RETHINKING THE WAR

Well, I decided to make another contributiuon (attempt).
I will post the published text in the unlikely chance it gets thru the press censor. Note the footnote.
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The ‘western’ defeat in Iraq is obvious to all except those who cannot see past their own cloud of hubris. It is a policy failure, and a military defeat. Winning a battle (or two) is not winning the war. 101 stuff!

Merv of Brisbane rightly pins Bush: but blame must also be shared by Blair and Howard -- and all others of the initially willing consortium of aggressive invaders. Even the arrogant U.S. president would not have ‘gone it alone’. Their fawning contributed. As time may well show, we won’t even have achieved our obvious number one objective: maintain the key AWB market in Iraq through what many considered an illegal embargo of Iraq during the 1990s. A campaign that was responsible for many tens of thousands of deaths, mainly children, from want of essential medical supplies etc. I’m with the AWB and Australian farmers on this one. They did nothing wrong but to try and continue to do unsubsidised business against a growing American hegemony.

Howard’s toadyism contributed to the ‘born again’ neo-con millennial fever reaching contagion. Now we have a tuning point with a new U.S. congress and senate most likely to investigate the full spectrum of Australian sanction busting. I hope this contributes to a healthy change to the tone at the top in Australia. I am also tired of hearing all these calls for immediate inaction because of the negative implications for Iraq citizens. This is blatant hypocrisy. They have suffered before, during and after their so called ‘liberation’ into ‘western democracy’. It is time to get out and leave them alone to find their own way out of this mess. Two wrongs do not make a right – except in the no-so-wonderful world of GWB & co.

Let’s start by using the right simple English words to describe the current situation: defeat, ‘un-winning’, loss, withdraw, surrender, failure. Let’s also use the right thinking to plan the next steps: respect for self determination and sovereignty; reparations and compensation for illegal invasion; and the hardest of all, an apology from the ‘fearless leader’. Given the super-sized ego of our present diminutive incumbent, perhaps a job for our next Prime Minister, Mr K. Rudd.

[Note: submitted for publication as is with only minor changes permitted – if you intend on cutting out any of the points made and diluting the thrust of the argument then don’t publish any of it].