G’Day. I hope Labor asks John Howard in Question Time today: “What were the real reasons you ordered Australian troops to invade Iraq? Please come clean.”
His lies were clear at the time to anyone who cared to read the facts, consult the experts and exercise common sense. Is John Howard the most deceptive, short-sighted, narrow-minded, dangerous, amoral Prime Minister Australia has ever had?
I’ve been looking over pre-war Webdiaries in the light of the devastating British intelligence assessment released over the weekend. A terribly sad experience. The standout in my reading so far is this poem from Sydney doctor John Augustus published published on March 19 in Feelings on the eve of war:
SNAP!
The big eagle caught in the trap,
Feathers of failed diplomacy drifting.
Bin Laden smiling, the hapless waiting,
A swift brutal war, a fractured globe.
The terrorist wins after all.
To remind yourself of Howard’s deceptions and evasions before the war, I recommend Deconstructing JW Howard, a transcript of his last formal pre-war press conference and my analysis of the questions and answers. It was a grand performance by the press gallery – minus Murdoch’s cheerleaders, of course.
The best question then, and the one which still stands out, was from SBS Television’s Dennis Grant:
In your speech today my attention was drawn to this line where you’re talking about “people who are ready to mount the moral parapets” of this debate. Can I draw your attention to some of them? Could I draw your attention to General Peter Gration – he was CDF at the time of the last Gulf War; Major General Peter Phillips, fighting soldier in Vietnam, the National President of the RSL. On the diplomatic side, Dick Woolcott – former head of the Department of Foreign Affairs. All of them are opposed to your policy. Can you point me to a credible, non-political figure who does support your policy?
John Howard: Well, in the nature of political debate Dennis, people don’t declare and come out in favour of something that is being done, they tend to come out against something that they disagree with. And in talking about those gentlemen, particularly Peter Gration and Peter Phillips, I don’t regard everybody as everybody’s who’s been a little bit critical as having mounted the moral parapets, I don’t. I, in fact, I followed carefully what both Peter Gration and Peter Phillips have said and I don’t, you know, I don’t put them in the category of people who have branded what we’re doing as immoral and war mongering and so forth, they have reservations, they have different views about different aspects of it. As far as Dick Woolcott is concerned, well I respect his views. He, of course, was somebody who was very critical of our intervention in East Timor, now that’s his right. But in a debate like this you get a whole range of views and I’ve read what Peter and the two Peter’s have said and whilst they raise a number of questions and express some concerns, I don’t regard them as having mounted the moral parapets in the way that some others have done.
Well the question of who supports me or who doesn’t support me in the end is a judgement for the people of Australia. I regard the views of individual Australians on this as just as valuable as the views of people you’ve quoted or any people I might invoke. I mean this is something for the people to think about and the purpose of a gathering like this is for me, through this forum, to talk directly to the people of Australia. I’m interested in their views, some of them don’t agree with me, some of them do. A lot of them haven’t made up their minds and I can understand that because, as I said right at the beginning, this is the first major difficult international issue of great complexity, the world has had to grapple since the arrival of what I might call the new dispensation of which I spoke in my address.
My Comment: Howard has completely fallen apart now. By saying that in politics “people don’t declare and come out in favour of something that is being done, they tend to come out against something that they disagree with”, he’s implying that he’s decided to go to war, something he’s denied. If you take him at his word, the matter is unresolved, in which case you’d expect vigorous debate from credible people on both sides of the debate.
In any event, his claim is inaccurate. It’s a standard feature of political debate that before a decision is announced, a government lines up credible non-political figures to praise it on release. And when a government is not winning an important political debate, it’s standard practice to press supporters of its cause to go public. Howard, it seems, has been spectacularly unsuccessful in this endeavour.
The fact that he can think of not one credible non-political figure who supports his position is proof that he’s in deep trouble on the merits. To then outsource the question to the people of Australia to rack there brains over – and on a question of fact, not opinion – is breathtaking. And the fact that he gives the people this responsibility while making it clear he’s perfectly prepared to go to war in the face of contrary public opinion, shows he’s been snookered. For mine, Grant asked the question of the day.
Howard’s last doorstop before on the war is discussed in A question of legitimacy. He insisted the war was legal, a false claim exposed by Australia’s former Solicitor General Gavan Griffith QC in This war is illegal: Howard’s last top law man.
I also recommend the pre-war speeches of the father of the United States Senate, Robert Byrd, although you may cry while reading them: A lonely voice in a US Senate silent on war and Today, I Weep for my Country…
The February 5 speech of Laurie Brereton, Shroud over Guernica, is top class, as is the speech by Mark Latham on the eve of war, The march of folly. Simon Crean’s final pre-war speech hit the mark too: Australia: The war within.
For a reminder of the ideology which lead the United States and Australia to this disaster, see A think tank war: Why old Europe says no.
Need a laugh after all that? Chris Montemayor recommends clanuak for George Bush’s rendition of ‘Whatever’. “Turn up your sound! God bless!”
Here’s my Sun Herald column yesterday, with links.
Danger in striking at funnel-webs
September 14, 2003
The world spoke out against war in Iraq, writes Margo Kingston, but they were drowned out by the voice of three.
G’day. I’ll never forget February 16, 2003, when Sydney joined the world on the streets to say No to a US invasion of Iraq without United Nations support.
Three old politicians – Labor hard man Laurie Brereton, Green icon Bob Brown and former Liberal Party minister Peter Baume – led the protest shouting “No War”. North Shore matrons rubbed shoulders with parents pushing strollers and youngsters wondering which anti-war T-shirt to buy. (Sydney walks in numbers too big to ignore)
That weekend, the world’s peoples suggested that invading Iraq would make the world a more dangerous one, not a safer one, and asked their leaders to find an alternative.
But the leaders of the US, Britain and Australia knew better.
In the past week, Web Diary’s international relations commentator Scott Burchill found a quote from Harold Thorby, Australia’s defence minister in 1938: “We, the Government, have vital information which we cannot disclose. It is upon this knowledge that we make decisions. You, who are merely private citizens, have not access to this information. Any criticism you make of our policy, any controversy about it in which you may indulge will therefore be uninformed and valueless. If, in spite of your ignorance, you persist in questioning our policy, we can only conclude that you are disloyal.”
Burchill: “At least they were more honest back then.”
Before the war, when John Howard pretended he hadn’t promised George Bush he’d go all the way on a Bush nod, 70 per cent of Australians thought we shouldn’t go in without UN sanction.
Now the Americans are begging the UN to clean up its mess, Iraq looks like Vietnam and Saddam Hussein looks like he’s got into bed with his sworn enemy Osama Bin Laden. Last week, Bin Laden agreed with Bush that Iraq is the central front. In what, World War III? The Iraqi people’s suffering continues.
As we remember September 11, let’s also remember that our political elders from both sides of politics – and our military, public service, legal, church, arts and economics elders – spoke out against this war in all three pro-war nations. All were ignored.
Brigadier Adrian D’hage, Vietnam War hero and the bloke in charge of security at Sydney’s Olympics, wrote: “The [UN weapons] inspectors must be given a chance to do their job and, if that takes a year, then so be it – Iraq poses no threat to anyone while they are there. Far more distinguished soldiers than I don’t agree with this war unless it is an absolute last resort.” (The D’hage report: View from Istanbul)
On the eve of war, Labor’s Mark Latham told Parliament: “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.”
Web Diarist Andrew O’Connell wrote: “Growing up in country NSW, I once saw a huge funnel-web which scared the life out of me. Instinctively, I picked up a rock, took aim and threw. I hit my target, but the rock also ripped open the spider’s nest. To a 10-year-old it looked like I’d unleashed a swarm of hundreds of spiders spreading out in all directions.
“For years after I had nightmares where the spiders spewing out enveloped me, my family and everyone I knew. Ever since it’s become clear that Bush, [US Vice-President Dick] Cheney and the charming [Defence Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld have decided to invade Iraq regardless of the consequences, the same horrible dreams have come back to haunt my nights again.” (Spiders spread in all directions)
Many people who backed the war also feel betrayed and fear that the war spin – the lies told for the reasons for war – has damaged our war on terrorism.
Web Diarist Daniel Moye wrote in Faulty evidence damaging the cause that the sell-war campaign now looks like an election campaign: let’s just say whatever we need to say to win the argument and deal with the backlash afterwards.
“I support the war and see the ongoing challenges facing the West, yet I also support a vigorous inquiry into the misleading intelligence presented to justify the war. The leaders should be accountable for their actions, and if their governments fall, so be it. I appreciate the high standards that the Australian media, in particular Fairfax and the ABC, have demanded of our leaders. The cheerleading of the Murdoch press paradoxically helps the anti-war arguments by reducing the debates to a passionate brawl.” (Murdoch’s war: 175 generals on song, Murdoch: Cheap oil the prize and Murdoch’s war on truth in war reporting)
Web Diarist ‘John Nicolay’ saw the jubilation in Baghdad when Saddam’s statue fell as “a marvellous affirmation of liberal values – and of the belief that, ultimately, it’s not possible to crush the human spirit entirely”. (The human spirit)
I replied: “That test is about to begin. It will be a long, long road, with no certainty of victory. So let all of us who believe in liberal values – pro-war, anti-war, ambivalent, keep Australia out of it, only with the UN – shake hands and do our best to make John’s wish come true.”
It’s up to the people, yet again. Yet again, our political leaders have failed us.