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Yep, says honest John, Iraq is all about oil! Hallelujah!
Hello. I've been out and about today, have just seen the news, and am absolutely dumbfounded that Howard and his defence minister have admitted that we're in Iraq because of its oil. Howard strongly denied oil played any part whatsoever in his decision to help the US invade Iraq. He let the cat out of the bag during a big defence speech today. Most Australians now know that he was lying about his reasons for ordering our troops to invade Iraq. But who'd have thought he and Nelson would admit to the lie!
I get the feeling big time that somehow, some way, Howard is allowing his subjects to see that the emperor has no clothes.
All those people who argued that Howard was lying before the war, and gave the reasons why it was all about oil, including many Webdiarists, must be taking a deep breath of utter relief. Condemned as appeasers, terrorist lovers, even traitors, they - and yep, I was one of them - are publicly and officially vindicated at last.
HUGE hat tip to wonderful Webdiarist and Webdiary columnist Jack Robertson, who set it all out in his detailed piece Controil, published on March 5, 2003, just before the war began.
I'll look up all the links tonight, but meanwhile, what a wonderful day. Please feel free to help me out with links.
Why didn't he have the guts to tell us the truth when it mattered, and explain why he did what he did? Didn't trust the judgment of the Australian people, you know, the judgment he so often publicly praised? What a bloody coward. And what an bloodied liar. Blood for oil.
But why did they do it? The Ten news I watched suggested Howard was backtracking, denying he said what he said. Or could his tainted government believe that the truth, at last, could win them an election on the back of Iraq?!
But Honest John, you told us at the 2004 election that it was all about trust! You know, the one where you promised you'd send no more troops to Iraq, then did just that quite soon after you'd won.
So he can't use that line this election, can he. Or can this man still get away with anything?
With exquisite timing, Russ did a big defence policy speech today too. We now have Iraq back as an election issue, and very clear lines of difference on it between the majors. Who'd have thought it?
UPDATE: Here are Howard's crucial lines in his speech today:
Events in the Middle East have long been important to Australia's security and broader interests, and this will remain the case. Many of the key strategic trends I have mentioned - including terrorism and extremism, challenging demographics, WMD aspirations, energy demand and great-power competition - converge in the Middle East. Our major ally and our most important economic partners have crucial interests there.
*
Brendan Nelson's ABC radio interview today (no transcript available):
"The defence update we're releasing today sets out many priorities for Australia's defence and security, and resource security is one of them." .
"The entire (Middle East) region is an important supplier of energy, oil in particular, to the rest of the world.
"Australians and all of us need to think well what would happen if there were a premature withdrawal from Iraq?"
*:
ALP defence spokesman's reaction.
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'Poor young doctors' and 'those slags dancing about'.
Mary J, hi!
Would you consider the girls in the night club in London, you know, "those slags dancing about", legitimate targets for the poor young doctors who were arrested in Glasgow?
I'm interested in your opinion on this because you've never got around to explaining whether, in your view, it is legitimate for Hamas to have as a policy the extermination of Jews worldwide, as stated in their Charter.
I figured if in your view Jews anywhere are legitimate targets for Hamas perhaps you could also argue that girls at a dance party are legitimate targets for Jihadists, too, on the grounds they represent degenerate western culture or something?
Oh, by the way, has anyone seen the documentary movie 'The Architecture of Doom'.
It's about the poor young doctors working in Auschwitz. Some interesting cultural and ideological parallels with our times.
Richard: Let's keep this thread on-topic, shall we?
Headline is dishonest
The headline to this piece is dishonest. Howard did not say Iraq is all about oil. The operative word is "all". Howard included energy in a list of items regarding key strategic trends in the Middle East that are important to Australia's security and broader interests. The full text of the relevant paragraph is as follows:
If it pleases Howard haters to get from this that "Iraq is all about oil", then be pleased but it is a misguided pleasure because it is based on a deception.
When not being humourless, the left is filled with shameful joy its own truth bending.
Good morning and good luck.
Richard: David, I think it was nothing more the bending of a catch-phrase for impact, as you just did in your last sentence, than a misrepresentation. How many times have we all been told "It's not about the oill.?" Surprise, surprise, it is !
Ghouls ...
.. or coprophages?
[1936/We Gotta Eat, We Gotta Live]G'day Roger Fedyk:
Ummm, are you saying we've gotta kill Iraqis:
a) to keep the price under $2, or
b) to fill our SUV/4WDs whatever the cost?
c) have you considered if the shoe was on the other foot?
I mean at that rate, China could invade us to ensure their coal supplies?
Whatever, but shouldn't we the democratic sheople® take a clear vote on this?
The world is watching us, I'm pretty sure. And the Anglo-Christian CoW® is pretty obviously murdering for oil in Iraq - BUT NOT IN MY NAME.
Unfortunately In Both Your Name And Mine
Hi Phil, I don't think anybody outside Australia would differentiate. Our government is us, therefore it is in our name.
My point is very simplistic. Let's call a spade a spade. We're in Iraq to protect Iraqis and ourselves, according to our government. They are liars. Iraqs die and we look at the price of fuel. Let's just say that and stop the pretence.
I have always considered John Howard to be a lying weasel. I would not admire him for it and might call him other names but I would not consider him a liar of he stated that we were in Iraq because we have to kiss America's arse and we need cheap oil. As much as that might dent our national pride we would learn to live with it. Instead, we are constantly being emotionally and intellectually abused in a dysfunctional relationship with a co-dependent government.
I heard a great comment on the ABC this morning. A caller wanted to know how Australia's oil managed to find its way under Iraq's sand. A truly extraordinary feat of migration.
Perspective
Howard makes it up as he goes along
The latest admission by Howard does show that he makes it up as he goes along. Like most of the recent policies coming from this Lame Duck government. The $10 billion water plan, $6 billion War on aboriginals, all policies made on the run by an ever increasingly desperate government, clutching at straws to remain in power.
Nothing Changes
A person walks into a Community Support Centre; asking for help, most of the people working there are volunteers.
What forms their perceptions on how to help this person?
The volunteers have for the most part done some training, short courses in how to handle human beings, that is clients, who are “them”, and other volunteers who are “us”.
They have been taught to filter information for the smooth running of the centre; anything that does not fit into this scheme becomes a problem.
At Centrelink a person who walks into the centre for help is a customer. As customers they have no say in how they are treated, their humanity has been defined.
All interactions are predetermined according to a set institutionalized script that, most will not question out of fear.
A person walks into the Community Support Centre for help and is obviously suffering from Mental Illness, the problem does not fit into the usual scheme and was not covered in the short courses dealing in how to be “desensitized but still appear to be human.”
So they ring a special group who, have specially been trained, in an extensive 6 month course.
The volunteers are all relieved, the victim is under some impression that he/she is under expert guidance.
But it’s all a con, the volunteers have been conned, the special group has been conned, the mentally ill patient has been conned and society has been conned.
Deep down inside people know that the mentally ill person was not being treated fairly, that he/she was not given any care, but they will not allow the awareness to surface.
The awareness would introduce a moral crisis, and they do not want to deal with it, so they suppress their awareness, and the person seeking help is turned away or not given appropriate care.
Many people knew about the lies, concerning Iraq, and were silenced, by the majority, who had been given their perceptions via the institutionalized corporate scripts, which saturated the social environment.
The human condition for self deception and moral cowardice was much stronger than any call for truth and justice.
Nothing changes, the parables in the bible concerning lepers and good Samaritans are as true today as back then.
The price for justice and truth has always been the same.
Smoking the oil pipe
I doesn't matter where the oil is or isn't — the fact is we can't afford to burn it. We need a different energy source before half the world drowns in rising sea-levels and the other half starves because there are no reliable growing seasons.
The oil industry has captured the White House. That's the central fact of George Bush's presidency. The reporting of affairs of state since then has been controlled by the need to obscure oil industry control of the White House and limit energy policy to discussions of whether or not oil is running out, whether and where there are new oil fileds, whether China is bidding for western oil companies....
If we don't think and act outside the oil-pipe, our grandkids' grandkids will never exist.
They are still war criminals
There is an interesting juxtaposition with this and the poor young doctors being crucified in the media and by our not very esteemed Federal police liar commissioner. Mick up to his old tricks. Names the poor devils without a hint that they had done a single thing wrong and then leaps in to play the good cop, hoping we will forget all his past crimes. Diarists all know his crimes from the SIEVX and kids not thrown investigations.
All day pundits and big mouths have been shaking their heads over the notion that doctors would kill people, failing to remember the three major medical doctors who voted to bomb the bejesus out of Iraq without a thought for almost 1 million people who are now dead. Yes it was accepted by the Brits last October that the Lancet report was probably correct and the death toll in Iraq over the last year has got higher and higher. UNICEF report 122,000 babies under 5 died in 2005 from violence and the effects of violence. To put that into perspective the entire death toll in Australia was 132,000.
Brendan Nelson, Andrew Southcott and Mal Washer are three MP's who voted for mass murder rather than negotiation.
And we dare to vilify anyone else as "terr'ists". They just better let the young doctor go and see his wife and baby and we should applaud Nelson for finally telling us what we already knew.
Not this issue
Well most people would know and accept that any policy or intervention in the ME will always have at least something to do with oil. So it makes little difference what Howard and Nelson say, or don't say on the subject.
I doubt many will change their vote over this particular issue. Most do not see the war in Iraq, or Afghanistan as being solely about oil. And most will agree with Howard that oil, among other things is fundamental to the interests and security of any country. You can't do much without it.
If Howard goes down it will be for reasons other than that people feel misled over the Iraq war.
We Gotta Eat, We Gotta Live
Jenny, I believe that Australia would have accepted that we were there for the oil, 4 years ago. If we are going to be pragmatic then let's not mince words in the public debate.
It's me/my family/my friends/my community/my state/my country first in roughly that order and bugger the rest. Let them work out their own problems and kill each other. Let's not click our tongues and bleat on about innocents being slaughtered. This is now a global war with "we who have" against "them that ain't". Shit! I don't want to pay $2 a litre for fuel.
When the world was large and communication was slow or non-existent we were blissfully ignorant of exactly these type of problems and could be excused. Now we know instantly but collectively pretend that something other than what is plainly happening in front of us is happening.
In this we are led by the Prime Liar who even today said 'it's about the oil' and then immediately recanted and said 'no it's not' (wink wink nudge nudge shut up and play the game)
Then again, I think of my children and my grand-daugther and I despair if that is the world I am leaving them. Could I be so selfish? When will the truth set me/us free?
Prisoners of paradigms
Roger: I agree. Most people will vote where they think they can best protect the interests of themselves and their families. But was it ever not thus?
When I say most, I mean those who are poor, in debt, still working to make a living, raising a family or supporting themselves or for that matter aged relatives, because they are the ones affected most by domestic policies, not foreign policies. And I suspect they make up the bulk of the population. They only take note of foreign policy when they front up at the petrol bowser, but even then they believe that the government could do something about the skyrocketing prices if it really wanted to. So interest rates, labour policies, the price of fuel, the state of health and education services will influence them more than any argument about what the war in Iraq is all about. If they had soldier relatives fighting or dying over there they might have a different view, but they are in the minority.
It is only when people have reached a point where they are more financially secure, (ie have reached a certain point in Maslow's heirarchy) and are therefore immune to domestic pressures of whatever kind that they might look at voting on wider, and what they might see as moral issues, such as the Iraq war.
There are exceptions of course. But they are not sufficient in numbers to change the outcome of any election.
So while surveys show that 70% of Australians are appalled at the determination of Governments to continue a live animal trade while knowing that it is grossly inhumane and has been found to be so by its own inquiries, they will not vote a government down on such an issue, much as I would like them to. Moral outrage is rarely if ever the cause of election failure or win in this country. Whitlam discovered that.
I suspect most Australians anyway do not subscibe to the view here that Australia and the US is in Iraq deliberately murdering for oil. Most are able to see that the deaths in Iraq are a direct consequence of internal hatreds and power struggles between the Sunnis, dispossessed of their brutal power, and the Shias who are determined not to be the oppressed ever again. Whether it was right to dispossess the Sunnis in the first place is another matter. So while Australians are not being killed standing between the two groups most I suspect will see our presence there as acceptable. They will also accept that stability in Iraq is in their best interests in terms of energy security. So these verbal acrobats over whether the war was for oil or not for oil in the first instance is not going to be a vote winner or loser for either party imho.
If people consider international issues at all they will look at climate change, and at the rise of islamists world wide. They will note the weather extremes, and the terror bombings in the UK and the scares in this country and they will think economic and personal security. Rudd will need to tread carefully on any issue where the word security arises.
I find it a bit difficult to relate to the views on this site about the US. It seems to me that no matter what the issue, most here have to look for any evidence they can find that will support their anti America line and yes, one could say hatred.
I think that is just as dishonest as those who seek to look at the facts from the opposite end of the political spectrum with similar inability to arrive at any conclusion that will in any way question US foreign policy or actions.
I would see the left's views as more balanced and reasoned if some were able to admit that in going into Afghanistan the US had justifiable cause. But even Afghanistan is to many on the left only about oil, and nothing but oil. And to support that argument some give credence to 9/11 conspiracy theories suggesting the US engineered that event in order to justify that particular war. In the absence of any verifiable facts whatsoever that that was so, I find that view appalling to put it mildly.
I think Margo is right to not allow that issue to be debated on WD. It would kill the site completely. It would bring every type of crank here from all over the world. And I suspect Margo has little energy for that and I don't blame her. If abusive emails and comments are a problem now, they would be nothing to what that issue would bring. There are plenty of sites where people can go if they want to engage on that issue.
Now watch the left winged bees come swarming all over me for saying any of this. That is predictable because they are intellectual prisoners of their own paradigms.
And I would argue that those on the extreme right are similarly intellectual prisoners of their own paradigms.
It one accepts that one it able to be totally immune to the sting of the bees, no matter what hive they hail from.
Not meaning to offend you good sir, or others here with whom I have engaged on many issues. I am just making some observations.
So Where To Now?
Jenny, I understand most of what you say. However, it leads us to the point that, as a nation, we cannot speak the truth because of all the attendant nuances and effects, particularly financial.
Therefore, if we cannot speak the truth then we must accept the accommodation of lies and half-truths as being acceptable to this country and the only way that the country can operate. At this point we lose considerable moral authority including our authority to teach our children about ethics and morals.
Equivocation makes us complicit liars and bad teachers. Religion becomes hypocrisy and the foundation of evidentiary responsibility, the requirement to tell the truth in a court of law, becomes a nonsense.
It is indisputable that the whole world works with lies jamming the gears of all activity. If we accept that this is the way it must be to survive then we have no need of forums like Web Diary or religions or any institution that promotes truth. We will know exactly what we must do and we must teach our children what to do to survive, and depending on how good a liar they become, to flourish.
After all, we can point at our Prime Minister and other leaders as the inspired examples of this way of life.
Hi Roger
What I'm saying is that, within the constraints of what passes for public debate, Howard does indeed have 'wiggle room' on this. I could be wrong, but there's nothing that came out today that could constitute a 'smoking gun' on the Iraq issue.
What you or I might construe from any of today's official avowals or disavowals may not correspond with that of the wider electorate.
And public perceptions of the Government's contortions on the question of Iraq may not translate into the kind of electoral backlash that you or I might like to see.
Iraq is not a hot button issue because our boys and girls are not dying over there, and Australia has so far not suffered any significant blowback from the Iraq misadventure. Consequently, the prevailing perception might well be that the Government has astutely managed its commitments to Our Great Ally with minimal cost to Australia.
What have we become? I believe the answer, in short, to be: A satellite of the world hyperpower.
Oh, and a nation of energy-dependent consumers with an eye on pump prices. Part of Nelson's spiel today was an oblique warning that precipitate withdrawal from Iraq would have consequences for Australia's energy requirements (read 'pump prices').
Security is the common theme whether relevant or not
Security is a much abused term these days - water security, food security, oil security, chocolate security, etc.
Sadly part of the problem with invoking "security" (so-called) at every term is that in the end no one knows what is really important and the word itself becomes meaningless...much like Howard and Nelson today - MEANINGLESS. It is part of "the sky is falling" syndrome that this mob loves to engage in. Rather than threatening most of Australia now it is all becoming rather ho-hum, which ironically is dangerous in itself.
What Have We Become And Other Questions?
Jacob, are you seriously suggesting that we should entertain the idea that Howard is making "wiggle room"?
When is plainly speaking the truth going to be demanded of our leaders?
In your opinion, does truth have any place in Australian society?
Is it in our interest as a nation to be led by liars and for the electorate to embrace liars? What does that say about us?
Why do we have courts and laws that demand "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" when truth is a commodity shaped by opinion polls and weasel-words?
Why should we even bother to teach ethics to our children when our Prime Minister is bound by nothing more morally onerous than winning an election? Our children will function in this world so much better if we teach them to lie and manipulate from an early age.
National security
Yes, Richard, it's a 'ripper' speech... in a sense...
Here's a ripper line:
Well yes, the Government decided, after much umming and ahhing and sitting on its hands, to act on the US's suggestion that Australia lead a military coalition in East Timor.
It apparently hadn't occurred to the Government in the prior three years since its election — despite its supposed superiority in the national security stakes — that the ADF required beefing up.
Indeed, since the 'end of history' circa 1990, defence never seemed such a critical issue until after Sept 11 2001, when this Government embarked on 'the long war' with our hyper-ally.
As slippery as oil
There was a story on it in The Australian today
According to Brendan Nelson:
My first reaction was, at last they are owning up to the true reason for the invasion of Iraq, but I was none the less very suspicious as to why they had come out with it now. On closer inspection though, it does seem they are now using oil as an excuse to stay on in Iraq. They are not actually saying that they went there for oil.
Once again they re treating the public as if they are absolute fools who can not connect the dots !
PM Shoots Self In Foot
PM Howard's speech today has some choice phrases
Then
Then
And that's only the Middle East. The whole thing's a ripper.
Wriggle room
I think there's still plenty of wriggle room for the Government to be able to say that oil was not the primary motivation for the invasion.
The Government is saying that oil/energy is a significant factor in keeping troops in Iraq now, today. This may be sufficient to carry the Government's line among the broader electorate.
Still, this latest pronouncement is (as Tim Dunlop has pointed out) somewhat at odds with Mr Howard's previous 'definitive' statement on Iraq back in March, in which oil was not at all a prominent issue.
The Long-Term Occupation Is Being Set
Margo, even though the political situation in Iraq is in turmoil, the COW end-game is now being put carefully into place. Howard does not make these sort of mistakes. This is deliberate and planned.
All the pieces are coming together from the most unusual sources. In the US, Republican Senator Richard Lugar is supposedly turning against his President. But is he? Lugar says quite plainly that a smaller US contingent must remain in Iraq, ostensibly for security purposes.
The following link gives details on over 400 incidents of attacks and disruptions to the Iraqi pipelines and other infrastructure; Iraqi Pipeline Watch.
John Howard has plainly been given his orders to change the rhetoric to suit this new and permanent phase of the Iraq invasion. The US and COW troops will be in Iraq at the necessary level to meet the oil objectives until it finally runs out. We will be there for up to 30 or more years.
The plain-speaking will be ratcheted-up. We will be told and ultimately convinced that our very future is dependent on our being there to protect the oil. Of course, it will not take much convincing when our price at the pump hits $2 a litre and higher. If Rudd becomes PM watch him fall into line.