AUSTRALIAN RELATIONS WITH THE UNITED STATES
Address to a public meeting on
Defending Australia from U.S. War Games
Wednesday 6 June 2007, 6.30 pm
St Michael’s Uniting Church
120 Collins St, Melbourne
John Langmore
There is only one theme to my remarks: that it is irresponsible, contrary
to Australia’s national interests, wasteful and immoral for the Howard
Government to be collaborating with the Bush Administration in a major
military training exercise when the current US Administration is the most
aggressive government in the world.
Let’s begin with the treaty which has set the foundation for
international relations since 1945, the Charter of the United Nations.
The purposes set by the founding Member States of the UN in the first
paragraph of the Charter begin ‘to save succeeding generations from the
scourge of war … [and] to establish conditions under which justice and
respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of
international law can be maintained’. The goals of peaceful conflict resolution
and the rule of law were universally regarded for the next 55 years as
the principal aims of wise international relations.
Yet the Bush Administration now claims to have a stronger imperative, what they call the ‘war on terror’, which justifies abandoning the goal of avoiding ‘the scourge of war’ and empowers them to neglect and withdraw from treaties which they have ratified and to oppose others which they consider would constrain their capacity for unilateral action.
The invasion of Iraq was the principal example of this abandonment of compliance with treaty obligations. The UN Charter allows for two situations when military force can be used, in direct response to an attack or even an imminent threat of attack, and when the Security Council agrees. Iraq was not threatening the US, UK or Australia and most of the member states of the Security Council were opposed to the proposed invasion so a supportive resolution was impossible. So the invasion was illegal: it did not have the legitimacy of authorisation from the UN. We also now know that the invasion has been a disaster for both the Iraqis and the Americans.
Yet the Administration continues to expand its military engagement in Iraq to talk of further military aggression, and to act provocatively. Despite the destructive fiasco in Iraq Vice-President Chaney said not long ago that ‘we’re not looking for an exit strategy. We’re looking for victory.’
Cheney is equally clear that the Administration would, if it considered it necessary, use force against Iran. ‘The US is keeping all options on the table in addressing the irresponsible conduct of the regime. … We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.’ These are the words of a rogue leader, who appears to have no commitment to the international basis for force minimisation, the UN Charter.
Last week the Administration acted utterly provocatively by holding huge naval manoeuvrers just outside Iran’s territorial waters. The US is also provoking Russia without adequate justification by planning to locate anti-missile missiles in Eastern Europe and China too by a range of talk and policies. It is not in Australia’s interest to have defense policy inextricably interwoven with a provocateur, especially when the target is one of our fastest growing trading partners.
US actions indicate that to the Administration treaties including the UN Charter are now disposable. International institutions are regarded as an impediment to freedom of manoeuvre. This is a paradox since the US National Security Strategy includes amongst the characteristics of ‘rogue states’ that they ‘display no regard for international law, threaten their neighbours, and callously violate international treaties to which they are a party; … ’ Using its own criterion, under the current Administration the US is behaving as a rogue state.
The Howard Government has obsequiously attached itself to the Bush Administration. Imitation has been the characteristic form of expression of that commitment, in ideology, policies, tactics, rhetoric, and even styles of political work and presentation. Prime Minister John Howard has simply copied President George W. Bush’s stances. Howard has subsumed Australia’s national interest in American priorities and strategy.
Howard has repeatedly emphasised the central importance of the American alliance. In the area of defence, this is expressed as a strategy of interoperability, that is, Australia concentrates on defence capacities that complement and add to American capacity to fight anywhere in the world. In so doing the Howard Government gives political support to the Bush Administration’s military priorities. Operation Talisman Sabre is a potent expression of such uncritical collaboration with the Bush Administration.
The US is using the Howard Government’s obsequiousness and failure to articulate distinctive Australian foreign and defence policies to incorporate us into their military machine. The US is now spending more than half of the whole world’s military expenditure. Goodness knows what level of insecurity enables them to justify spending more than all the rest of the world put together on their own defence.
Australians would do well to protest against such extravagant squandering by refusing to cooperate with it, but what are we doing: we’re reinforcing it by encouraging some of it to be spent on war games in pretence of defence against enemies which we don’t have.
If the Government were serious about combating terrorism it would not be massively increasing Australian military spending, to $22b this year, especially by buying more sophisticated weapons than are possessed by any other country. It would instead concentrate on easing the conditions which contribute to motivating political and economic alienation and despair. Yet Australian official development assistance has been lower as a proportion of Australia’s national income in every year the Howard Government has been in office than it had ever been since the practice of giving aid was established. Australia is amongst the meanest official donors, and that is despite the growing individual support for aid. Annual aid could be doubled by cutting military spending by $3b simply by cutting back on purchases of military equipment that is likely to be useless in Australia’s defence.
The Lowy Institute poll published in October 2006 showed that two-thirds
of Australians think too much notice is taken of the US in foreign policy.
Australia would be more secure in an orderly multilateral system in which
every country is committed to the rule of law, than in a world where the
only superpower reserves the right to unilateral pre-emptive use of military
force.
Australians could support the majority of Americans who want
their country to be an honourable participant in the multilateral system.
We can cooperate with those within the US who seek peaceful and just solutions
to conflict. But we must also seek greater independence and autonomy,
based on firm clarity about national goals. Australia’s foreign policy
needs to become more realistic about the nature of the US, clearer about
our national interests, and determined to renew our multilateral engagement
through the UN and our respect for international law.
It is vital that all of us speak with more clarity about this issue. Too many Australians have felt that they could not speak honestly about the consequences of our domination by the US. It is time now to be open about our opposition to Bush’s strategy. The consequence of our silence is that Australian military spending is being wastefully multiplied by participation in a US strategy for militarising the world.
The remark by Pastor Martin Niemoeller about waiting too long to oppose evil is relevant. Probably many of you know it well. Niemoeller said of Nazis in Germany in the thirties that ‘they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionists. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up’. Many of us have spoken against the brutal imprisonment of asylum seekers, against the failure to apologise to Indigenous peoples for the stolen generation, and joined protests against the invasion of Iraq. But there has been a marked reluctance, especially amongst mainstream commentators, to criticise American militarisation and aggression.
Such clear and strong protest is vital now. These exercises are not
necessary. They are a political statement about Australia’s integration
into the American war machine. They are wasteful and supportive of aggression.
Opposition to them is a moral responsibility for everyone who seeks to
end ‘the scourge of war’.