Australian Military Hides Truth Of 'War On Terror' Casualties

Most Australians Have No Idea Of The Scale Of Violence Our Soldiers Have Experienced In Iraq And Afghanistan

Australian Defence Force chiefs kept secret the death of soldier David Pearce for some 10 hours, according to this story. It's the latest example of a carefully designed program within the defence force, initiated by the Howard government, of information suppression and control, mostly aimed at keeping quiet, for as long as possible, the truth about the violence Australian soldiers are encountering in Iraq and Afghanistan :

...the Afghanistan and Iraq deployments remain among the most secretive ever undertaken by our forces.

The attack in which Trooper Pearce died was the latest in a six-month barrage involving Australian troops in the Oruzgan Province.

About 25 roadside explosions targeting Coalition forces have been recorded there since June.

It is often days before the Australian Defence Force acknowledges such engagements. Some attacks, especially those involving special forces troops, are not spoken of publicly at all.

At least seven times since August the ADF has failed to release details of hostile engagements between Australian soldiers and the enemy until at least two days after the attacks.

The tactic is to invoke an information blackout on the most serious incidents and release minimal information when it has been rigorously vetted by senior officers and bureaucrats.

Australia has suffered four military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

However, the conflicts have also produced more than 50 battlefield injuries and more than a dozen soldiers are believed to have been permanently incapacitated as a result.

Along with the hundreds of veterans now suffering the horrors of what will likely prove to be lifelong post-traumatic stress disorder. Some of those who are being hammered by the early stages of PTSD are as young as 20 years old. Unofficially, divorce rates for Australian 'War on Terror' veterans are soaring, as are incidents of suicide, drug abuse, alcoholism and domestic violence.

By downplaying, controlling and outright censoring the truth of what is happening to Australian soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, the veterans who have returned from those wars are now encountering a public that can barely comprehend what they've gone through.

How are non-military associated Australians expected to know how horrific many of the veterans tours of duty have been when so little of the facts find their way into the Australian media?

The full impact of this kind of censorship and suppression by military chiefs, under the guidance and encouragement of the Howard government, will become clear in the next decade when the long-term effects and impact of PTSD for these veterans become clearer.

As with the veterans of the Vietnam War, the new generation of veterans will eventually be forced to ask for more help and will be faced with a public that doesn't understand, because they don't know, what the scale of the violence they experienced during their deployments done to their lives and their families.

Let's hope the current generation of youth learn how to look after the needs of 'WoT' veterans better than the Baby Boomers did for the veterans of Korea and Vietnam.


UPDATE : The Australian Defence Force is now denying there was a cover-up, or a failure to reveal details with due haste of the death of soldier David Pearce.

Australia Pulls Support For US Military Action On Iran

Downer Signs Up To The Coalition Of The Unwilling

Australian troops and special forces will not join the United States in proposed military action on Iran, according to foreign minister Alexander Downer.

Of course, this is Downer speaking. Australian special forces may already be operating inside Iran, along with US troops, conducting sabotage and espionage operations, and paying off military units not to fight if the US goes to war, as they are widely alleged to have done in the months before the Iraq War officially began in March 2003.

The point is, if Australian troops were already engaged in such operations with the United States inside Iran, Downer's hardly going to admit it. Certainly not in the lead-up to an election.

Still, it's a substantial show of official non-support from Australia for the "all options (including nuclear attack) are still on the table" aggressive creed when it comes to Iran, from President Bush and the NeoCons.

From ABC News :

Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer has ruled out Australian involvement in any United States-led military action in Iran.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh has been writing about the possibility of a US strike on Iran for the past 18 months.

Mr Hersh says US President George W Bush is now focusing on getting support from allies, including Australia.

Mr Downer says he does not believe America is planning to invade Iran, but if the US did pursue that path, Australia would not follow.

"We're not planning to get involved with any military action against anybody."

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Downer, like prime minister John Howard, must be feeling extremely nervous about all the talk from American NeoCons and Israeli extremists demanding Iran be bombed, and soon. Australia has more than 800 troops and support staff in the south of Iraq.

Iran would be expected to launch retaliatory strikes against US allies in the event of an attack, which would mean Australian forces, relatively close to the Iranian border, would presumably be targets for Iranian military and terrorist strikes.

UPDATE : 'Australia's Next Prime Minister', Labor leader Kevin Rudd, has announced he wants to haul the Iranian president before the International Criminal Court and have him charged for "inciting genocide" :

In a dramatic lift in diplomatic pressure on a bellicose and defiant Iran, Kevin Rudd has committed a Labor government to take "legal proceedings against President Ahmadinejad on a charge of incitement to genocide".

The Leader of the Opposition said the charge of incitement to genocide "could occur through the International Court of Justice on reference by the UN Security Council" because of Mr Ahmadinejad's public statements.

"They refer to statements about wiping Israel off the map, questioning whether Zionists are human beings and the recent abhorrent conference that he convened on the veracity of the Holocaust," Mr Rudd said.

"It is strongly arguable that this conduct amounts to incitement to genocide, criminalised under the 1948 genocide convention."

Rudd also said a Labor government would not support the use of military force on Iran, but would support further sanctions, and that diplomacy was the best way to deal with the issue of Iran's "nuclear ambitions".

Getting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad before the ICC on a charge of "inciting genocide" is never going to happen, and Rudd knows it. Despite the constant attribution of the quote "wipe Israel off the map" to the Iranian president, by supposedly accurate, fact-checking media like the Washington Post and the New York Times, Ahmadinejad never actually said those words.

Ahmadinejad did say he wants to see the "Zionist regime" of Israel deposed or "wiped away", which is no less inflammatory than the recent run of American NeoCons who've repeatedly stated they want to see the Iranian president's regime overthrown, violently if necessary, or the nation bombed at the minimum.


Demented NeoCon Fantasises About Days When US Violently Overthrew Democratic Governments - Dreams Of Deposing Iranian President

Gruesome Bush Aide Tells British MP : "I Hate All Iranians"

Dear Mr President, Please Bomb Iran, America Needs To Feel Proud Again

Cheney Wanted Israel To Bomb Iran, To Provoke Iran Into Retaliating So US Could Hit Iran

Andrew Bolt : Back In The Gutter Where He Belongs

Herald Sun propagandist in chief, Andrew Bolt, will continue to claim the US "surge" strategy in Iraq is working until every Iraqi is dead, or a refugee. If the "surge" was allowed to last that long.

As one of the key media supporters of the War On Iraq and one of the most hysterical and savage attack dogs against anti-Iraq War protesters across the country, including thousands of Australian World War 2, Korea and Vietnam war veterans, Bolt will never admit as so many other pro-war supporters have that attacking a sovereign country who posed no immediate threat to the United States or Europe was a catastrophe for Iraqis, and one of the worst foreign policy decisions made by Australia, and the United States, in decades.

Instead Bolt continues to perpetuate long-discredited myths and BushCo. created propaganda about what is going on in Iraq.

With no real, credible proof to back up his claims that the "surge" in Iraq has been a success, when the death toll of both Iraqis and American has actually increased in recent months, Bolt has been reduced to linking to his own blog posts to try and back up his absurd claim that "It is becoming widely accepted that the US and Iraqi "surge" strategy is working."

He then claims that the US "surge" strategy is "saving lives".

Says who? Seven serving members of the American military claim here that the "surge" has already failed, that the Iraqi Army and police are now working together to attack American soldiers. The American soldiers who served 15 months in the war zone also go on to utterly shatter all manner of other myths about the Iraq War that the likes of Bolt are always so keen to perpetuate and echo-chamber.

The "surge" is working and it is saving Iraqi lives, claims Bolt. Why would Bolt ignore the evidence and make such facile claims in his increasingly demented Herald Sun blog?

Because prime minister John Howard has just re-committed Australia's combat troops to continue serving in Iraq to at least mid-2008, and this flies in the face of Opposition leader Kevin Rudd's plan to withdraw all combat forces from Iraq when he becomes prime minister.

Bolt cites Rudd in an interview yesterday stating :

We believe the strategy being pursued by and supported by Mr Howard is heading in the wrong direction and that’s why we have argued consistently against that surge strategy...

Which leads Bolt to make the following despicable claim about Kevin Rudd :

He’d rather win a populist vote than save an Iraqi life.

Andrew Bolt is human garbage, and a promoter of further pain and suffering for the Iraqis. He is too much of a coward to admit that he was wrong about the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and continues to be wrong about the effectiveness of Bush and Howard's strategies for stabilising Iraq.

But then, being a coward is nothing new for Bolt. Many months on and he still has nothing to say about Rupert Murdoch's Climate Change Crusade, or his own newspaper's near ceaseless promotion of climate change programs and campaigns.

So as to not offend his boss, or his own editors, Bolt has quietly, steadily, reduced all of his attacks on those pushing to control global warming to claiming that some of them are being merely "alarmist".

A remarkable backdown from the days when Bolt used to call them all "cultists" and "hysterical" and "preachers" and believers in "the most superstitious pagan faith of all".

But that was before his boss, Rupert Murdoch, announced that climate change was real and "posed clear, catastrophic threats" and had to be confronted.

Naturally, Bolt fell into line.


Betrayed By Murdoch On Global Warming - The Changing Climate Of Andrew Bolt

Bolt Anticipates Terror Attacks In Australia So Howard Can Showcase His "Vast Experience"

Australia Prepares To Withdraw Troops From Iraq

Howard Tries To Blackmail Maliki Government

Pass Contentious Oil Law Now So Australian Energy Giants Can Feast On Iraq's Oil-Rich Future

Facing political obliteration at the November federal elections, prime minister John Howard is preparing the Australian public, and the media, for an announcement, within weeks, that Australia will withdraw most of its combat troops from Iraq in the first half of 2008. After the election.

John Howard spoke with US president George W. Bush during the week and apparently got the okay to begin talking up an Australian troop withdrawal.

The conditions for Australian troops to stay on in Iraq are impossible for the Maliki government to achieve and Howard knows it :

"...prompt, concrete measures are needed not only to secure Iraq's future, but also to ensure regional stability and continued constructive international engagement".

The opening sentences in the story published in today's issue of 'The Australian' are remarkable for displaying the utter disrespect and contempt with which Howard now views the democratically elected government of Iraq. The threatening nature of Howard's letter to Maliki is clear :

John Howard has demanded the Iraqi Government make faster progress towards resolving the country's political differences...

In the letter, Mr Howard urges Mr Maliki to move decisively on political reconciliation within Iraq, and outlines a number of measures he should take.

Naturally fast-tracking the vastly unpopular new Oil Law is one of the chief "measures" Howard demands Maliki get sorted. Now. Or face troop withdrawals. It's almost blackmail.

If the Maliki government actually cared.

Iraqi government ministers who don't laugh out loud at this will just be insulted.

Prime Minister Maliki and senior ministers of his government said earlier this year that Australian troops were not essential to Iraq's security, and they could be withdrawn at any time.

While the Oil Law is meant to see a greater sharing of the pre-war level oil revenues amongst the majority Shia, the Kurds and Sunnis, it will also allow great swathes of Iraq's oil infrastructure to be handed over to foreign-owned oil corporations, including Australian oil giants, whose investment is needed to repair all those pipelines and refineries handily targeted by insurgents, or outside agents, and degraded by almost a decade of crippling sanctions.

Sanctions that were backed heartily by the Howard government, while simultaneously turning many blind eyes to the shockingly corrupt bribes worth hundreds of millions of dollars handed over to Saddam Hussein by the Australian Wheat Board from the late 1990s up until just before the invasion and occupation of Iraq began.

Howard's letter "demands" Maliki get his political shit together. The "demands" are mostly for the benefit of his Australian audience. Which is why the supposedly "Top Secret" letter from Howard to Maliki was leaked to The Australian's Greg Sheridan.

From Sheridan's story :

The top-secret letter was transmitted electronically to the Australian embassy in Baghdad and hand-delivered to Mr Maliki's office by the Australian ambassador to Iraq, Mark Innes Brown. The hard copy was later sent in a secure diplomatic bag.

So how did Greg Sheridan get his hands on it? Did he crack the electronic encryption of a diplomatic cable? Or did he run a pen scanner over the letter before it was tossed into the embassy mail bag?

Sheridan recently shed his last claims to credibility when he wrote lengthy, swirly tributes in his newspaper for disgraced NeoCon warpigs Paul Wolfowitz and 'Scooter' Libby. Naturally, he forgot to mention the extent of Wolfowitz and Libby's lies and propaganda in the pre-Iraq war hard sell period.

Sheridan is still good, however, for launching election-positive propaganda campaigns on behalf of his good friends John Howard and Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer.


Of course, Howard will likely choose to announce his new "cut and run" policy before the election, with the proviso that "events on the ground" in Iraq would determine the actual date for the troop withdrawals to begin. This would allow Howard to say before the election that he is withdrawing combat forces from Iraq, quelling another massive voter negative, and then change his mind and keep the troops in Iraq, by claiming security needs demand the troops to remain, if he somehow manages to win the election.

The proviso in Howard's own words :

"Our military commitment (is based) not on a timetable but on security conditions and capabilities of the Iraqi security forces."

But it's not all grim. Howard tried for some outright humour in the Maliki letter. Minus the irony :

Mr Howard warns that if the Iraqis fail to make progress, the public support for Australia's military deployment to Iraq may not be sustainable.

Some 70% of Australians opposed the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and more than one million Australians marched against the war in hundreds of events around the nation. More than 500,000 people filled Sydney's centre during a march in February, 2003, and in some small Australian towns, more than two-thirds of the entire population turned out for anti-war rallies.

Howard responded to the unity of the Australian public's demands for a non-violent approach to the problems in iraq, and the involvement of thousands of World War 2, Korea and Vietnam war veterans in the marches, by claiming they all were giving "aid and comfort" to Saddam Hussein.

The same dictator who, as we noted above, was being propped up at the time by the delivery of duffel bags from Australians stuffed with millions of dollars in cash, that Howard somehow didn't bother to notice, even though diplomatic and military phone lines ran hot for years with the news that the Howard government was allowing Saddam Hussein to collect hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes. Dozens of memos and letters warning him of the AWB bribery corruption crossed Howard's desk. He claims he saw not one such letter or memo.


There are other factors figuring into Howard's decision to withdraw Australian troops. They are needed back home to deal with local problems, primarily.

East Timor, where the Fretilin party won the majority of votes, but was stripped of its parliamentary power by a UN-backed presidential appointment, looks set to spend 2008 struggling with a low-level insurgency. Australia has to provide security in order to gets its big fat slice of East Timor's oil and gas reserves, despite the fact that the East Timorese people are some of the poorest in the world. If Australia doesn't provide security, no billions in oil and gas revenue will come our way.

Also, by mid-2008, the NeoCon propaganda campaign to rally support for attacks on Iran will have reached its climax, with strikes on Iran's nuclear energy infrastructure looking more likely by the week. If Australian troops are in Iraq when US-Israel strikes on Iran commence, they will become key targets of Shia militias and terrorists.

By admitting that he fears Australian will vote him out of office over the Iraq War, Howard has acknowledged that he really does use the Australian military like political pawns, and is prepared to "cut and run" and "abandon Iraq to terrorists" - to quote foreign minister Alexander Downer.


In recent months, Howard has been forced to limit his media-heavy tours of Australian military facilities due to growing disapproval and dissent amongst both senior and junior ranks. The rumour runs in a number of military family heavy communities that some army bases have refused, outright, to provide meet-and-greet walls of green for Howard during the election campaign. If he wants to visit, fine, but no media in tow.

Some 1500 Australian soldiers are now in Iraq, including 500 combat troops.

Opposition leader Kevin Rudd has already committed to withdrawing Australia's combat troops, and states the Labor position clearly on a recently launched website :

...we want a phased withdrawal of our combat troops from southern Iraq, in consultation with our allies and the Iraqi government. This would be part of a broader diplomatic effort to urge opposing Iraqi factions to resolve their political differences and end the civil war.

In conjunction with Howard's plans to announce "phased" troop withdrawals from Iraq, expect to see the spread of a new soft propaganda campaign from Howard, his ministers and his media supplicants on why Iraq has gone to hell :

"It's all Iran's fault."


Naturally, this will echo the current BushCo. and NeoCon anti-Iran propaganda campaigns. President Bush's office has probably already e-mailed the list of talking points to Howard and Downer. Who will, of course, then pass them onto handy journalists like Greg Sheridan at The Australian.


John Howard Finally Admits Iraq Was A War For Oil

Alexander Downer Hit Up Washington And Baghdad For BHP Iraq Oil Riches Only Weeks After Iraq War Began

Dec. 2006 : Stunning Drop In Australians' Support For Iraq War - Half Demand Troop Fast Troop Withdrawal

January 2007 : War Weary Nation Ready To Drive Howard From Office Over Iraq

Family of Australian Terror Victim Brushed Off By Downer

Why? She Didn't Die In A "Mass Casualty" Terror Attack

Families Of Bali Bombing Victims Sent "Insert Name Here" Form Letters

Australia's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, feels it is completely ethical to use the threat of terrorism, and the horrific deaths of more than 120 Australians from terror attacks over the past seven years, to frame his arguments on why the War On Iraq must continue, why Australia is a part of the 'War on Terror' and to explain why Australians must get used to having their civil liberties torn away as part of that war.

But the shattered family of one Australian terror victim were told by Downer that they would not get any help from the government to meet the costs of bringing home the body of their dead daughter, who died in a terror attack in Turkey.

They needed $16,000, and thought they would get help, because the Australian government had compensated the families of Australian terror victims who were killed in Bali, in Indonesia, in London and in the 9/11 attacks on New York City.

But the distressed, mourning family were brushed off by Downer, then ignored. Then they were sent an insulting letter.

Why?

Because their daughter didn't die in a "mass casualty incident"

Why should that make any difference at all?

Because Downer's clearly not interested in one dead Australian terror victim here, or a couple there. He only wants to know about the terror attacks where dozens of Australians are slain, because that's what grabs the headlines, and that's the kind of horror and terror that supplies the political capital he needs to justify the War On Iraq and to attack political opponents for supposedly being "soft" on terror.

Alexander Downer is beyond repulsive. and as inhuman as all the other despicable creatures who use terrorism for political, religious or personal gain.

Just when you think Downer can't get any lower, he'll prove you wrong.


And then there's the generic form letters sent to the Australian families of terror victims by Downer's office. You can see the letters for yourself here :

...the email version came with a number of documents, apparently sent by accident. They included a six-page summary of occasions the Government had helped Australians, such as reimbursing the cost of repatriation of remains for Bali bombing victims, $5000 for funeral costs, the cost of air fares and accommodation for close relatives to go to Bali and financial help to attend the first anniversary of the bombings and the trials of the accused terrorists.

Another attached document was a generic Foreign Affairs letter for Bali bomb victims' families, with spaces to "insert address here" and add "first name" here.

If Downer and John Howard can find the time to spend entire mornings preparing for their purely politically motivated attacks in Parliament, ranting about the threat of terror and why Australia is supposedly fighting in the front lines of the 'War on Terror' in Iraq, then they can surely find the time to write all the families of terror victims proper letters, and deal with their inquiries in a humane and decent way.

Beyond chilling.

Bureaucracy as its coldest, and most heartless.

"Doomsday Predictions Were Wrong" - When Howard Said The Iraq War Was Won

Crikey has dug up a remarkable piece of all-too-typical Howard hubris from May, 2003, back when the War On Iraq was won. Remember those couple of optimistic months before the explosive truth could no longer be buried beneath lies, spin and media manipulation?

When prime minister John Howard made the following statement to Parliament House, on May 21, 2003, he had already been thoroughly briefed to the reality on the ground in Iraq, and knew that the war was anything but won. Howard also knew that former Saddam Hussein loyalists, and Iraqi nationalists, were not contained or disarmed.

This is only one example of how much Howard gloated in the months after the downfall of the Saddam Hussein regime, and how little truth he was prepared to share with the Australian public :

JOHN HOWARD: "Not only was the military operation completed quickly and successfully but it is also worth recording that all of the doomsday predictions, particularly the many that came from those who sit opposite (the Labor opposition), were not realised.

"The oilwells were not set on fire; there were not millions of refugees; the dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers were not breached to bring on catastrophic flooding; and there was no long, drawn out, bloody, Stalingrad style street-to-street fighting in Baghdad.

"...it is a reminder of the hysteria and the doomsday predictions that often accompany operations of this kind....the predictions on this occasion have been proved wrong.

"The decisive victory of the American led coalition reflects enormous credit on the strength and the determination of the leadership of President Bush. Again I remind the House of the way in which his role was vilified and traduced by many of those who sit opposite and of the way in which speaker after speaker from the Australian Labor Party impugned his integrity, assaulted his judgment and called into question his ability to lead the United States in this very difficult conflict. History has proved them wrong.

"The performance of the President has illustrated how infantile their protests were, and the leadership that he has given on this occasion, I believe, will bring about a permanent change in attitudes in the Middle East."

When Howard made this arrogance-soaked speech, car bombs were already killing Iraqis and American soldiers, the insurgency was massing its ranks, ammunition and weapons dumps and storehouses were being raided by insurgents, oil pipelines were being destroyed and oil industry infrastructure was already being targeted, American forces had faced fierce and deadly opposition when they had entered Baghdad, leaving dozens dead and wounded and the exodus of Iraqis into Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Iran had already begun.

Howard claimed there had not been millions of refugees by May, 2003, which was true enough, but nobody said millions would leave within weeks of the war beginning. Refugee crises usually unfold over many months after a war commences, and Iraq was no different. An estimated 3 million people have now been forced to flee their homes, and their homeland, since the invasion and occupation of Iraq began.

As for Howard's claim that "there was no long, drawn out, bloody, Stalingrad style street-to-street fighting in Baghdad," this was then, and is now, a complete lie. Howard knew that the first American vehicles that entered Baghdad were met, in some streets, by gunfire from virtually every single window. Some of the very first roadside bombings of American military vehicles occurred in the outer suburbs of Baghdad during those days.

Street fighting has continued in Baghdad since late April of 2003 with more days of brutal fighting than less. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed and wounded in street battles, kidnappings, massacres, car bombings and suicide attacks in the suburbs of Baghdad.

Of Bush, Howard said, "the leadership that he has given on this occasion, I believe, will bring about a permanent change in attitudes in the Middle East."

Hmm, Howard was right there, too. The permanent change in attitudes in the Middle East, resulting from Bush's "leadership" in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, has been to trust the Americans even less than they were trusted before the war began.

The nervousness and distrust shown by most of the world towards President Bush, and his decision to launch an illegal war on Iraq, has now proven to have been totally justified.

Howard's effusive praise and idolising of President Bush, meanwhile, was ignorant, bizarre, and for more than half a million dead and wounded Iraqis, and more than 60,000 dead and wounded American soldiers, horrifically sad, tragic, and ultimately wrong.

More than 75% of Australians opposed our involvement in the Iraq War in February, 2003, and latest polls show that more than 6 out of 10 Australians now want the troops withdrawn :

The growing outrage against the war in the US is also playing into the domestic scene, given the close personal ties between the Prime Minister, John Howard, and the US President, George Bush, who is being deserted by Republicans over the conflict.

The Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, insisted yesterday that withdrawing US troops would be a victory for terrorism. Despite a CIA assessment showing al-Qaeda was not the main problem in Iraq, Mr Downer said the terrorist outfit was helping foment sectarian violence.

Two Australian Security Contractors Killed In Iraq By Roadside Bombs

Howard Hits Iraq Oil Slick As Truth Becomes A WMD

Murdoch's Media Rewrites Stories After Furious Calls From Prime Minister's Office

Howard : I Didn't Say What I Just Said

By Darryl Mason

The phone calls from John Howard's office to the head office of Rupert Murdoch's News Limited in Sydney yesterday were less than pleasant.

The News.com.au website, the main portal for Murdoch's network of Australian newspaper websites, reaching some more than 1.5 million Australian readers per day, ran a number of headlines claiming John Howard had said that oil was now a key reason to stay in Iraq. Some of the headlines said the Iraq War was a war for oil. Just like all those protesters back in early 2003 claimed it would be.

By the time Howard moved to deny he said anything such thing, it was too late. The story was out, columns and articles had been written and sent to the printers for today's news racks, and there was no going back.

The furore started early yesterday morning when online news stories began appearing claiming that John Howard was going to unveil a new defence strategy for Australia, and mention would be made that we had to secure oil supplies in Iraq, as part of that strategy.

Yesterday morning, before flying out for a visit to Indonesia, defence minister Brendan Nelson did a radio interview where he reacted to the headlines hitting news stands :

"...obviously the Middle East itself, not only Iraq but the entire region, is an important supplier of energy, oil in particular, to the rest of the world, and Australians and all of us need to think well what would happen if there were a premature withdrawal from Iraq."

The two words "oil" and "Iraq" in the same sentence were enough for Nelson's few words to become the main, and most controversial, story of the day.

By the time John Howard delivered his speech, shortly after Nelson's interview, the thrust of the story for most of the media, including the Murdoch media, was already fixed.

Howard's speech only added to the furore :

Addressing an Australian Strategic Policy Institute conference, Mr Howard said events in the Middle East had long been important to Australia's security and its broader interests.

"Many of the key strategic trends I have mentioned, including terrorism and extremism, challenging demographics, WMD aspirations, energy demand and great power competition, converge in the Middle East," he said.

"Our major ally and our most important economic partners have crucial interests there."

It was on for young and old. First Nelson, then Howard, had admitted that Australia was in Iraq for the oil.

Most Australian newspapers are still written in the late afternoon, early evening, of the day before they're published. The front pages, the editorials, the letters, were all set down before Howard's retraction of his own words, and Nelson's words, could impact. No doubt some editors chose to ignore Howard's ridiculous quibbling and denials that he said what he said, barely a few hours before.

After all, when it comes to the Middle East, "energy" is "oil" and everybody knows it.

Howard tried to roll back the unexpected emergence of some hot truth about the Iraq War late yesterday afternoon, but it was pointless. Clearly the word "energy" had disappeared from his vocabulary, now he had become obsessed with the word "oil" :

“We are not there because of oil and we didn’t go there because of oil,” Howard protested. “We don’t remain there because of oil. Oil is not the reason.”

And then it was on to defending America :

“Are people seriously suggesting that it won’t matter to Australia if America is humiliated?” asked Howard.

It's sad, indeed it's horrifying, to think that the prime minister of Australia doesn't grasp that the US has been steadily humiliated in Iraq, month in, month out, for at least two years, if not longer. There are few military analysts or historians of any credibility who would even think of trying to deny the very clear fact that an insurgency that didn't exist, according to Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, has all but laid waste to the most powerful military machine in the world.

The United States is now spending an estimated $20 billion on a program to replace all their armoured Humvees with the new, supposedly bomb proof, MRAP vehicles, because the Iraqi insurgency has been so effective at using World War 2 guerilla technology - IEDs, or improvised explosive devices - to disable, literally, thousands of Humvees and trucks in the past three years. 17,770 MRAP vehicles are on order to fight the Iraq War for the next decade.

John Howard's office knew there was little point trying to get Fairfax newspapers to retract their stories, in print or online. Howard Admits War For Iraq's Oil was the story many journos for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age had been waiting more than four years to write.

But Howard knew the Murdoch media were likely to play ball. If not in print, then at least online, where news.com.au now reaches more Australians than the same company's newspapers do, in print.

But even until the early afternoon today, almost 24 hours later, some of the Murdoch websites were still carrying 'Howard Says Iraq War For Oil' headlines and stories, even though the main news.com.au site had rewritten headlines and stories, inside its own archive, and published the following correction....oh sorry, clarification :

An earlier version of this story from the Australian Associated Press incorrectly reported the Prime Minister as saying oil was a reason for Australia's continued military presence in Iraq.

He said "energy", but as we all know, "energy" is "oil" when it comes to the Middle East, unless Howard is thinking about cutting natural gas deals with Iran sometime soon.

The phone calls from Howard's office to News Limited HQ clearly worked.

News.com.au chose to blame Australian Associated Press for supplying the wire news story that claimed Howard had admitted to a war for oil in Iraq.

Here's the pre-furious phone calls from Howard's office Uncorrected Version as it appeared online yesterday :

And here's the spiffy new Corrected Version :

Note that the sub headlines now put the words relating to 'Iraq War For Oil' squarely in the mouth of defence minister Brendan Nelson, when it was also Howard who publicly talked of needing to "secure" energy resources in Iraq and the Middle East.

The sub headlines were also edited to remove the dead giveaway line 'Another Reason Is To Uphold Prestige Of US, UK', to be replaced with the far more Freedom And Democracy Agenda-friendly 'We'll Stay Until Iraq No Longer Needs Us, Says PM'.

But perhaps more importantly, note that on both the 'corrected' and 'uncorrected' stories above, the byline clearly reads "By Staff Writers And Wires".

AAP may have supplied a story that claimed Howard said Australia had an interest in staying in Iraq to secure future oil supplies, which is, of course, exactly what he said, but unless the byline is a total lie, more than one journo rewrote or added to the text and headline and sub headlines before it went online. Hence "by staff writers and wires".

But to Howard's utter horror, that correction, sorry clarification, only made it onto the story on the main news.com.au site.

The calls for clarifications to the story must not have gotten through to other city newspaper editors and staff in Murdoch's network. Unless, of course, they chose to ignore the clarifications because the story didn't need any clarifying at all. It was true.

And if that was the case, then good on them for not following directions from head office, via the Howard office.

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From other blogs by Darryl Mason :

Go Here For The Latest Stories From 'Your New Reality'

Go Here For The Latest Stories From 'The Last Days Of President Bush'

Go Here For The Latest Stories From 'The Fourth World War'
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story continues....


The below pages were all still online through the Murdoch online stable at 10-11am today, and later.

You will notice that the headlines and intros are almost riotously scathing for the Murdoch media's notoriously pro-Iraq and pro-Howard coverage, especially considering the absolutely vile smears these very same newspapers spewed onto the more than 600,000 Australians who marched in opposition to the Iraq War, many of whom, including thousands of World War 2, Korea and Vietnam veterans, claimed it was going to be a "War For Oil."

From the Adelaide Advertiser :



Australia's biggest selling daily newspaper, The Herald Sun, ran the following editorial today, hitting the presses before it could be pulled, and staying online, unchanged, well into the late morning :



The Tasmania Mercury still had this up on their site at midday :


And the Murdoch site in Perth still had this posted after midday today :



Even though the story of Howard's Iraq Oil Slick was running up hundreds of comments an hour on websites around Australia, any mention of it was gone from the news.com.au front page by 10.30am this morning.

Over at Murdoch's flagship 'The Australian' newspaper website, at least three key columnists weighed in supporting Howard's claim that he didn't say what he said, and it really didn't matter even if the prime minister and the defence minister did say what they said. Which they did.

Columnist Matt Price even went so far as to write that Nelson was wrong, dead wrong :

"I don’t think oil plays any remotely significant role in the government’s Iraq strategy."

Hell, clearly a newspaper columnist would know more about Australia's reasons for staying in Iraq than the defence minister. Right?

By 9am, more than a hundred people had hit Price's blog to castigate him for spinning on behalf of the government, and most of the commenters mocked him soundly.

Just to jog your memory, here's a reminder of what John Howard had to say about claims that the, then still coming, war on Iraq was about something other than WMDs and deposing Saddam Hussein back in February, 2003 :

"No criticism is more outrageous than the claim that US behaviour is driven by a wish to take control of Iraq's oil reserves."

And here's what the Murdoch media's favourite political whipping post, Greens Leader Bob Brown had to say in that same week, in 2003 :

This is not Australia's war. This is an oil war. This is the US recognising that, as the economic empire of the age, it needs oil to maintain its pre-eminence.

Back then, 76 percent of Australians were opposed to a War On Iraq.


By midday today, the Australia In Iraq For The Oil scandal was making international news, in a big way.

And the hundreds of headlines from around the world were immune to Howard's attempt to reframe his own comments, and those of his defence minister. They went in hard, using Howard as the first leader of a Coalition Of The Drilling country to finally admit the truth about a war so blackened and poisoned with so many lies :

Herald Sun, Melbourne : PM's war for oil

Daily Times, Pakistan - Oil key motive for Iraq involvement: Australia

The Scotsman, Scotland - Oil keeps Australia in Iraq

The Independent, UK : Australian troops 'in Iraq because of oil'

RTE, Ireland : Mideast oil priority for Australia

The BBC : Australians 'are in Iraq for oil'

Turkish Press, Middle East : Oil a factor in Australian role in Iraq: minister

Voice Of America : Australia Says Oil Key Motive for Involvement in Iraq

The Guardian, UK : Oil a factor in Iraq conflict, says Australian MP

Xinhau, China : PM: Australian troops to stay in Iraq for oil

Aljazeera : Australia admits Iraq war about oil

Forbes : Australia says securing oil supply means no Iraq withdrawal

Press TV, Iran : Aussies in Iraq for Oil

Gulf News, United Arab Emirates : Oil 'key factor for Australia's role in Iraq'

Stratfor (key military intel site) : Australia: Oil A Reason For Iraq Presence

Alsumaria, Iraq : Oil supply is an essential factor

Zee Tv, India : Mid-east oil crucial to our future: Australian PM

Alalalam News Network, Iran : Australia: Oil Means no Iraq Pullout


Some of those same news sites ran Howard's attempts to deny that he said what he said, but his retraction was given mostly backwater coverage. Those international editors knew, like some editors of Murdoch's Australian newspapers knew, that Howard was trying to scam them.

Like he scammed the entire back in late 2002 when he said he hadn't decided whether or not he would send troops to Iraq, when they were already in the Gulf. And in early March, 2003, when he said he hadn't decided yet whether or not commit troops to the coming war, when some of those already deployed troops had already written letters to their children in case they died during their war.

Howard's complete failure to keep the 'Iraq War For Oil' controversy in check couldn't have come at a worse political time for him. Today and tomorrow, the dreaded Newspoll surveys are taken, and Howard was counting on the poll, published early next week, to show the Liberal Party that is still a viable, respected, trusted and popular party leader and prime minister.

The rumours a few months back were if Howard didn't snap the polls back up in his favour by late July, his career was over. He would be rolled, and the federal election would be delayed until early 2008 to give time for a new leader to try and make his mark, and chase away some of the foul stench of the Howard years. If that's at all possible.

After 11 years as prime minister of Australia, John Howard stands today a doomed man. And he knows it.

And early next week, terrible poll numbers, and sweeping rumours of a leadership challenge, will confirm it for the entire nation.

Prime Minister Finally Admits Iraq Was A War For Oil

Blogocracy : Oils Ain't Oils, Apparently

Matt Price : Howard Didn't Say What He Said, And Neither Did Nelson

Howard Denies Linking Oil To Iraq

Rudd : Iraq Oil Claim Conradicts Goverment's Story

Government Admits Oil Behind Iraq Stay

Ninemsn Your Say : PM Links Oil To Iraq War

PM And Minister At Odds Over Iraq's Reasons

More Fury, More Outrage In Comments At The Courier Mail

Nelson's Iraq War For Oil Claim Spreads Around The World

"I Can't Believe I Voted For Him" - West Australians Rip And Shred Howard

London Bomb Victim Slams Howard For Increasing Terror Risk For Australians



Louise Barry is a young Australian who barely survived the July 7, 2005 bombings in London. She hit the headlines two weeks after the terror attacks when she confronted prime minister John Howard, during a hospital visit, on whether the bombers had attacked London because of the US-UK-Australian War On Iraq.

Two years later, and only days after another series of attempted bomb attacks on London and Glasgow, Louise Barry will appear in a TV commercial where she demands that John Howard get Australia out of the Iraq War before more Australians are killed or injured in revenge terror attacks.

Barry reportedly thought up the idea of the commercial, and wrote her own lines.

"You got us in this mess," Barry says, addressing the prime minister, "it's your responsibility to get us out."

"The situation clearly is not getting any better. I don't want what happened to me to happen to
other Australians, or anyone else for that matter."

“The recent attacks in the UK brought back some really painful memories."

“Wasn't going to war in Iraq supposed to make us safer, not put us in more danger?

“I don't have all the answers and I'm not an expert, but I do know something about the real cost of terrorism.”

During the July 7, 2005, attacks in London, Barry was on a train hit by one bomber. She was uninjured. But the bus she was directed to get onto, after being evacuated from the underground train line, was torn apart by another bomber an hour after the first blasts.

John Howard visited Barry in a London hospital on July 20, 2005. She was recovering from a broken neck, shrapnel wounds and severe burns. Howard was expecting to visit an Australian victim of the bombing who would be thankful for his visit, and might want to ask him some questions about terror. He had no idea she was going to confront him over the connections between the increased threat of terrorism to Australia resulting from its involvement in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

During that hospital visit,Louise Barry's concerns about the links between the July 7 bombings and the Iraq War were all but dismissed by the prime minister :

LOUISE BARRY: What do you think about all this sort of stuff then? Do you reckon... 'cause everyone says that it's all about 'cause of the Iraq War. Do you reckon?

JOHN HOWARD: No, I don't. But, you know, different people have different views. I don't. I mean, they had a go at us and they had a go at other people before Iraq started. I think it's less likely in Australia.

LOUISE BARRY: You reckon?

JOHN HOWARD: A bit less likely, yeah. Less likely in Austra...

LOUISE BARRY: Why?

JOHN HOWARD: Why? I don't think there's the concentration of groups in Australia that might produce it, that's why.

LOUISE BARRY: Yeah.

JOHN HOWARD: But I think it's still possible, and I've said that, and it could happen.

LOUISE BARRY: Pretty scary stuff though.

JOHN HOWARD: It can happen anywhere, unfortunately.

LOUISE BARRY: Yeah, I know.

She sure does.

Howard was clearly uncomfortable during the questioning by Barry, which is the usual reaction from Howard when he hears something he doesn't like, or is confronted by an Australian who hasn't been screened by his minders, in case they raise too much truth reality or truth in his presence. When Barry confronted Howard, he quickly became annoyed, dismissive and rude. Like a petulant child.

The commercials are being paid for by political action group GetUp, who are also using Barry's commercial to solicit donations to buy more ad time and raise funds for further campaigns.

It's interesting to note one of Howard's comments to Barry :

"I don't think there's the concentration of groups in Australia that might produce (terror attacks)..."

But that's not what Howard and terror fear mongers tell us now. We're supposed to have thousands of young Muslims in Australia who subscribe to Islamist ideology, and we could be attacked in our streets at any time.

Nothing to do with the half million people killed in the Iraq War, of course.

You can expect the usual Howard and Iraq War supporters to take cheap and nasty shots at Barry. No doubt they will claim she is being used by those evil Lefties for political purposes. Their response to Louise Barry's plea to lessen the terror threat to Australians by getting our troops out of Iraq will be as tired, propagandist and cliched as their arguments for why the War On Iraq must continue, for years to come.

Howard Finally Admits Iraq War Was A War For Oil

PM Finally Admits Iraq Was A War For Oil

Howard To Iraq : We're Not Leaving Until You Say We Can

Howard Shoots For National Security Poll Rise In Desperate Attempt To Stave Off Leadership Challenge


Update : According to this story from the Melbourne Age, on today's speech by PM Howard on national security and the Iraq War, detailed below, Howard will say that Australia has a "major stake of oil dependency", and this is one of the key reasons why we had to become involved in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. So it was a war for oil after all.

Perhaps by no coincidence, The Australian newspaper also features a major story today on how we are now entering an age when Australian will suffer from major oil deficits, where in the past we had enjoyed locally sourced oil supply surpluses.

Update II : Both John Howard and defence minister Brendan Nelson discussed the need for Australia to continue the occupation of Iraq to secure future oil supplies, and all hell broke loose.


Original Story Follows :

John Howard will move today to dispel any doubt about his intention to keep more than 550 Australian combat troops in Iraq until the Iraqi government says they can go home.

Which raises doubts about this story from last week, which claimed Howard had a secret plan to pull out most of Australia's fighting forces from Iraq in early 2008. The doubt raised, then, is that the leak used in the story was a plant, a set-up to gauge the public reaction to a withdrawal of Australian troops. The reaction from most Australians was "yeah, so what?" Howard can now dismiss any notion raised by Labor on the way to the federal election that he is planning to pull troops out once the election is over.

Off the back of the currently very weak links between the spectacularly hopeless car bombing attempts in London and Glasgow and an Australian-based doctor, Howard is expected to ramp up both the threat of homegrown terror, and the threat of terror attacks from non-Australians who are visiting, or working, here.

Howard's core message will be simple : Australia is not pulling its fighting forces out of Iraq, and Australia is not withdrawing from Afghanistan. Not until the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan say our troops are no longer needed :

In a major security speech, Mr Howard will stress the stark consequences of a failure by the US and its allies to secure Iraq.

He will argue that the military coalition cannot allow weariness, frustration or political convenience to dictate strategy in Iraq.

Mr Howard today will launch a new defence policy statement, which underscores the strategic importance of the Middle East to global security and Australia's broader national interests.

The document warns of a far more complex and challenging global environment facing Australia's military.

It says Australia's new security challenges dictate a military force able not only to play a lead role in the region, but also to operate in an expanded range of operations further afield with close allies.

The 65-page defence update declares that violent extremism will remain a threat around the world for a generation "and probably longer".

It says the stakes are high in Iraq and Afghanistan, not only for the peace and stability of those countries, but also because the outcome will influence how the US will deal with future global security challenges.

A critical danger remains the prospect of terror groups such as al-Qa'ida getting hold of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons.

Increasingly, military technology once available only to nation states is being used by terror groups and other non-state actors. Organisations such as al-Qa'ida are unlikely to be deterred from using WMDs by the threat of military retaliation.

The update says extremist terrorism continues to draw funding, support and people from Middle Eastern states.

"For as long as that is true, Australia and like-minded countries need to fight terrorism at its source rather than wait for it to come to our shores.

"To help defeat terrorism Australia must have patience, a sustained military commitment, a willingness to adapt to conditions on the ground and work closely with our friends and allies."

It forecasts the defence force will increasingly be called on to fight irregular opponents and be capable of mounting counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations.

In short, Australia will keep fighting the 'War on Terror' for as long as the 'War on Terror' helps to keep spawning new terrorists.

Which also means Australia will keep spending more than $23 billion a year on defence, the second highest per person defence spend in the world (after the United States) for years to come. Not much is expected to change on that front even if Kevin Rudd, and Labor, win the federal election later this year.

Don't expect Howard to do much talking up of the Australian-United States alliance between now and the federal election. He will acknowledge it, but he is unlikely to be seen publicly praising President Bush. At least if his advisers have any say in it.

Pledging a strong and ongoing commitment to fighting the 'War on Terror' is now a coded way for Howard to say that he will continue to support Bush-led American military misadventures around the world for the foreseeable future.

It will be surprising if Howard has anything to say about Australia's involvement in the US 'missile shield' between now and the election, or Australia's involvement in helping the United States to 'encircle' China, in anticipation of a coming trade war between China and the US.

Howard's speech today on Australia's future security "challenges" and his government's role in helping to fight the 'War on Terror' will be seen as probably Howard's last major chance to buzz up his own dismal standings in the polls before Parliament resumes, and to tamp down the grumblings within the Liberal Party on whether or not Howard will destroy their chances of holding onto power in the coming elections.

There was speculation a few months back that Howard had to score a decent rise in national polls, like Newspoll which will begin collecting data on Friday, after Howard's key speech today, or he could be rolled by his own party and removed from the leadership. If Howard was replaced, the coalition government could delay the federal election until early 2008 to give themselves a fighting change. But they still need someone to replace Howard. Someone from the front ranks of the government who doesn't make most Australians wince every time they open their mouths.

Howard may see a slight rise in the polls from today's speech, partly due to unease caused by the, however weak, Australian links to the London car bombing attempts, but he will really have to rally the nation to knock Rudd and the Labor Party off their election winning perch, which they have enjoyed for all of 2007. This seems incredibly unlikely.

The chief problem for Howard today is that while he can pledge to try and keep Australians safe from terror, Australians are more concerned about who is going to keep them safe from Howard and his dishonest, double-dealing, secret agenda heavy, gang.


March, 2007 : Howard Sees Only "Faint Glimmer Of Hope" In Iraq

February, 2007 : Howard Keeps "Own Interest" Option For Early Troop Withdrawal From Iraq

Australian Defence Minister Says There Is No Hope Of Victory In Iraq War

Claim : Howard Has Top Secret Plan To Abandon America In Iraq

Australia Tells Iraq : We Ain't Leaving

Howard Admits ADF Role In Iraq Should "Already Be Over"

Stuck for an attention grabbing story for the front page, or early pages, of your Sunday newspaper? No sweat, just hype the rumours about Australia pulling its troops out of Iraq just in time for the federal election. Don't worry about whether the story is true or not, or whether your newspaper is ramping up the hopes of military families keen to see their loved ones return home sooner rather than later.

Just concoct a semi-legitimate sounding theory to go with the claims from your "senior military source" and you've got an attention grabbing, newspaper selling story.

From the Sunday Telegraph :

Prime Minister John Howard has a secret plan to begin withdrawing Australian troops from Iraq by February, a senior military source has revealed.

And Mr Howard intends to use the plan to ambush Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd at this year's election.

Mr Rudd has committed Labor to pulling out Australian troops from the increasingly unpopular war, if he wins.

A well-placed source said the plan is one of the most closely guarded secrets in the top levels of the bureaucracy.

It is understood the plan has not yet been put to the Bush Administration or even gone before the National Security Committee of Cabinet.

Is that because it's complete and utter bullshit?

"The Government is quietly saying to Defence: 'We don't want to get caught in Iraq if it comes unstuck for the Americans'," another well-placed source said.

"They want to be ready to go, even before the Americans."

Australia's planned troop withdrawal is expected to begin at the same time the US military is expected to begin drawing down its presence in Iraq in February.

Ha! Bush isn't pulling American troops out of Iraq. At least, not until the shattered US military pull George W. Bush out of the White House.

Most Australians will laugh long and hard to hear that John Howard is planning to do anything in relation to Iraq without first seeking the approval of President Bush.

This whole bucket of rotting fish-heads, passing as a news story, is little more than an attempt to bolster John Howard's appalling poll ratings by making it appear he intends to bring the troops home, after the election, and is planning to do so without seeking the permission of Bush Co. first.

It's little more than an attempt to paint Howard as something other than the Bush Co. bootlick that so many Australians, rightly so, now believe him to be.

The majority of Australians are not going to vote for John Howard again, whether he promises to bring the troops home or not. The prime minister's credibility stinks as badly as that news story.

Although the Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer, is infamous for lying even when he says "Good Morning", he was doing his master's bidding (Bush, not Howard) when he was in Iraq just the other day, stating Australian troops will remain in Iraq "for the foreseeable future" :

Speaking after talks with Iraqi Government and US military leaders in Baghdad, Mr Downer emphasised there were no plans for a pre-election pullout and that Australia would not walk away from the difficult challenges facing Iraq.

"I made it very clear to the Iraqis while I was there that we would not abandon them," Mr Downer told ABC radio yesterday. "I made it clear Australian troops would stay."

Mr Downer said it was vital that extremism in Iraq was defeated.

What happened to defeating terrorism? Terrorism's okay, is it, now we can't stop it? So we're going to "defeat" extremism instead.

Maybe we should just go for the enforcement of a total ban on smoking in Iraqi restaurants. You know, something clear and achievable.

Another story of interest here, attempts to reframe Howard and his faithful lackeydom when it came to following Bush Co. orders on deploying Australian troops to Iraq back in late 2002, in anticipation of the war that he claims he wasn't sure was actually going to happen when most of the Australian troops had already been told it was going to happen, because that's why they were all there in the first place :

Mr Howard told the Ten Network that he spoke with US President George W. Bush and then defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld about an Australian deployment....

And that was back in mid-2002, but Howard insists to this day it was much later in the year than that.

"The understanding we had with the Americans, when we originally participated, was that after the sharp end was over we weren't going to have any troop presence," he said. "I made it very clear that we would commit forces - if we did commit forces, they'd be committed for the sharp operational stage, the invasion stage if you like, and then after that, we would not be leaving forces on the ground."

Except for all the forces we would be having on the ground, because we told Bush Co. we would be having those forces on the ground, that we were in fact committed, while John Howard was still telling the Australian public that we hadn't yet committed to the war, something he continued to do only 48 before the war began when dozens of missiles ploughed into Baghdad .

Howard has lied so often and spun himself into so many confusing circles about Australia's involvement in the Iraq War, he can no longer keep track of all the threads of disinformation and obfuscation he has hurled at the public over the past five years.

Mr Howard was...forced to defend the role of Australian troops in Iraq, after recent complaints from soldiers that they were being accused by some coalition partners of not pulling their weight.

When Defence Minister Brendan Nelson visited troops in Iraq in April he was questioned about Australia's participation.

"There's really a very real sense that our forces are being withheld from actual combat roles with the exception of the special forces," one soldier said.

"I think that some of our coalition partners are starting to certainly make comment on the ground to soldiers about that."

Yes, they are. And it's been a personally degrading embarrassment for many Australian soldiers in Iraq, who trained to fight a war, who went to Iraq to fight a war, and then found themselves locked out of key battles because the prime minister was, and remains, so utterly terrified of the reaction of the Australian public if military casualties started to enter double digits.

Go To 'The Fourth World War' Blog For More News On Iraq

Howard Out Of The Loop On US Troop Surge Facts

Says US Presence In Middle East Constrains Iran And Israel

Australia Refuses UN Demands To Send Troops To Fight In Darfur Conflict

Don't let anybody tell you that prime minister John Howard isn't on top of what's going on in Iraq, particularly when it comes to the final round of deployments in the US troop "surge" that is supposed to rein in all the death and destruction :

Mr Howard said "evidence about the success so far of the surge is mixed", but he had not given up hope.

"The surge has not reached its peak and it won't reach its peak for some weeks yet," he said.

According to the US Defence Department, who'd you expect to know the facts :

The full contingent of new U.S. forces being sent to Iraq -- what military leaders call a "surge" of troops to improve security and stability in the capital -- was completed by Friday, with 28,500 additional troops now posted in the country, a U.S. military spokesman said.

Howard often cites his friendship with President Bush, and his contact with the inner circle of the White House, as being evident of how the Bush administration cherishes Australia's troop commitment to the Iraq War. Clearly, they're not getting on the phone to him as often as they used to.

Howard is also disappointed with the democratically elected leader of Iraq. Not just disappointed, but "quite unhappy" :

The Prime Minister, John Howard, believes the Iraqi Government is not pulling its weight to help end violence in the country...

In an interview with the Herald yesterday, Mr Howard said the Iraqi Government, led by the Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, was not doing enough to rein in the sectarian violence.

"I'm still quite unhappy with the reconciliation process inside Iraq," he said.

"The Maliki Government should be doing more on that. They should be doing a lot more. It's absolutely critical; I made that clear when I saw him three months ago, and [the US President George] Bush makes that clear to him every week."

Mr Howard said the US presence in Iraq was all that was preventing it from descending into chaos and saving the rest of the Middle East from becoming "even more of a tinder box".

Mr Howard said if the US left the Middle East, constraints on both Iran and Israel could be lifted. "If the atmospherics alter, if the threat increases, the Israelis could go for a more hard-line government," he said.

Also yesterday, Mr Howard said Australia had rejected a United Nations request to send troops to Sudan because it was heavily committed elsewhere.

Of course, if Australian troops were deployed to the Darfur conflict they would very likely find themselves in military situations far more out of control, and deadly, than they now face in the relatively calm south of Iraq where the majority of Australian troops have been stationed since the war began.

Howard knows that he would have an even harder time winning the federal election at the end of the year if coffins wrapped in Australian flags are being unloaded on air force base tarmacs too close to polling day.

The Australian government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising and recruitment campaigns to boost the ranks of Australia's armed forces, but widespread labour shortages and the extreme unpopularity of the Iraq War has seen little success on the recruitment front.

Government To Bombard Australians With "Patriotic" Recruitment Propaganda

"Conscription" Raised As Way Of Fixing Defence Force Recruitment Crisis

Australia To Double Special Forces Troops In Afghanistan

Prepare yourself, Australia. You are about to get bombarded by an intensive propaganda campaign designed to guilt trip you into joining the Australian military.

Defence minister, Brendan Nelson has announced that igniting patriotism will be "an extremely important part" of a vast new military recruitment campaign. Nelson has long promoted his theory that the Australian soldier, or digger, is the defining iconic image of the Australian identity.

The Australian Defence Force is having enormous trouble finding new recruits in the midst of a booming economy. Young Australians may be thinking about joining the Army, or Navy, but they don't like the pay, the conditions, or the very real likelihood of being deployed into a warzone. Many simply want to go to university instead.

Tens of millions of dollars will be spent in the coming months on the extended series of television, print, internet and radio military recruitment ads that will dispense with trying to interest young people in joining the Army, the Air Force or the Navy because they want to be soldiers, pilots or sailors, and will attempt, instead, to rouse their sense of patriotism and a desire "to make a difference."

Nelson : "...we need to get away from just promoting defence jobs, to promoting the key values of the three service uniforms, and putting those in a contemporary environment so young people especially understand if you want to make a difference, there's no better way to do it than join the navy, army, or air force..."

It'll be interesting to see exactly what the "key values" Nelson mentions will turn out to be, and what exactly he is asking young Australians to "make a difference" to.

At the same time, Nelson has announced that Australians as old as 56 will now be able to join up, and the compulsory retirement age will be raised from 55 to 60 years old.

The ADF will no longer be so fussy when it comes to education qualifications in new recruits. In fact, you won't even have to finish high school if you want to get into the defence forces now.

"...we'll look at their aptitude, work and life experience," Nelson said. "We'll provide them with the necessary education and get them up to that sort of standard...."

Nelson gave a preview of what we can expect to see in the advertising blitz during an interview last Sunday :

"There is no group of Australians that has done more to shape our values, beliefs and identity than those men and women who have worn and today wear the uniform of the navy, army and air force..."

But do the majority of Australians really believe their "values, beliefs and identity" were formed by the Australian military's more than 100 years of international war-fighting? A long and brutal series of campaigns that killed more than 100,000 men and boys , disabled and injured hundreds of thousands more and robbed generations of children of their fathers and grandfathers?

Nelson is going to be treading on mine-filled ground if the coming recruitment ads try to rewrite the shocking fallout that World War 1, World War 2 and the Vietnam War had on Australian society.

ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day are not about celebrating victories in war for the vast majority of Australian, but are instead sombre, extremely sad occasions when we remember just how deeply successive wars have scarred and shattered Australian families and communities, particularly rural communities.

With a focus on "patriotism" and "values", the coming ads will also be in danger of drifting close to the kind of American-style cheesiness, flag-saluting and gung-ho militarism that makes most Australians laugh in dismay, or shake their heads in disbelief.


On a busy Sunday for Brendan Nelson, he also committed Australia to doubling its troop commitment in Afghanistan to almost 1000, most of whom are expected to be special forces.

Nelson, like prime minister, John Howard, refuses to acknowledge that the pullout of most Australian troops from Afghanistan in the second half of 2002, in preparation for the illegal invasion of Iraq, set the scene for a revival of Taliban strength which now has to be dealt with and is likely to result in Australian troops being killed and wounded.

"We believe there is a need (to redeploy)...we think that the Taliban will be mounting a very strong offensive shortly," Nelson said.

The Prescription For Conscription

In an interview with ABC News, influential defence industry expert Neil James, said that while improved wages and conditions will help to increase overall defence forces recruitment, national conscription could prove necessary should a serious conflict erupt in our region :

"It would depend on the likely duration of the problem. You'd have to say that conscription would have to be one of the things that would need to be considered," he said.

Rest assured that if Neil James is saying that, conscription is already being considered.


In a final bit of news related to the Australian Air Force, a new video flight simulator game is to be launched via Windows Live Messenger.

From 'The Australian' :

The game, Supreme Air Combat, developed for defence force recruiting, was launched at the Avalon Airshow by the RAAF's deputy chief, Air Vice Marshal John Blackburn.

The game features multi-player aerial combat, in which each player controls a small flight group and tries to outmanoeuvre an opponent to win.

It is based on fast turns, which its designers say is designed to encourage quick decision-making using a simulated F/A-18 jet fighter.

The game was also intended to emphasise that a career in the Australian Defence Force was "cutting edge", general defence force recruiting chief Brigadier Simon Gould said.

"It's demonstrating to young Australians that the ADF is fresh, innovative and involved in high technology. It will encourage people to join the team and "have a look at all the possible jobs we have to offer", he said.

Defence Minister Brendan Nelson : "We Are Not Going To Risk Our Own People" - Why Australia Turned Down American Request To Join Baghdad Troop "Surge"

Talibanisation - What Australian Troops Will Be Fighting In Afghanistan\

Tim Dunlop On Iraq Vs Afghanistan : John Howard's Dilemma