As the matter heats up over the next few weeks, it will be interesting to see what the average Australian wheat farmer, who has to sell his wheat through the AWB monopoly, thinks about the subject.
It seems to me - hence my skepticism regarding the recent Free Trade deal with the US - that Australia, just like various South American countries that are now finding out about it, has been played the sucker. Apparently, American benevolence exists only as long as the big buck heads back to the l'il ole US of A.
In an observation that most certainly would be foreign to many in powerful positions in America, it seems also to me that the current terrorism situation is about struggles within fundamentalism and that bin Laden et al are wishing to eliminate not only westerners but also moderate Muslims wherever they may be in order to establish a fundamentalist Muslim empire again.
Just as a fire needs material with which to fuel its flames, terrorism needs fuel for its exploits. Maybe, just maybe, if affluent nations were to spend time and money eliminating as much as possible the issues that lead to terrorism, we may well starve bin Laden and others of their recruits.
As someone once observed, those with full bellies and sound sleep invariably do not cause mayhem. Those without, as the streets of France have shown these last few days , certainly do.
The question goes begging of how much we are putting into educational, health and infrastructure areas in these nations as against what's invested in arms and ammunition and occupying troops.
This is not to say the troops from the US, Australia, Britain and other nations should pull out of Iraq — we started the whole bloody shambles. The reality is that bin Laden, now that President Bush has converted Iraq from a non-al Quaeda stronghold or “area of influence” to one that very much is one, does not have to win.
He simply has to not lose and as Vietnam showed only too clearly, the battle there was won by the Viet Cong not so much in the steamy jungles and tunnels, but in American living rooms, where television-watching citizens watched body bags come home.
Carpe diem.
Ed/Pub:LisaM
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
very interesting assortment of issues Anthony -- I was not even aware of the Australian wheat deal situation -- and a lively presentation, although the wheat deal and American-Austalian relations was probably enough for a single post.
I don't think there is any queston that it is critical that the Islamic world be assisted in moving forward, but I think giving people a say in their governments is equally important as economic development, and isn't giving people a say in their government ultimately why it is so important Iraq not fail?