Australia and the USA are great friends. Always have been, always will be. Our people have a similar history, culture and optimistic view of life. Our world view is generally very different though, America being the self appointed policeman of the world and us being a piddling little nation floating free in the southern ocean. Australians like to think of themselves as a fair minded people.
The term "fair minded" may sound like soft-cock to outsiders but here it is taken very seriously by everyone from politicians to school teachers, from homeless drunks to wealthy businessmen. It is much more than just some gingoistic saying appealing to inate loyalty like some cheap beer commercial. Fairness is part of our soul, we can't help barracking for the underdog. We fought hard to establish the UN and we can't help feeling deeply hurt and offended by what our government has dragged into in Iraq. Being fair minded and natural cynics we take great offence at the spin doctoring and mind numbing bullshit being served upo by the pro-war camp.
The story thus far:
We're at war because of weapons of mass destruction that, day after day Saddam and his sneaky Iraqis refuse to use.
We're at war to liberate the people of Iraq, but day after day the silly buggers resist our kindly advances.
We're at war because of a humanitarian catastrophe, which day after day, our war makes worse.
We're at war against the the threat of terrorism, which every falling bomb of ours increases.
Ours is a morally upright mission, though it traumatises under nocturnal blitzkrieg sleepless children and young miscarrying mothers.
It's a morally justifiable mission, though the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Nelson Mandela, Michael Moore the Murwillambah Returned Soldiers League and a majority of the educated west abhor it, plus two billion people in China and Russia and America and Africa not to mention 950 million angry Muslims, united now as never before. Could this develope into another Vietnam? You betcha!
We are at war though the United Nations told us not to go there, and called "illegal" and a "war crime" our uninvited invasion of a sovereign country.
We Australians are at war though our soldiers risk being charged at The Hague with crimes against humanity while American soldiers happily do not.
We are at war because "Saddam defied the weapons inspectors", though Hans Blix says he obeyed them, albeit slowly, and Americas "evidence of hidden weapons" was fraudulent.
We are at war because Saddam is so bad he's worth either assasinating outright by the bunker busting of his war room or he's worth giving million$ a year and a plush retirement compound in Bahrain. Ours is a moral mission yet either will do.
We're in a war where no-one bad gets killed because our targeted smart bombs have special war heads that miss the innocent. We kill the cooks, butlers, gardeners and piss-pot collectors of Saddam's palaces, the office cleaners and late night bureaucrats and typists of his ministries, the cameramen and boom-swingers and make up girls of his television studios. Bad people like that. And in their hundreds, teenage conscripts defending their bombaded homes in the south.
We don't kill people in a marketplace with our stray bombs. Saddam does that with his outmoded weaponry, which the evil bastard allows to fall down just anywhere. This is the same weaponry we went to war for, because it threatened the United States 10,000 miles away.
Our war is stalled at the moment (not really stalled, just resting) because, to our amazement, Iraqis do not like being invaded and randomly killed by pale-faced heathen devils.
We thought that, although we killed 200,000 (or was it only 100,000) teenage conscripts 12 years ago their mothers, brothers, sisters and uncles would welcome us in cheering crowds flinging roses (the ungrateful bastards!)
Our joint war games did not factor in this momentous tribal hatred, though 99% of Earths nations these past 5,000 years had it too - a serious dislike of invading armies with scary bloodstained weapons. We're sorry about that. To fix it we'll bring in 100,000 more invaders with more and bigger weapons.
The story so far is of Helicopter pilots that crashed into each other and US troops that shot each other up and TV reporters murdered in crossfire and English pilots who "did not die in vain" when blasted out of the sky by jumpy Americans manning missile defenses.
Nor did little decapitated children in the bombed out marketplace of North Baghdad.
The story thus far is that the whole world is agittated about nothing, it's a noble cause and these deaths are worth it along with millions of smashed and broken and wounded lives.
Pull the other one. And bring the troops home.
What's more, that haughty yank wanker Rumpsfelt scoffed at sugestions that this may develop into another Vietnam saying "the Vietnam war went for ten years, this has only been going ten days!" said the dropkick.
Does the oil mad idiot really think this will be all over the moment Saddam and his cronies bite the dust? Make no mistake - we're setting the whole Moslem world on fire with this. And with hundreds of millions of Moslems a few miles to our North and Americas previous unwillingness to help us stop their aggression, it's of a particular concern to us Australians.
Make no mistake, as much as many Iraqis despise Saddam and his henchmen, they have little reason to do anything but loath us for the shallow minded pricks we often are. As with Vietnam the blind guides in Washington have underestimated the power of nationalism. Americans are proud of their patriotism but they seem blissfully unaware that other people have similar feelings when they see their own countries flag, irrespective of who rules them.
I hate dictators and tyrants as much as the next freedom lover but if this oil war isn't over real soon the new battlefield will not be just Iraq but the whole Arab world and beyond. It could well make the killing fields of Vietnam look like a side show.
America was on another loser from the start with this bullshit war. Ask any Australian Army/Navy/Air Force veteran what they think of the way the big American machine fights. Determined nationalists booted the US out of Vietnam largely helped by the way the yanks fought. US 'special operations' cocked up big time in Grenada, Iran, Laos, Cambodia, Libya and a dozen other places. Osamah Bin Laden's Mujihadin fighters have kicked the Americans out of Lebanon, Sudan, Yemen, Somalia and other places and blown up the twin phalic symbols in New York. America is desperate for payback but they have no chance of getting it, not this way.
unclebruce, battening down the hatches.
ps: don't even get me started about "professional unbiased journalists" in bed with the US military
Something smells fishy in Iraq
by unclebruce 17 Replies latest jw friends
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unclebruce
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minimus
All I can say is that the US better either find some weapons of mass destruction or else sneak some in to prove to the world that their reasons for going into Iraq are valid.
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be wise
They'd better move the prams and tables and other blockades out of the way first or they might have a nasty accident.
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slipnslidemaster
Unclebruce, I disagree with your position however I found your post lucid and well thoughtout.
Just thought you would like to know.
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minimus
LATEST NEWS: SADDAM AND HIS SONS WERE JUST TARGETED AND ARE PRESUMED DEAD BY BOMBS DROPPED IN AN AREA THEY WERE SAID TO BE MEETING AT!!!
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SheilaM
Kuwait city the locals killed soldiers and welcomed the Brits in the city hmmm
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Satanus
Hey unc, you old bushwacker (pun)
Well said. Just one little thing, though, if ya wants ta see slipnslidemaster, go http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/15/47671/2.ashx , a little over half way down. Partially covered. And http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/15/47671/5.ashx
SS
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ozziepost
G'day Unc,
Edumication is doing you some good, mate! That's back to your best. It's worth a toast with a glass or two of shiraz!
Cheers, Ozzie
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Realist
great post!
excellent listing of most (though not all) of the hypocritical bull shit spewed out by bush and his band!
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Gamaliel
unclebruce,
Excellent post! Are you sure we can't get you started on journalists in bed with the military?
Gamaliel