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Considerations for the War on Iraq: Australia’s Involvement
By Lisa Thurston, January 2003
As Australians prepare to become involved in a war with Iraq unsanctioned by the UN as an ally of the United States of America, there are a few things we can consider. What will Australia get out of it? What will the US get out of it? What does the world have to gain by it? What does Australia have to lose by it? What does the US have to lose by it? And finally, what does the whole world – everybody in it - have to lose by it? Ultimately we all need to rigorously analyse the facts and decide whether Australia’s choice is right.
What will Australia gain?
These appear to be the advantages of Australia becoming involved in this war:
• We will retain the security of not breaking the Anzus treaty, and hopefully a continued preferential relationship with the USA as regards trade and defence training, etcetera.
• We will assist in deposing Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s current cruel and despotic dictator (but we have no guarantee from the US that there will be this outcome as it is not the main aim of the war, and further, we have no guarantee of what or who will be the replacement leadership).
• We will assist in ridding Iraq or its dangerous “weapons of mass destruction”, the existence of which has not been conclusively proved.
What will the US gain?
In addition to the last two dot points in the previous list the US has much to gain:
• Emotionally speaking (or in a patriotic context), US citizens will have an obscurely-related kind of revenge for the September 11 massacres of 2001 in New York and Washington (as inferred by Colin Powell when he insisted Saddam Hussein is directly supporting radical Islamic terrorists).
• George Bush, as the US President, will look strong and decisive. (Recall how high was his popularity rating with the US public just after September 11, 2001).
• There will almost certainly be a boom to the US economy as they wage war, as war historically does cause for the attacking nation (perhaps because people become more productive).
• The US will have much stronger control of Iraq’s oil resources once they occupy Iraq.
• The US will have the opportunity to set up for themselves a lucrative trade agreement with Iraq after they occupy Iraq – probably quite in line with the US foreign economic policy (since beggars can’t be choosers).
• Perhaps, the US will even achieve the formation of another democratic state in the Middle East, or, failing this, at least get to choose who can be the next dictator.
How will Australia lose?
In becoming involved in this war, we will lose:
• one of our valued (predominantly agricultural) trading partners in the Middle East.
• our international credibility by helping wage an illegal war (as defined by the UN) on Iraq.
• faith in our own country and our sense of national pride considering that (at the very least) a very considerable majority do not support Australia’s violating UN rules to assist the US. (This also reflects very badly on the democratic model when the government can ignore the wishes of such a vast majority of the citizens it purports to represent).
• any fair and pacifist attitude we might wish to portray as a nation, considering Australia will be assisting in further destabilising the Middle East, further hindering peace processes between Arabs and non-Arabs, Muslims and non-Muslims.
Furthermore, there are the following negative outcomes:
• By supporting the US, Australia’s implicit message to the world is that we support the aims and practices of the current US government (as regards their foreign policy in particular), many of which are unfair and flawed (according to major international opinion including individuals and organisations living or based within the US itself). This further diminishes Australia’s international credibility.
• By participating in this war we bring three terrible risks to our homeland:
1. Australian soldiers will die (or are certainly at risk of this) in what the majority of Australia perceive to be an US invasion – not an Australian war (and somewhat reminiscent of the Vietnam conflict).
2. Australia is now – more clearly than ever – inviting radical Islamic hatred to be focussed on us, putting Australia at greater risk of terrorist attacks.
3. Australia, as one of just two major Western allies to the US in this war, will perhaps be the second-most likely target for Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” to be unleashed.What does everybody else have to lose out of it?
What will not only Australia, but all nations and the very foundations democracy have to lose out of this war occurring at all?
• Logically, terrorist activities perpetrated by radical Islamic groups will increase as Saddam Hussein uses the war to incite them to further violence and terrorism towards their perceived enemy – that is, Western society in general, further polarising Islamic and Arabic nations, hindering peace processes, and generally increasing tensions in the volatile Middle East.
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Comments
The outcome - generally speaking Laurent Straskraba | Jan 30th, 2003
well, weighing benefits and threats for Australia and the US is somehow reasonable. but to me it means much more than that - a violence against human rights and international law resp. treaties.
what does it mean when there is no one-on-one basis of war but an area-approach? innocent people will die, just because of the fact that they have their homes there. and what do we do with refugees? send them back, telling them that we cat help them or that we don
Iraq and war Kai Boh | Feb 22nd, 2004
yes it is terrible, yes it is destructive, and people are going to die. but, the outcome is beneficial. we have disposed of a dictator, a tyrannical leadership which has persecuted the people of Iraq. If good men do not act, then evil will survive. sometimes war is necessary. perhaps the reason that america put forward for invading iraq were wrong, but the outcome is right. perhaps innocent people have been killed in this situation. but thousands have been saved.
here's a situation. you have the power to cure every single disease in the entire world but the price for this is that you must kill a single innocent child, could you kill that child?
as chilling as it may sound i would kill that child and would live with that for the rest of my life. why? because it is the greater good. This war is the greater good. the sacrifice of a few to save the majority. the death toll is nothing compared to what has gone before in iraq.
terroists may now try to strike at western nations, but the point of terroism is fear. fear of what you do in your daily lives. the only way we can stop it, is by taking it head on. the positives of this war far outweigh the negatives.
we are not acting like barbarians. we are acting, for the greater good. frankly i dont give a damn about human rights and international law. i do however care about what is right and what will do the greatest good.
You probably now think that im heartless and in such a matter, i sure as hell am. but it is the greatest good.
to those that have lost their lives..thankyou. rest in peace.
Kai Boh | Feb 24th, 2004
perhaps. but as i said before, the reasons that the US gave for invading iraq were not the most justifiable. but the result of the war, is beneficial overall.
now we are getting onto a totally different topic. terroism. how do u combat terroism? what can you do to prevent it? these terroists are driven for a purpose which is not real but in their minds, is. are you saying that we should let them kill us? let them hit us with weapons of mass destruction which they may already have. you aern't going to stop terroists by giving them what they want. that just makes them think they can do whatever they want and we will not retaliate. we need to show them that we stand ready to fight them. that we will give as good as we get. this is the only way to defend against terroism.
just a thought.
what if we made it so that is they did anything to us, we would do something to them ten times worse. no pity, no mercy, take no quarter. play terroists, at their own game.
"they bomb the church we bomb ten. they hijack a plane, we take out an airport. they kill western tourists we tactically nuke an entire city."
doing this, resulting in the halt of terroist attacks for fear of retaliation. what countries do you think will harbour terroist organizations once they have realised what the people terroists are targetting will do?
The only thing, that evil needs to prosper is for good men to do nothing.
War with Iraq Noel E Cain | Apr 11th, 2004
I was always of the opinion that Saddam had to be controlled from his excesses in some way. I suppose the invasion of Iraq was one way of achieving this end and did indeed prove effective. Now I also said that the invasion of Iraq would open a can of worms that would be difficult to control. I have been proven right. I also had grave doubts of the sincerity of the USA in its stated reasons for the invasion of Iraq. I always throught that the motives of the USA would have been more acceptable in the 1991 conflict if the liberation of the Iraqi citizens was persued to conclusion at that time. In the recent invasion, there was always a suspicion of ulterior motives below the surface. These suspicions have not really been allayed to this day i.e. the control of oil fields and the wealth derived therefrom. Having said that, I also was not totally agreeable of Australian troops being involved in the conflict which seemed to arise out of the atrocities of the 11th September, 2001. Having entered into the conflict, I believe that Australia must see the task through come what may. Conversely, it can be opined that Australia had no choice but to join the coalition of the willing with the USA in the conflict. Our close ties with the USA must be sustained in order to ensure our survival in this epoch. Really, we cannot pick and choose just where and when we support the USA particularly when one considers the threat presented to the rest of the free world outside the USA by the events of 11th September, 2001. In all of this, I totally agree with the post immediately preceding this i.e. "The only thing evil needs in order to succeed is for good men to do nothing!" This is a well hackneyed phrase, but none-the-less true. Obviously there were no inanimate weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, but I suggest to the reader that Saddam himself, as far as the ordinaary citizenary of Iraq was concerned, was a weapon of mass destruction in his own personage. This force has not been neutalized. How to bring democracy and peace to Iraq is a problem that will have to be solved by a far wiser mind than mine.
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