issues.oz

Bali, GeeDub, Presidential Wannabe's and Iraq.

Woah. What ever happened to my good intentions to write on this site regularly? That didn't last long did it? Made all the worse by a busy few weeks at uni... but uni if finished now so i've no excuse for not sitting down and putting fingers to keyboard, so to speak.

Since I wrote last in late october, shit has fairly hit the fan with regards to the whole terrorism thing (sounds oddly nonchalant to refer to it is as "this terrorism thing". It will only be the most important global issue for the first quarter of the 21st century). The bubble of public perception has popped here in Australia, exposing us to the reality of uncertain security. Where once we thought ourselves immune to the perils of international terrorism, we now find ourselves beset from the north by islamic militants wanting to set up a giant islamic super state- covering most of south east asia and part of Australia.

Predictably enough, the chatter started up soon after the Bali blast as to whether or not such a catastrophe so close to home, killing so many Australians, would weaken or strengthen what limited resolve we had to send Australian troops in behind American Marines on the way to Iraq.

At the time, the bulk of popular opinion seemed to suggest that it would strengthen our resolve to fight terrorism, and therefore seemingly by extention, our resolve to topple Saddam.Abubakar Bashir certainly thought so: the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah came out and said that the Bali Bombs were a CIA ploy, to convince Australians of the need to follow America into Iraq.People were once again heard cursing world events for letting John Howard off the hook, just as it seemed hehad made a serious blunder going so gung-ho into the Iraq thing with bayonet drawn and rifle loaded ready to kill some Arabs.

Australians should be braying for Muslim blood. Conventional wisdom suggests we should be falling all over ourselves in our rush to sign up to a war in Iraq.

Yet as I had expected at the time, it is not so.

Why? Why is it that we are less enthusiastic about going to Iraq then ever before?

Perhaps because we have made it past the simplistic assumption that if a Muslim is a bad man, that it follows naturally that he must be in league with all other bad muslims. We seem to understand that even though Saddam is a Muslim and a bad man at the same time.... that this doesn't mean he is going to give nuclear weapons to another bad Muslim in Indonesia, or for that matter, a bad Muslim in Afghanistan or Pakistan. In other words our collective thinking as a nation, seems to have evolved past the notion that the war on terrorism is a war of the immutable forces of good versus the belligerent forces of evil.

In short, it seems to demonstrate that the Australian public are very well aware that the much hyped War on Iraq will not do anything to stem global terrorism- for surely that is what we base our attitudes on when we say we don't want a war on iraq while there is terrorism on our very doorstep.

Yet this seems to be a notion that George Bush is still stuck on. That the war on terror is about good versus evil. That the virtuous crusaders must fight aginst the muslim infidels on his soil.That the good and christian warriors of the west must fight the infidels and spare only those few infidels that promise they dont really hate America. Justice: American style. That'll put paid to this terrorism thing for good- they think to themselves.

Gee Dub's Republican administration seems to be stuck on the idea that since the people that destroyed the world trade buildings were muslims and bad people...... that they must be in league with all other bad muslims (be they Indonesians, Iraqis or whatever).

Or perhaps its not oversight at all. Maybe its just that President Bush needs a war. A war on Iraq is good for George Bush for 2 reasons. The first reason is because it distracts from the continuing problems that Bush is having domestically. The economy continues to look shakey, wall street continues to find itself rocked by corporate governance scandals and a madman continues to roam washington shooting peole with his constitutionally protected, high power, NRA endorsed, rifle. Popular foreign policy distracts people from whats going on right under their own noses. George Junior is proving to be a master of many of the same games that George Senior used to like playingin the late eighties/early nineties: he's manipulating foreign policy and events overseas to leverage public opinion at home.

Secondly, because it makes it look like, no matter how futile he efforts may be, that he is doing something tangible about protecting Americans from Terrorism. To be seen as sitting on his hands while further threats against America gather would be deadly to his chances at a second term in the whitehouse. Yet not only does he need to be seen as doing something, but he needs to be seen as doing something physical. Americans want bombs not diplomacy. They dont care whether or not those bombs will fall on terrorists or on arab children, so long as someone writes on the bomb "Die Terrorist Scum" and so long as the Pentagon is careful to present an Iraq campaign as a part of the war on terror, Americans will be only too pleased to support it. This is not really the fault of the American people. It has alot more to do with gutless Democrats, that feel they need to tow the conservative line if they want the sponsorship from big business, and internal party support for their fight against Bush and prominent Democrats in 2004.If Democrats made some effort to agitate against a foolish war on Iraq, instead of spouting this crap about a need for solidarity in the face of adversity, then perhaps the American public might see how little a war on iraq will do for their security.

And it's interesting that I mention Democrats and their Presidential hopefuls. Because it acts as a nice little segue into the next thing I want to talk about regarding the war on Iraq. Al Gore was on Letterman a few weeks ago... and he said something that really suprised me. This was only a few days after the Democrats had been slaughtered in Senate elections. Towards the end of the interview, Letterman asked some questions about what things Al would have done differently in the War On Terror if he were President. He started his answer cautiously, saying he would have done everything the same in Afghanistan. That he totally agreed that America was duty bound to go into Afghanistan and root out Al Quaeda and bring down the Taliban regime that allowed it to flourish there. 2 things then happened to really suprise me. Firstly, Gore goes on to say to Dave Letterman that he would be doing things very differently with respect to Iraq (and presumably, in a broader sense, with respect to the entire middle eastern foreign policy). That he wouldnot be invading Iraq, and that instead he would be trying to do things to minimise American dependance on petroleum products and foreign energy in general, and i quote, that are responsible for "putting us in this difficult situation".

In other words (reading between the lines), Al Gore said that dependance on petroleum and foreign energy, puts America in a position where they have to overthrow irksome foreign dictators so they can get cheaper oil.

A remarkable admision, thought I, for a senior Democrat to be making.

The second thing, was that this sentiment then got an overwhelming and completely spontaneous applause from the studio audience of New Yorkers.

WHAT THE FUCK!!?? How is it that it can seem so clear to Democrats and the American public, that the Iraq outting will be all about securing cheaper petrol (with a net nuetral or negative effect on terrorism), he's messing up the economy, protecting his crooked buddies in big corporations, yet Democrats and the American Electorate handed Bush the senate on a silver platter?

I must still be a long long way away from understanding American Politics.

Sort of lost my way a bit during that rant didnt I? I'll write about better stuff next week. More Australian stuff and not so much shit on international terrorism.