Posted on 09/23/2005 2:26:44 PM PDT by naturalman1975
NATIONAL security is too important to tolerate the fundamental misrepresentation of the truth. Two such untruths have been told this week: one by Mark Latham on the value of the US alliance; the second by Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile on the posture of Kim Beazley and his frontbench on that alliance. Both demand repudiation.
First on Mark Latham. In The Latham Diaries, my former leader dismisses the alliance formed by John Curtin as "just another form of neo-colonialism", "the latest manifestation of the White Australia Policy" and as producing "a timid insular nation too frightened to embrace an independent foreign policy".
Latham had given me no indication that this was his view. Indeed, at the start of Latham's leadership, we worked together constructively on consolidating federal Labor's relationship with the US.
When Latham won the federal Labor leadership in December 2003, I went to see him at his request in his office. He wanted to talk to me about what he described as patching up his relationship with the Americans. I specifically asked for and received an absolute assurance of his support for the US alliance. It was on that basis that I organised a meeting for Latham with the then US ambassador, Tom Scheiffer, for the following day.
This also explains what happened the following month when I proposed new wording at Labor's national conference for the ALP platform, which strengthened the previous platform's support for the alliance. This could never have happened without Latham's support as federal leader. The new platform, which is our present platform, for the first time lists the alliance as one of the three pillars of Labor's national security and foreign policy framework, together with our membership of the UN and our policy of comprehensive engagement with Asia. The platform also describes the "centrality of the alliance to Australia's national security". And for those not familiar with ALP processes, the national policy platform is the supreme policy authority of the party.
Finally Latham makes a derisory reference to the joint facilities at Pine Gap. Together with Latham, I visited Pine Gap for an official inspection last year, again at Latham's request. Without going into specifics because of the obvious security obligations that apply to any such visit, Latham's private comments to me following that inspection bear no relationship to his purported diary entry of December 2004 attacking the facility.
In short, these critical events during the 12-month period December 2003 to December 2004 together with his multiple public protestations of commitment to the alliance while leader point to two possibilities: either Latham lied about his commitment to the alliance during the course of his leadership or, following his election loss, he totally changed his mind on the alliance.
The second great misrepresentation of the truth on this important matter of national security has come from Vaile. He should know better than to play rank partisan politics on fundamental questions of national security. Vaile has said that Latham's most recent musings cast a doubt on the Labor Party's commitment to the alliance. What claptrap. Is Vaile seriously suggesting that the Leader of the Opposition, defence spokesman Robert McClelland or I are somehow tepid on the alliance? All three of us are well-documented as lifelong supporters of the alliance and, beyond that, I would point Vaile to the ALP platform referred to above.
Vaile's pathetically partisan observations about Labor's alliance credentials are as meaningful as saying that the credentials of the Liberals are in doubt because one of their former leaders, Malcolm Fraser, held quite virulent views on ANZUS in particular and the US in general. According to Vaile's logic, this therefore throws into doubt the alliance credentials of Fraser's ministers, including one John Winston Howard, Fraser's treasurer.
The big difference between Labor and the conservatives on the US alliance is that we have never regarded it as a blank cheque:
- Labor did not support the unilateral US attack on Iraq in March 2003, a position that is standing well over the test of time as Iraq turns into a quagmire and prospects of a possible civil war between Sunnis and Shias become evident.
- Labor does not support the US position on the International Criminal Court and, unlike the Liberals, fundamentally and publicly opposes US attempts to gain exemption for itscombatants from the reach of thecourt.
- Unlike the conservatives, Labor does not support the US position of hostility towards Kyoto.
- Labor has attacked attempts by the US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, to water down the UN's commitment to the Millennium Development Goals to reducing global poverty.
The value of the US alliance to Australia today remains as it was during the governments of Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. For example:
- The alliance provides Australia access to the US global intelligence network which, despite its well-documented failures, is a network we could not replicate on a national basis. It is critical to our national security interests in an age of terrorism.
- Through the alliance Australia has access to leading-edge military systems and the technologies necessary for Australia to maintain a competitive strategic edge in our region.
- If Australia were to become neutral or non-aligned, we would need at least double our national military expenditure, and would have to find another $13 billion per year.
- The alliance is part of a strategically stabilising structure across the western Pacific that has underpinned peace and poverty-busting economic growth across Asia since the fall of Saigon.
Not bad reasons for sticking with it, I would have thought.
Kevin Rudd is Labor's foreign affairs spokesman.
This is a concession on Labor's part that when the United States is attacked (as it repeatedly was by Hussein in the leadup to the 2003 invasion), the United States will not be able to count on Australia if it is lead by a Labor gov't. In other words, Australia will be the same sort of 'ally' that Canada is if Australia is lead by the Laborites.
That was exactly what I read into the last paragraphs. I suppose it's natural that any nation would see such alliances that way,but what they always seem to forget is that the other party to the alliance is likely to have,and is entitled to have,the same feeling of national interest-especially if the other party(almost always the US,in any alliance with another nation) is footing the bill.
No offense but Austrailia lately has been sucking up to the communists chinese a bit much for my tastes.
Large sections of the mainstream media seem intent on manufacturing the idea that there is a rift between the US and Australia on China, and that Australia is somehow weak on China.
Whath the Australian government is doing with regards to China is pursuing trade deals that are to the immense advantage of our economy. It's just business.
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