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May 29, 2003
Howard's Way
Howard's reason for going to war with Iraq was that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. That reason looks thinner and thinner these days. In fact it looks downright misleading as the US finds it ever more difficult to find evidence of stockpiled Iraq WMD.
We now hear that Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, arguing that Iraq may very well have destroyed its weapons of mass destruction before the US invasion.. The logic gets ever more bizarre. There is a discussion here
Howard realised that the WMD argument for war was pretty thin around May, and so he shifted his justification for going to war. Liberation of an oppressed people from a brutal dictator then became the reason. All the war bloggers and journalists dutifully followed suit, swallowed the retrospective rationale without gulping, and started obediently attacking the Left for supporting a brutal dictatorship.
According to these media platoons only the right stood for freedom. The left now stood for totalitarianism. It was a very old line pulled from the Cold War archives and recycled without shame or embarrasment. All the arguments about Australia's national interest were avoided.
Remember all that? It was just before, and around the time, that the troops returned safely and everybody rejoiced in the great victory. Howard was vindicated, yet again. The master politician with the deft touch.
So the legal basis for war is now one in which a sovereign country can be invaded by Australia to save an oppressed people.
So lets invade Indonesia and set the people of Aceh and West Papua free. They are oppressed.
I'm only joking. I know that Canberra won't even put pressure on Jarkata. It wil pretend that nothing much is happening. Canberra will return to accepting the national sovereignty argument.
Don't ya just love the spin? Its all about power: keeping Howard in power.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at May 29, 2003 11:58 AM
Comments
Or Zimbabwe. Or the Congo. I'm sure Alexander Moggie could be made to see the sense and consistency in doing that. He's happy to get involved in the politics of other countries.
Posted by: robv at May 29, 2003 01:42 PM
When's the next election due? I'm sick to death of these conservative con-jobs
Posted by: Niall at May 30, 2003 12:13 PM
When it comes, Howard's most valuable assetts will include some of his romantic opponents who, unfortunately, know not what they do.
Posted by: Norman at June 1, 2003 07:09 PM