The following Editorial was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of
the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, November
19th, 2003.
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Editorial: The Government's culture of militarism
Prime Minister Howard was recently in London to open a war memorial in
London's Hyde Park to the 101,000 Australians who have died in the
numerous wars to which successive governments have committed Australian
men and women.
In his address on the occasion Howard claimed that despite Australia's
involvement in many wars, the Australian people have not developed a
"culture of militarism".
But Australian Governments have worked hard to sustain and promote a
militarist tradition and no-one more than Howard. He attends every
possible military function, fare welling troops, welcoming them home,
opening war memorials while beefing up and involving Australian troops
in every possible military adventure.
At one point Howard listed a number of places where Australian troops
had been involved in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East and "the
hundreds of other places where Australian have performed some of the
finest feats of arms in the history of warfare". Here we have the
beating of the militarist and the nationalist drum at the same time -
"some of the finest feats of arms in the history of warfare"!
Howard's speech was peppered with the usual platitudes about democratic
principles, freedom, the rule of law, values, and so on. It all came
packaged with the necessary cover-up and distortion of history to make
it saleable to an increasingly sceptical population.
One of his completely untrue assertions is that the present Australian
Government is "independent" and made "our [own] decisions on East Timor,
Afghanistan and Iraq". Howard contradicts this claim by recalling that
Australia "automatically" entered the 1914-18 war as part of the British
Empire. And again in 1939 when Britain declared war on Germany and WW2
commenced, he quotes Menzies' declaration that "as a result, Australia
is also at war". The decision to enter the most recent war against Iraq
was made by the US with the Liberal Party cabinet rubber stamping it.
Never mind that at the time the majority of the Australian people were
against involvement in the war but such people's democracy is foreign to
Howard and his Ministers.
Needless to say, Howard could not refrain from the obligatory reference
to the war on terrorism which we are told "will present every society
with challenges that none of us could have contemplated even three years
ago".
Howard did not attempt on this occasion to justify Australia's decision
to participate in the US and British war and occupation of Iraq. The
pretence of making an "independent" decision is just that, a pretence.
Furthermore, as many now clearly see, Australia's involvement in the war
coalition was based on a series of lies. Iraq did not have any weapons
of mass destruction and, consequently, there was no risk of a "Pearl
Harbour-style" attack as Howard claimed.
There was no evidence that the regime of Saddam Hussein had any links to
al Qaida. If the US and other occupiers are now faced with resistance
and a guerilla war, it is of their own making.
Howard continues to pepper his speeches with the lies for which he is
becoming famous world-wide. At the same time he makes use of the
qualities of "mateship", "mutual and self-respect", "sharing whatever is
available no matter how meagre" although these play no part in the
Government's policies as any pensioner or refugee will tell you.
It is merely necessary to recall the treatment of asylum seekers
attempting to find a safe haven in Australia and the specific refusal of
the Immigration Minister Vanstone to allow the reunion of Mr Baktiari
with his wife and children who are now being housed outside a detention
centre. At the same time we hear much about "family values". The real
reason for the Minister's decision is that the outfit that runs the
detention centres is paid by the number of inmates they have to look
after and every released refugee means less income and less profit.
The Government's foreign policy ensures that there will be plenty of
future battlefields in other countries and plenty of future war
memorials to open and dead and wounded troops to commemorate. The
constant propaganda of "dangers", "terrorist warnings" and "threats to
security" are aimed to prepare the Australian people for and justify in
advance huge expenditures on high-tech military hardware and future wars.
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