Hallo, hallo, hallo, what have we got here then? Just a cop drawing an obvious conclusion – the same conclusion being drawn by everyone else in Australia who has not got their head in the political quicksand.
Spain is one of the few countries in Western Europe with troops in Iraq. Spain like Australia backed President Bush and Prime Minister Blair’s position on Iraq. Australia took part in the earlier invasion of Iraq – only one of three nations to do so. Islamic extremists warned that those who helped the US would be targets, naming Britain, Israel, Australia and Spain among others. Then bombs killed 200 in Spain and the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack.
Now what follows is not very difficult. It is not even a first-year university Logic test. It is a Year 11 comprehension test.
Small wonder the top Australian cop (along with several million other Australians) drew the obvious conclusion: Australia is more likely to be a target of a terrorist attack directly because of its role in Iraq. It was just so obvious a conclusion that Federal Police Commissioner Mick Kelty did not think twice about stating it in public television without imagining there could be any fallout.
Sure, Australia would be middle-level target anyway, like all western democracies, but it is more likely to be a target (rather than, say, New Zealand, Canada or Austria) because it took part in Iraq. For example, Australia (and its overseas interests) might be now, say, 1 chance in 100 of being the target of the next terror attack instead of, say, 1 chance in 200 — purely because we took part in Iraq. Inescapable.
The conclusion is further backed up by new statements made by terrorists after the Madrid bombings say Australia is on the list of next targets.
It does not take a great deal of brain power to infer that al-Qaeda is more likely to be looking at maps of the Sydney railway system than the, say, Auckland or Vienna rail systems to make their next murderous, terrorist strike.
If you cannot acknowledge that, you are either dumb, a liar or in denial.
Federal Police Commissioner Mick Kelty just did not imagine that his political master were dumb, liars or in denial. Well, forgive him. He’s just a cop who deals with real evidence in the real world, and deals with obvious, logical, common-sense conclusions.
So what are we to make of the fact that Howard and his ministers could not acknowledge the obvious?
If they thought the Australian people were no fools, but intelligent, informed people, surely they should have said, “Look, appeasement with terrorists is a foolish policy. In the long run we have to be tough. It may well be that we open ourselves to be a target of terror in the short term, but in the long term, preventative, pre-emptive strikes against terror-supporting regimes is the best in the long run.”
You might disagree with that view, but you could respect it.
Or they might say, “Look, we fluffed it by going into Iraq. We thought Saddam was poised with weapons of mass destruction ready to hit us and our allies. It turned out we were wrong and there were no weapons, but on the evidence at the time it was wise to take out the insurance policy. A beneficial side effect has been to get rid of a dictator but we have a troublesome occupation to deal with and we have moved ourselves up on the terrorists’ list of targets.”
You might think that in hindsight paying the premium was wasted money, but you could at least understand the misjudgment and accept the price.
But one thing that voters (Spanish, British, Australian or American) will not accept is the warm brown substance that comes out of the male bovine.
The then Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar dished it up in great quantity after the bombings. It was the Basques, he cried, throwing the truth overboard.
Instead, he should have stood by his convictions: we have to fight terror, even if it costs.
The fact that he and Howard could not do that suggests that this is not a Churchillian stand against a Chamberlain’s appeasement, but just an historic blunder. Iraq could and should have been dealt with in more subtle and effective ways in concert with a true coalition of willing democracies – in the same way that South Africa was dealt with and Zimbabwe and a dozen other hellish dictatorships should be dealt with.
And it is no good impugning those who thought going to war in Iraq was bad policy or wrong in principle. Some of them were former senior military officers. Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer have sought to ridicule them by suggesting they wanted Saddam Hussein to stay in power, just as Foreign Minister Downer virtually accused Kelty of inadvertently doing terrorists’ bidding.
It is likely many voters will respect the view of the former senior military officers and the top cop than the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister. Going into Iraq was done in the wrong way. Getting rid of Saddam was a beneficial side-effect, but at what cost? He – and other dictators — could have been got rid of by multi-lateral legal UN action rather than by an illegal unilateral action based on concocted evidence about the need for haste.
But if you disagree with Howard and Downer you risk being branded as giving succour to terrorists or liking dictators.
The irony in the Spanish events is that the very method that Howard used to curb the political fallout in Spain – taking the voters for fools – was the very thing that ended Aznar’s political career. Howard failed to learn from the political lesson that was staring him in the face. That and his denial of the obvious have made him look more like Billy McMahon than Robert Menzies.
Mark Latham just put a few tacks in Howard’s political coffin. The first nails were provided this week by Howard himself.