Sunday, June 20, 2004
We weren't involved
This week, defence minister Senator Robert Hill came under increased pressure from the Senate Estimates Committee. His role in the cover up of Australia's knowledge of the prisoner abuses at Abu Graeb was at the centre of the criticism.
Ministers of the Liberal Government, including Hill, Downerpants and others went to great lengths to make these claims: Australians weren't involved in the Iraqi prisoner abuses. No Australian military officer was involved. The only problem was that nobody was seriously suggesting that this was the case.
But if our government was advised about it from our military officers, then our government should have acted. That it did not act was either recklessness, or if it refused to act for any reason constitutes a serious breach of responsibility, for which the minister should resign.
It has emerged that over 25 reports referred to the prisoner abuse allegations, so the idea that our government overlooked these allegations is unlikely.
The government has a number of things going against it here:
1. It doesn't have a good record for telling the truth to the Australian public. (Children overboard affair of 2001-02)
2. Even if it were to bring the allegations to the attention of the United States government, did we even have the power or reason to raise the issue:
- Australia was negotiating a Free Trade Agreement in the middle of last year, which were buoyed by our close ties in commitment to the war on Iraq amongst other things. Alerting the US to our concerns over Abu Graeb may have jeapardised the FTA, which was and is a domestic imperative for the Howard government.
- Would the raising of the Abu Graeb concerns have brought on criticism of the Iraq policy domestically, and if so, would the Howard government be at all interested in exploring the implications of these allegations. This is possibly the most damning suggestion. That we would not act because it would hurt us politically while all the while Iraqis were suffering abuse at the hands of the American military, is a very damning suggestion indeed.
The last conservative Prime Minister to preside over a joint Australian-US military action, John Gorton, reduced our troop commitment to the disappointment of the US regime. Gorton believed in independent defence and foreign policies for Australia and the US, despite valuing highly a strategic alliance.
George W. Bush would not commit his country to an arrangement which allowed no policy autonomy. John W. Howard should take a leaf out of his mentor's book.
Ministers of the Liberal Government, including Hill, Downerpants and others went to great lengths to make these claims: Australians weren't involved in the Iraqi prisoner abuses. No Australian military officer was involved. The only problem was that nobody was seriously suggesting that this was the case.
But if our government was advised about it from our military officers, then our government should have acted. That it did not act was either recklessness, or if it refused to act for any reason constitutes a serious breach of responsibility, for which the minister should resign.
It has emerged that over 25 reports referred to the prisoner abuse allegations, so the idea that our government overlooked these allegations is unlikely.
The government has a number of things going against it here:
1. It doesn't have a good record for telling the truth to the Australian public. (Children overboard affair of 2001-02)
2. Even if it were to bring the allegations to the attention of the United States government, did we even have the power or reason to raise the issue:
- Australia was negotiating a Free Trade Agreement in the middle of last year, which were buoyed by our close ties in commitment to the war on Iraq amongst other things. Alerting the US to our concerns over Abu Graeb may have jeapardised the FTA, which was and is a domestic imperative for the Howard government.
- Would the raising of the Abu Graeb concerns have brought on criticism of the Iraq policy domestically, and if so, would the Howard government be at all interested in exploring the implications of these allegations. This is possibly the most damning suggestion. That we would not act because it would hurt us politically while all the while Iraqis were suffering abuse at the hands of the American military, is a very damning suggestion indeed.
The last conservative Prime Minister to preside over a joint Australian-US military action, John Gorton, reduced our troop commitment to the disappointment of the US regime. Gorton believed in independent defence and foreign policies for Australia and the US, despite valuing highly a strategic alliance.
George W. Bush would not commit his country to an arrangement which allowed no policy autonomy. John W. Howard should take a leaf out of his mentor's book.
