Andrea took this particular letter-writer in the Sydney Morning Herald for a bit of a fisking, but I feel obliged to throw my two cents in, too.
“HM” begins:
Not only should Australia not be part of any war with Iraq, no one should be involved in the ultra-conservative US led drive to control the world.
That’s right. The US wants to conquer the world. Always has. I mean, look at all the countries we’ve taken over in the last fifty years or so. Look at all the new territory we’ve added to our country. Look at all the states we’ve absorbed. Look at all the …
Sure, Saddam is nasty. So what?
So noted by the Kurdish people.
There are dozens of distasteful dictator types out there (I’m sure GWB qualifies).
Yeah, ’cause just last week, GWB ordered the countryside peppered with statues and murals of himself, not to mention fabulous palaces, and paid for it by redirecting food aid from our starving children. Oh, and that Olympic Committee that his daughter runs? It’s been torturing athletes who lose, and torturing ones who get too popular, too.
And I’m sure it’s a comfort to dictator Bush that he doesn’t have to worry about those pesky elections he abolished, or those political critics he’s sent off to the dungeon, or those annoying newspapers he’s shut down, or …
(Does HM really have no preference as to whether he’d prefer to live in a Dubya regime or a Saddam regime? Really? Yeesh.)
Does that mean we have to attack all of them? Anyone who thought so would soon be carted off the the asylum.
Obviously HM has read the Secret Attack Plan on All Distasteful Dictators documents that were leaked from the White House.
(Does it strike anyone as odd that Saddam is merely noted here as “nasty” and “distasteful”? Do you think the people of Kurdistan, or the Marsh People/Shi’ites of the south, or the citizens of Kuwait would use the word “distasteful” to describe him?)
Ask yourself, apart from buying Australian crops, what has Iraq ever done to Australia? Hmm?
I’ll bet HM has a great time watching other people being mugged.
Tell you what, HM, next time someone — oh, say, the Japanese — are threatening Australia, the US will measure its response only based on the damage done to us, not the threat to you. You can be on your own. That’s the spirit of international community you seem to be in favor of.
The only reason that the coalition is keen on starting this war is fear.
I thought it was the US Conquest of the World. Get your story straight, HM — is it greed, or is it fear?
And what, exactly, is wrong with fear of what Saddam will do in the future?
The Americans are scared sh*tless that an Islamic country like (choose one) might actually get some real power (ie nuclear power) and change the staus quo.
First off, isn’t Pakistan an Islamic country?
Secondly, hasn’t much of the criticism of the US here been that invading Iraq might upset the status quo?
Thirdly, do you think the status quo would be improved, or degraded, if, say, Iraq became a nuclear power?
Finally, Iraq’s status as an Islamic nation may, in general, be accurate, but the Iraqi regime only invokes Allah when it’s looking for good press among its Arab and Persian neighbors. The socialist/autocratic Baath party is anything but aligned with Islam, and the treatment of the Shi’ite Muslims in the south is as good an indicator of that as any. Heck, you could as easily have said the US didn’t want the Soviet Union to get the A-bomb because it was a Christian nation.
For many years, the US and UK other hangers on, like Australia, have enjoyed manipulating the rest of the world into ‘trade’ that is heavily balanced in ‘our’ favour.
Yeah, thank heavens other countries aren’t into that “trade” thing, or let it influence their foreign policies. Let’s abolish trade, the tool of the ultra-conservative conquerors from the US!
Imagine how the US, et al, would respond if some piss poor third world country decided that enough was enough. That’s right ‘Dad’, they’d kick their butt all over the playground.
That’s right — we force people to trade with us at gun-point. “Buy these Nikes made in China, or else we’ll plant a nuke up your ass!” That’s the American Spirit!
Anyone who thinks that war is a good idea should stop to think of the human cost. Not only will many civilains die, Australian soldiers could, very possibly, come home dead.
What? People might die? War might not be a good thing? These — these concepts are strange to me! I’ve — I’ve never considered the possible cost of lives in a war! I’ve never thought of the devastation that war can bring!
Now, can anyone tell me why that is acceptable? John Howard cannot. Neither can Bush or Blair. War is not acceptable in any form.
Which is why you’re speaking Japanese now, rather than English.
Forget a UN sanctioned war. If the UN inspectors find no reason to justify a breach of the resolutions, the US will make some up and the UN will capitulate.
So why should the US bother seeking a UN resolution, if they’re all such a bunch of push-overs anyway?
YOU need to stand up and make your voice heard. No War.
Speak louder. I don’t think Saddam — the invader of two countries so far, the developer of various weapons of mass destruction, and the supporter of terrorist organizations all over the Middle East — can hear you.
Well, just one point — the Japanese lacked the ability to actually invade Australia. They lacked the lift ability, which is why the US was never threatened as well. It was just impossible.
Not that folks at the time were wholly aware of that fact.
Well, if you’re trying to convince an Australian to your point of view, this is not the way to go about it. While the letter writer seems a little extreme in his viewpoint, and not very coherent in expressing it, the views and sentiments expressed are not those of an isolated nut. There is a general perception that the US wants to control more of the world. Much of the Bush rhetoric suggests that if you don’t do things the American way (say, because you’re not American, but rather Australian), then you’re ultimately some enemy of the US. Now this doesn’t mean that people think that individual Americans have some great desire to invade. Nor that it is in fact the case. But this is the perception that you’re dealing with. So simply telling people who feel that way that they’re wrong and need to come around to the US way of thinking is not actually going to achieve that aim.
The trade issue is more complex that it seems, because it needs to be considered in the local context. Australian governments have, for the last decade or so, had a policy in favour of free trade. They’ve taken the view that the best way to create a level playing field is to start at home. Australia derives a lot of its income from exports, and very large amounts of these exports go to the US. And we get screwed because of subsidies. Successive Australian governments have tried to get a free trade agreement with the US, and failed, because cutting subsidies to agriculture and the steel industy would have too much political fallout to be worth it for the US. So Australian governments keep sucking up to the US (see the current support of the US taking military action against Iraq by Prime Minster Howard when a recent poll showed that over 60% of the population was opposed to Australia being involved in any such action without UN sanction).
Suggesting that Australia owes the US for ‘saving’ it from the Japanese is particularly counter-productive. Much of the Australian national identity is tied up in the history of our involvement in various wars. The cheeky, plucky, courageous Digger is a huge part of the mythology of the national identity, as is the ANZAC spirit. Making remarks about the martial prowess of Australia is possibly the fastest way of getting most Australian offside, and unlikely to listen to the rest of your argument.
And, as Scott says, the whole ‘the US saved Australia’s bacon in WW2’ point is a bit shaky anyway. Significant numbers of US troops in the Pacific theater were based out of Australia, as was much of the command structure. If the US hadn’t been able to do this, it would have made things a lot trickier for the US, and probably extended the war, and cost many more lives. In addition, some crucial crypto work was done in Australia, by Australians, which had a huge impact on the course of events. So things are not as cut and dried as many Americans often claim. Which is understandable, because everyone tends to learn about their own history first, before other peoples.
Which leads into another reason why this point is particularly unpersuasive to the average Australian. There were lots of US troops stationed in Australia, while most of the Australian troops were off fighting (and, in the popular perception, dying). The US troops better paid, and there was a certain amount of jealousy about them dating Australian girls while the Australian troops where off fighting, leading to the description of US troops as Over-sexed, Over-paid, and Over here. They were not overwhelmingly popular (through circumstance, rather than any fault of the troops in general), and a certain amount of this resentment carries through.
This all assumes that you’re interested in persuading people to your point of view, rather than an intellectual exercise in showing why you think they are wrong. It doesn’t matter what your facts are, if you can’t present them to people so that they’ll listen.
Hopefully this will help you understand some of where the letter writer is coming from, and why he holds some of the views he does, even though you might disagree with them. This may also help you take some constructive steps to actually changing an opinion, rather than just complaining about it. It’s always nice to do something constructive where possible.
Thanks for the thought-provoking post, and also thanks to Miss Claire for her counterpoint. This is good stuff and some of the best I’ve read in a long time.
Claire, far be it from me to question Australia’s martial prowess, and if I gave that impession, I apologize. My critique of HM was not that Australia could not fight in WWII (though it was concerned enough about the Japanese to pull back a number of their troops from the North African theater), nor that the Aussies “owe” the US in particular, but the principle in general that the only time one should get involved is when one is threatened directly. If Australia were not directly threatened by the Japanese in the 40s, should they have stayed on the sidelines during the ensuing conflict? Is the only question that should be asked “What has Iraq ever done to Australia?”
Certainly Australia provided an important forward staging area for US troops, aircraft, and war efforts in the Pacific. Just as certainly, the Australians were glad that the US was willing to be there, as they waited for their own troops to pull back from Egypt. And they were also pleased when the Battle of the Coral Sea was fought, at least in part, to keep the Japanese from taking Port Moresby, which would have given them a base that could directly attack Australia. Whether or not the Japanese could or would have directly attacked Australia was not at all clear at the time, and, in fact, the Japanese Imperial Navy was in favor of such a venture.
My point is, if Iraq is a threat to anyone else, especially if it is seeking to be a member of the nuclear club, then it is a threat to everyone else, including Australia, and especially to the extent that Australia is dependent on trade.
Offhandedly painting the US efforts in Iraq as an attempted power-grab or conquest by an American dictator is not only not “persuasive” (those who are inclined to believe it already do, those who are not are just going to see it as silly rhetoric), it misses the point.
As to my original intent in writing, it was not, in fact, to persuade other Australians per se — let alone HM — of the best course of action. It was less to build a case than to deflate what I saw, and see, as a seriously weak set of arguments, yet one that I hear from any number of people in the US, too (sans some, though not all, of the America-bashing).
You are right, though, in it being better to constructively attempt to persuade rather than simply attempting to tear down, and I stand corrected in that.
Maybe the Australians shouldn’t get involved. They weren’t attacked, we were. Sure, Bali hurt and they can expect more of the same. Australia is another example of a Satanic (OK, Shaitanic) non-sharia territory in the House of War where women run around shamelessly un-burqa’d, educated and unchaperoned, and corrupt Muslim clerics don’t run everything.
We were attacked. Unfortunately, the attackers weren’t representatives of some particular state that we could smash to prevent further mass killings of Americans. They’re a mob of religious fanatics spread out over a third of the planet. We still need to smash them unless we want to wait around for a bio, chemical or nuke attack on our people. We might not have to wait too long, either, as all three kinds of weapons get easier to make every year and a number of states are willing to sell the plans and parts to anyone at all.
Consider the payback for a big smallpox, poison or nuke attack on an American city. Nukes will fly. Maybe lots of them. An easy list would be every major city in every country where people danced in the streets after 9-11 — except for Egypt where one in the Aswan High Dam ought to do the trick all by itself. I’d rather avoid that.
The French and German solution is to do nothing but talk and hope for the best. It worked so well in the former Yugoslavia after all. And Slobodan wasn’t a religious fanatic, just an opportunistic sociopath.
The Australian solution is, what? For us to stop making movies, music, books and magazines, put our women into burqas and convert to Islam? You go first. Rely on the UN? The same UN that just voted Libya into the chairmanship of the Human Rights Commission? The Australian people truly feel they can rely on that?
Our solution is to chase Osama and the Taliban out of Afghanistan, give the Pakistanis a hint of what they’re in for if their nukes get used on us, and take out WMDs-R-Us wannabe Iraq. From there we can deal with the Wahhabi fanatics who spread the Islamoterrorist faith all over the Muslim world and maybe help the Iranians deal with their entrenched kleptocracy of mullahs. (Not that this is something our government comes right out and says, officially. But this is what ‘war on terrorism’ means as a practical matter.) After that, we’ll see.
Now as to our allies. A real ally can shoot, and will shoot at your enemies. An ally that can’t shoot is a dependent or a parasite. If you won’t shoot at our enemies you are either a neutral or an enemy. France isn’t an ally and only ever was, in living memory, because we had enemies in common. Germany can’t shoot (outside of Germany) and won’t help us. Britain is still an ally. Canada is. Kuwait tries it’s best; it has good reason to. You tell us most Australians no longer wish to be allies, that you want to be neutrals. That’s your choice. Sad, but times change. Be well. Presumably the Brits and Canadians will still back you up when you need allies.
Randy
Canada is becoming less and less of ans Ally by the day. The upset over us bombing their troops six different time (five duds, one non-dud) in Afghanistan, and the fact that several times we have deported naturalized canandian citizens to middle eastern countries. Along with other arrests of their citizens since 9/11.
Dave – This is great reading. Very well thought out.
Scott – Japan DID have the capabilities. They captured and held U.S. lands in the Allution islands of Alaska.
Claire – While I was TDY in Australia (while in the US Air Force) I noticed that the merchants were only to happy to take my money. The women that I conversed with didn’t appear to have any animosity towards me for being from the US. The older gents that I enjoyed a beer or two with didn’t seem to mind me being there. When they talked about serving in some god forsaken country, it didn’t seem that they cared WHERE the guy next to them was from.
Adam, from what I have read, review of the Japanese documents captured after the war indicated that while the Imperial Navy wanted to attack and invade Australia, lest it become a major base for operations against them (as it turned out), the Imperial Army did not feel it could spread itself any further in support of such an operation, which would have been far more massive an undertaking than attacking various islands, especially the Aleutians.
That having been said, I don’t think you would have found many Aussies (or Americans) in 1941ff. who thought that Australia was safe from Japanese attack or invasion.
On the attitude of Aussies during the War to US forces stationed there, I’ve certainly heard similar tales of the reaction in the UK to US servicefolk stationed there (“Over-sexed, Over-paid, and Over here”). On the other hand, my father’s impression when he was in the US Navy in the late 50s and visited Australia was much like yours, Adam.
Canada may be coming around.