Parliament took some time out from the petrol debate yesterday — although, toward the end, even the Opposition chucked it in and began asking about something else. Question time was preceded by statements from Rudd and Nelson on the Iraq withdrawal.
Rudd commendably took the opportunity to get stuck into the previous Government over its participation in the attack on Iraq. This should never be glossed over or forgotten — the Coalition took a considered decision to commit Australian troops to an illegal, immoral and, as it has turned out, plain stupid attack on Iraq, and Simon Crean, who was Opposition Leader at the time, copped plenty for leading Labor in opposing it.
Five years and literally uncounted tens of thousands of Iraqi dead later, a Labor Government is withdrawing our troops and the best the Coalition can do is mumble about the job not being done.
Not that it’s entirely clear where the Opposition stands. Quite apart from John Howard, who must be easily confused these days if he is “baffled” by the withdrawal, Brendan Nelson has complained that, while he agrees with the decision, Kevin Rudd shouldn’t have made it when he did.
Defence spokesman Nick Minchin wants us to stay. Peter Dutton says he supports Howard’s “baffled” comments. Don Randall says the job isn’t finished. And Dennis Jensen is still trotting out the “staying the course” rhetoric we so enjoyed back in 2003.
Nelson spoke in reply to Rudd, again not using notes, which is a bit of a Nelson speciality, and quite impressive. I suspect a number of us up above in the gallery were hoping Emo Man would break out, but we only got a quick cameo while he was discussing the Kurds.
More impressively, however, Nelson did what only Dick Cheney has so far been willing to do — link the war on Iraq to September 11, talking at length about “the heinous events of 11 September 2001” and how it explained the need to remove Saddam Hussein (and can everyone in public life please look up how to pronounce “heinous”, because none of you ever do. If in doubt, watch the end of Kentucky Fried Movie for an excellent discussion of its pronunciation).
Don’t dismiss Nelson’s link out of hand. This is the bloke, after all, who as Defence Minister in the previous Government declared that Australia should stay in Iraq because of its oil.
Which, at the very least, gives the lie to the Government’s claims that the Coalition did nothing about oil prices during its time in office. On the contrary, it actually went to the trouble of joining in a war over oil. It’s just that it was a miserable failure.
The Americans have also jacked up about Rudd’s attack.
“We acted on the intelligence that we had,” said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. “No one else in the world, no other government, had different information and so we acted based on what was the threat that was presented to us.”
Sadly, Ms Perino’s statements are undercut by one of her predecessors, Scott McClellan, whose What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception exposes the reliance on propaganda and deception that was at the centre of the Bush Administration’s determination to embark on what McClellan calls “an unnecessary war.”
What a pity senior figures from the Howard years don’t show some of McClellan’s honesty.
Great one John, the CIA had NOTHING to do with the Baathists coming to power (and executing literally thousands of lefties at the same time) in 1963 and we know this because YOU SAY SO. Lovely to hear that historians and international affairs specialits have been wrong about this detail for the last 45 years. History is wonderful when you make it up, isn’t it?
John James, while Bernard’s beaten me to the punch here, your complaints about the Left and how it thought about things 40 years ago is one of the most selective and biased comments I’ve ever seen by you on these pages. Your reasons for supporting regime change in Iraq are the obvious case. Your many reasons why Saddam was an evil bastard are all correct, but none of them were close to applying at the time the US invaded this decade. Saddam was rendered harmless by Gulf War I, having been built up by the US for decades prior to that. I have no doubt that the reasons the US were convinced that he had WMD were that they knew precisely what they’d given him in the 80’s, when he was far more evil yet still a good mate of the Reagan administration. Afghansistan is another example of a monster the US built because it was expedient for them to do so. Your refusal to acknowledge these fundamental details shows that you’re far more interested in winning a debate than being factually accurate.
You know Dave, I’ve heard the CIA brought down Gough Whitlam. Tell me you’re not going to advance that conspiracy theory as well. The Labor Left believe it. Nothing about Gough’s incompetence! Those ‘bloody Americans! Thank God, guys like you are not fashionig our foreign policy or that of the United States. Referring to Barack Obama’s determination to ‘dialogue ” with the Iranian president ( ? another Amercian Creation Dave? ) Senator John McCain referred to the Iranaian president as ” a Holocaust denier who wants to start another Holocaust”. The Left live in a dream world but sadly your foolishness will cost the lives of many brave individuals.
Dave and Bernard, accusing the Americans of “creating” Saddam because if assistance given to him at some stage is like accusing the Americans of creating Stalin because of assistance given to him at one stage. The proposition is absurd, though no doubt someone on the Left will advance it seriously.
John James is clearly determined to have the final say here, and I won’t keep pointing out any further historical innacuracies he wants to be responsible for, other than to rebut his most recent contibution. The US has, at times, defended democracy honourably. Its involvement in WWII against Japan is a clear case in point, and I thank the US for her assistance to Australia in that conflict. We’d have been buggered otherwise, no argument. But the US has also in more recent times been involved in aiding coups against democratically elected governments, contrary to John’s statements. The CIA backed overthrow of the democratically elected Allende government in Chile, for example, was purely expedient and contradictory to the principles of democracy. No honourable intention at all. Other CIA involvements such as saw Baathists come to power in Iraq occurred at the expense of popular governments (albeit not democratically elected ones). Discussion of various other events in other countries is at:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_state_terrorism_by_the_United_States
John, my final word is to say that while I am of the Left, I regard myself as a pragmatist more than as an idealogue. I have no probs with you being a conservative who strongly supports the US, but your idealogical blinkers draw you into errors which do your arguements no favours. The US is a great country in many ways, but it is not pure and we don’t make the world a better place by pretending otherwise. I’ve enjoyed this exchange, and wish you well.