And so it looks like the war is begining. And of course John Howard is scuttling along in George Dubya’s shadow, nodding and drooling like the lab assistant in a Frankenstein film. “Yes master! Of course master! Whatever you say master! slobber“.
Anyone who thinks this war isn’t about oil is being naive. Oh sure it could be about liberating the Iraqi people – but in that case why didn’t the powers that be liberate them years ago? And it could be about stopping Iraq from supplying Al Qaida – except no one has actually shown any evidence to suggest that Iraq does supply Al Qaida. And maybe it could be about weapons of mass destruction – but in that case you’ve got to wonder about a country with the world’s largest arsenal of weapons of mass destruction ordering other countries that may not even have them to disarm. This is all about oil, and how the petroleum worshiping, environmentaly dismissive, “we won’t play nicely with the UN unless we can set the rules” Bush administration can get its hands on as much of it as possible.
And why is little Johnny Howard so enthusiastic about it all? Free trade. It can hardly be a coincidence that Australia is negotiating a free trade agreement with the States, and that they’ve been rather reluctant to come to the party until recently. Oh Johnny’s going on about our international responsibilities and how he thinks this is best for our national security, but honestly – how can a small, comparatively poor nation on the other side of the planet be any kind of serious threat to Australia? Anyone with a brain in their head can tell that it’s exactly the opposite – an attack on Iraq will just provide fuel for terrorism, specifically terrorism against the US, the UK and us. It’s all political game playing, and ordinary citizens are in the firing line if it all goes wrong, which it almost certainly will.
Good luck to everyone. The ordinary citizens of the United States and UK, my friends in both countries, everyone here in Australia and most of all the women and children of Iraq, the people who always suffer the most from warfare, no matter how much the politicians say they’re going to try and ‘minimise’ civilian casualties. Heads down everyone, this could all turn very nasty indeed 🙁
PS: On a final note, during the last Gulf War the Allied Forces bombed and blew up numerous museums in Baghdad – destorying priceless artifacts – and ran a specialty line in dropping “bunker-busting” bombs on ancient mesopotamian ruins because their “specialists” couldn’t tell the difference between an underground bunker and a Babylonian ziggurat in a satellite photograph. How much more of the collective archeological heritage of humanity is going to get wasted this time round?
