Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The revenge of the irrelevant (Australian columnist disses anti-Bush/Howard UN-lapdog diplomats)
Syndey Morning Herald ^ | August 10, 2004 | By Padraic P. McGuinness

Posted on 08/09/2004 11:00:17 PM PDT by NZerFromHK

The revolt of the old farts. That is the best description of the statement by "a concerned group of former service chiefs and Australian diplomats" on Sunday.

No longer involved with the formulation or implementation of Australian policy, and rarely if ever consulted, this group is suffering from what Gareth Evans aptly named "relevance deprivation syndrome". The world is out of joint, and no one asks them how to set it right.

The statement is, in fact, based on a lie. It is a lie widely disseminated, but a lie nonetheless. This is that Australia's participation in the Iraq war was based on the deliberate deception of the Australian people.

There is no real room to doubt, especially after the Flood report, that John Howard, his Government and their employed official advisers genuinely believed there was sufficient evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had weapons of mass destruction, and that it was too risky not to intervene. This was certainly the impression given by Saddam (who may have been lying, or he himself may have been lied to).

It was also the declared position of the Governor (for the moment) of Tasmania, Richard Butler. As head of the UN weapons inspectorate he told, we are now expected to believe, lies about their existence.

Strangely he has not been widely criticised for this. In the event, the Australian (and the US and British) governments were misled on this issue. They can certainly be criticised for having launched the war, but there simply is no evidence of deliberate lying or deception - though perhaps an element of self-deception may have been involved.

The group of old men (and one woman) who issued the statement have a long collective record of service, but not a particularly brilliant record in the formulation or implementation of policy.

Rather, they adhere to a myth of the world community (and the absurd notion of the "international prestige" of the US in the eyes of themselves and their ilk elsewhere) which is not shared by the Howard Government or the Bush Administration.

They are the generation which has created and cherished the belief that the United Nations has continued to play a useful role in the resolution of international conflicts.

They are the same as those who have attempted to create a framework of international "law" which is merely the collective fantasy of lawyers and diplomats conferring between themselves without any regard to the people of the democracies.

Now they are dissatisfied that the system which they thought they had built has no credibility. Neither the Howard Government, nor the other governments of the coalition, is convinced the UN can be trusted to bring about world peace or to act effectively against murderous dictatorships or civil wars, let alone terrorists. That is, since September 11, 2001, they are not seen as at all relevant to the new world situation.

More fundamentally, there is the issue of such retired (or in some cases removed) career officials and military men evincing a kind of political radicalism, at least in their belief that there has been a serious eradication in "truth in government". Again this is a widely disseminated notion which has little substance.

Of course governments from time to time do and must tell lies, or at least suppress information. The present Government is no worse than any of its predecessors in this respect. But its mishandling of the truth is no longer under the control of members of this group.

There is nothing new about the way in which once powerful or influential people become discontented with age as their views are disregarded and they are sidelined.

Much the same is happening with their juniors, the ageing baby boomers who feel the reins of power slipping from their hands. Increasingly they become near hysterical as they see things being done differently, and rail against mistakes as if they had never made any.

It was the Italian Marxist ideologue Antonio Gramsci who coined the phrase "the long march through the institutions" which so many of our bureaucrats and other public employees, including academics, took to heart in the 1960s and '70s - the idea was that society could be changed through rising to high positions within the structures of the society rather than by refusing to participate.

They are now experiencing the slow dribbling out of the institutions which the attrition of age brings.

ppmcg@ozemail.com.au


TOPICS: Australia/New Zealand; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: antiamericanism; australia; bush; camelcorps; diplomats; johnhoward; paddymcguinness; statedepartment; unitedstates; usa; wilson
Paddy McGuinness's chastise applies equally well to the group of Georgetown or Harvard-educated, Manhatten or Beltway sitauted, Europe and UN-pandering, Bush bashing and Kerry lapdog professional class diplomats in the US State Department or verious "thinktanks" as it is to their Australian counterparts.
1 posted on 08/09/2004 11:00:17 PM PDT by NZerFromHK
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: NZerFromHK; Shermy; Alamo-Girl; Cindy; Howlin; backhoe; kcvl; Fedora; MHGinTN; olde north church; ..
The revolt of the old farts. That is the best description of the statement by "a concerned group of former service chiefs and Australian diplomats" on Sunday.
No longer involved with the formulation or implementation of Australian policy, and rarely if ever consulted, this group is suffering from what Gareth Evans aptly named "relevance deprivation syndrome". The world is out of joint, and no one asks them how to set it right.

They sound remarkably similar to this relatively new group here in the US:

26 Former U.S. Officials Oppose Bush
Associated Press ^ | June 13, 2004

WASHINGTON - Angered by Bush administration policies they contend endanger national security, 26 retired U.S. diplomats and military officers are urging Americans to vote President Bush out of office in November. The group, which calls itself Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, does not explicitly endorse Democrat John Kerry for president in its campaign, which will start officially Wednesday at a Washington news conference. The Bush-Cheney campaign said Sunday it would have no response until the group formally issues its statement at the news conference. Among the group are 20 ambassadors, appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents, other former State Department officials and military leaders whose careers span three decades. Excerpted - click for full article ^ Source: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040614/ap_on_el_pr/diplomats_letter

2 posted on 08/09/2004 11:12:43 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NZerFromHK

Do any of these former service chiefs and Australian diplomats have ties to the pharmaceutical or bioterror countermeasures industry?


3 posted on 08/09/2004 11:15:08 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NZerFromHK
It was the Italian Marxist ideologue Antonio Gramsci who coined the phrase "the long march through the institutions" which so many of our bureaucrats and other public employees, including academics, took to heart in the 1960s and '70s - the idea was that society could be changed through rising to high positions within the structures of the society rather than by refusing to participate.

They are now experiencing the slow dribbling out of the institutions which the attrition of age brings.

May I stand and applaud this sentiment? There was, during the 60s and 70s, an absolute conviction among the politically "aware," meaning the newly-minted leftists, that they were the future and that the rest of us were doomed to senescence and an eventual perch on the ash-heap of history. One explanation for the rage of the left these days is the gradual realization that it is they, and not those of us they held in open contempt, who are doomed to become the infected veriform appendix of history's bulging colon.

It's a tough epiphany, and they're not taking it well. Losing the Cold War was a blow, but with Gramsci-ite determination it needn't have been a fatal one so long as there was revolution to be played at and a society to be plundered. That is, in fact, what the schemes of redistribution and "social justice" are really all about. They had it all, you see. Reagan was an anomaly, Clinton was their man, and now...well, now time's wasting, it's they who are aging, and if they don't manage to get Hillary in office in 2008 their next meeting will be in the rest home, raging at the right between nap times and double shots of metamucil. I don't even feel sorry for the sons-of-bitches, they were a pain in the butt on campus in my youth and I'll probably end up in the big-house for beating one of them to death with my walker.

4 posted on 08/09/2004 11:15:42 PM PDT by Billthedrill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NZerFromHK

Hurray for Paddy!


5 posted on 08/09/2004 11:16:28 PM PDT by Kudsman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NZerFromHK

Exactly - if the US had intel pror to 9-11 that Al Queda was going to strike New York, the UN would have vetoed our request to take pre-emptive action against the taliban in Afganistan.

UN weasels still adhere to the Peral harbor strategy - we must take a body blow before we have the right to strike back. In an age of nuclear proliferation, thats a suicide pact.


6 posted on 08/09/2004 11:18:20 PM PDT by Fenris6
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Comment #7 Removed by Moderator

To: NZerFromHK; Deb

There is also a UK equivalent to the US & Aussie one, they sent out a "letter of experts" statement just before the US group did.


8 posted on 08/09/2004 11:21:08 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MeeknMing

Wonder if all three of these groups- maybe more- are associated with moveon.org?


9 posted on 08/09/2004 11:46:22 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: piasa

Do you have a list for the UK group? I think it'd be a good idea to compare groups like this and see what their links to other players are. I tend to infer these guys are all networked with the antiwar movement in their respective countries and with whoever from French intelligence played a role in the "Wilson affair".


10 posted on 08/09/2004 11:48:32 PM PDT by Fedora
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: NZerFromHK

There's always been that group of smug, leftist-oriented academics who think that they possess more knowledge and wisdom than 99% plus of the American public. I've known these sorts at the college I graduated from, and I'm sure so does everyone else on this forum who had a college experience. These are the same types who, if given power, would turn the U.S. into some kind of Marxist disaster on the Cuba model. I've heard then perorate on their dream world a number of times and thought to myself that these guys (and gals) are absolutely clueless. But they live inside an insular, tenured system and can't be rooted out. Besides their college administrators most likely agree with their sentiments. A real fools paradise.


11 posted on 08/10/2004 2:03:26 AM PDT by driftless ( For life-long happiness, learn how to play the accordion.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: piasa

Thanks for the ping!


12 posted on 08/10/2004 6:05:53 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: piasa
Maybe through here ?? .....


The Soros Threat

The Capitalist Threat
(1997 article by Soros)

SOROS SNACKING ON SIDE DISHES
(Soros the Adulterer)

FR Search for Keyword Soros

FR Search for Keyword George Soros


13 posted on 08/10/2004 9:36:39 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP (There is only one GOOD 'RAT: one that has been voted OUT of POWER !! Straight ticket GOP!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Fedora

Signatories to the letter, which was delivered to the prime minister on Monday, April 26, include Sir Terence Clark, the UK’s ambassador to Iraq from 1985 to 1989; Sir Marrack Goulding, a former diplomat in Kuwait, Libya, Egypt and Lebanon who worked for the United Nations from 1986 to 1993; and Oliver Miles, ambassador to Libya during the takeover of the Libyan embassy in London during 1984 and now a business consultant on the Middle East.

Some prominent signatories have only recently left the Foreign Office, including Francis Cornish, former head of the Foreign Office news department and UK ambassador to Israel from 1998 to 2001, and Richard Muir, ambassador to Kuwait until 2002. The letter also includes diplomats from outside the Middle East.


14 posted on 08/10/2004 10:17:13 AM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Fedora
The British diplomats group
15 posted on 08/10/2004 10:20:52 AM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: piasa

Thanks!


16 posted on 08/10/2004 11:54:18 AM PDT by Fedora
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson