THINK BEFORE YOU VOTE

Supporting statements and references:

Truth: John Howard has made many definite and emphatic statements to the Australian people about important issues that have been proved to be untrue. This both misleads and manipulates the electorate.

There are many documents covering this: perhaps the most important is the Government's own report on the intelligence available to support the war in Iraq, which the Prime Minister and his cabinet stated to be incontrovertible and convincing, but which their own report describes as: "thin, ambiguous and incomplete": (the Flood report).

Other evidence is gathered in many places: see, for example, http://johnhowardlies.com/ or the ALP's "Truth Overboard: 35 Lies and Counting", the Democrat's "Lies Detected", or the Greens' Senator Bob Brown in the Australian: "Whose Lies Hurt More?"

More general information on the lies around the war in Iraq below

Independent Services: This government interferes with independence in the public service and in the media. Those who challenge lies and deceit risk losing their jobs.

Once again, the Flood report provides significant evidence of the cowing of internal challenges to the politicians' agenda. On the media side, remember Senator Alston's attempts to prevent the ABC expressing anything other than support for the occupation of Iraq, and remember the Mansfield review: Leaked Cabinet documents (reported Age 23.1.1997), later revealed the Government had established the Mansfield Review as a means of legitimising its intention to control the ABC and limit its role. In their own words, to "give us the ability to influence future ABC functions and activities more directly". (Friends of the ABC website)

War: By supporting the US in invading Iraq Australia stepped outside international law and established the precedent for pre-emptive attack. Iraq was not, and has never been, a danger to Australia. Following the invasion of Iraq Australians are more of a terrorist target.

The precedent for one country to invade another because it believes it has right on its side, and wants “regime change” will be seized on by many others to legitimate a warlike response to old arguments. A world of “might is right” and “do what I say or I’ll hit you” is not going to be safer for us or for our children. Read Kofi Annan's view on this from September 2003. He has recently repeated the view that the war was illegal in an interview with the BBC. The Government claims that its own advice (from a relatively junior member of its own staff) contradicts this: we ask, who is more likely to be right on the interpretation of the UN Charter, the Secretary General of the UN, or an official in Australia (particularly noting the poin t above).

On 18 March 2003, in the Parliamentary debate on Iraq, Tony Abbott said : “We would be foolish not to admit that the risks of going to war in Iraq are frightening ... there is the increased risk of terrorist attack here in Australia.” (Hansard p.12551 ). He was right. (see also below)

Citizens Rights: This government abandoned Australian citizens being held for over two years by a foreign power without being charged or put on trial.

The Law Council of Australia has severely criticised the proceedings in Guantanamo Bay. The UK and many other nations have negotiated the release of almost all their citizens: only the Australian Government refuses to look after its own citizens, or to ensure that they have a fair trial. In a letter to an NSPD member, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade acknowledges that Hicks and Habib have committed no offences under Australian law, but appears to use this as an argument as to why they should stay in the hands of a country with less scruples about that situation.

Human Rights: Children in mandatory detention are being denied basic human rights as decreed in the United Nations Charter.

Get more detail from Children Out of Detention (ChilOut) and A Just Australia: read the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and for a detailed analysis of the rights of detained children in international law, please read the HREOC Background paper (http://www.humanrights.gov.au/human_rights/children_detention/background.html). 

Environment: This government flagrantly ignores pressing environmental issues that will affect the wellbeing of future generations. We need to ask in whose interests they are doing this.

The Government's policy document Securing Australia's Energy Future was described by an editorial in The Age as Looking backwards for our energy future: subtitled: Climate change continues to sorely test the Howard Government's green credentials, the paper points out that "The clear assumption is that centuries-old dirty fossil fuels such as oil (which is increasingly scarce and costly) and coal should not and will not give way any time soon to clean energy sources such as the emerging technology of hydrogen power, as well as solar, wind and tidal power." In the run-up to the production of the policy, it has been admitted that the Minister had numerous meetings with oil and gas industry representatives to discuss the policy.

Politics of Fear: This government uses scare tactics to gain electoral advantage rather than addressing real issues that affect us all.

See, for example, the ludicruous debate on "pre-emptive strikes", when Mr Howard declared that it was extraordinary that Mark Latham wouldn't commit to protecting Australians by pre-emptive strikes into other countries: Mark Latham said it was dangerous to suggest that we might enter the territories of any of our neighbouring countries without warning or agreement: the ambassadors of several of our neighbours said the same: Mr Howard said of course he wasn't suggesting that we might do that - so what did he mean, exactly? See the discussion on this by Peter Hartcher in the Sydney Morning Herald of 24 Sept 2004.

The Cost of the War: Billions of tax dollars are being spent on military hardware rather than on the health, education and services the Australian people need now.

The 2004-5 Australian Defence Budget is more than $15 billion, and is regarded as unsustainable through to the future even for fans of defence spending (see eg The Australian Strategic Policy Institute's A Trillion Dollars and Counting) The cost of supporting the war in Iraq was around $2.3 billion, according to the last Budget statement. Now we (or at least the Defence Minister) are talking of buying a missile defence system for Sydney, despite the fact that Australia has no prospective enemies capable of launching a missile that can hit Sydney (in fact only the US, who will sell us the system, still possesses missiles capable of hitting Sydney from outside Australia).

Compare this with the Commonwealth contribution to public hospitals, at around $7 billion, and imagine what improvements in service might be afforded if some of this money is redirected.

Terrorism: In a civilised country the military option should only ever be a last resort. The evidence is clear: terrorism is never defeated by tanks, only by talking. The current policy is about as effective as poking a stick in a hornet’s nest.

Far from reducing the potential for terrorism, the degree of rage this act of war has produced will increase the dangers significantly. Australia should not feel isolated from the threat of terror. The tragic Bali bombings of October 2002 should remind us that terrorism has no boundaries. A terrorist is NOT a bearded Osama Bin Laden look-a-like strapped to the brim with explosives. He/she could be ANYONE. The US believes that terrorism can be defeated by indiscriminately killing terrorist organisations, but this is absolute rubbish. Joining the US in a war on Iraq has undoubtedly made us a serious terror target. Osama Bin Laden has already stated that any country who joins the "enemy" (US led coalition of the willing), in killing innocent muslims will suffer grave consequences. How can our Government justify supporting a war that will only endanger Australians for years to come? Is that really in OUR best interest?

Many people in the Middle East perceive Western foreign policies as self serving and see Western expressions of support for democracy and human rights as hypocritical and dishonest? These perceptions lie at the root of some of the hostility to the west that provides the basis of international terrorism. Perceptions that Westerners are disinterested in the f ate of Islamic people (such as the Palestinians) and that the US will oppose popular governments, support repressive despots and turn a blind eye to (or actually support) human rights abuses – provided these policies aid US strategic and economic interests – have helped foster suspicion, cynicism and hostility in the region. Australia has chosen to openly ally ourselves with this position. Should we be willing to acknowledge this and try to bridge the communication gap as we seek solutions to the current tensions and hostilities?

See also Donna Mulhearn's account of the coalition attacks on Falluja, and ask yourself, who is the terrorist here?

More on Iraq's (lack of) Weapons of Mass Destruction

Lies about the quality of data on WMD:

John Howard and George Bush claimed that Iraq had a large arsenal of Weapons of Mass Destruction, and that Sadam Hussein was a threat to international security. However, months of United Nations weapons inspections and subsequent searches by the Coalition occupying authority suggest there is no proof of this, and the longer the search goes on without a significant find, the less likely this seems. Even Donald Rumsfeld has suggested that the arms may no longer have existed by the time the war started. The Iraq Survey Group final report concluded that all WMD development in Iraq ceased around 1991.

Iraq’s military capacity (including chemical and biological weapons) was supplied by US and UK arms dealers in the 1980s. The last proven use of these weapons was in 1988 – no Western countries objected at that time.
At the end of the Gulf War the US claimed to have destroyed 80% of military capability. Over the next 7 years the weapons inspectors destroyed 90% of what remained.
“By December 1998, Iraq had in fact been disarmed to a level unprecedented in modern history.” - Scott Ritter, UNSCOM Chief Weapons Inspector

The weapons inspection regime was an outstanding success in preventing Iraq using its few remaining weapons. No evidence has been produced to indicate that Iraq has ever supplied weapons to terrorists. This invasion by America was all about controlling Iraq's oil, not liberating a country from a ruthless dictator which the CIA sponsored to power.

As we now know, a Middle Eastern regime was in fact spreading nuclear weapons technology to members of the "Axis of Evil" - but that regime was Pakistan, which is a member of the Coalition of the Willing, and thus "on our side" - so that's all right then.

Lies about Saddam's intransigence: (Quote from the Guardian, November 11 2003): "Over the four months before the coalition forces invaded Iraq, Saddam's government made a series of increasingly desperate offers to the United States. In December, the Iraqi intelligence services approached Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former head of counter-terrorism, with an offer to prove that Iraq was not linked to the September 11 attacks, and to permit several thousand US troops to enter the country to look for weapons of mass destruction. If the object was regime change, then Saddam, the agents claimed, was prepared to submit himself to internationally monitored elections within two years. According to Mr Cannistraro, these proposals reached the White House, but were "turned down by the president and vice-president". By February, Saddam's negotiators were offering almost everything the US government could wish for: free access to the FBI to look for weapons of mass destruction wherever it wanted, support for the US position on Israel and Palestine, even rights over Iraq's oil. Among the people they contacted was Richard Perle, the security adviser who for years had been urging a war with Iraq. He passed their offers to the CIA. Last week he told the New York Times that the CIA had replied: "Tell them that we will see them in Baghdad". "

More on the background to the "War on Terrorism"

The problems of the Middle East are complex, and substantially created by the West. Unthinking cowboy responses to problems don't help:
NB: This section was drafted by the late Andrew McNaughtan: his obituary from the Sydney Morning Herald gives a clue to how much Andrew will be missed by all of us.

For most of the last century the policies of the UK and US towards the Middle East have been aimed at securing the strategically vital oil supplies of the Persian Gulf region. This leaflet touches on what some western governments have done to destabilise and overthrow governments, support despots, initiate and back wars and condone human rights abuses.

In particular the US has supported, funded and trained an Islamic guerrilla movement that has given rise to those at the forefront of current international terrorism.

Meanwhile US foreign policy towards Israel and Palestine has alienated and offended many in the Islamic world. The US insistence on basing its military near Islamic sacred sites has been seen by some as an affront against Islam. Policies such as these have helped create a deep scepticism and cynicism about the West (and the US and UK in particular) in many parts of the Muslim world. This climate has allowed extremism and anti-Western (and in particular anti-US) sentiment to flourish. This provides the base for the international terrorism that the world is now concerned about.

This history goes back a long way – for example the UK bombed and used poisoned gas against the Iraqi population in the 1920's during its attempts to gain control of that country. These actions were motivated by the determination to control Iraq's known oil wealth.

Following World War 2 the Americans took the lead and moved to control what was recognised by the US State Department as a 'stupendous resource' of huge economic and strategic value- the oil of the Persian Gulf.

‘Regime change’ has been tried before

The US overthrew the Iranian government of Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 when it became clear that Mossadegh intended to nationalize Iran's oil.

The US then imposed their own chosen leader, the Shah, on the Iranian people and helped maintain his control by setting up the no torious SAVAK secret police to repress political opponents.

This ultimately led to an Islamic revolution that overthrew the Shah in 1979. The Ayatollah Khomeini thus came to power with an Islamic regime now deeply hostile to the United States.

In response to this new problem created by their own meddling the US increased their military support to the secular Saddam Hussein in Iraq and assisted him in obtaining chemical and biological as well as conventional weapons. The US backed Iraq and encouraged its 8 year war against Iran, hoping that Saddam would destroy an Iranian government that they now perceived as threatening US interests in the region. More than one million people died in the Iran-Iraq war.

After the 1991 Gulf War the US positioned troops in Saudi Arabia, in proximity to the Islamic holy sites Mecca and Medina. This was done primarily to secure the strategically vital oil interests in Saudi Arabia and the nearby region – and was done in spite of the fact that such an approach was seen as offensive to Islam by many of the region's people.

Elsewhere in the region the US had long backed oppressive feudal regimes (such as Saudi Arabia) or countries with a thin veneer of democracy but poor human-rights record (such as Egypt) or dictatorships (such as Saddam Hussein's Iraq) provided that those governments were willing to acquiesce to US objectives.

Fostering the terrorist problem - 1

US strategists saw the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979 as an opportunity for it to strike a blow against the USSR. President Carter's adviser at the time has indicated that the US actually helped provoke the invasion to further US objectives. After the Soviet invasion the US poured hundreds of millions of dollars into funding the Afghan guerrilla resistance - the Mujahideen - who were derived from Muslim fanatics in the region. The US funded, armed and trained the Mujahideen at camps set up with CIA backing.

Amongst those fighting with US support were Osama bin Laden and many others who are now members of Islamic terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and JI. Al-Qaeda developed out of the Mujahideen, who were a tool of US policy.

Fostering the terrorist problem - 2

Over the past decades the US has provided profound diplomatic, financial and military support to Israel. This US support (which has rarely questioned or opposed Israeli policy towards the Palestinians) has been crucial to Israel whilst it has pursued a policy of occupying significant portions of what remained of Palestinian land - particularly in the West Bank.

These continuing encroachments (which could only have occurred with US backing) have now made it very difficult to achieve a resolution of the Israel- Palestine conflict - because any true resolution will almost certainly require the creation of a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel. Creating a viable Palestinian state will require the removal of encroaching Israeli settlements - something Israeli is very reluctant to do. Thus US policy (which has always favoured Israel) has contributed to making this issue much more intractable. There are other examples of western policies that have contributed to the current wave of terrorism.

© NSPD 2004. Last modified 13/10/06