Iraq I
In Adam Bonner's letter (Write On, GLW #579), which I otherwise agreed with, there is the surprising statement: "Where they [the Iraqis] lacked the courage to take on Saddam, maybe they can redeem themselves by taking on the new military occupiers."
But that is exactly what many Iraqis did in 1991, only to be thwarted by the US military. The US administration did everything to keep Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq. Never mind the Iraqi casualties. There is a good account of this in Noam Chomsky's Understanding Power (2002, p. 168):
"A week after the [first Gulf] war, Saddam Hussein turned to crushing the Shiite population in the south of Iraq and the Kurdish population in the north; what did the United States do? It watched. In fact, rebelling Iraqi generals pleaded with the United States to let them use captured Iraqi equipment to try to overthrow Saddam Hussein. The US refused. Saudi Arabia, our leading ally in the region, approached the United States with a plan to support the rebel generals in their attempt to overthrow Saddam after the war, the Bush administration blocked the plan, and it was immediately dropped."
The question of courage is an important one, but one which we should apply to ourselves, before we ask it of others.
Stephen Langford
Paddington, NSW
Iraq II
Can we take it that Lt Col Collins' much vaunted next posting will be to neither Jakarta nor Washington? Perhaps it will be to Baghdad, where he may act as aide de camp to the newly (self-) appointed head of the Australian armed forces, Generalissimo Ahmed Chalabi. If so, Lt Col Collins should be prepared for some 18 months or more in the field while Generalissimo Chalabi dodges extradition by law enforcement agencies from a number of continents where he is wanted for major fraud.
Perhaps during his spare time he may show Chalabi how to construct jam tin evacuation rifles, as used with distinction by the ANZACs when they "cut and ran" (as some put it) from Gallipoli.
Peter Woodforde
Melba ACT
Prisons
While GLW readers have been made well aware of the gross inhumanity and injustice perpetrated against refugees/asylum seekers, the lot of others held in custody remains hidden. I write especially of those in prisons, and child custody facilities and police cells.
Prisons are supposed to be corrections facilities. Instead they are the means by which the state takes revenge on its real and sometimes imagined criminals. Thieves are often made by the injustices and poverty that beset our affluent times. Prisons turn the unlucky poor into hardened crims ready to take revenge on society.
In many nations, membership of a political party or trade union or questioning of government policy brings long-term imprisonment and often torture.
Within the walls of prisons are fine defaulters, shoplifters after a feed and many others. But not every person convicted is "truly guilty". Whether or not they are, do they deserve years of claustrophobia, the rubbishing, the beatings, the rapes that too often occur and frequently lead to attempted suicide? Definitely not!
I guess I am one of the fortunate never to have known anyone who has spent "time inside". I hope that a future issue of GLW will provide an expose on the injustices and suffering that befalls those imprisoned across our land.
Luke Weyland
Stathfield, NSW
Taiwan
I am an Australian living, working, and studying in Taiwan. I have been reading your website for some time now and love it. Although I do not always agree with everything that is written I usually understand the reasoning behind other people's points of view and respect them.
I was disappointed with the article on Taiwan in GLW #578 for two reasons: (1) There appears to be an anti-Taiwan or pro-TCTU bias as to the nature of the article, and (2) the numerical facts contained in this article are, at best, inaccurate for the most part or heavily biased and misleading.
The article states that the current president, Chen Shui-bian, "scored a mere 0.2% higher vote than rival KMT candidate Lien Cha". This emotional usage of the word "mere" suggests that this is of no consequence when it is a vitally important point. In the 2000 election, President Chen only had to get a majority of the votes as the KMT-PFP parties had split the vote by fighting with each other. This election, he beat the two parties' combined votes. This is despite fighting for a referendum that scared away many moderate would-be supporters.
The article quotes extensively from TCTU spokespeople, but has no rebuttals or points of view from KMT, PFP, or DPP spokespeople. The hasty dismissal of the legislative problems the DPP has had passing reformist legislation that would mean improvement for the average people of Taiwan is both ignorant and ill-advised.
The TCTU would be better off working with the DPP in the short term to continue improving the quality of life for the average Taiwanese person (including the workers) rather than taking votes away from the DPP and giving them to the KMT — the one party in Taiwan that has done more damage to workers' rights and conditions.
I understand the solidarity that GLW and many of its readers must feel for the plight of the Taiwanese workers but how about a few articles about a country that threatens to wash Taiwan with the blood of its own people (workers included).
I'm not saying that the DPP is perfect, far from it. But the TCTU and GLW readers would do well to consider the alternative.
Vernon Spain
Taiwan
ANZAC Day
My mother's long time partner is in a nursing home, and mum and I got him out and went to Redfern RSL to "celebrate" ANZAC Day. Almost all the people there were World War II veterans, rather than veterans of more recent wars such as Vietnam, the Malaya "emergency", etc. It was interesting that they didn't talk much about war, but when they did, no one thought it was a good idea, and no one had a clear idea as to why troops were in Iraq. The suggestion that it was all about oil was met with the response of "that'd be right".
The word used to describe Bush was "warmonger". Howard was a bastard because he doesn't care for the pensioners.
It is interesting that the way that the old diggers are often portrayed in the mainstream media is as being all gung-ho militarists. For those who have actually seen war, their views are often very different.
Dale Mills
Sydney, NSW
From Green Left Weekly, May 5, 2004.
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