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June 10, 2004
The US/Australia alliance has become an election issue in Australia as a result of the interventions by the imperial president and Richard Armitage, the US Deputy Secretary of State.
The significance of these remarks is that Bush administration is not prepared to accept that the US and Australian governments can differ over Iraq, and yet still maintain a strong and mutually beneficial alliance. Those remarks by the Bush adminstration about the fragility of the alliance---it will fall apart because of the withdrawal of several hundred troops ---are nonsense. As Geoff Kitney points out in the Australian Financial Review (subscription required, 10, 6, 2004, p. 14) Latham's policy does not pose a dangerous threat to Australia's national security, or a threat to the alliance.
The political significance is that the remarks by the Bush administration enable John Howard to play 'the ALP is anti-American card' to help him get re-elected. He is strongly asserting the significance of Australia's alliance in an attempt to neutralize the electoral damage from the emerging public unease about the Iraq fallout. Bush has given him what he needs.
Hugh White digs a little deeper on the ground of the escalating conflict between the ALP and the imperial presidency. He says:
"Fault lies on both sides. Latham's policy on troop withdrawal has always been flawed. But it is Bush who has escalated the dispute to this level. By declaring Australian willingness to keep forces in Iraq a make-or-break issue, he has raised a fundamental question: does our alliance with the US require us to send forces wherever and whenever the US asks? Bush's strident response to Latham's policy suggests he thinks it does. That would be in line with the views of some of the President's neo-conservative advisers, who are fond of saying there is no such thing as an a la carte alliance - one where you can pick and choose what bits you want and what bits you do not."
I presume this is also the position of Australian neo-conservatives. They would claim that it is the price that Australia has to pay for its security insurance policy. The fervered imaginations of the gut reacting, knee jerk conservatives would say that those who think otherwise are fools, anti-American, appeasers and supporters of Al Qaeda.
The strength of High White's piece is that he looks at the strategic implications of the neo-con understanding of the alliance. He says:
"....that model of the alliance is unworkable. In Australia, neither side of politics could sign up to it. Many Liberals, for example, doubt Australia would want to send forces to help America fight China over Taiwan. So the alliance must allow scope for disagreements about individual policies and issues. That is the way the alliance has always been understood - until now."
In other words the alliance is bigger than Iraq, or Taiwan or North Korea for that matter.
We can add to White's piece by saying that the US has made it perfectly clear that it will only put the lives of its soldiers on the line where it reckons it has a strong national interest in doing so. Consequently, Australia cannot expect US military assistance in the event of a major threat to Australia's national interest but not that of the US.
It is time to drop the fantasy about expecting US protection if Australia is threatened and get real.
June 12
Alan Ramsay puts his finger on the "ALP is anti-American" media campaign. Chris at Backpages fingers Murdoch's Australian. And Shaun Carney, writing in The Age, asks a good question:
"But the truth is that the Bush Administration has no interest in hearing Australia saying "no" to anything at all. And those who trumpet the American cause on the Australian political stage and in our media have so far failed to produce a credible answer to this question: at what point is it OK to differ with the US, or to simply say "that's enough, we've done our bit"?
Carney goes on to say that:
"The subtext of Armitage's comments in an interview with ABC TV's Lateline, in which he said allies could not pick and choose the parts of their relationship they liked, suggested that if Australia wanted a close relationship with the US it had to accept that it would have to go along on any military adventure America chose to undertake. There is no other way to interpret the comments."
He then makes the point that Australian governments have an central "responsibility to protect and further Australia's interests ahead of any other country. As in any relationship, nations pick and choose the parts that most benefit them. When they stop doing so, they cease to be genuine sovereign nations and instead become client states."
The central question is:“would an Islamic regime in Indonesia be tolerated by Australia? Would it be tolerated by the United States? If not, then is the only way for Australia and America to proceed is to exert military authority, force and occupation in an Islamic Indonesia that is held to be dangerous to the national interests of Australia and the United States? Yes is the answer of those neo-conservative hawks who advocate preventive wars.
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I made a comment about how outdated the ANZUS treaty is This treaty is being banded as basically covering everything while instead is very narrow in its scope.
For instance the Treaty is invoked only when the territorial integrity is threatened in the Pacific. So if you are in Perth or New York you're out of luck.