Dear Mr Bush, Please mind your own goddamned business
Two former Australian Prime Ministers, Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating, have harshly criticised certain members of the Bush administration, notably President Bush and more recently US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, for trying to dictate Autralian foreign policy.
The transcript of an interview with Malcolm Fraser may be read in full at
abc.net.au
It is my considered opinion that, if the formerly happy alliance between the USA and Australia is damaged, it will not be by Mark Latham's Labor Government if he is elected, but by the Bush Administration.
Here is an excerpt from the interview with Malcolm Fraser. A number of other issues are discussed in the interview, which is too long to post in full here.
TONY JONES: Well, returning to our top story.
The US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage may well be regretting he loosened his tongue.
He's been tagged a thug by one former prime minister, while another has urged him to butt out of Australian politics.
The crudeness of Armitage's public critique of the Labor Party so close to an election has drawn an angry response that's taken the gloss off the PM's attempt to win back the political high ground today with his headland speech Getting the Big Things Right - if one of those big things is Australia's relationship with the US.
The long-serving former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser says the Government's still got work to do.
I spoke to Mr Fraser at his home on the Mornington Peninsula earlier this evening.
TONY JONES: Malcolm Fraser, thanks for joining us.
MALCOLM FRASER, FORMER PRIME MINISTER: Thank you.
TONY JONES: Richard Armitage has now made two forays into Australian politics in the last month.
Has he crossed the line between legitimate commentary and interference?
MALCOLM FRASER: I think Richard Armitage crossed the line quite a long while ago because it's not the first time he's done this.
It's worse because we're approaching an election but he has, on a number of occasions, said, for example, that if there is a war between China and America over Taiwan, Australia would have to do a good deal of the dirty work.
Now that's not his decision to make.
It's Australia's decision as, hopefully, an independent country.
And the intervention, not only of Richard Armitage but his bosses, in our political scene, I think, are quite unforgivable.
TONY JONES: What do you make of Mr Armitage's - sticking with him for a moment - his latest remarks which specifically target the Labor Party, suggesting its "rent down the middle" because of discussions he's apparently had behind the scenes.
He says he knows there are deep divisions in the Labor Party.
What do you make of that kind of commentary?
MALCOLM FRASER: Well, again, it is an intervention in Australian politics.
He's doing it for a very specific purpose - to try and achieve a specific outcome that the United States wants.
If it had been in older times, American officials would have been told to butt out.
If it had happened in Menzies's time or it had happened in my time, ambassadors or State Department officials would be told to keep well clear of Australian domestic politics.
TONY JONES: It's happening in John Howard's time.
Do you believe this PM, this Government, should do something now to halt these interventions?
MALCOLM FRASER: Well, if it were looking after their own interests I think they would, because I believe, from what I've heard people saying, that this is counter-productive from the Government's point of view.
People resent being told what to do by the United States.
Part of that resentment, I think, is a general belief that we have grown too close to the US in the years since the Cold War ended.
TONY JONES: Your views on this administration are pretty well known.
When President Bush first made his comments about Labor's policy a month ago you called that an abuse of power.
But if those concerns, expressed by Australians such as yourself, are getting back to Washington, they're clearly going unheeded.
Why do you think that is?
MALCOLM FRASER: This current American administration is one of a kind.
It is different from every other administration, Democrat or Republican, in the post-war years.
It doesn't really believe in a multilateral world.
It believes in unilateral decision making.
It believes in the United States going its own way as they believe best for the United States and I think they have become intolerant of other countries.
You might well ask why do they interfere in this way in relation to Australia when Canada, a very close neighbour, a defence partner, has, in many ways, been much more provocative.
Canada didn't participate in Vietnam, they didn't participate in Iraq and they have conducted policies in relation to Cuba which are diametrically opposed to the policies that the United States would like to see.
Now, why does America tolerate this with Canada when they behave so crudely in relation to Australia.
TONY JONES: Indeed.
Mr Fraser, I was in fact going to ask you that question because Canada, obviously, shares a border with the US.
It also shares a free trade agreement.
It also has a military alliance, through NATO, with the US - there are many similarities, as you have pointed out. Why do you believe Australia is treated differently to Canada?
MALCOLM FRASER: Canada have, in all the years since the war, made very significant efforts to differentiate itself from the US in certain important ways.
And I think the US, probably, has come to accept this.
But, in more recent times, we have got closer and closer to the US.
We appear to agree with nearly everything they say.
We appear to do everything they want us to do and that's not my idea of Australia.
I don't think that it's an idea of Australia that too many people would support.
TONY JONES: PM Howard appears to be saying the Iraq war case is somewhat unique.
He's strongly defended the President's right to make his position known to Australia on Australian troops and whether they should, or not, be withdrawn early - or before, as he puts it, their job is done.
He's making the case that this actually rises above domestic politics.
Can you make that case?
MALCOLM FRASER: I can't make any case, and I don't want to make any case, which gives the US some superior right to interfere in Australia's domestic affairs and in Australia's political arrangements.
It would be perfectly appropriate, or would have been appropriate, for the American ambassador to say to one of the political parties, without publicity, "We don't like this, for these reasons".
If that was done privately, quietly, without publicity there couldn't be any objection to it.
By publicly siding with one of the parties, with the Coalition against the Opposition, in this particular election, indicates an American attitude to Australia which I just don't like.
They either take us for granted or they regard us with a degree of contempt, because they don't have to behave, or they don't have to accept, the norms of diplomacy.
Take other examples.
The British have been able to get most of their people out of Guantanamo Bay.
The British have said that the justice system set up for the military tribunals is not appropriate, would not be acceptable for nationals of the United Kingdom.
Now, we go along and say, "What they're doing is fine."
Other people can have differences with the United States and be respected for it.
We seem not to have differences with the United States and if there is any sign of independence in Australia the United States wants to stomp on it.
I think it's time they're stopped...
TONY JONES: What are the implications of how you see this interference in an election year?
MALCOLM FRASER: I think the implications will, in the end, be counterproductive because I think a number of Australians will seriously resent this interference.
TONY JONES: You've just mentioned, a moment ago, Guantanamo Bay.
You, I gather, regard the military tribunals as unjust, because we now hear that another Australian citizen, Mr Habib, is to go before a military tribunal.
MALCOLM FRASER: I regard them as unjust as set up by President Bush, because there is no appeal to an independent court and the judge in the military tribunal is somebody chosen from the, as I understand it, from the panel who will make a decision in relation to the case.
So, in the context of Australian law, there isn't an independent president of the court as it were.
It hasn't been sufficiently noticed that the United States Supreme Court, a week or two ago, in a enormously important human rights decision, has said that the United States President has acted beyond his executive power and that people in Guantanamo Bay have the right to appeal to the American judicial system.
Now, this is an enormously important decision.
It means that a very largely Republican-appointed court has seriously reduced the power of a Republican president. |
