No surprises here:
"Bob Carr may have been Foreign Minister for only 12 months, but he started talking to American diplomats about internal Labor politics nearly 40 years ago. Previously secret US embassy and consulate reports incorporated into a new searchable database unveiled by WikiLeaks on Monday reveal that Senator Carr was a source for US diplomats seeking information on the Whitlam government and the broader Labor movement in the mid-1970s... A former Australian Young Labor president and then education officer with the NSW Labor Council, Senator Carr later 'expressed deep concern to [the US] consul-general over [the] impact of Labor disputes on the prospects of [the] Labor government'. The once confidential cables also suggest US envoys turned to him as a source of background information on Labor figures. For example, Senator Carr explained that a speaker at a pro-Palestinian protest in 1975 - left-wing Labor parliamentarian George Petersen - was 'a NSW equivalent of Victoria's [Bill] Hartley', another prominent Labor Left figure who developed close ties with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.* Senator Carr has long been a strong supporter of Australia's alliance with the US. He was a prominent participant in the Australian American Leadership Dialogue while serving as NSW premier." (Hawke & Carr were US sources on Whitlam turmoil, Philip Dorling, Sydney Morning Herald, 9/4/13)
The late, great George Petersen had Carr figured out decades ago:
"Paul Landa was succeeded as [NSW] Attorney-General by Terry Sheahan. The Cabinet vacancy was filled by Bob Carr, who is an unabashed admirer of United States capitalism, and who became Minister for Environment & Planning. He has been Premier since 1995. Together with the Treasurer, Michael Egan, he represents a total commitment to the ideology of economic rationalism." (George Petersen Remembers: The Contradictions, Problems & Betrayals of Labor in Government in New South Wales, 1998, p 356)
No surprises here either:
"Then ACTU president Bob Hawke was the US embassy's most valued Labor contact, conferring regularly with embassy officers and the consulate in Melbourne... Mr Hawke was especially critical of what he called Mr Whitlam's 'immoral, unethical and ungrateful attitude' towards Israel. He told the US consulate he felt unable to approach the Jewish community for campaign funds because of 'Whitlam's 'unprintable' even-handed 'unprintable' Arab policy'." (ibid)
George Petersen also had Hawke's number, describing him as a "reliable servant of the Australian capitalist class and United States imperialism." (George Petersen Remembers, p 185)
[*This is misleading. Saddam Hussein did not become Secretary of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party until 1979.]
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1 comment:
Until the pro-Palestine lobby organizes its funding and voting as effectively as the Zionist lobby, people like Hawke and Gillard will continue their immoral stand.
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