Are Australians Really Anti-American?

"Anti-Americanism" is shaping up as possibly the deciding issue in Australia's election, due some time before the end of this year (it's up to our PM to decide the date). In a recent TV interview, a senior Howard Government Minister accused the Labor Opposition of anti-Americanism eight times.

An analysis by ABC News Online says there are three US-related issues generating controversy around the US-Australia relationship:

1. Australia's unwavering commitment to the Bush administration's war on terror, particularly its high-stakes intervention in Iraq.

2. The free trade agreement.

3. David Hicks.

The article says the Hicks case could be a major embarrassment during the Australian election campaign (it wont matter much to US voters) and identifies three things Howard's "friends in the White House" need to do for him:

"Firstly, the Bush administration needs to ensure a speedy resolution. Hicks and his compatriot, Mamdouh Habib, have now been languishing at Guantanamo Bay for close to three years. Habib hasn't even been charged or assigned a lawyer yet.

The Australian Government has been pressing the United States for years to expedite their cases. It is highly embarrassing that it has taken so long for such minimal progress.

Secondly, when the verdict is read out in the Hicks case, Australians must be convinced that justice has been done...

Finally, the result for the Australian detainees must be at least as good as the outcome for the British...The Australian public must be assured that the Howard Government has not abandoned two of its nationals to a kangaroo court that other nations wouldn't accept for their citizens.

It seems we can expect a quick show trial of US (ahem!) "military justice" and a PM who refuses to look beyond the thin media facade being presented. How sad that - after three years in detention - the trials of Hicks and Habib are likely to become just another fleeting act in the media circus of modern elections.

I watched New Zealand PM Helen Clark in a TV interview yesterday with some admiration. The interviewer pointed out that Australia's subservience to the US had been rewarded with a Free Trade Agreement, while NZ was left "out in the cold". Clark shrugged it off, saying that NZ maintained a strong reputation as a fair and honest broker in international affairs - something which many in Australia envy - and this was an increasingly valuable commodity in this increasingly polarized world.

Such a reputation was possibly worth more to NZ than a bilateral trade deal, she said.

Like Australian Labour leader Mark Latham, she pointed out that maintaining your independence and self-respect should not be confused with being anti-American. Later that day I found myself browsing job opportunities in Auckland!

Folks, a rogue cabal of Fascist fools have seized control of the White House. Doing deals with these devils is about the most anti-American thing any country can do these days. Howard and Blair have become subservient poodles to these neo-conservative US empiricists and for what? Blood money.

A vote for Howard (or Blair) is a vote for Bush, a vote for continued US aggression, a vote for continued repression of human rights, a vote for more war, more death, more hatred, more fear, more pain and suffering and sorrow.