FORMER PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA SAYS THAT NATION MUST REASSESS ITS ...
One of the things I have been concerned about in my recent blogs concerning international affairs and politics, is the degree to which American ham-fistedness and arrogance is driving valuable and long-term allies away from this nation, important and powerful countries like Germany. The Ukrainian fiasco has been perhaps, the most serious long-term setback for America in world public opinion in many years, perhaps even in the decades since the end of the Vietnam War.
Which brings me to a story submitted to me by a regular reader here, who lives in Australia, "Ms. D."
Ms. D sent me the following story, and I was both stunned, and yet, not surprised, as more chickens are coming home to roost as a result of the growing perception in the world that the USA is a dangerously out of control power, and that its leaders are criminally corrupt, insane, and incompetent.
In this case, one of the USA's most staunch allies, former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser is calling for that country to end its military alliance with the USA:
Malcolm Fraser today believes Australia should cut all military ties to the US.
Geopolitically, Australia has always been the lynchpin of Western strategy of projecting power in the Pacific, and Australia has willingly given its treasure and lives to support Western military adventurism, from Churchill's Gallipoli folly to America's wars in Korea and Vietnam.
Consider carefully then, what these thoughts of one of Australia's former pro-American prime ministers really says about the backlash against America's lack of geopolitical sanity and basic decency:
Fraser tells me he was once convinced the swift and peaceable end of the Cold War would create a better world. Ruefully, he concedes he then did not believe it possible that the hope of a new world order powerfully articulated in March 1991 by George Bush snr - of international co-operation under the rule of law - would be so swiftly and comprehensively squandered.Why did this happen? Fraser places most of the blame on the post-Cold War leadership of the sole remaining superpower, the US. Bill Clinton had no feel for foreign policy. At the end of the Cold War, having served its purpose, NATO should have been wound up. Fraser is bitterly critical of the war of humanitarian intervention fought by NATO over Kosovo: its support for the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army; its prolonged bombing of civilians in Serbia; its signing of a treaty, the Kumanovo Agreement, it had no intention of fulfilling. Even though Dangerous Allies was written before the present crisis over Crimea, it contains a prophetic passage about the dangers of Clinton's expansion of NATO eastwards to the borderlands of Russia.The rise of the neo-conservatives in Washington during the 1990s was, however, an even more important catalyst for Fraser's journey from former Cold War warrior to Australia's most prominent critic of US imperialism. These people are, he tells me, true believers in some of the oldest and most dangerous tendencies in American thought: American "self-righteousness" and "exceptionalism"; the existence of a God-given "manifest destiny" to bring redemption to the world. He explains the potential perils of the neo-con world view like this: in the same way that Stalin believed the USSR would not be safe until democracy was destroyed, the neo-cons believe the US will not be safe until democracy is universally triumphant. They have no understanding of the madness of their ambition. They vastly overestimate the political efficacy of military power. They are extraordinarily ignorant of other cultures.
On the basis of conversations I have had with friends in Australia, I strongly suspect Prime Minister Fraser's ideas are not unique to him by any means. Fraser goes on to conclude, in my opinion correctly, that the presence of American military bases in that country are an assault on its sovereignty, and would involve that nation in America's wars, like it or not. Australia does not have any beef with China, nor China with Australia, and in any case, Australia-US alliance, or not, China knows any attempt to "annex" the nation would lead to a war. So what does Australia gain from a military alliance with the USA when even without such an alliance it would still be protected? And that's true... American bases are now the sign, not of a protector, but of the implicit threat that all such protection rackets inevitably engender. And from this author's chair, the Prime Minister is also correct on another score, Washington is no longer listening to, or even capable of listening to, any of its allies. And Australia deserves better friends.
While I know nothing about Australian politics, the prime minister's remarks are a serious sign of how bad the blowback from the USA's post-9/11 behavior has become. And if US policies are not changed dramatically and sincerely, that trend is only going to spread.
Fraser's observations are the clearest wake up call yet. And for that, he is to be thanked.
See you on the flip side.
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http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/05/03/the-white-house-shakes-the-world/
Recall a recent article written by Australian journalist John Pilger titled “The forgotten coup – and how the godfather rules from Canberra to Kiev”, documenting the CIA coup against former Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam.
Perhaps, the CIA had good reasons to topple him,
– “On 5 December 1972 Whitlam became the first Labor Prime Minister since 1949. He and Deputy Prime Minister Lance Barnard were sworn into all portfolios, Whitlam holding 13 and Barnard 14. It was a mini-ministry that was unique in Australian political history. The duumvirate made 40 significant decisions in its brief tenure, including the immediate release of all draft resisters, the removal of troops from Vietnam and the recognition of Communist China.”
– “In January 1973, Australia re-opened its embassy in Peking, resuming diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China after 24 years. Gough and Margaret Whitlam set out on a visit to Indonesia in September 1973 and travelled through South-East Asia. On 31 October Whitlam became the first Prime Minister to visit the People’s Republic of China.”
“Whitlam travelled extensively as Prime Minister, and was the first Australian Prime Minister to visit China while in office. He was criticised for this travel, especially after Cyclone Tracy struck Darwin.”
Cyclone Tracy was a “disaster of the first magnitude…without parallel in Australia’s history.”, guess what’s the “coincidence” here, “Cyclone Tracy” struck Australia in December 1974 , just little over a year after prime minister Whitlam paid a historical visit to ‘Beijing’.
Arguably another instance of “coincidence” which again demonstrates a certain link between “paradigm shift in geopolitics” and “occurrence of unparalleled natural disasters”, associated with the nation of Australia, particularly with prime minister Whitlam is this little known historical fact here,
“The Whitlams were visiting China at the time of the Tangshan earthquake in July 1976, though they were staying in Tianjin, 90 miles away from the epicentre”.
Take into consideration the suggestion (like from “Covert Wars and Breakaway Civilizations: The Secret Space Program, Celestial Psyops and Hidden Conflicts”) that the devastating Tangshan earthquake in 1976 was an event evidently induced by technology rather than a “natural one”, now what are the odds the event occurred while Australian prime minister Whitlam was in China, what are the odds Australia was hit by “Cyclone Tracy” the next year Whitlam became the first Australian leader to visit China, better yet, this is the Australian prime minister who threatened to close the Pine Gap facility in Australia (as mentioned by John Pilger’s article “The forgotten coup”)?
Decades later, another political leader from Australia, who ‘has been the only Australian politician to even set foot on Pine Gap base’, wrote in his “The Latham Diaries” (published in 2005) :
“The truth is, the Americans need us more than we need them. Pine Gap is vital to their international security network. Plus the Americans restrict our capacity to trade and integrate with Asia- one day their trouble with China will be our trouble. Politically, why does the Alliance survive? Because a significant number of Australians still think we need an insurance policy against invasion by Indonesia, that’s why. Poor old Indonesia. They can barely govern themselves these days, let alone invade us.The Alliance is the last manifestation of the White Australia mentality.Sacrificing Australian pride and independence-and our national interests,properly defined-for the safety blanket of great and powerful friends.”
In 2012, the American film “Red Dawn” was released, depicting Communist North Korean invasion of America, the original “antagonist” though was reportedly “Communist Chinese”. Before the release of that American movie, a similar themed one was released in Australia in 2010, called “Tomorrow, When the War Began”, depicting “brutal Communist Chinese invasion of Australia”.
Indeed, such “invasion” is already happening, with the joint international effort in searching the missing Malaysian flight MH370, the Chinese have deployed naval ships and air forces around and inside Australia just as “predicted” by “Tomorrow, When the War Began”. The alarm bell of Ms. Hanson should be ringing loud now..
Or, perhaps Australia has been caught between a humongous “Star Wars” (as Bush Jr’s “Son of Star Wars” project at Pine Gap would suggest), fought between belligerents far more ancient than the contemporary nation of Australia.
Daphne:
Australia had to follow the US into Vietnam and Iraq? How’s that?
England I understand, but not those US choices.
Canada didn’t follow the US in either Vietnam or Iraq.
I was born in Australia and live in Australia, however I did live in the US for three years back in the mid 70′. There is no one closure to the Americans than Australians. Both countries have almost identical histories, and were seeded from British, Irish, and Scottish stock, and over the years was immigrated by Greek, Chinese, Italian and lots of Asian peoples from different countries.
Australia has two major American bases, the most obvious is the infamous Pin Gap facility near Alice Springs, and recently a small detachment of US marines was installed in Darwin.
Malcolm Fraser is only too aware of the ties between the US military and our own military, and as stated, Australians have been fighting alongside Americans for a very long time. I think what Malcolm Fraser is saying, is, that things have changed. In other words, US foreign policy has gone rogue, and he is not the only one seeing it for what it is. The whole world can now see clearly, what American policy has done, and is doing on a global basis. We are part of Asia, but we are not Asians, we are just a country in Asia, however by dint of locality, the US has been making moves to strengthen it’s presence in Asia, Obama’ resent trip included China, Japan, Malaysia and the PI. Unless there is a war, I don’t see any real “threat” coming down the pipe in Asia, it’s just Malcolm Fraser “ringing bells” of the “repercussions” of what may happen in the future, in other words we may be “drawn into” something the Australian people don’t wont, just like in the US.
Now that he not riding the dragon, tiger of power Malcolm Frasier can tell the truth. I am sorry he couldn’t do this while he was in power better late than never. I hope his book helps to steer Australia to a brighter future better than what awaits the USSA.
Where’s Crocodile Dundee when we need him, now more than ever… Sigh … Alas … O mickle woe ! My fellow Oztrians ! Let’s secede from the American Empire !
A politician to old to lie.
A fascinating read and much thanks for posting it.
oops! “too”
So far the 2003 war of aggression the US started against/in Iraq is a much much bigger fiasco than the admitted fiasco of the US’s recent behavior in Ukraine.
Obama’s continued drone strikes in Pakistan and various parts of north Africa are probably a dumber idea than the idiocy of the US in Ukraine.
Other fiascos still bigger than the mess in Ukraine, the “contras” in Nicaragua, not even the Iran part.
There was John Kerry + Obama nearly starting a war over lies about poison gas. (And this likely would have been a near world war.)
Could Ukraine be a bigger mistake? Yep, let’s hope not.
All a bit rich coming out of Australia, which sent troops to fight with the US in the occupation of Vietnam and helped the US invade Iraq.
Not rich at all! Malcolm Fraser is saying that as a private citizen, not as a current sitting member of parliament. Australia’s present day foreign policy has nothing at all to do with him.
As Joseph rightly points out, the insanity of the US government’s foreign policy is costing them friends. If they were to lose Australia’s support it would be catastrophic for them I believe; not in the sense of a powerful military ally, but certainly from a cultural perspective – Australia is the ONLY country (to my knowledge)that has backed the USA in every campaign since the second world war; that has to mean something to someone!
As he also rightly points out, Australia is not on bad terms with China and in fact there were some unconfirmed rumours in the local press here that former Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, had received an invite to join BRICSA when she visited Bejiing last year.
Now, if that were to happen, that would send Washington into a tailspin I would think!
And for those that are unfamiliar with Australian political history, Malcolm Fraser was the leader of the Liberal Party and the man that took Gough Whitlam’s place as Prime Minister after his government was dismissed in 1975; a shambolic affair that many researchers later labelled as a CIA backed operation – Malcolm Fraser is no stranger to the darker side of international geo-politics which probably gives his statements even more credibility.
For the record I don’t like the man lol!
Is Fraser influential in the backstage of the Australian politics? I mean in the sense of someone whose words may change the mood, the atmosphere in a certain way; or perhaps as an informal spokesman of some political-corporate faction.
I see he is a Vice-President of the Royal Commonwealth Society; in 2009 he has resigned from the Liberal Party. People can criticise wikipedia, but it’s still fairly useful.
Enhil:
Right, this is an individual Australian objecting to USA policies, got that.
But there were plenty of individuals in the USA who objected to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, some even objected to Vietnam starting in the 1950s, or even late 1940s.
So, taking this individual Australian’s objections to mean that the state of Australia will not follow the USA’s lead is probably a mistake.
As Malcolm Fraser pointed out, we had no choice but to follow first England and then the US into their wars. He wants us to be free to make that choice. And I am absolutely in agreement with this.
However, he does not believe the current PM will agree with him.,
He actually cares about what Os is doing in the world. Years ago, when the SIEV-X, a boat full of mainly women and children trying to get to Oz because Iraq had become unsafe after “our” invasion, mysteriously fell apart and equally mysteriously 352 people died. Unfortunately a small number survived and told a different story to the official one. Many Australians were outraged about this, including myself. A meeting was held in the city town hall and it was packed to the rafters. I was there. Mr Fraser came on as one of the speakers. He was excellent. Of course no journalist was present and nothing was mentioned in our msm.
His values are high and I will be purchasing his book. I am hoping it will start a conversation in our country. It is needed.
D:
See above regarding Australia and odd choices to follow the US wars of choice.