Hi. So the US will ask the Security Council to vote mid-week, and last Friday John Howard booked the National Press Club for a speech on Thursday, March 13. The US/UK/Australia deadline for Saddam to disarm is Monday week, March 17. Howard could well tell us we’re about to declare war on Iraq in the face of world opinion and in defiance of the UN.
Latest reports state that Bush and Blair will give Saddam a list of weapons he must destroy or account for within six days to avoid an attack. Today’s Observer (Blair sets out final terms to avoid war) states:
Britain and the US are to publish a set of disarmament ‘trip-points’ detailing specific weapons in his arsenal that the United Nations has listed in a private report to the Security Council circulated this weekend. With the international community seemingly split on whether the Iraqi dictator should be given more time to comply with resolution 1441, British officials told The Observer that the targets would be based on the UN report by Hans Blix, the head of the weapons inspectors.”
… It was clear last night that the international community was facing the final make or break week on Iraq. In a desperate plea for more time, France said yesterday it would not support the resolution and made an official appeal for a summit of world leaders to discuss the looming conflict. Russia also said it was opposed to any resolution that ‘authorised war’.
…The British and US ‘trip points’ will be based on a summary draft of Blix’s UN report circulated by Number 10 yesterday. The document demands that Saddam:
* accounts for Iraq’s al-Hussein missile system and 50 Scud Bs which the UN says ‘may have been retained for a proscribed missile force’;
* explains the illegal import of 131 Volga engines for its al-Samoud 2 missile system and why Unmovic, the UN inspections team, had later found 231 engines and documentation for a further 150;
* accounts for and destroys 550 mustard gas shells and 350 R-400 bombs, which are capable of carrying chemical and biological weapons, which are still outstanding;
* reveals the whereabouts of 80 tonnes of mustard gas as well as VX, Sarin and Soman gas.
It is likely that the resolution will be voted on by the middle of this week. If Britain and America succeed in getting the nine votes needed to pass the resolution then Saddam would have until 17 March to comply. If he did not do so military conflict would begin soon after.
Unlike Tony Blair, John Howard has played a dangerous, contemptuous political game to avoid public discussion and debate. He won’t talk about joining the Yanks in a strike until the Council decides whether to authorise it. This cuts off any discussion of the role we’d play after regime change. Any chance of debate about our rules of engagement in the invasion are similarly cut off – we haven’t decided whether to go to war, so we haven’t signed off on them yet.
Both Blair and Howard say their goal is not regime change. That means they’re joining a war led by a nation whose objective they oppose. How can we invade Iraq them walk away from the responsibilities of the occupation? How can we invade without agreeing to the US occupation plans? How can it be acceptable to invade a country but take no responsibility for the aftermath? The world will hold us accountable for actions and events in which we play no part. Without a UN sanction, we will be outcasts in the world community and completely reliant on the United States for our security in a region which sees us as the enemy. No wonder Howard now wants us to join the US missile defence plan.
It looks like he’s signed up to the Bush national security strategy of a US free of the constraints of international law and the UN, doing what it like for what it perceives to be in its interests. He just never told us, that’s all. (The strategy is published in Manifesto for world dictatorship, and bears striking similarities to the strategy of the right wing think tank ‘Project for the New American Century’ discussed in A think tank war: Why old Europe says no.)
John Howard has already walked away from Kyoto with the US and he wants to walk away from multilateralism in trade too and tie us to the US through a free trade deal which could see our foreign ownership restrictions on Qantas, Telstra and Woodside.
Howard appears to have decided he’ll go all the way with the Bushies. We’ll be with em, whatever happens; we’ll say yes, whatever they ask. Howard will put us in the eye of the storm. We’re becoming the 51st State, yet Howard has told us nothing of this tumultuous change in our foreign policy. History did indeed begin for Australia on September 11, 2001.
Maybe Howard’s devilishly clever, but stifling debate before the war leaves him way open to trouble if things go wrong. A war without UN sanction would unite the ALP and Simon Crean would go for broke against the war. Vietnam revisited, except that this time public opinion would be behind the peacemaker, not the warmonger, as Crean would start his campaign with the majority of Australians backing him. Howard – without Labor or, if public opinion holds, the majority of Australians – would have the blood of Australian casualties on his hands alone.
A Howard decision to go in with the Yanks without UN endorsement would trigger the most important security debate in Australia we’ve had for a long, long time after a debate Howard refused to have. Compared to the UK, we are grotesquely uninformed about the ramifications of what we’re doing.
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I recommend The Financial Times’ Bush’s future is in Blair’s hands by Linda Bilmes, who teaches public policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and was assistant secretary of commerce under President Bill Clinton.
She argues that Bush could not now go to war without Blair’s support, because it keeps US public opinion onside and the Democratic Party in check:
Opinion polls show popular support wavering for an invasion without international backing. Mr Blair’s stance allows the White House to maintain its “coalition of the willing” strategy, which will be politically essential if UN support is not forthcoming.
Second, Mr Blair is critical in maintaining bipartisan support for the war. He has a close relationship with Bill Clinton, the former president, and maintains a dialogue with likely Democratic contenders for the presidency, such as senators John Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina. Most Democrats see him as “one of us”. This is a powerful factor in the Democrats’ public acquiescence in Mr Bush’s tough line.
She also paints a chilling picture of the war’s timetable, saying Bush wants the war over and the mistakes fixed before the 2004 presidential election year.
More important still are Mr Bush’s sinking approval ratings on the economy. CNN’s latest poll shows his support at 53 per cent – down from more than 80 per cent after September 11 2001 (and 20 percentage points lower than Mr Clinton’s support on the day he was impeached). Popular support for his tax-cutting stimulus package is also weak. Sooner or later the domestic political debate will move away from foreign policy and focus on jobs and the stock market. The Bush team knows full well that an end to war uncertainty, rather than tax cuts, is the most effective way to boost the flagging economy and create a rally on Wall Street.
So an early – and quick – war is critical to fit with the US political agenda. By contrast, Mr Blair has no such constraints. If the war were postponed six months to allow more inspections, it would strengthen his political position at home, which has been weakened by the prospect of a war without UN approval. Should he opt to shift his stance – say, to play the role of honest broker who forges a consensus between the Americans and the Europeans – that would almost certainly thwart the administration’s ability to invade Iraq this month. It would also reopen the war as a live political issue in Washington. In short, it would be bad news for Mr Bush. Mr Blair is the pivotal operator in ways that even he may not fully appreciate.
So Tony Blair, the third way man with visions of a multilateral approach to Kyoto and other intractable problems only the world acting together can address, the man who said September 11 was an historic opportunity for the centre-left to take charge of the future, could – if the UN says no to war now and he accepts the decision – destroy the fundamentalist, unilateralist, neo-liberal right-winger in control of the world’s superpower and save himself. Who’d be Tony Blair today?
In his post-September 11 speech to the nation, Blair said:
This is an extraordinary moment for progressive politics. Our values are the right ones for this age: the power of community, solidarity, the collective ability to further the individual’s interests.
…The Kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us re-order this world around us.
Today, humankind has the science and technology to destroy itself or to provide prosperity to all. Yet science can’t make that choice for us. Only the moral power of a world acting as a community, can. “By the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more together than we can alone”.
For those people who lost their lives on 11 September and those that mourn them; now is the time for the strength to build that community. Let that be their memorial. (Blair vision)
Is a US/UK strike on Iraq in defiance of the UN what Blair had in mind to build community? Will he save Bush’s skin – the man whose policies are inimical to progressive world politics? Will that be his legacy?
The Observer reports today that the British government has arrested an employee at the top-secret Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in connection with the leak of an American ‘dirty tricks’ surveillance sting on Security Council members yet to declare their position on war:
Officials at GCHQ, the electronic surveillance arm of the British intelligence service, were asked by the Americans to provide valuable information from ‘product lines’, intelligence jargon for phone taps and e-mail interception. The document was circulated among British intelligence services before being leaked (observer). See also The spies and the spinner and UN launches inquiry into American spying.
Today, a piece in this week’s Jane’s Defence Weekly forwarded by Scott Burchill on doubts in defence and intelligence circles on the wisdom of war, and Tim Gillon comments on the authenticity of the email I published Friday from someone who says he’s in Australia’s SAS and that Howard had already committed SAS troops to war (A letter from the SAS?). To end, reader George Crones’ first piece for Webdiary, a dialogue with the young writer of a column in the Herald last week waxing lyrical about the school kids march against the war.
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Scepticism mounts among defence and intelligence officials
David Mulholland, JDW Business Editor, London
Jane’s Defence Weekly, March 05, 2003
While Bush administration officials deride opposition to a war against Iraq as the usual “peacenik” reflex, Jane Defence Weekly sources say that dissenting views are now also coming from those who have traditionally supported military action.
Such opposition was witnessed on 26 February in the UK Parliament – one of the largest voting revolts in the past 100 years. It is also becoming clear that many military and intelligence officials in both the US and UK, who are not in a position to speak publicly, are deeply sceptical of the Bush administration’s apparent rush to war.
The fundamental questions of why now, and why Iraq, have not been adequately answered, intelligence, military and legislative sources in Washington told JDW.
Sources said that the Bush administration’s changing arguments for military action appear to confirm that none of them is sufficient to justify the use of military force.
One congressional source said that the arguments in favour of a war increasingly seem to be a “smokescreen” to hide the real reasons the administration is set on war.
Indeed, both the US and UK intelligence information supposedly justifying a war with Iraq raise serious questions. “[Chief of the UN weapons inspectors Hans] Blix’s criticism pokes holes in [US Secretary of State Colin] Powell’s intelligence,” said Joseph Cirincione, a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “And the UK’s intelligence dossier was shown to be a complete fraud.”
A US military source said that Bush and his inner circle seem to be suffering from what is known in the Department of Defence as incestuous amplification. This is a condition in warfare where one only listens to those who are already in lock-step agreement, reinforcing set beliefs and creating a situation ripe for miscalculation. An illustration of this was Bush’s address to the American Enterprise Institute – a right-wing think tank in Washington – last Wednesday on why military action was required.
“President George W Bush’s speech on Iraq is significant, mostly because it reveals that he long ago made a decision for war and has always viewed the inspection process as an impediment to war to be overcome, rather than a means to avoid war,” said Doug Bandow, a senior fellow with the libertarian Cato Institute and former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. “War was always his first option. The president paints a positive picture of post-war Iraq that is likely to prove wildly optimistic.”
Retired US Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni, former head of the US Central Command, which is responsible for the Middle East, said the administration is ignoring public reaction in the Muslim world about a US invasion of Iraq. In October he said: “Anti-Americanism, doubts about this war, concern about the damage that may happen, political issues, economic issues and social issues have all caused the [Arab] street to become extremely volatile. I’m amazed at people that say that there is no street and that it won’t react. I’m not sure which planet they live on because it isn’t the one that I travel. I’ve been out in the Middle East, and it is explosive; it is the worst I’ve ever seen it in over a dozen years of working in this area in some concentrated way. Almost anything could touch it off.”
Another former Reagan administration official said that Bush appears to be set on the course of action he has already decided because he is out of his depth and is unable to understand the nuances of the arguments that oppose an immediate war with Iraq. “He just doesn’t have the experience to be dealing with these issues.”
This may have to do with Bush’s seeming inability to change course in reaction to changing circumstances, a congressional source said. “With the exception of attacking Afghanistan in response to [11 September 2001], something that Bush had no choice about, he has not changed one iota of his agenda despite it being formed during a time of strong economic growth and a different perception of security threats.”
Most sources interviewed for this analysis agreed that the Bush administration has backed itself into a corner and cannot reverse course at this point. It has now put too much political capital into a war. Backing out now would likely wreck Bush’s image as a strong leader and focus the US voting public on the faltering US economy and the lack of appropriate policy initiatives.
“There’s no going back,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “US credibility is on the line. The only possible outcomes now are either Iraq is disarmed or Saddam is deposed.” Cirincione said: “You can move a lot of stuff to the [Persian] Gulf without going to war, but once you start mobilising the [US Army’s] 101st Airborne, you are going to war.”
Several sources said that reports of special forces units being deployed to Iraq showed that real preparations for military action are already taking place. Many said that such actions do not take place until a decision to attack has been made.
Cirincione also said that war with Iraq was likely to be sooner rather than later because Bush’s popularity is drying up. “Backing for a war is falling,” he said. “Fifty-nine per cent are now in favour of giving the inspectors more time. That’s not very good considering that Bush has been focused like a laser on Iraq to the exclusion of all other foreign and domestic issues.”
Several sources said an attack would likely begin as soon as 14 March. O’Hanlon said that while there is a remote chance that action could be delayed until the autumn if there were enough pressure, ultimately an attack is inevitable because Bush’s self image would not allow him to change his mind.
2003 Jane’s Information Group
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Tim Gillin in Sydney
I have a friend who is ex-SAS and an active member of the Australian commando and special forces veterans’ organisation. Last September he told me about meeting with SAS Afghan veterans who were quite critical of the performance of US CIA “cowboys” in Afghanistan. His uniformed informants said the CIA personnel provoked the prison uprising over there through their own unprofessionalism. This was well before media coverage of these events.
So the kind of critical views expressed in A letter from the SAS? do not strike me as unusual, although posting them to the press certainly is. The views are very similar to the opinions voiced by my veteran friend.
Similarly the discussion from your correspondent about the Australian SAS strategic recon skills twigs with what I have learned from my friend as well.
There is a myth that military personnel are all “gung ho” types. Most background books on the SAS, for example, describe the average trooper as intelligent and interested in world affairs, and widely read. Their is no reason to assume they live in some kind of warmongers’ hothouse.
In fact those leading the charge to war in Iraq more often than not seem to be denizens of civilian think tanks. In contrast, there has been a string of retired military leaders from the US, UK and Australia who have urged a more cautious approach. In fact one prominent and right wing US anti-war web site calls the current pro-war wave “The Attack of the Chicken-hawks” (antiwar).
Your correspondent’s use of the little known term “Dev Group” is interesting. This is the unit name for US Navy SEAL’s maritime counter-terrorist unit, a name that is not widely used in the media. I suppose the one hint of skepticism I have about your correspondent’s letter is not so much his viewpoint, but his use of the term “SAS”. This is more of a media than a military convention. The more common labels are SASR or ASAS. However he may have been using the more common usage.
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For Whom the (School) Bell Tolls
by George Crones
A reply to Classroom struggle: school’s out for peace, unity and social justice by Lauren Carroll Harris in Thursday’s Herald (smh).
One thing I particularly admire about Webdiary is the level of informed argument that has taken place over the last few months about the situation in Iraq and the broader issue of the War on Terrorism. I have tried to maintain an open mind about both sides of the argument and am still in the process of making a decision as to which side I support.
I have generally refrained from making comments (other than supplying a few links of interest over the last week or so). However having read the opinion piece by Lauren Harris I felt it needed to be challenged on several of its points however. This is not a criticism of the anti-war position (which I am still deciding about) but rather a criticism of the demonstration and its “coverage” in Lauren’s article. If only Lauren had been reading Web Diary perhaps she would have done her position more justice!
I have included her text in bold italics, with my comments following.
March 5 was a historic day.
Yes it was. On March 5 in 1956 the United States Supreme Court upheld a ban on racist segregation in universities and schools. Now that is something worth celebrating.
Winston Churchill gave his Iron Curtain speech on March 5 in 1946. It is also the day that Joseph Stalin died in 1953 after 29 years in power. Its ironic that 50 years after his death, we witness a demonstration that effectively supports the continuation of another dictator.
Something tells me that March 5 will be better remembered for important events like this rather than a relatively small group of students missing an afternoons school.
It was the beginning of an international youth movement against war on Iraq.
Perhaps that is something better judged by history, but it certainly looks like it is going to be a short movement (if the movement exists at all). It might have been better for the organisers to set the movement up as against all wars that way at least they have something to do when the war in Iraq (if it happens) is over. I’m betting that the movement won’t last as it looks set to be a short war.
High school students, university students and other young people united to take a message loud and clear to world leaders: there is a better solution to this conflict, and we’re prepared to fight for it.
So the better solution is something worth fighting for? Hmmm.
The slogan? Books not bombs.
I am sure that world leaders – if they are even aware at all that a student protest occurred – are not going to be swayed by simplistic slogans such as this. I know I would be convinced if I saw someone carrying a piece of cardboard with a rhyming slogan written on it, but unfortunately I am not a world leader.
Students feel that the money which will be spent on the military would be better spent on upgrading educational facilities, public housing and hospitals. The Howard Government is unwilling to say just how much money will be devoted to the war, but it is sure to be in the billions. In comparison, $1.5 billion could restore public education funding to pre-1990 levels, or increase the number of available child care places by 10 times.
Ideally governments would have enough money for everybody to be kept happy. Governments make decisions about allocation of resources every single day and by their very nature some of those decisions could be wasteful. Depending on who you are and what you believe in you are obviously going to support some of these decisions and oppose others. Clearly, students have an interest in supporting increased funding for education.
Opposing the war in Iraq for the reason that it is going to cost money doesnt seem to be a particularly defensible position – at least morally – in light of this. Taking this argument to its extreme, then we probably shouldn’t have wasted money on East Timor either. Funnily enough I can’t recall too many people complaining about how much that cost us (or is still costing us for that matter).
History has unfortunately very rarely been without conflict of some kind. Whilst I am all for an end to military conflict, it is not particularly realistic and is different to saying that we don’t need a defence force. Whilst there are totalitarian regimes and dictators, we need the military. Whilst there needs to be peacekeeping forces sent around the world, there needs to be someone to send.
Ideally there won’t be a war. Saddam might voluntarily disarm, step down and go into exile, or he might be deposed by his own people. However if a war does eventuate and if we participate in it – a decision which John Howard already seems to have made without having the integrity to be upfront to the Australian people about it – then it would be more appropriate to estimate the costs after the event and not before.
The tactic? To encourage students to leave their classrooms, a walkout to show their opposition to Australian involvement in war on Iraq, UN sanctioned or not.
Students who are marching for or against something when the alternative is missing school are not particularly convincing. I would have been more convinced of their commitment to the cause if the protest had been on a weekend and they had to wear uniforms. Then at least you would know they were giving their own time up rather than just missing class.
As it is, taking an afternoon off from class to go wander through the city and wade in Hyde Park Fountain doesn’t strike me as showing opposition to anything but school. I will be following the NSW Education Department’s actions against those who missed school with some interest.
One thing that is confusing (and this is the case with most of the anti-war protests) is what everyone involved actually stands for. Thankfully Lauren has cleared things up nicely for me. Apparently, the protest was not actually about stopping the war in Iraq. Lauren and her fellow protesters have no problem with the US and the UK attacking Iraq (with or without sanction) – they just don’t want Australia to be involved. I would have respected the protest more if it had actually took a stance against the war, rather than just saying that they are happy for others to do our dirty work for us.
The reason for the protest? War is not the answer to terrorism…
Armed conflict by itself is definitely not the answer to terrorism. However, any war on terrorism is going to include conflict. If it were the only part then the war would be doomed to fail. To me fighting terrorism also means giving people access to things like education, health, welfare and basic freedoms – in other words winning the peace as well. If this happens then terrorist leaders will find it much harder to recruit people willing to kill and/or die for their causes in future.
(Incidentally, having access to these freedoms implies living in a democracy, which means that somehow or other regimes like that the one in Iraq have to be toppled.)
So far we have heard precious little about these things from George W Bush, which I find worrying. America has been good at resolving the military aspects quite quickly (and Iraq will probably be no different), but it is too soon to see how it does on everything else.
It would have been easier to accept that post-war Iraq would have a successful transition to democracy if the situation in Afghanistan was more settled by now (although I acknowledge that there are clear differences between the essentially secular regime of Saddam and that of the Taliban which make the situation harder to compare).
…and will only result in the senseless deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis. Aid agencies, including Oxfam, estimate that 80 per cent of war casualties will be civilians. Many students carried handmade banners and placards with slogans like “No war for oil – not in my name” and “How many lives for a gallon of oil?”
There are innocent deaths all around the world every day, which is a terrible tragedy. This is something definitely worth fighting to prevent, and I am looking forward to the day when we have a wars on hunger, poverty, illiteracy and disease, rather than just a war on terror.
Whilst I don’t accept that there will be hundreds of thousands of casualties as a result of the war, I can accept that there will be some innocent civilians who are going to lose their life. I could even accept that the Iraqi soldiers are not exactly willing participants but have no choice in the matter given that they serve a dictator – they too could be seen as innocents (in the sense that any death diminishes us).
If the war in Iraq leads to the end of Saddam’s regime and the beginnings of a democracy then the Iraqi people will be much better off. Aside from an end to his brutality, a successful war (if there ever is such a thing) will also mean an end to UN Sanctions.
From what I can gather, since beginning after the previous Gulf War, the UN Sanctions have directly led to the deaths of between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Iraqis. Ending the sanctions means that these senseless deaths can hopefully be stopped. To me that is reason enough to go in and end Saddams regime. The UN has a lot of blood on its hands and it is time it started to make amends.
The students who attended were also protesting against other injustices and drawing links with other social issues. One speaker pointed out that refugees are the logical consequence of war, and that millions of Iraqis will be displaced. Another highlighted the plight of Iraqi women, questioning whether much will differ for them after a regime change.
Were the organisers of the protest clear and upfront to those who participated in the protest about what they were actually marching for? So far it has been about no Australian involvement irrespective of what anyone else does; war not being an answer to terrorism; innocent deaths in Iraq; refugees; and the plight or Iraqi women.
Some of these ideas seem to be contradictory. Not that a protest has to be about one thing only, but it should at least be consistent and people involved should know and agree about what they are marching for or against.
The mood? Passionate, exuberant, political and angry. Ten thousand young people filled Sydney with colour, music and chants as they marched from Town Hall to Hyde Park.
Ho hum. I have often wondered about the accuracy of crowd numbers at protests or events. I guess it is only natural for organisers to want their event to be seen as successful and, in the case of protests, this generally means bumping up the numbers who were present.
Yesterdays SMH reports that more than 3000 students mounted a rowdy protest, which I suspect is closer to the truth than the 10,000 suggested by Lauren. Not that that is unimpressive. Having 3000 students marching for something (assuming they know what it is) is worth taking note of.
Don’t belittle the importance of what you do by assuming that everyone will write you off if there aren’t huge crowds. (Having seen the number of people in attendance, it was impressive enough as is).
The demonstrators felt ignored and that their only choice was to vote with their feet by walking out of school and sending the urgent message: we have a war to stop.
So now the protest was about stopping the looming war on Iraq? I should have added that to the list above.
Many students remarked to me during the day that they had never seen anything like it. One University of Sydney student put it this way: “There are two superpowers in the world today – the US and the global anti-war movement.”
Well whilst the US is concerned with Iraq, perhaps the other superpower (*ahem*) could take care of North Korea for the rest of us.
The walkouts were likened to the mass moratoria against the Vietnam War in the 60s and 70s during a period of mass youth radicalisation. In short, the protest was an empowering celebration of unity in the face of international warmongering and a climate of increasing fear and hatred.
Well at least the “youth of today” feel empowered.
It is becoming clearer and clearer that the vast majority of young people don’t support this war. But the demonstrations on March 5 were only the tip of the iceberg of the mass anti-war sentiment that exists among our youth.
Not everyone supports the war, but that is a long way from suggesting that the vast majority don’t. If you arent careful, people will start to think you sound like a politician when you make that kind of claim. Next you will be saying that you have a mandate.
Since the start of the year, anti-war groups on high schools have blossomed, and more students have started to actively campaign in their schools against war. And these young people have the support of much of the broader community too. In the run-up to the demonstration, rally organisers received calls from parents who wanted to help their sons and daughters publicise the walkout by distributing leaflets and posters. Furthermore, some P&C Associations even encouraged students to join the demonstration.
Ah, I guess that is the mandate. I apologise for likening you to a politician when you clearly have the support of the people on this matter.
But the real question is: what are the next steps for the youth anti-war movement? In a move that contrasted sharply with the Australian Government’s commitment to war, despite overwhelming popular opposition to it, a proposal was put to the crowd as to whether another walkout should be called for 1pm, March 26 at Hyde Park.
Hmm, realising it isn’t that hard to get time off school, you then decided you want more time off?
Students voted enthusiastically and unanimously to protest again, and to take the campaign against war and racism back to their schools too. We hope that next time we are joined by other sectors of the anti-war movement – trade unions, teachers, parents, community figureheads and others.
I guess it is only fair that if students get time off everyone else should as well.
The demonstrations confirmed two things. This war is a cutting-edge issue in politics today and John Howard has failed to convince the majority of the population that Australia should be involved.
The demonstrations confirm nothing other than that there was a demonstration. Anything beyond that and you start to get into murky waters. Given that you can’t even decide what the protest was about, perhaps you should hold off claiming that you represent the majority of the population of Australia.
There is no democracy in this country until Howard submits to the will of the majority.
One of the wonderful things about living in a country like Australia is the fact that we live in a democracy unlike Iraqi. In a democracy you are allowed to express differing viewpoints to those held by the government of the day and you don’t have to worry about you or your family being taken away and tortured or shot unlike Iraqi.
If you disagree with John Howard (as many do) then feel free to protest and feel free to vote him out at the next election – unlike Iraq, John Howard doesn’t have 100% of voters in his country supporting him.
If you are looking for a pithy ending to your opinion piece then please don’t insult our intelligence and suggest that we don’t have a democracy in this country. Perhaps if you tried the alternative you might be better positioned to realise the difference.