Doug Lorimer
Socialist Alliance candidates have condemned Prime Minister John Howard's "anti-terrorist" pre-emptive strike policy as morally bankrupt and racist.
In a September 23 media release, Lisa Macdonald, a national co-convener of the Socialist Alliance and its candidate for the western Sydney seat of Reid, declared: "Howard says he's prepared to break international law and disregard the sovereignty of neigbouring nations in order to strike at alleged 'terrorist' bases in the region. His justification is that he 'would not hesitate to put the lives of Australians ahead of any other consideration'.
"Any other consideration? Are Australian lives worth more than the lives of the people in other countries? How many Indonesian or Filipino lives is one Australian life worth? It's a mark of the PM's narrowly nationalist, racist and morally bankrupt outlook. No wonder when Pauline Hanson was asked by Andrew Denton what her policies were she first congratulated Howard for implementing many of them!"
Macdonald said that "we need to progress towards a peaceful and a just world. To start on that road Australia must renounce George Bush's pre-emptive strike doctrine, which has only yesterday been rejected again by the UN General Assembly and its secretary-general Kofi Annan. Then it has to withdraw all its troops from the illegal and disastrous occupation of Iraq."
Chris Johnson, the Socialist Alliance candidate for the western Victorian seat of Corangamite, branded Howard's statements about Australian pre-emptive strikes as "an appalling indication of the arrogance of the Howard government in regards to Australia's neighbours".
Johnson, a long-time anti-war campaigner, rejected the view that such illegal actions could play any role in fostering international cooperation and security. "The prime minister's comments that Australia has the right to invade other countries on the premise of 'fighting terrorism' has outraged people around Australia and in other parts of the world", she said.
"In fact, unilateral military strikes by the Australian government cross the line between self-defence and aggression in a way that cannot be considered a reasonable line of action. Not only will pre-emptive strikes make a mockery of international law and cooperation, but they will generate even more resentment against the interference of rich countries like Australia in the affairs of Third World countries".
From Green Left Weekly, September 29, 2004.
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