The Hyping of Hawke 4

Finally, in my series, The Hyping of Hawke, it is sobering to reflect on the fact that what is often referred to today as fake news played a crucial role in the erosion of Labor Party opposition to Hawke's obscene rush to join in the US-led war in the Gulf. It is equally sobering to note just how few questioning journalists there were back then - just like today!

Thankfully, there was one back then, the Reporters without Borders representative in Australia, Max Watts:

"In January 1991, the Australian parliament took a vote on whether to join the United States and go to war with Iraq. A journalist, Max Watts, asked one of the Australian [Labor] senators, the late Olive Zakharov, which way she intended to vote. Through her assistant, Max was informed she planned to vote for going to war. Max asked, Why? He was told that Iraqi soldiers had gone into a hospital in Kuwait, taken 306 babies out of their incubators and left them to die. Max, with his decades of experience in identifying inconsistencies in suspect stories, thought it rather odd that the number should be so precise. Who has time to count to 306 in a war zone?

"Max asked a friend, Dr Rosie Kubb... how many incubators are there in Melbourne? The population of Melbourne is about four million people. Dr Kubb checked it out. There were about 80 incubators for the city of Melbourne, which has a population three times that of the whole of Kuwait.

"The life of a lie may be short, but this lie was believed by enough people for long enough to enable George Bush Sr. to execute Gulf War I. The truth about the Kuwaiti Babies story was not exposed until eleven months later, after the war was over and thousands of innocent people had been killed. The story had been fabricated by a United States public relations company, Hill and Knowlton, to 'sell' the war. The company had dressed the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the United States as a nurse, and had her filmed telling the story. She was presented on television as a Kuwaiti nurse who had counted the babies, even though she was in the United States at the time the incident was alleged to have taken place." (Invasion of Iraq: An Eyewitness Account, Waratah Rose Gillespie, 2004, p 13)

The Hyping of Hawke 2

Here's Paul Kelly's version of the late former PM Hawke's contribution to the Gulf War (August 1990 - February 1991), otherwise known as Operation Desert Shield:

"In early 1991 after Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and his defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions, Hawke authorised Australia's most important military commitment since Vietnam. For Hawke, the argument was irrefutable - it was a repelling [of] aggression, it involved support for the alliance since US President George H W Bush was spearheading the action; but, more decisively, it meant support for the UN authorised position. In November 1990 the Security Council passed its 'war resolution' approving 'all necessary means' to reverse the invasion. Australia's contribution was a modest three ships. Hawke had considered five but, worried about casualties, opted for caution. For the Labor Party and the Left - still shaped by the Vietnam experience - this was a turning point. Many feared a disaster but the war was short and successful. While Australia's contribution was small, the significance of the decision was great - the nation had moved beyond the psychology of Vietnam." (Lover, fighter & peacemaker, The Australian, 17/5/19)

Needless to say, Kelly's is a caricature of the reality, designed solely to burnish the image of St Bob. The following data has been culled from The Case Against Australian Participation by Janet Powell & Richard Bolt, in Australia's Gulf War (1992). (Powell was the parliamentary leader of the Australian Democrats, 1990-91.) I set it out here by way of rebutting each of Kelly's propaganda points in the order in which they are raised:

Saddam's alleged "defiance of UNSC resolutions":

"In fact Iraq had in several statements demonstrated sufficient realism to comprehend that it would have to withdraw for the crisis to end. Its recent history shows reversals of apparently intractable positions as the pressure of circumstances demanded; for example, in handing back territory won from Iran during their recent war... This was clear from a leaked UN transcript of Secretary-General [Peres] de Cuellar's 13 January meeting with President Saddam Hussein, in a last minute bid to avert war. Despite public claims that the Iraqi leader had refused to even discuss withdrawing the transcript reveals that President Hussein 'produced a map of Kuwait and asked... 'Where should Iraq withdraw to?' But he also said that open discussion of withdrawal 'as war was looming' would be damaging to him. Contrary to the rhetoric of war advocates, a negotiated settlement backed by sanctions would not have required that Iraq be appeased with unprincipled enticements to withdraw. Assurances could have been given that withdrawal, payment of compensation, and the dismantling of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction would be followed by increased efforts to convene a Middle East peace conference, and agreement that the World Court should adjudicate on Iraq's claims over the disputed Rumaila oilfield on its border with Kuwait... Such assurances were ruled out simply to reduce the prospects of success in the contrived eleventh hour-hour negotiations initiated by the United States." (p 32-3)

"It was a repelling of aggression":

"The Australian Government justified its commitment of naval forces as a contribution to the enforcement of sanctions, which it claimed could not be effective without policing. However, other successful sanctions regimes, such as that against South Africa, were not enforced. And the multi-national naval task force in the Gulf was far larger than needed for enforcement... In fact, the predominantly US naval force was structured from the outset to give the Bush Administration the option of launching war against Iraq. It was based on Operation Plan 90-1002', an existing contingency plan for an oil war in the Middle East... Sanctions enforcement was thus a convenient pretext for deploying warships in anticipation of war." (pp 29-30)

"It meant support for the UN authorised position":

"The US-led blockade usurped the Security Council, which has the power to authorize a blockade where sanctions 'have proved to be inadequate'. The UN Charter requires that the military forces contributed to a blockade by member countries be subject to the 'strategic direction' of the Council's Military Staff Committee. Because sanctions had not proved to be inadequate, with diplomatic pressure serving an effective means of sanctions enforcement, and to avoid the shackles of the Military Staff Committee's control, the Bush Administration bypassed the United Nations by citing Section 51 of the UN Charter, which upholds nations' right of collective self-defence. President Bush obtained an invitation from the Emir of Kuwait to impose a blockade in defence of his country. Prime Minister Hawke fully supported the United States by announcing on 10 August that Australia's deployment of two warships and a supply vessel was primarily to 'enforce the blockade on Iraq and Kuwait'. But no request for Australian help had been received from the Emir of Kuwait (it arrived some time later) and no blockade had been approved by the Security Council. This was such a blatant breach of the UN Charter that it was later disowned by Senator [Gareth] Evans. After weeks of wrangling, the Security Council finally gave its retrospective blessing for the sanctions to be enforced by those countries that were already doing so. However, its Military Staff Committee was not placed in overall command; this was a US, not a UN blockade." (p 30)

"The advocates of war cited Security Council Resolution 678 as evidence that this was a UN war, consistent with its Charter's provisions for military action. But 678 was worded to leave all decisions on the war... to the US. The Security council had simply rubber-stamped a decision of the Bush Administration. As UN Secretary-General Peres de Cuellar said as his alarm at the loss of life grew, 'This is not a United Nations war'." (pp 36-37)

"The war was short and successful":

"The pre-war suffering of Iraqi civilians was magnified economically by the war, as the [US-led] coalition systematically bombed Iraq's civil infrastructure: power stations, water purification plants, communications facilities, roads and bridges. Thousands died from the direct effect of the blasts - homes, hospitals, markets, mosques... were incidentally destroyed - and many more from the resultant collapse of health and transport services, the loss of clean water, and food shortages. The most authoritative estimate so far is that 9,000 to 21,000 Iraqi civilians died from the effects of the war. The resultant civil uprising crushed by the Iraqi leadership left 20,000 Iraqis dead, with another 15,000 to 30,000 refugees dying on the road or in camps. The war 'resulted in the largest movement of people in the shortest amount of time in any modern war', as millions fled their homes. The civilian death toll is mounting as normally treatable diseases - diarrhoea (causing infant death from dehydration), typhoid, gastroenteritis, hepatitis, meningitis, polio and cholera - sweep the country. A Harvard University team estimates that 170,000 Iraqi children will die from the after-effects of the war.... Finally, the slaughter of Iraq's armed forces raises serious humanitarian questions. Some 100,000 to 120,000 perished with half dying in the last few days, many while retreating to Iraq. They were mostly a dictator's conscripts who faced execution for deserting, and whose lives could have been spared by reliance on sanctions." (pp 34-36)

Then there's this uncritical, almost casual assertion of Kelly's that deserves attention: "The nation had moved beyond the psychology of Vietnam." The nation had moved, or Hawke had moved? Was this necessarily a good, or a bad thing? Should not the lessons to e learnt from of our uncritical and overzealous involvement in Vietnam have been uppermost in the mind of any prime minister worth his salt, let alone in that of a Labor prime minister? All of these matters are, of course, bypassed in Kelly's hagiographical account. More broadly, could it not be said of Hawke that, by involving Australia in America's first assault on Iraq, he helped pave the way for Liberal prime minister John Howard to involve Australia in America's war on Iraq in 2003?

Finally, just to highlight Hawke's (and Bush senior's) hypocrisy on this matter, consider these pertinent words of Powell's:

"This was not a war which saw the United Nations at last fulfill its Charter, free of Cold War shackles, but one in which the United Nations was hijacked by the United States in pursuit of largely national interests and in violation of the spirit of the UN Charter. Contrary to Mr Hawke's claim, this was not a war which carried a message that big nations cannot invade small ones and get away with it. Syria is still in Lebanon, Israel is tightening its grip over the Occupied Territories, the United States has not renounced its unlawful invasion of Panama, Indonesia's annexation of East Timor remains appeased by the United States and Australia, Turkey still occupies Cyprus, China is in Tibet, and so on. None of these countries are under threat of sanctions, let alone war, despite numerous UN resolutions which have not been complied with. The Gulf War was an oil-based exception to this pattern of appeasement." (p 38)

To be continued...

Destiny & Powerlessness: The American Odyssey of GHW Bush

Israeli settlers are illegally invading occupied East Jerusalem and the Palestinian West Bank as we speak.

Their numbers have metastisised from 100,000 in 1982 to 850,000 today. They control 42% of the West Bank (itself only 22% of historic Palestine), and consume 80% of its water. (If you want to know what else they do, just google 'Dawabshe'.)

And American presidents, reputedly the most powerful men on the planet, have had about as much success as the legendary King Canute in halting this toxic tide.

The last substantial (this is a relative term) attempt to do so came from President George Herbert Walker Bush - Bush senior - in 1990. You can read about it, and Bush's ignominious backdown, in my 9/6/09 post 'Only One Lonely Little Guy'.

Jon Meacham's new biography of GWH Bush, Destiny & Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush (2015), does not, of course, do the subject of the raw power of Israel over the United States justice. (It's a Pulitzer Prize winner for God's sake!)

The following anecdote from his book, however, says it all about who holds the whip hand in the US-Israel relationship and the sheer cluelessness of American presidents in this matter. Read and weep:

"The politics of the Middle East were always in play. Despite their cooperation in the Gulf war, the American president and the Israeli prime minister did not have the warmest of relationships. In 1989, when Yitzhak Shamir had come to the United States, Bush had urged Israel to stop building settlements in the occupied territories in the hope that such a concession might improve relations with the Palestinians. As Richard Haass, who was in the Oval Office with the two leaders, recalled it, Shamir gestured dismissively and said 'no problem.' The exchange led to great confusion. 'Bush thought he had an understanding from Shamir that the Israelis would not cause any problems with their settlement activity, meaning that they would cease building new ones,' Haass recalled. 'Shamir, I later learned, thought he was telling the president that the settlements... should not cause any problem and that all the debate was much ado about nothing. Shamir thus continued authorizing them; Bush thought the Israeli leader had broken his word'." (p 494)

Think of the implications here:

'... in the hope that such a concession might improve relations with the Palestinians."

Concession? When did this word start creeping into use in this matter? International law does not call for concessions from occupiers (or the occupied for that matter). International law demands that occupiers end their illegal occupations NOW - no ifs or buts or maybes - or face the consequences.

After all, wasn't that GHW Bush's message to Saddam Hussein when he invaded and occupied Kuwait in 1990? And when Saddam refused to comply? Why, Bush dislodged the Iraqis from Kuwait by force in the same year.

But, hey, that was Iraq. This is Israel.

"Shamir gestured dismissively and said ' no problem'."

And Bush just accepts that, no questions asked? A bloody rude hand gesture and two muttered words plus eye-roll? That's it? You're kidding me!

Did Bush even know he was dealing with the former leader of the Stern Gang whose hands were dripping with blood? Rhetorical question, of course.

And did Bush lie down on the floor on the floor of the Oval Office so the Stern Gang boss, with a smirk on his face, could walk over him on his way out?

Meacham doesn't say. His book's title is Destiny & Power. Power? What power?

Don't Mention the War

Now here's a reviewer who's never met a WASP war criminal he didn't like*:

"I think [Dick Cheney's autobiography] is the most important memoir to emerge so far from the Bush era. The thing I like most about it is the thing many critics hate: the unapologetic, straightforward explanation and defence of the policies Cheney promoted for the 8 years of his vice-presidency." (Heartfelt defence of the Bush years, Greg Sheridan, The Australian, 15/10/11)

Fast forward to: "I do have one modest complaint about this memoir, however, and that is the things that are left out."

Let's see. There's China for one, and religion - but here's the one I really want to focus on: "Nor, beyond saying that he supported the military commitment, does he offer anything much about what he thought of the Vietnam war, which took place when he was a young adult."

Vietnam, eh? Here we have Australia's self-styled most influential foreign affairs analyst in Australian journalism, a guy who's not only met and interviewed Cheney, and who once summed him up as a "straightshooter," who finds it a tad strange that his "straightshooter" doesn't mention the war. Well, Greg, here's the reason why:

"In an era when many young men avoided military service for many reasons, few were so meticulous about the endeavor as Dick Cheney. Indeed, when the future secretary of defense arrived on the University of Wisconsin campus, he was arguably one of the most accomplished - and inventive - draft dodgers in the country. Unlike George W Bush, who performed some sort of service - ill defined and unrecorded as it may have been - in the Texas Air National Guard, Dick Cheney reacted to the prospect of wearing his country's uniform as a man with a deadly allergy to olive drab. Between 1963 and 1965, Cheney used his student status at Casper College and the University of Wyoming to apply for and receive four 2S draft deferments. As the fight in Vietnam heated up, Cheney fought like a true warrior to defend his deferments. Twenty-two days after Congress approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in August 1964, raising the prospect of a rapid expansion of the draft, Dick 'conveniently' - in the words of a 1991 Washington Post profile - married Lynne. Even if his student deferment was lifted, his status as a married man might have made the draft board more sensitive to Cheney's consistent, if frequently reframed, argument that he was needed on the home front, but the Vietnamese were not cooperating with Cheney's plan.

"The war kept demanding more and more American men, and the range of those who were eligible for the draft expanded rapidly. On May 19, 1965, it looked as if Dick Cheney's deferments would no longer protect him. He was reclassified with the most dangerous, draft status: 1A, 'available for military service'. No longer protected by his eternal student status, Cheney was still counting on his marriage to keep him off the front lines. But events were conspiring against him.

"Struggling to maintain the manpower for a war that he still thought could be won, President Lyndon Johnson announced on July 28, 1965, that draft call-ups would double. Three months later, on October 26, 1965, the Selective Services constraints on the drafting of childless married men were lifted. Da Nang was calling. And it did not look as though Dick had any excuses left. But there was one way for ambitious young men to avoid serving their country while maintaining their political viability. If Cheney had a child, he would be reclassified 3A, the status that allowed married men with dependents to remain out of uniform. That would work. Except, of course, that Cheney did not have a child - yet. Precisely nine months and two days after the Selective Service eliminated special protections for childless married men, Cheney was no longer childless. His daughter Elizabeth was born on July 28, 1966. Convenient? Coincidence? That's not Cheney's style. Writer, Timothy Noah, did the math and suggested that the timing of Elizabeth's arrival 'would seem to indicate that the Cheneys, though doubtless planning to have children some time, were seized with an untamable passion the moment Dick Cheney became vulnerable to the draft. And acted on it. Carpe diem! Who says government policy can't affect human behaviour'. Of course, Dick Cheney left nothing to chance. He applied for 3A status immediately, receiving it on January 19, 1966, while Lynne was still in the first trimester of her pregnancy.

"Twenty-three years later, when Cheney appeared before the Senate to plead the case for his confirmation as GHW Bush's secretary of defense, the nominee was questioned about his failure to serve. Cheney responded by saying he 'would have obviously been happy to serve had I been called'. In a more truthful moment that same year, Cheney admitted to Washington Post reporter George C. Wilson that 'I had other priorities in the sixties than military service'. Cheney's lie to the Senate has never caused much concern, but that 'other priorities' line has dogged him." (The Rise & Rise of Richard B. Cheney, John Nichols, 2004, pp 35-37)

[*See my 29/1/08 post Greg Sheridan: In Praise of 'Great' Men.]