It was, understandbly, kinda galling to a lot of people when Guardian readers wrote to people to tell them who to vote for. It must be a lot more galling (as well as embarassing to us) when [url=http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21206867-2,00.html"]the leader of a country takes a shot at a US senator[/url].
Upshot: Terrorists are praying for Obama to win. One part of why this is awful is the appalling lack of ettiquette displayed by noted Bush-fanboy Howard (who is no doubt displeased at the idea of taking orders from^H^H^H^working with a Democrat and, Howard being Howard, a BLACK MAN). Leaders of countries DO NOT lecture other countries about who to vote for. It's poor form when American leaders do it, it's poor form when Australian leaders do it.
The other part is the annoyingly pig-headed mindset that whatever the terrorists might want, we HAVE to do the opposite, and that's the way to go about life. Terrorists like clean water? ARSENIC IN THE RESERVOIRS.
Yeah.
[url=http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Obama-dismisses-Howards-Iraq-criticism/2007/02/11/1171128806932.html]Obama's comeback was cool though[/url] :
[quote]"I would also note that we have close to 140,000 troops in Iraq, and my understanding is Mr Howard has deployed 1,400, so if he is ... to fight the good fight in Iraq, I would suggest that he calls up another 20,000 Australians and sends them to Iraq," Mr Obama told reporters in the mid-western US state of Iowa.
If Mr Howard did not take up the invitation, Mr Obama said the comments became nothing more than "empty rhetoric".
"I think it's flattering that one of George Bush's allies on the other side of the world started attacking me the day after I announced (I would run for the 2008 Democrat presidential nomination)."
OOOOH, SNAP.
*** I hope Labor wins the election this year.
I would sure be interested in finding out what you like so much about the labor party, sir! It sounds nifty, and all this whining about the opposition leads me to wonder what great things labor has to offer!
They're not Howard?
Ooooh, that Obama! I like the guy more and more every day.
Hey, BJ, you're in luck. Here comes a substantive and constructive post.
This was being discussed on another board I frequent and someone asked what an equivalent force for Australia, population-wise would be. So I'm copying and pasted since it turned into a multiparagraphy thingo.
Obama's aide was right, 14-20 thousand would be about right, proportionately. Our population is 20 million to America's 300 million. However our military is much smaller than one 15th of the US... the Australian Defence Force has a bit over 60 000 personnel split between the Army, Navy and Air Force versus about 2.2 million for the US. We have 20 000 reservists but we don't have an equivalent to the National Guard, and there hasn't been any form of draft or conscription since Vietnam. Australia is very much oriented towards a small and very professional armed forces. At any rate, by my maths, America has 1/15th of its armed forces in Iraq versus Australia having 1/40th. Spending-wise, we'd be fronting a LOT less, proportionately.
Ignoring the numbers game, Obama's point that the Australian contribution is symbolic is essentially valid. Australia doesn't start its own wars, and it doesn't fight alone, anywhere outside of the little islands to our north and east. There's a reason we don't get listed beside the UK as a significant player in Iraq. Howard likes to act like he's personally fighting the terrorists and like we're more important than we are, and he'll usually use the excuse that we have other engagements (East Timor, Bouganville, Solomon Islands) as to why we don't have more forces over there, but Australia is very much a middle power, not a major player. Our economy is about 17th biggest in the world and our defence spendingis 12th, between India and Turkey.
It's worth noting that we haven't had a single fatality in Iraq from combat save for an SAS soldier killed by a mine and a soldier called Private Kovco who died from a firearms accident last year. Australia's ground contingent during the invasion Iraq was primarily SAS special forces, who undertook covert pre-war operations. Now, our SAS are absolutely world-class, some of the best soldiers in the world, but speical forces can only do so much. Our contingent now consists mostly of forces in non-combat roles (my dad was in the Green Zone in an intelligence capacity for a while) and embassy security (for some reason, the Australian embassy was/is outside the Green Zone.
Now, Australia's forces are, pound-for-pound, almost certainly of a higher quality than the average US unit (particularly in peace-enforcement, guerilla, and counter-insurgency type roles, to the extent that American forces are now seeking Australian advice and expertise on these things) based on what I know of ADF and US military training and operations, but still, 1400 is nothing even if they're the best dang 1400 soldiers in the world.
To put it simply, Howard was not ever going to risk copping flak over Australian combat-deaths in Iraq and wasn't going to mount a hugely expensive deployment. It's a token force and that's why the Obama retort was such an OOOOH SNAP moment. The deployment, as always, was more about the American alliance than anything to do with Iraq--we've been involved in every American war since WW2. The American alliance is the major cornerstone of Australian defence strategy, a bipartisan poliy, really, and it's traditionally this has been treated as FOLLOW THE AMERICANS AT ALL COSTS rather than pursuing a more independent approach, although we almost certainly wouldn't get involved in an American-Chinese dispute over Taiwan even if we don't say so publically.
This Alliance is held sacrosanct even as we try to "enter Asia" (mostly in trade terms, security is an afterthought), it's sacrosanct even though there's not really any military threats to this country at all. I mean, Indonesia and China are often cited, but they're long-term trading partners and simply not a concievable military threat... Indonesia has no force projection and China is a long way away, geographically, plus we've got innate geographical advantages to rival Russia's (attacking our half-dozen largest cities is the logistical equivalent of attacking, say, London, Lisbon, Rome, Moscow and Athens at the same time), in the incredibly unlikely event of actual full-scale war. But I guess the thinking is an insurance policy can't hurt. In some ways the close relationship is just habit... the UK was the "Great and Powerful Friend" until that fell through in WW2, then the US saved us from the Japanese and so they became our new best friend.
It's also worth noting that the relationship is decidedly assymetrical, in that most Americans barely know we exist, much less that this country sees itself as having a British-style "special relationship" with America. Whereas we tend to obsess over the relationship with the US. Howard is actually being criticised now for putting the alliance at risk in the long term by treating the relationship like it's between two political parties (the Liberals and the Republicans) rather than between two countries.
We will soon discover that Howard and Obama are secretly working together on a terrorist plot to take over the world. An emotionally unstable secret agent will stop their scheme by piecing together vague and unrelated pieces of evidence in a 24 hour period, and we will thank him by putting him in a Chinese labor camp. It will be epic.
[spoiler]lame take on 24, I know[/spoiler]
As if to underscore the point about the assymetry of the Australian-American alliance, the [url=http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/wake-up-anzus-no-security-blanket/2007/02/14/1171405299814.html]US Ambassador today said he has never read the 840 word ANZUS treaty document[/url] on which the alliance is supposedly based.
Ooops!
I don't know what Mr. Howard thinks he's going to accomplish - people here will think "HAY I WUNDIR IF HE KAN WRASSLE SUM CORCODIELS 2 tHAT WUD ROX MAN!!"
We are Americans, after all. Listening to foreigners and reading documents? FOR PUSSIES!!
I really don't care much for the fact that any Australians are in Iraq. Planes didn't fly into my country's buildings or blow my country up - what do I have to be defending against? What also annoys me is that Sydney train stations close to the city believe that if they have no rubbish bins, it'll mean the train stations will never be bombed, ever. How absolutely foolproof! :cookie:
Terrorist Leader: "No, we can't bomb Sydney, there's no rubbish bins to hide it in."
Terrorist Gang: "Awww, man!"
Seriously, I hate carrying my rubbish for ages until I find a fucking bin. It makes me want to justify having no bins. Australia has nothing that the rest of the world wants, especially Iraq but now all we have is resent for what we're doing in Iraq. That is going to get us targeted more than anything else in this world ever would have, you know, like not joining America to help them fight their battles.
Arwon: Surprisingly honest and accurate assessment of the US-Australia dynamic. You are absolutely correct when you affirm that Australia doesn't even begin to enter the American stream of consciousness (save for when Crocodile Dundee is showing on TBS). If your nation ever did anything important, we would probably reassess, but as things stand, you're simply a piece of strategically located real estate... It really doesn't matter to us who is presently occupying it.
Anyway...
In the absurdly unlikely chance Australia were ever attacked by China (like, it wouldn't ever ever ever ever happen in eleventy brazillion years but OK, lets say it did) their military forces are too smart to invade by attacking the coastal population centers (even though your populace is completely unarmed and invading said cities would be about as difficult as cutting through a sheet of tissue paper with a chainsaw)
They'd probably land pretty close by and the cities would definitely be forced to exist in a siege type mode but they certainly wouldn't actually enter the cities right off the bat.
In that sense, Australia bears no real geographical "advantage" since you have such a vast amount of sparsely populated coastline. The entire continent is basically like an open door, which is a large part of the reason you guys were right there behind us in WWII and Vietnam. You had to fight, as if that crap spread any further, the continent stood a real risk.
Sending Australian troops to Iraq to help because a few men, and not a country, drove a plane into two tall buildings in America is a little different from World War II. What John Howard is doing is more of a political stunt more than it is ensuring no one wants to attack Australia or to eliminate terrorism that, oh my gosh, never actually existed in Australia in the first place. The government is achieving nothing more than showing how paranoid they are about something that isn't happening to us.
If we were going to be attacked, it would have happened by now.
USA ftw