Dangerous lunatics

Tom Pearson

The Bush administration's space program with its bases on the 
moon and its mission to Mars is more than an election ploy. It is 
part of a broader strategy to station more military technology 
and weapons in space and to control space. The symbolism of a 
mission to the red planet — named after the ancient Roman God of 
War — is appropriate: George W Bush and his cohorts, including 
Australian PM John Howard, truly are dangerous warmongering 
lunatics.

Here on Mother Earth the Howard Government is turning Australia 
into a US military first-strike launch pad. The latest move in 
this direction is an agreement for a US training facility at 
Shoalwater Bay, near Rockhampton.

Shoalwater Bay is the site of annual joint US-Australia military 
exercises which last year involved 50,000 troops and 300 tanks. 
Singapore already has a permanent training facility on the site.

Australia is now enmeshed in the US missile program (Star Wars).

Australia's weapons systems technology is compatible and 
integrated with that of the US. The Howard Government's purchase 
of long range cruise missiles which can carry nuclear, chemical 
and biological warheads, is part of this integration.

Such developments have rightly alarmed Australia's neighbours. 
The acquisition of the technology to operate weapons of mass 
destruction is clearly not for defence purposes: these are 
preparations for a first strike, invasion and occupation from 
Australian soil as part of a US pre-emptive attack, aimed 
primarily at China.

So, instead of policies of peaceful coexistence and economic 
relations based on mutual respect and equality, the Howard 
Government has turned Australia into a regional bully, a 
belligerent and aggressive thug.

Behind this bully stands a nuclear and military superpower that 
has embarked on a program of unprecedented militarisation, a 
militarisation that means more US military bases and troops on 
the territories of sovereign countries, which in turn will mean 
more camps for military tests and exercises.

It also means the placement of weapons and sensors in space.

The withdrawal by the US from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty 
and other agreements aimed at reining in the proliferation of 
weapons of mass destruction — and at the same time its 
introduction of new military technology — is a threat to all 
nations.

Thus, Australia has been locked into a deadly alliance by the 
Howard Government that is part of the imposition of a world order 
made by US imperialism at the service of monopoly finance 
capital.

The dangerous nature of this alliance was underscored earlier 
this month when Howard announced his government's commitment to 
the Star Wars program after meeting a meeting in Canberra with 
the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard 
Myers. "This is a missile defence system against rogue states", 
Howard announced.

In this connection is should be recalled that shortly after the 
attacks on the US in September 2001, Bush spoke of the existence 
of more than 50 countries he said were "committed to terrorism". 
Paul Wolfowitz, a leading strategist in the Bush administration, 
states the objectives bluntly: "The United States must rely on 
its overwhelming military superiority and use it preventively and 
unilaterally."

This is what the Howard Government has committed Australia to.