February 5, 2003
A MAN'S FOES SHALL BE THEY OF HIS OWN HOUSEHOLD:
Senate censure for Howard over Iraq (Grant Holloway, 2/05/03, CNN)Australia's upper house of Parliament, the Senate, has passed a motion of "no confidence" in the Prime Minister John Howard over his handling of the
situation in Iraq.While the conservative Howard government holds a solid majority in the House of Representatives, the prime minister's Liberal-National coalition does not have outright control of the Senate.
The no confidence motion was passed 34 to 31 after the main opposition Labor party was joined by Greens, Democrats and independent senators to defeat the government.
The vote -- which also censured the government for sending troops to the Middle East without backing from the United Nations -- will have little, if any effect, on Prime Minister Howard.
Professor of Politics at the Australian National University, John Warhurst, told CNN Wednesday that the implications of the vote were not very serious for the government.
"The Australian system of government relies on the confidence of the lower house, so in formal terms this vote will have no direct impact," he said.
It's always been a bone in our craw the way folks blithely revile Neville Chamberlain, claim to have learned a lesson from the 1930s, and solemnly vow: "Never again". Now, I'm certainly not suggesting that Saddam is Hitler, but it's instructive to watch the world divide and our own population divide over the issue of whether to deal with dangerous regimes in the Islamic world or not. The Afghan War was about the most popular in our history and the Second Iraq War isn't too far behind--especially remarkable considering that both are essentially prophylactic--but for the most part our own intellectual elites and the Democrats (and all points left) are opposed to the actions and there's hardly another nation where you could say with any confidence that a majority supports the idea of a war to depose Saddam. This despite the dastardly nature of the regimes in question, the relative ease and low cost of the conflicts (especially for everyone other than the U.S. and Britain), and the quite obvious long term threat posed to Western lives by radical Islamic terror. Next time you read about the appeasement policy Britain pursued with Nazi Germany (a Germany that few knew even until the end of the war was exterminating Jews) and find yourself thinking, now we'd know better and we'd not tolerate such a thing, pause and think on Hollywood, the NY Times, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, France, Germany, Canada, the UN, the "Upper" House in Australia...and tell me how sure you are that, in the absence of exceptionally determined leadership in America and Britain, we'd do any better than our grandparents generation did. Posted by Orrin Judd at February 5, 2003 7:26 PM
While their is a certain segment of the left around the world that would oppose any American action against Saddam simply on the grounds that it is American action, the critique by people like Kennedy, Pelosi, et al. against the war isn't so much in opposition because of any core beliefs, but simply because their party is not in power to reap the benefits, which to me is even more odious than the hardcore anti-Americanism on the left.
Had Gore been elected in 2000, in the aftermath of 9/11, he might not have been as aggessive as Bush in the short term, but the midterm elections showed that tactic probably would have resulted in an even greater congressional debacle for the Democrats. Gore would have consulted a myriad of polls, found out which way the political winds were blowing and targeted Saddam prior to the election, and the same Democratic leaders now refusing to even believe Powell's evidence brought before the U.N. would be among the biggest cheerleaders for taking out Saddam once and for all, just as they backed Clinton's buildup and short-term attack on Iraq in 1998.
The way some folks approach these matters reminds me of the saying:
There's always plenty of time until it's too late.
Howard is still in office, but he is now a lame duck. There's no way he can order the Australian troops to fight.
Tony Blair no doubt faces the same fate : France vetoes, the US attack without UNSC approval, Blair is deposed in the Commons and The Hague asks for his extradition to try him for planning an aggressive war.
And all of this because Jacques Chirac wants to be remembered as the man who restored France to a position of at least European and preferably global dominance. The islamofascist who will sit in the Elysée in about 25 years (if it takes that long), will be grateful.
Tony Blair, as all of the few remaining worthwhile Western Europeans, will be welcome here. Ruth Wedgewood was on Diane Rehm today and said she supports the expansion of Nato so that we'll have Western Europe flanked.
Posted by: oj at February 6, 2003 11:34 AMIt'd be hard to be less aggressive than
Bush. So far, lots of hot air.