Anti-Subjugator

Open letter to John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia.

Dear Sir,
As you are probably aware, there are elections due in Australia on 2007-11-24. Here is a speech I recommend you make to the Australian people. I doubt it will work, because of the gross immorality of the Australian people, but at least you will be able to go on record as having done the right thing.

Fellow Australians,

We stand at an important crossroad in world history. I won't bother talking about what a great economy our policies have created, because that is beyond dispute. I will instead concentrate on the greatest moral issue of our time, and quite probably history.

Somehow, despite decades of having a culture that is opposed to racism, the Labor party has managed to convince people to believe that freedom for brown people is of no value. This is probably a hangover from the days of Vietnam when the Labor party yawned as millions of South Vietnamese allies were sent to communist gulags or drowned trying to escape a cruel dictatorship.

My fellow Australians, this is something that every Australian should be disgusted about Kevin Rudd believes that if the Iraqis return to having a government that rapes women and chops off the tongues of Iraqi men, that Australia should be a disinterested party. He hasn't quite explained why it's OK to give brown people in Indonesia aid after the tsunami, to help their standard of living, but it's not OK to give aid to Iraq to ensure basic human rights are protected. I'd hate to see the world through Rudd's eyes, that's for sure.

If Rudd abandons the Iraqi people, as he has said he will, Australia will go down in history as an immoral nation. At the moment, when people try to accuse Australia of immorality, they have to dredge up things from the past, or simply fabricate things in the present, because they can't actually find anything that current Australians are doing wrong. That will radically change if you elect Rudd. It will be your generation that did the grossly immoral act of betraying an ally. And it will be your generation that spat in the face of past veterans by showing that Australians are cowards who run from a fight.

I pledge the exact opposite. I pledge that Australia will ensure that Iraq remains free, and, listen carefully - regardless of whether the Americans turn out to be cowards and abandon their Iraqi allies themselves. In Vietnam, it was Australia who blinked first. I swear that on my watch, Australia will not be less brave or moral than the Americans. And if the Americans pull out and we find that Australia does not have the military might to protect the Iraqis from whatever danger they face, then we will call in favours from around the world and get them to assist us in our mission, as we assisted them in the past.

Fellow Australians, Rudd has tried to claim that we went to Iraq to steal oil. I can assure you that that couldn't be further from the truth. Only an imbecile like Rudd would not understand that oil is sold at market prices, and from Australia's perspective, it doesn't make any difference whether Iraq is a democracy or a dictatorship (at least as far as the oil is concerned). Nor is it under our "control". Oil is a fungible commodity and it doesn't make any difference who Maliki sells oil to, and he pumps it at the same rate that Saddam does - ie the maximum capacity. This action of liberating Iraq has been paid for by the Australian taxpayer, with no strings attached. Rudd just knows that he would never unselfishly help anyone, so projects his own sociopathic tendencies onto me and my government.

Now Australia has a stark choice to make. Does it go down in history as racist cowardly traitors, or does it go down as defender of the free world? Our ancestors spilled a lot of blood in previous wars to win our deserved reputation of defenders of the free world. If that reputation is lost, it will be lost by our generation, not theirs. There's nothing more I can say. You either believe that brown people have the right to not be raped etc, or you believe that some races are inferior and don't deserve the same rights you currently enjoy. Please don't vote for a white supremacist like Rudd. Vote for freedom instead. I can guarantee you that God is not on Rudd's side. Nor is science.

Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of the US forces in Iraq a couple of years ago, had a pretty scathing attack on the civilian leadership. He's full of shit of course. He can't see the beauty in what the political leadership is doing. Didn't he cotton on to the fact that there was something happening above his pay grade when the civilians issued an order to let Muqtada live? Fortunately the soldiers are wonderful people who obey orders even when they sometimes appear ridiculous. So long as the civilian strategy is allowed to complete, there is no problem.

There is an excellent reply here from "Soldier's Dad". Like so many things, it's exactly what I've said myself already, but hopefully it will be more understandable when said by someone other than me. Let me quote:

"Gen Patraeus also has an Iraqi population that has experienced the lifestyle various extremist groups in Iraq would impose on them. Would the Iraqi people have been more or less accepting of a lifestlye imposed by 500,000 pairs of American boots not having experienced first hand Osam Bin Laden's romantized version of the 7th century...it is unknowable...that road was not taken."

Exactly right. It was important to have that security vacuum to see what forces would bubble to the surface in Iraq under their own steam. And then to wipe out any undesirable elements that surfaced. Or more precisely - empower good elements to take out the undesirable elements. All indigenous movements. While I didn't specifically plan on Osama rocking up and while I didn't expect him to be dumb enough to show his hand early, the romantic 7th century is exactly what the doctor ordered. The Iraqis needed to see the 7th century first hand, and then be extremely happy with the secular liberal democracy that they got instead. It all appears to have worked.

And another thing:

"Gen Patraeus has something Lt Gen Sanchez and Gen Casey didn't have...300,000 semi-functioning Iraqi security forces..."

Yep. It was hoped that the Iraqis would step up to the plate when their shot at freedom was given to them. And they did. They came through with flying colours. Really, is there anything more beautiful than an Iraqi soldier? A Gurkha perhaps? Anyway, these ISF are now available, and prior disappointments are pretty irrelevant. The military situation has been constantly changing as these Iraqis came online. It's silly to evaluate things in the middle of that process. The Iraqi can have 1 million soldiers if they want. It's a reasonable way to spend that oil wealth. The soldiers are now a force for good, and they aren't wasting money trying to defend against external invaders - they are instead correctly utilizing the US to do that heavy-lifting, and spending their own valuable resources on internal security. Way to go Iraq! We're now up to 359,700 ISF by the way.

We've finally got some numbers I was after for a long time - the number of people killed in the initial invasion of Iraq. It's roughly what I expected - bloody low:

"Iraqi civilian dead during the invasion were under a thousand, and military and paramilitary dead were believed to be about 8,000".

So the liberation of 27 million people from slavery was held up by what (1000) is less than the road toll of Australia's population of 25 million (1500). In other words, Iraqis can ban cars for a year and have their population restored.

If you want, you can say that some of the 8000 Iraqi soldiers who died protecting a dictator were innocent also, being forced to do so. Personally I think they should have turned their guns on their "comrades" and actually died defending their countrymen from Saddam. Regardless, even if they were innocent, which is stretching the definition, they at least died for their country, which is what soldiers do. They died so that their country could be free.

The US is in no way responsible for Iraqis killing Iraqis since. Autonomous Iraqis are having their "revolution". That's what happens in revolutions. America just made that revolution possible.

Anyway, this sets an incredible low for toppling a dictator. It can be rolled with near-zero loss of life. We do need to do our best to let the country being liberated that we are genuinely there to liberate them, not to conquer them and steal something from them. And that is where countries like Australia make their most valuable contribution. Simply by being there. The US will shoulder the main burden (there's no-one else able to, unfortunately), but countries like Australia and Denmark provide the confidence that this is really a liberation, so that the loss of life will be minimal.

We don't know what the numbers will be for Iran, but if they're anything like a year's worth of road toll, it will be a serious crime to NOT liberate them because of some pretence at caring about innocent civilians while a population is being murdered, mutilated, tortured and raped.

Let's see, let's see. It's nearly time for it to be strategic to act. I had expected the Iraqis to be in charge of security by the end of the year, but it looks like it will be sometime next year instead. I think time has run out, and we need to move on now. Bush has talked about withdrawing troops soon. If he has troops to withdraw, then he has troops for an expeditionary force into Iran. The bulk of the troops in Iraq don't need to be used unless something unexpected happens. As such, it should be within the US's current ability to wage war in both Iraq and Iran, without any serious consequence. So that means we should hit Iran pretty much right now. That would mean that Australian troops get to participate, which would be wonderful. Maybe a quick victory in Iran, in and out, will even see Howard get reelected. He's got nothing to lose anyway. Our country is on its way to extreme immorality otherwise.