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September 06, 2007
As we expected, APEC is being used to lift the fortunes of an embattled Australian PM. President Bush is doing his bit and he has delivered in spades:
Tandberg
Bush is also using Sydney as a stage to speak to Washington about supporting his war in Iraq. Things are on the up and up is the Bush message. So the surge is working is the Republican talking point. The forthcoming official report by General David Petraeus will almost certainly be upbeat. ush is showbiz along with his 2 jumbo jets, a bunch of blast-proof heavily armoured vehicles, helicopters and a moving cone of mobile phone silence and security personnel that require a no go security zone in the heart of Sydney's CBD.
The reality is that Bush has entered the dead zone, where the bodies pile high and victory never appears.
A report by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, released in Washington yesterday, shows how little political headway has been made. It says the Iraqi Government has met just one of eight legislative benchmarks: the one establishing the rights of minority political parties. It has failed to act on goals such as greater Sunni participation in the government, sharing oil revenue and disarming the militia. Of the total of 18 legislative, security and economic benchmarks, the GAO scored success on three and partial success on four.
As Tom Engelhardt points out:
This administration's primary fundamentalism has been that of born-again militarists, of believers in the efficacy of force as embodied in the most awe-inspiring, high-tech military on the planet. This was the idol at which its top officials worshipped when it came to foreign policy. They were in awe of the idea that they had at their command the best equipped, most powerful military the world had ever seen, armed to the teeth with techno-toys; already garrisoning much of the globe (and about to garrison more of it); already on the receiving end of vast inflows of taxpayer dollars (and about to receive staggeringly more of the same); already embedded in a sprawling network of corporate interests (and about to be significantly privatized into the hands of even more such corporations); already having divided most of the globe into military "commands" that were essentially viceroy-ships (and about to finish the job by creating a command for the "homeland," NORTHCOM, and for the previously forgotten, suddenly energy-hot continent of Africa, AFRICOM.
Meanwhile the real power in APEC is China, who is now Australia's largest trading partner.
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Poor John Howard
I almost feel sorry for him.
Having very few people who like him, he has had to sink to grasping support from the most unpopular world figure - George W Bush.
Bush seems quite out of touch with reality. Howard used to gauge good old "middle Australia" pretty well.
But is he now joining Bush on whatever mental planet Bush is on? Does Howard really think that being Bush's little puppet will help him in the election?
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com