Posted on 09/18/2005 3:23:21 AM PDT by Dundee
'Ditch the US alliance'
FORMER Labor leader Mark Latham believed the US alliance should be ditched and called it "the last manifestation of the White Australia mentality".
The Latham Diaries reveal his in-principle support for the alliance during last year's election was completely insincere and driven by electoral politics.
Mr Latham mocks public support for the alliance and dismisses with contempt anybody who thinks it serves a purpose. The Diaries verify the judgment President George W. Bush made of Mr Latham - that his election would have put the alliance in serious jeopardy. "It's just another form of neo-colonialism," Mr Latham says of the alliance.
Writing after the election, Mr Latham says that he should go public and question the long-term need for the alliance, but laments that this "would turn the party upside down" and that "the Big Mac faction would go ballistic".
The Diaries reveal an extreme view of foreign policy and of Australia's role in the world. Mr Latham opposes every war Australia has fought, except World War II. He blames the US alliance for dragging Australia into unnecessary conflicts. His preferred foreign policy model is based on New Zealand's.
He writes that if Australia prefers being "an American colony under (John) Howard, that's a nation not worth leading".
He accuses the Prime Minister and Mr Bush of being cowards, saying "they wouldn't fight themselves, of course, but they readily send other people's children to fight in their name".
In his diary entry of December 1, 2004, six weeks before he resigned, he says: "The Americans have made us a bigger target in the war against terror -- Australian lives are certain to be sacrificed on the altar of the US alliance.
"Look at New Zealand. They have their foreign policy right, and it's the safest country on earth. Labor should be the anti-war party of Australian politics. Other than World War II, every war this country has fought was disconnected from our national interests. All those young Australian lives lost in faraway lands, the folly of imperialism and conservative jingoism.
"I detest war and the meatheads who volunteer to kill other human beings. The US alliance is a funnel that draws us into unnecessary wars; first Vietnam and then Iraq."
The Diaries reveal a far more visceral anti-Americanism and a deeper streak of pacificism than was apparent from his public comments as Labor leader. Mr Latham sees the US alliance and an independent Australia as completely incompatible.
"A timid, insular nation at the bottom of the world, too frightened to embrace an independent foreign policy," he says.
"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."
Mr Latham is convinced that "the Americans need us more than we need them". He says Pine Gap is "vital to their international security network". He claims that the Americans "restrict our capacity to trade and integrate with Asia" and that "one day their trouble with China will be our trouble".
As one of the many 'meatheads' you so detest I have the honour and also the near physical sensation of pleasure in declearing you the greatest failure and BOOFHEAD in the history of Australian politics.
The Australian public saw through your lies and crushed you like a bug. These days, trying to find someone who will admit to voting for you is like trying to find someone in 1946 Germany to admit to voting for Hitler.
But I would like to also thank you.
The Australian public knows that you were the Labor party's anointed son. From the moment you were born, the Labor party cradled you to their bosom and molded you into their idea of perfection. You are the highest representation of what the Labor party is in its purest form.
And now, for the first time, the Australian public can see what Labor and the left truly stand for.
And as for your future... I've heard that due to ill health the French may need a new President soon. I would have booked you a one way ticket to Paris but the idea of you having a complete lunatic with his twitchy finger on the nuclear button isn't so hot.
Hmmmm....
I hear that Zimbabwe is nice in the spring...
Even his party dumped him.
He could go to Canada. He sounds exactly like Paul Martin except Martin appears to be less a maniac on surface.
Ping!
Sure sounds like they don't like him at all. Now, about that neo-colonialism stuff, that means they drink both Coke and Pepsi, right?
Sounds like another moonbat soon to be appearing on the Jane Fonda and/or Cindy Sheehan tours.
Dumped him? They've run away from him screaming like girly-men.
He looks like your Dean, although don't forget the US Democrats sent Kerry's sister down here to campaign for Latham. Maybe Kerry was secretly going to dump the alliance with the UK?
He looks like your Dean, although don't forget the US Democrats sent Kerry's sister down here to campaign for Latham. Maybe Kerry was secretly going to dump the alliance with the UK?
Wonder what makes these people so cowardly, callous, and depraved.
That would be Scotlands Galloway.
Sorry if I'm confused.
I just curious, people down under have so many cool expressions (well, unfamiliar expressions for Americans).
What's your expression for "moonbat"?
moonbat= American for whacko liberal
Latham sounds like he wouldn't even be man enough to be mayor of San Francisco.
No offence to any Scots out there, I wasn't aware he was a Scot, but yes, that was the whackjob I was thinking about when I mentioned Jane Fonda.
Just google Fonda and Galloway
Bahahahaha! ROTFL
Well, Duh! I know that, I was just wondering if the Aussie's had their own special a term for it.
Kinda like he has roos in his upper paddock.
I knew what you meant lol
I have no idea what that means, but I asked for it, LOL
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