|
||
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
||
|
|
Issue No. 171 | 21 March 2003 |
|
||
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Shock and Awe
Poetry: If I Were a Rich Man Interview: League of Nations Industrial: 20/20 Hindsight Organising: On The Buses Unions: National Focus History: The Banner Room International: The Slaughter Continues Legal: A Legal Case For War? Culture: Singing For The People Review: The Hours Poetry: I Wanna Bomb Saddam Satire: Diuretic Makes Warne's Excuses Look Thin
The Soapbox The Locker Room Guest Report Seduction Bosswatch
 I Miss UnionsViva Le Imperialists!The First CasualtyRighteous indignationDead RightCalling All LibsIf George W Bush was an Australian Citizen...
|
|
|
Letters to the Editor Viva Le Imperialists!
The Prime Minister's address to the nation was really an argument for Australia to join the anglo-imperialist club.
The Prime Minister in his address to the nation couched the justification for invading Iraq in terms of disarmament and humanitarianism.
His arguments sound unconvincing because they are not the real reasons. But the PM cannot say that Australia's imperialist interests are tied to the victory of US imperialism round the world. He cannot say it is in the interests of Australian capitalism to join the anglo-imperialist club. So he uses a cloak for his arguments.
Let's examine those arguments.
John Howard says he is concerned for the Iraqi people. If that is the case, why does he lock up people fleeing Saddam's regime? Mr Howard does seem to have had a Pauline conversion on the road to Baghdad. I can for example find no previous references in the 1980s and early 1990s (when Saddam was killing millions as the agent of US interests in the region) by the PM to this apparently newfound concern.
The Prime Minister asserts that Iraq is a rogue state. He does not explain what criteria there are for determining what is a rogue state, or who makes the decision. This is deliberate. It enables the PM to determine a rogue state to be whatever he wants it to be. Normally that will be what the US wants it to be.
The independent application of objective criteria (e.g. a country that consistently defied the UN) might result in "friendly" pro-western dictatorships or even quasi-democracies being labelled a rogue. Israel comes to mind as one possible candidate.
So does Pakistan. A military dictator with nuclear weapons rules that country. Why is Pakistan not a rogue state? Because it is, as the Prime Minister pointed out, our reliable ally in the war on terror. Pakistan of course, with US help, created the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
The logic appears to be that rogue states who are our allies are not rogue states. Go figure.
There is of course one state with weapons of mass destruction which has used them. By any objective criteria the US is a rogue state. That of course doesn't sit too well with the anglo-imperialist club which Howard is signing us up to. So it is the PM who will decide what is a rogue state. That cuts out any nasty implications for our allies.
Of course, Iraq is not the only George Bush identified rogue state. In his axis of evil speech Bush fingered Iran and North Korea as rogue states. Mr Howard might like to tell us if the 250,000 western troops in Iraq will, after they destroy that country and kill tens of thousands of Iraqis, then threaten Iran?
This is not some minor debating point. Howard believes that Australian imperialism is best served by attaching itself to a victorious US imperialism. US imperialism will need to subjugate many states - some of them rogue, some of them not. Bush is about to embark on a permanent war and Howard is joining him. The next target, if North Korea is sorted out, will be Iran.
So Mr Howard, will Australian troops remain in the region to threaten Iran?
The difference in treatment between Iraq and North Korea is also enlightening. The Australian Government argues that the solution to the problem that is North Korea should be arrived at by negotiation. Indeed Australia has been pushing for the US to enter into direct one on one negotiations with North Korea, something the US has so far been reluctant to do.
Rogue states with nuclear weapons are treated to more diplomatic treatment. Iran is learning that lesson.
The Prime Minister argues we must take Iraq's chemical and biological weapons from it. Why? Because it has used them? But that was when Iraq was our ally, and when we supplied the materiel for Saddam. Then we ignored his use of chemical and biological weapons. Governments in the West wanted Iraq to draw with the Iranians. So the lesson from this is that presumably other states can use these weapons if they do so in support of US geo-political interests.
A rational examination of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons would look at the one country which has used or threatened to use all three - the US. Apparently close allies cannot be rogue states.
We ignored Saddam's suppression of his own people after the Gulf War when they rose up against him because we feared the Iraqi people more than the dictator. That is the pointer to the democracy the US will impose on Iraqis after the coming slaughter. It will be a democracy that denies the Kurds and the Shiites any real say in the country because that would be counter to US interests in the region. The US will allow the Turks to enter Northern Iraq and crush the Kurds. American troops may well have to do the job themselves against the Shiites.
Howard is now arguing that rogue states could arm terrorist groups. A simple look at the history of US intervention in South America (to pick one example) would find America guilty of that crime. Apparently close allies cannot be rogue states.
In any event there is no evidence rogue states would arm terrorist groups. Saddam would have been annihilated years ago if he had supplied such weapons to Al-Qaeda or any other group. A real danger is America or its close allies (such as Pakistan) deciding it is in their strategic interests to arm and supply certain groups. Those groups when they come to power may not be reliable allies, as the Taliban shows.
The US determination to invade Iraq is creating an alternative imperialist bloc centred on Germany and France and possibly including China. This is because the war on Iraq is, among other things, about containing Europe and China as economic threats to the US. John Howard has joined us to the US bloc.
The anti-US bloc will begin to build its military stocks to eventually challenge US hegemony around the world. The First World War shows the horror of imperialist competition as it plays itself out militarily.
More immediately invading Iraq may undermine some of the pro-US dictatorships in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia. It could hasten the delivery of that country to the anti-western Islamists rather than the ambivalent western feudal fundamentalists who presently rule the country.
Invading Iraq will create an army of young wannabe terrorists across the region. This all means that it is the invasion of Iraq which is more likely to result in more anti-US states who will arm what they regard as freedom fighters against Western imperialism.
A more rational approach to dealing with terrorism would be to undertake a war on poverty. The incredible amount of arms spending the world, but in particular the US, undertakes could be re-directed to feed, clothe and house the world adequately. Removing poverty is a pre-condition for justice.
Unfortunately a war on poverty is not profitable for US imperialism.
Then there is Palestine. Bush has announced he will release a roadmap for peace when the Palestinians do his bidding and create an alternative focus of power to Arafat. This in reality means a more compliant Palestinian politician.
Given past experience and the timing of this announcement as part of the build up to invading Iraq, the promised roadmap looks to be a subterfuge which will disappear after the killing in Iraq has finished. Even if it does not, how does creating a Palestinian Bantustan satisfy the Palestinian people in their cry for freedom and justice? Any two state solution which does not address the fundamental problem - the dispossession of the Palestinian people - is doomed to failure.
The only solution must be to allow Palestinians to return to Palestine, a democratic and secular Palestine where Jews and Arabs can live in peace. The philosophy of Zionism cannot and will not allow that.
Mr Howard made much of a doctrine which he did not name - pre-emption. Effectively he defended the right of states like the US to attack first to defend themselves against rogue states. This is a dangerous doctrine. Where do we draw the limits? Is it only some states which have the right of pre-emption? Or do all states have that right?
If all states have that right then is Iraq not justified in attacking those countries which presently threaten it? Could North Korea not decide it is in its interests to launch a pre-emptive strike against the US, or Japan, or South Korea?
What Howard really means of course is that the anglo-imperialist club has the right of pre-emption but no one else.
Even the example John Howard cites - of Pearl Harbour - is an illustration of pre-emption. The Japanese decided that the tardy Americans would eventually enter the war on the side of the British Empire. So they decided to pre-empt US attacks by destroying the US navy.
Finally, there is this nonsense about weapons of mass destruction. Apparently these are good things when Christian fundamentalists who won a rigged election have them and threaten to use them but bad when one secular but brutal Arab regime doesn't have them but might eventually if only the crippling UN blockade which has destroyed much of the country is lifted. The anglo-imperialist club and some of its allies can have weapons of mass destruction but not anyone else.
Long live the anglo-imperialist club. Leonie Bronstein
|
| Search All Issues | Latest Issue | Previous Issues | Print Latest Issue |
|
© 1999-2002 Workers Online 
|
|
