Howard's war and peace

The proper role of an ally is to support an attacked partner and to advise that partner if it is about to make a mistake, not to leap into the abyss if the partner insists on doing so. We are not obliged to slavishly follow US policy, nor to join it in unjustified and unwinnable wars, but this truth has escaped Howard all his political life.

My criticism of our support for “missile defence” is stringent because now it is costing us large sums of defence dollars and potential security capability. This is so because Howard has ordered the so-called Air Warfare Destroyer (AWD), three advanced US-designed warships that can be fitted with radars and weapons which turn them into part of a US “missile defence” system. These expensive capabilities are unnecessary for Australia, and they come at the cost of more relevant capabilities that have to be deferred or not acquired at all.

Whether the government is economically competent is a matter for the economically literate. But in national security clearly it is not.

It has wasted a billion dollars on its pointless “Pacific solution”, illegally detained and deported citizens in the name of border protection and allowed equine influenza into Australia.

Though behaving admirably over East Timorese independence and during the tsunami catastrophe, it soon resumed grovelling to Jakarta and has taken the incredible risk of allowing the notorious Kopassus to share anti-terrorist security information. Its record suggests that as it juggles the US and Chinese elements in our security environment we had better pray Washington and Beijing never have a confrontation. Instead of being a responsible US ally, Howard’s policies have portrayed Australia as a slavish satellite: worse, a discredited conservative himself, he has shackled us to another - the atrocious George W. Bush.

All this bad enough. But conservatives will object that it’s just the usual progressive litany. Well, maybe it is and maybe not. But here’s something that’s a fact.

John Howard’s Government took us to war, invaded, helped conquer and occupy a foreign country and bogged us down there. And on his own admission, it was all by mistake - not his mistake, he says, but it was his decision. We have responsible government in Australia and responsibility time is coming up fast.

The Indochina mistake cost us 500 dead and all the ongoing misery and expenses.

We have been lucky (and wisely careful in the field) so far in Iraq; the next time the conservatives make one of their war-or-peace “mistakes” we might not get off so lightly. When we elect a Federal government, the greatest power we give it is that of choosing peace or war: the people who sent us to Iraq should never again be entrusted with this power.