On 20 March 2003 the US invaded Iraq, on the basis that it had and could use weapons of mass destruction. That was a lie. Australia joined President Bush’s ‘coalition of the willing’, New Zealand did not. The drums of war beat strong then, and are doing so again now. This time China is the target.
One year earlier, in March 2002, I was in Ottawa speaking at a conference on relations between unions and political parties, and watching US TV in my hotel room in the evening. Back in New Zealand I reported on the conference to the Labour Party caucus, and based on the strident media coverage I had seen in Canada said as an aside “the US is going to invade Iraq.” Helen Clark got up immediately and said “we will not be following them.” Her strong leadership then proved to be correct and is something for which all of us can be very grateful.
The media drums of war are beating again, this time with China in the sights, and they are concerted across the FiveEyes. From the US, various senior officers have been predicting war with China in the next few years. From Australia last week, Nine Media papers Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age ran a three-part series titled “Red Alert”, warning of the threat of an invasion by an aggressive China.
Another former Labour leader, Australia’s Paul Keating, savaged the Nine series, as only he can, in a memorable Press Club interview with Laura Tingle in Sydney and the Press Gallery in Canberra on the AUKUS submarine deal. It is well worth a watch. The series was put together with five so-called experts. Keating rightly defined them as right-wing hawks. You can watch them conversing here.
Two things stand out for me. Firstly, the ‘experts’ identify that their task is ‘psychological.’ They ask is Australia prepared for what is its ‘near future,’ and say no.
Critically, the group emphasises that this is a responsibility for the whole nation, not for the military alone: “Most important of all is a psychological shift. Urgency must replace complacency. The recent decades of tranquillity were not the norm in human affairs, but an aberration. Australia’s holiday from history is over.”
In other words, their self-appointed task is war propaganda. And it is succeeding, as opinion about China in Australia (and New Zealand) has shifted markedly negative in the last five year, not by accident. For me it is the Iraq war prelude redux.
Secondly, they raise the question of whether Australia should discuss the hosting of nuclear weapons in Australia. This goes well beyond the question of nuclear propulsion in the eye-wateringly costly submarines. If we thought the nuclear debate was settled for us, it clearly is not.
The experts did not discuss the consequences of war. The potential costs in money is massive, and in human lives is horrendous. The illegal Iraq war cost the US $3trillion according to Oxford Professor Neta Crawford, as 2000 civilians were killed in the first few days of the war. Iraqi poet Sinan Antoon describes its consequences in the Guardian:
The ‘new Iraq’ that the warmongers promised us did not bring Starbucks or startups, but car bombs, al-Qaida and Islamic State
Coming back to war with China, in Morning Report today, Corin Dann asked Professor Robert Ayson of the Institute of Strategic Studies, another war-focused think tank, “if the AUKUS countries for some reason got into a military exchange conflict with say China, how difficult would it be for New Zealand not also to get involved? Would we have to support Australia if they attacked.” Ayson’s response was:
If Australia ends up in conflict in East Asia supporting the United States, and this was seen as a response to Chinese activities, it would be very difficult for New Zealand to just sit on the sidelines.
We need to talk about all this – urgently and thoroughly.
We did not follow the US into war with Iraq, and we should not follow Australia into war with China, just because it has tied its apron strings to the US. We took the US out of the ANZUS alliance over nuclear weapons and nuclear propulsion in the 1980s; if Australia is going to go down this track I think we should get rid of the A as well.
We are a Pacific country and a proud pacific nation.
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