What I generally say in response to that is that there’s plenty of legal authority on the basis of existing United Nations’ resolutions and any decision we take will be based on the legal authority that’s contained there, amongst other things …”
The legality is not, of course, the only concern. Without UN sanction, Australia stands out like a sore thumb, in the world and most particularly in our region, thereby increasing the risk of an attack on our soil and on our citizens. Without UN sanction, we effectively turn our backs on the body we helped found after World War 11 to help stop World War 111. Where is John Howard leading us, and why? He won’t say.
Some people are so angry at the sheer contempt their leader has shown them that they’re emailing the Governor-General to demand he veto Howard’s war. This is ridiculous. Australians bear the responsibility for electing this man, and this Parliament.
As you know, I’ve always supported Australian involvement in a UN sponsored invasion because of the importance of our alliance with the United States. Without such sanction, the risks – especially given the region we live in – are too great.
I’ve written many times in Webdiary that the decision to go to war is a special case. I do not believe in populism – that governments should invariably, or even mostly, do what popular opinion wants at a given point in time.
But war is blood sacrifice of Australian citizens on behalf of the Australian people. Not on behalf of the Prime Minister – in a democracy, at least – on behalf of the people. John Howard’s very legitimacy is now in question. Last week, he could not think of one credible non-political figure who supported his cause. Yesterday, he dared to claim that the reason he’d not told us he would go to war when George Bush gave the nod, even without UN sanction, was to help the people decide what they thought!
“The only reason I’ve held back and said the final decisions not been taken is I’ve wanted to give the Government and the nation room to make that decision in full possession of all of the relevant facts and circumstances,” he said. This is crazy talk.
And how can he tell what the nation thinks since he doesn’t believe the polls and claims people wouldn’t really make up their minds until he’s told them what he’s already decided? “I don’t think you really know ultimately what public opinion is on this until the final shape of the final decision is known,” he said today.
The Australian people have known for a long time what you’d decided, Mr Howard. (See, for example, Don’t believe the hype, way back in September last year). They just didn’t know why. And still don’t.
I believe Labor should seriously consider demanding an immediate election, and refuse to pass any legislation unless John Howard submits himself to the Australian people. Enough is enough.
***
People power played a part in John Howard’s press conference today. Scott Burchill emailed me today’s Guardian story stating that Britain would release its legal advice on the legality of a non-UN sanctioned war, I briefed our Canberra legal correspondent Cynthia Banham, and she got the question up after Howard said he’d keep his legal advice secret. Howard seemed unbriefed and fobbed it off, but the question raised media interest in Howard’s secrecy ploy. Thanks again, Scott.
For my comment piece on Howard’s secrecy, see It’s legal, believe me. The Guardian article is at Sorry, Mr Blair, but 1441 does not authorise force. The Howard transcript is at pm.)
***
Scott recommends today’s The New York Times for a detailed analysis of what went wrong in the UN, called ‘A Long, Winding Road to a Diplomatic Dead End’. You have to sign on before you can read it.
***
Polly Bush thinks she’s found a Liberal who at least might be toying with dissent, the marvellous Judi Moylan from Western Australia, who had the guts to abstain on the Tampa border protection legislation, and who led the campaign, partly through Webdiary, to pressure Peter Costello to turn down Shell’s bid for Woodside.
Liberal MP Judi Moylan ultimately supported the government’s position, but spent most of her speech detailing the horrible impact of it. “An invasion of Iraq would involve the death of many innocent men, women and children. We hear the use of the term ‘collateral damage’, which seems to have its origins in the United States. It is a convenient euphemism. But we are under no illusions: it simply means that those unlucky enough to be in the way, innocently in some cases, will not escape death and injury. Everything possible must be done to avoid such a conflict,” she said.” (The Age September 9, 2002)
***
Over to you, for more final thoughts before the war.
Venkata Sreegiriraju
I will provide you with a recent set of events to show that America, Britain and Australia need not feel humiliated if they withdraw forces from Gulf.
India had more reason to attack Pakistan, because of support of terrorist activities in Pakistan against India, cross border terrorism emanating from Pakistan, and a terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament. It even stationed over 500,000 military personnel along the Pakistan border.
But it did not attack Pakistan because it listened to the world and put faith in diplomacy. Now it even withdrew some of its forces. According to American logic India should feel humiliated because it thereby lost its bargaining power. If the American administration says it has the right to pre-emptive attack, what right it has to ask India not to make a pre-emptive attack?
I recommend The Arrogant Empire.
***
Welcome to Freedom! (Sorry about the bombs)
by David Makinson
Well, it seems the dreaded moment is upon us. Australia is on the very cusp of its first ever war of aggression. John Howard’s legacy – his place in history.
The government lies to us every day and ignores the will of its people. Now our mostly proud and peace-loving history is about to be stained as we attack for no reason a nation which has never threatened us in the past, is not threatening us today, and is unlikely to ever threaten us in the future.
It all seems hopeless, and the natural response of those of us who have railed against this wrong might be to concede defeat and shuffle disconsolately away.
Don’t do it. Don’t even think about it. SHOUT LOUDER.
If we can’t stop the war, we can end it faster. If we can’t stop the war, we can change its outcomes. We can force the aggressors to take responsibility for their actions and rebuild the destroyed country of Iraq. We have already brought this aspect to the forefront. Going quiet now would be a betrayal of what we’ve tried to say. And it would be a betrayal of the people of Iraq.
Which brings me to the main theme of this piece. It’s the thorniest issue of all. The argument is that the people of Iraq actually want us to go to war in order to liberate them from the oppressor. As I’ve mentioned previously, this aspect did not start to get significant air time in the mainstream case for war until quite recently. Now, more and more of the right-wing pro-war lobbyists are latching on to it. Witness John Howard’s very recent epiphany. (Margo: And witness the extraordinary memo from the summit of three at smh – WMDs hardly rate a mention!)
The hawks know that, amongst all the obvious rank lies and clumsy deceptions of the other so-called causes for war, this one has bite. It is the most confronting for their opponents. We are a motley bunch of bleeding hearts, after all. Would anti-war people like to see an end of the Iraqi regime? Of course. Well then, war must surely be the only answer? No. The end does not always justify the means.
In an awful parody of Patrick Henry’s famous cry, we are saying to the Iraqis that we will “give you Liberty or give you Death!” What obscene arrogance.
Of course we on the anti-war side would like to make oppressed people free. But to do this over their dead bodies is an abomination. Imagine burying your newly-free child. How do you feel? Liberated?
There are a hell of a lot of regimes around the world which perpetrate hideous crimes on a daily basis. Who gets to decide which ones we attack, and when? This way lies madness – a world of chaos, where the rule of international law is replaced by the rule of selective war. And, entirely contrary to what John Howard says, the only message to those other regimes is – you guessed it – “arm up quick, for then they will be afraid to attack us”. North Korea seems to understand this very well.
The whole issue of the oppressed peoples across the world is an aspect that must not be left to the increasingly questionable devices of the governments of America and its vassal states.
If we are (now) serious about rescuing the citizens of oppressed regimes, then let’s make a serious assessment of the ways of doing this. Let this not be a flag of convenience used only to support war on Iraq. Let’s look at Iraq, Zimbabwe, Myanmar, North Korea and all the others and work out the right way forward.
At the moment we have carefully and cynically selected just one country for our righteous moralising, a country where these abuses have been going on for decades with our tacit approval. And we have gone straight to what should be the option of very last resort – bloody war. We have not even evaluated, let alone tried any alternative solutions.
Look past Saddam, people. Stop to think where you’re heading.
It has been asserted by some of those in the pro-war lobby that “most Iraqis” have, in some form of “collective decision” determined that they are prepared to suffer a war if it means the regime is removed. The problem with this is that the assertion is made without proof, and is in fact incapable of being proved. It is no more than a guess. “Some Iraqis want the war” would be an honest thing to say, but that does not suit their line, so they lie by exaggeration. Old trick. Very transparent.
This sanctimonious “We know what’s good for you” attitude is both chilling and sickening. Even worse than the expedient cynics on the right, these are ideological monsters who see killing for their cause as good. Their diamond hard benevolence is cold-eyed, unblinking, and absolutely pitiless.
So pitiless that they can selectively ignore “Shock and Awe”. So cold that they can choose not to think about MOABs and cluster bombs. They choose not to think about depleted uranium and cruise missiles. They choose in their smug, reptilian complacency not to think about the carbonised bodies of the Iraqi dead. And they choose not to remember that over half the population of Iraq are children under the age of 15. So completely obsessed by Saddam, they cannot see the children.
And then they have the gall to accuse us of selectively forgetting the people of Iraq. Their hypocrisy is absolute.
Or perhaps it’s just that they don’t believe Shock and Awe will happen. Perhaps they’ve elected not to believe in MOABs and cluster bombs. Or perhaps they have decided to believe the Americans won’t use them. Perhaps they’re choosing to forget the innocent dead of all of the world’s other wars.
Perhaps they don’t even choose to agree that war should be the last resort. Certainly the propaganda coming out of America is confusing enough – one moment they’re launching up to 3000 missiles in 48 hours, the next they’re carefully targeting only military installations. Whatever – rest assured that by the time the war is done, we will have been party to the murder of a large number of people who need not otherwise have died.
This is not a question of “if”. It is a question of “how many”.
“The Iraqis want the war”. Utter codswallop. How dare these people assume the right to ignore the opinions of all the Iraqis who don’t want a bar of this bloody war? How dare they presume to speak about the desires and fears of 23 million people? Challenge the assertion yourselves: Listen to the radio interviews with Iraqis in the streets of Baghdad. Read the international press. Conduct an internet search. You will very quickly discover exactly what you would expect to discover: Iraqi voices that run the full gamut of opinion. From pro-war, through profound ambivalence, to anti-war. Exactly as you would expect.
The people of Iraq are as divided on this as the rest of us. And they have so much more at stake. I wonder if all those kids under the age of 15 were part of this imaginary “collective decision”?
No decision has been made by the people of Iraq, nor can it be. In the end, we cannot possibly know what the collective will of the people of Iraq is, so as a cause for war, this one fails abjectly. To present this as an established truth is, purely and simply, arrant nonsense. And that’s putting it kindly.
If you see or hear anyone trying to make this argument, hang up the phone, point and click elsewhere, slam the door in their faces. Punch them in the nose. Shout LIAR! LIAR! PANTS ON FIRE! very loudly. Laugh at them. Do what you have to do, but don’t let them get away with this pathetic fraud.
***
Martin Walsh
If any military enforcement of UN resolutions is illegal without UN sanction then why hasn’t the US, UK or allies been prosecuted for using military force in Bosnia and Afghanistan after the UN could not get consensus on any action? I think many of the issues you raise in your Webdiary are irrelevant. I haven’t seen too many discussions about the facts of what the Iraqi regime has done or the facts of the failings of the UN in Rwanda or Bosnia or the self-interest and back room deals between Iraq and Russia, Germany and especially France.
Thank god we have access to US, UK and European media who seem to have a broader, more informative and more balanced approach to reporting, analysis and opinion journalism.
Since Friday I have asked about 22 people from many different backgrounds at work, at the sporting ground, and at the pub, and the majority agree with my view and I think I represent the majority of silent Australian’s supporting this action. Because, sorry to disappoint you, we are intelligent enough to see through propaganda and spin and irrelevant issues and see that this action is the right thing to do at this point in time and fully understand that sitting around on the lounge hoping and wishing the world will be a better place is simply naive.
***
Sandy Thomas
When it comes to “believing” John Howard, am I the only one to wonder about the uncanny parallels?
Winston, at home in the talkback studios on Friday, doublespeaks that the French are using “spoiling tactics to prevent peaceful disarmament” – because they’ll vote against a UN resolution “authorising” Bush, Blair and himself to start their war whenever they like.
The Iraqis are now “right” to flee a tyrannical regime – but the Ministry of Truth is still free, at least metaphorically, to continue to throw these refugees overboard, because we have “a right to defend our borders”.
And the only future Winston’s “logic” can offer, after Iraq, is an endless parade of yet more wars against yet more countries, ostensibly because he “fears” they might aid terrorists, whenever the White House changes their status from “with us” to “rogue state”.
George Orwell never dreamt how literally the plodding would grasp at his satire and translate it into a grim, highly “spun” reality.
On a not entirely unrelated note, you might like to grab a look at Robert Fisk’s latest, and especially his “weasel words to watch for”, at independent
***
David Svenson in Brisbane
I’ve neglected reading your Web Diary for some time because it is corrupted by so many subjective thinkers and not enough sensible people like Chris Andrews (Do you believe John Howard?)
As an old footslogger, I agree with John Howard. I have seen enough of it to abhor war and I watched the gutless Americans allow that other murdering tyrant Hitler bluff all the gutless French and British politicians until the pathetic Chamberlain was forced to act (and admit Churchill was right!) Now the pathetic peaceniks want us to repeat the errors of the past and cuddle an even worse tyrant than Hitler.
Margo I don’t like John Howard any more than you do. Nevertheless I must admire the PM’s political skills and his impressive Press Club speech, particularly the way he demolished his detractors in answering their mostly factually baseless questions.
***
Stewart Harrison
Your column ‘Do you believe John Howard?’ highlights what a dangerous legacy he is leaving to Australia. By his cavalier actions he has placed this country in a position of extreme danger for many years to come.
Has he lied? His track record on so many vitally important issues to this country speaks for itself. However, on this occasion, he will cause the death of so many innocent people in this country. Terrorists will target Australia or its interests and whilst the quality of our defenders match any in the world there will never be enough to effectively protect us.
The misguided and zealous actions of one man has changed Australia forever and we have gained nothing.
He will do it because what masquerades for an opposition still wears its union shirts and fails to be credible to the electorate. Here is a golden opportunity to have a dangerous, backward thinking person brought to heel. In an environment where most Australians are totally opposed to his actions and don’t believe his utterances on a large raft of other crucial matters, Labor plays around the edges. The only one to have any credible presence is their Kevin Rudd. There is the next Prime Minister.
What does Howard hope to gain…a trade agreement? At what price? Why does Howard not listen to the Australian people that is purports to represent? This is not our fight when most of the world won’t endorse such a war. So much for his family values. One dictator trying to squash another.
***
Peter Funnell in Canberra
Every indication now that war will commence (officially) in a day or two. I thought they might have started over the weekend, but it seems they are determined to try and face down the French at the Security Council before they give the go signal.
As I write I can hear the news saying our PM will hold a Cabinet meeting tonight, presumably to confirm what he has always intended to say to the Australian people. But of course, there has been no “formal” request. What is “formal” in these circumstances I wonder? A phone call – “John, it’s George here pal, were going in on Wednesday”. A letter? An email or a fax? Talk about real crap – of course the whole damn thing has been “formal”, because our PM has made up his mind, he has a “belief”. I am at a loss to find the words to express my utter amazement and disappointment.
***
Graeme Merrall
Howard may be trotting out his 1991 UN Resolution excuse at the moment but he appears to have forgotten a 1950 General Assembly resolution allows the General Assembly to step in to “maintain or restore international peace and security” in the event that “the Security Council, because of lack of unanimity, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security”. How intriguing. See un and look for “Uniting for peace”.
***
Jacob A. Stam in Narre Warren, Victoria
The Howard Government’s media cheer-squad (Henderson, Devine, et al.) have recently been crowing about a “pathological hatred” of the government which, they say, is particularly manifest in criticism of its policy on Iraq. Speaking for myself, I would rather characterise my attitude as one of disdain, a visceral sense of queasiness and distaste at the muck we the Australian public are intended to swallow.
All the same, it is true to say that there is a great deal of animus abroad against the Howard Government. It is also true that the aversion felt by broad sections of the community is literally pathological. We might even take a stab at broadly delineating said pathology:
* The regressive GST which was “never, ever” going to be on this Government’s agenda,
* Surreptitious collusion with sectional interests in industrial disputes, notably the Patrick wharves dispute,
* Shaming of Australia over the Kyoto Protocol (at the behest of Australian captains of commerce, who have since done an about face with an eye on possibly lucrative carbon credits trading),
* Backhanded support for the former Northern Territory government’s mandatory sentencing laws on the grounds of states/territories rights, while overturning their right-to-die law on moral grounds,
* Failure to act upon prior knowledge of the impending bloodbath following the East Timorese independence vote,
* Deploying peacekeeping forces to East Timor following an earnest effort at sitting on its hands, only after thousands of ordinary Australians expressed their anger,
* Mandatory detention of asylum seekers fleeing the very Iraqi regime that the Prime Minister admits is a torturer of children,
* Soft handling of the odious Burmese regime which is also a torturer of children (e.g., sending human rights lecturers while demurring on UN/ILO prescribed economic sanctions),
* The Prime Minister’s tricky apologetics for Suharto’s Indonesia, eg “not a democracy in the sense that we understand it”, with Suharto then in power,
* This Government’s fearless denunciation of Suharto’s Indonesia as a “dictatorship”, with Suharto then safely deposed and in disgrace,
* Shaming of Australia over the Tampa incident,
* The mean, tricky and expensive “Pacific solution”,
* Excision of sovereign territory from the Australian “migration zone” (a kind of Wonderland croquet we play with our humanitarian obligations),
* The “children overboard” tricky-fiction which this Government ran with as a rancid morsel to a starving man,
* The Prime Minister’s defence of his talkback demagoguery as statesmanlike articulation of Australian values, while denouncing as “the mob” everyone from peace protesters to critics of his Governor-General,
* Selective application of the “mandate theory of politics”, which this Prime Minister once described as “absolutely phoney”,
* Proposed abolition of media ownership rules, and
* Persistent undermining of Medicare.
No doubt this list is not exhaustive. But overarching all this is the Government’s general and overwhelmingly reflexive kow-towing to US geopolitical objectives (to put it much more politely than, say, Mark Latham).
The Prime Minister and his apologists ascribe his position on Iraq to “conviction politics”, and we are expected to swallow this without gagging as 40 US trade officials arrive in the country to negotiate a possible free trade agreement. Yes, the prospective FTA has been suddenly refloated, after last year foundering in the face of apparently insurmountable opposition from the US farm lobby.
It remains to be seen, after the war we had to have has run its course, whether the US agricultural sector will relent to the “slight squeeze” on its interests that US Ambassador Schieffer this weekend said they might. It also remains to be seen how “slight” a squeeze they will concede. As Australians, we might ponder whether the resurrected prospect of the FTA explains the Australian agricultural sector’s muted response to Howard’s warmongering, with millions of dollars in grain exports to Iraq in the balance.
***
Neil Baird in Williamstown, Victoria
A Portrait of a Sad Man
I observed John Howard’s Press Club Speech broadcast on ABC television Thursday 13th of March. As one of Howard’s former colleagues John Valder, once Liberal Party President commented, it was a very professional speech but that was about it.
From my point of view, Howards speech was not convincing or compelling. I saw a man who is blinded by his own distorted logic trying to convince people who have heard enough already to make up their minds that this war with Iraq is not on, that this is wrong and dangerous and reckless and stupid. The audience of journalists appeared to me to be just going through the motions – knowing the questions they would ask would not be answered.
In these last days before calamity strikes Howard needs to deal with the demons in his own mind,with his internal terrorism – that there is no way out of this uncontrollable mess, that a back down would be catastrophic blow to the ego, his paternalistic leadership and be altogether incomprehensible. Even though the human cost of lives is going to be immense.
During his speech, Howard’s attempts at humour – the cricket connection whilst phoning General Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan (hey, it’s not cricket with a baseball bat is it?) and the Darlinghurst law courts ‘forgive my past Sydney links, old bailey proof’ fell flat. How does he expect an audience to warm to the prospect of war that appears in the hearts and minds of many people to be completely unjustified.
Howard showed he is yesterday’s man caught up in an extraordinarily messy business with world forces completely beyond his illusions of control. A small player seduced by the world’s power brokers and now trying to cling on desperately.
As Howard was describing his attempt to influence Pakistan’s vote at the UNSC through telephone diplomacy with the mutual love of cricket between Musharraf and himself, what was going through my mind wasn’t cricket but, “Isn’t that where they arrested the number two man for al-Qaeda in Pakistan?”
At least Blair has the courage and guts to debate the ordinary citizen. Not Howard though – he hides behind his mean and tricky logic, hoping that braying on and on will brainwash us all into submission.
We have a Prime Minister who has sold the Australian people out over his subservience to the American alliance – particularly with Iraq – whilst trying to save his skin and the realisation of his own ultimate nightmare: the opprobrium of the Bush administration.
***
Meeja Watch
by Jack Robertson
There is some irony in Damian Joyce recommending “Lunch with the Chairman’ in the same Webdiary entry that Peter Woodforde exhorts us to remember the courage of some American soldiers in protecting victims of the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam (‘Do you believe John Howard?’)
Part of what redeemed the US after that episode – and part of what still makes America a vibrant symbol of freedom in the world – was the public exposure of that terrible outbreak of military madness in the heat of confused, bitter combat operations, and the intensely-honest US self-criticism that (eventually) followed such mistakes during Vietnam. The core professional coalition forces are perhaps more disciplined and better-trained, perhaps better able these days to avoid another My Lai.
On the other hand, there is an enormous number of combat-inexperienced Reservists in the main US fighting forces. Also, the risks of this sort of ‘combat madness’ occurring during and/or after the invasion of Iraq are surely unusually high, since the invasion aims remain at best muddled, the invading forces are now highly-charged by the delays and uncertainty, the combatant-delineating Rules of Engagement are still unclear, the response of the local populations is unpredictable, and the Iraqi internal political and ethnic dispositions are conflicting and unstable.
Independent, open journalism will be absolutely crucial in helping friendly forces maintain perspective and keep a check on their own combat conduct over the next months, especially when the various post-Saddam scenarios begin to play themselves out.
Public opinion, support for the soldiers and the overall ‘justness’ of this invasion – what little can now be salvaged, anyway – will be best served by many feisty, independent reporters being permitted, by the military hierarchy, to watch events closely, constantly and sceptically.
Reporters just like the reporter who was responsible for exposing the My Lai Massacre – Seymour Hersch, who won a Pulitzer for it. Reporters just like the reporter who wrote ‘Lunch with the Chairman’ about Richard Perle’s dealings with Khashoggi and Co – also Seymour Hersch. Read more about him here – bostonphoenix.
Now that we are committed to this invasion and occupation, only such independent scrutiny can prevent America’s military-coalition juggernaut from lurching fully into ugly, totalitarian territory.
And yet here is an exchange, on CNN’s ‘Late Edition’ on March 9 (the day Hersch’s story was published in the New Yorker) between Perle and CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. Even though Perle obviously doesn’t speak for the whole ‘pro-invasion’ camp, he has been a major driving force behind the Bush Administration’s adoption of this path. Here is how he responded to Hersch’s latest piece of awkward investigative journalism (my bold):
WOLF BLITZER: …Let me read a quote from the New Yorker article, the March 17th issue, just out now. “There is no question that Perle believes that removing Saddam from power is the right thing to do. At the same time, he has set up a company that may gain from a war.”
PERLE: I don’t believe that a company would gain from a war. On the contrary, I believe that the successful removal of Saddam Hussein, and I’ve said this over and over again, will diminish the threat of terrorism. And what he’s talking about is investments in homeland defense, which I think are vital and are necessary. Look, Sy Hersh is the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist, frankly.
BLITZER: Well, on the basis of – why do you say that? A terrorist?
PERLE: Because he’s widely irresponsible. If you read the article, it’s first of all, impossible to find any consistent theme in it. But the suggestion that my views are somehow related for the potential for investments in homeland defense is complete nonsense.
BLITZER: But I don’t understand. Why do you accuse him of being a terrorist?
PERLE: Because he sets out to do damage and he will do it by whatever innuendo, whatever distortion he can – look, he hasn’t written a serious piece since My Lai.
BLITZER: All right. We’re going to leave it right there.
So there we have it: an admirably open deployment of one of the pro-invasion camp’s less admirable tactics. Pass the word about, Margo: if any pesky journalist should get a little too awkward at this delicate stage of the Bushies’ Manifest Destiny vision for the Persian Gulf, then the way the Chairman of the highly-influential Defence Policy Board sees things, you’re not merely a ‘terrorist-lover’, or a ‘Western self-blamer’, you are a terrorist yourself.
This does not bode well for any investigative reporters who try to present to us the truth – as opposed to an officially-airbrushed version – about how the fighting in Iraq proceeds. We will see, I suppose. Or not, more likely.
***
Kerryn Higgs in New York
I agree that George bush’s rose garden move last weekend is very possibly intended, in part at least, to allay suspicion that Bush is “captive to a Zionist cabal”. (Do you believe John Howard?)
At the same time, seems to me he’s having two bob each way. It it is not clear that he is offering the same “roadmap” put together in September by the “Quartet” of the US, UN, EU and Russia, a plan which was put on hold for six months at US instigation while the Israeli election – and then the formation of the new government – took place.
I refer you to James Bennet’s article in the New York Times on Saturday March 15 (nyt),which casts specific doubts on Bush’s good faith:
In announcing today that he was prepared to move ahead with a “road map” to peace and a Palestinian state, President Bush appeared to diverge sharply from the allies who helped him draft the map over what, precisely, it represents.
Mr. Bush pleased Israelis and dismayed Palestinians by describing the draft proposal as open to amendment, saying, “We will expect and welcome contributions from Israel and the Palestinians to this document that will advance true peace.”
The three other members of the diplomatic quartet that drew up the plan – the United Nations, the European Union and Russia – regard it as fixed, demanding immediate concessions from both sides, according to diplomats involved in the process. Israel has criticized it as potentially threatening to its security and has sought many changes.
Even as he made his announcement, Mr. Bush altered the document. He said he would present it as soon as the Palestinians confirmed a prime minister with “real authority.”
Mr. Bush’s intention may be to box in Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, and force him to install a powerful prime minister. But according to the plan, which the quartet agreed on in December, the prime minister is supposed to be appointed as part of the first phase, which also demands difficult steps from Israel.
After postponing action on the plan for months, Mr. Bush has chosen to act at a moment of some diplomatic possibility and great American leverage here. Mr. Arafat has begun to move on a prime minister, while Ariel Sharon of Israel has said the only way out of Israel’s deep recession is an end to the conflict. Israeli officials also are seeking a multibillion-dollar emergency aid package from Washington.
Mr. Bush’s wording was far less precise than that of the plan itself. He may be trying to remain ambiguous enough to create room to maneuver for Mr. Sharon, whose rightist government rejects key aspects of the plan. If so, that is a gamble. Over the last two years, other plans to restart talks have collapsed in negotiations over exactly what the wording of the documents meant
“It’s not meant to be a negotiated document,” one Western diplomat said. He said other members of the quartet would construct their own interpretation of Mr. Bush’s comments. “We will understand President Bush to mean, when he says ‘contributions,’ ‘additional details to be added,’ ” rather than changes to the existing plan, this diplomat said.
But Israeli officials interpreted Mr. Bush’s remarks more broadly. Prime Minister Sharon has said he accepts the plan, provided that it strictly fulfills the terms of a speech delivered by President Bush last June 24. Compared with the plan, that June speech was interpreted by both sides as placing more burdens on the Palestinians in the short term.
Israeli officials said they heard nothing tonight to conflict with that approach. Gideon Meir, deputy director general of the Foreign Ministry, said any plan that would “reflect precisely the presidential vision will be an important tool to implement the speech” of June 24.
He said a Palestinian prime minister who was “totally disconnected from Arafat” and who would be “acting decisively against terror and incitement” and rebuilding the governing Palestinian Authority would be a partner who “together with Israel will give its response to the road map.”
Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians’ chief negotiator, was clearly alarmed, saying, “If we’re going to introduce the road map for discussions, it means at the end of the discussions there will be no road map.”
Palestinian officials have said that like the Israelis, they dispute aspects of the plan but accept it as a whole in the belief that it is to be imposed on both sides.
Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain has pushed for President Bush to announce the plan, but even Mr. Blair seemed to have a different idea than his ally of what the plan stands for. He did not emphasize possible changes, but instead spoke of “specific steps that we are committed to.” He said Israel was expected to institute “a freeze on all settlement activity” as part of the first phase.
Mr. Bush offered a more elastic formula on settlements. “As progress is made toward peace, settlement activity in the occupied territories must end,” he said.
Mr. Sharon, an architect of the settlement movement, has built a governing coalition that includes two parties closely identified with settlers, as is his own faction, Likud. He would almost surely have to form a new government with leftist factions to sustain a major move to restrain settlement.”