Editorial:

The Government's culture of militarism

Prime Minister Howard was recently in London to open a war 
memorial in London's Hyde Park to the 101,000 Australians who 
have died in the numerous wars to which successive governments 
have committed Australian men and women.

In his address on the occasion Howard claimed that despite 
Australia's involvement in many wars, the Australian people have 
not developed a "culture of militarism".

But Australian Governments have worked hard to sustain and 
promote a militarist tradition and no-one more than Howard. He 
attends every possible military function, fare welling troops, 
welcoming them home, opening war memorials while beefing up and 
involving Australian troops in every possible military adventure.

At one point Howard listed a number of places where Australian 
troops had been involved in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle 
East and "the hundreds of other places where Australian have 
performed some of the finest feats of arms in the history of 
warfare". Here we have the beating of the militarist and the 
nationalist drum at the same time — "some of the finest feats of 
arms in the history of warfare"!

Howard's speech was peppered with the usual platitudes about 
democratic principles, freedom, the rule of law, values, and so 
on. It all came packaged with the necessary cover-up and 
distortion of history to make it saleable to an increasingly 
sceptical population.

One of his completely untrue assertions is that the present 
Australian Government is "independent" and made "our [own] 
decisions on East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq". Howard 
contradicts this claim by recalling that Australia 
"automatically" entered the 1914-18 war as part of the British 
Empire. And again in 1939 when Britain declared war on Germany 
and WW2 commenced, he quotes Menzies' declaration that "as a 
result, Australia is also at war". The decision to enter the most 
recent war against Iraq was made by the US with the Liberal Party 
cabinet rubber stamping it. Never mind that at the time the 
majority of the Australian people were against involvement in the 
war but such people's democracy is foreign to Howard and his 
Ministers.

Needless to say, Howard could not refrain from the obligatory 
reference to the war on terrorism which we are told "will present 
every society with challenges that none of us could have 
contemplated even three years ago".

Howard did not attempt on this occasion to justify Australia's 
decision to participate in the US and British war and occupation 
of Iraq. The pretence of making an "independent" decision is just 
that, a pretence.

Furthermore, as many now clearly see, Australia's involvement in 
the war coalition was based on a series of lies. Iraq did not 
have any weapons of mass destruction and, consequently, there was 
no risk of a "Pearl Harbour-style" attack as Howard claimed.

There was no evidence that the regime of Saddam Hussein had any 
links to al Qaida. If the US and other occupiers are now faced 
with resistance and a guerilla war, it is of their own making.

Howard continues to pepper his speeches with the lies for which 
he is becoming famous world-wide. At the same time he makes use 
of the qualities of "mateship", "mutual and self-respect", 
"sharing whatever is available no matter how meagre" although 
these play no part in the Government's policies as any pensioner 
or refugee will tell you.

It is merely necessary to recall the treatment of asylum seekers 
attempting to find a safe haven in Australia and the specific 
refusal of the Immigration Minister Vanstone to allow the reunion 
of Mr Baktiari with his wife and children who are now being 
housed outside a detention centre. At the same time we hear much 
about "family values". The real reason for the Minister's 
decision is that the outfit that runs the detention centres is 
paid by the number of inmates they have to look after and every 
released refugee means less income and less profit.

The Government's foreign policy ensures that there will be plenty 
of future battlefields in other countries and plenty of future 
war memorials to open and dead and wounded troops to commemorate. 
The constant propaganda of "dangers", "terrorist warnings" and 
"threats to security" are aimed to prepare the Australian people 
for and justify in advance huge expenditures on high-tech 
military hardware and future wars.