Coming
in October
From Common Courage Press
Today's
Stories
Sasan Fayazmanesh
What Kermit Roosevelt Didn't Say
August 18, 2003
Uri Avnery
Hero in War and Peace
Stan Goff
The Volunteer Military and the Wicked Adventure
Cathy Breen
Baghdad on the Hudson
Michael Kimaid
Fight the Power (Companies)!
Jason Leopold
The California Rip-Off Revisited: Arnold, Milken and Ken Lay
Matt Siegfried
The Bush Administration in Context
Elaine Cassel
At Last, A Judge Who Acts Like a Judge
Alexander Cockburn
Judy Miller's War
Harvey Wasserman
The Legacy of Blackout Pete Wilson
Website of the Day
Fire Griles!
Recent
Stories
August 16 / 17, 2003
Flavia Alaya
Bastille
New Jersey
Jeffrey St. Clair
War Pimps
Saul Landau
The Legacy of Moncada: the Cuban Revolution at 50
Brian Cloughley
What Has Happened to the US Army in Iraq?
William S. Lind
Coffins for the Crews: How Not to Use Light Armored Vehicles
Col. Dan Smith
Time for Straight Talk
Wenonah Hauter
Which
Electric System Do We Want?
David Lindorff
Where's Arnold When We Need Him?
Harvey Wasserman
This Grid Should Not Exist
Don Moniak
"Unusual Events" at Nuclear Power Plants: a Timeline
for August 14, 2003
David Vest
Rolling Blackout Revue
Merlin Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Sherman Austin
Adam Engel
The Loneliest Number
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Hamod & Albert
Book of the Weekend
Powerplay by Sharon Beder
August 14, 2003
Peter Phillips
Inside
Bohemian Grove: Where US Power Elites Party
Brian Cloughley
Charlie Wilson and Pakistan: the Strange Congressman Behind the
CIA's Most Expensive War
Linville and Ruder
Tyson
Strike Draws the Line
Jim Lobe
Bush Administration Divided Over Iran
Ramzy Baroud
Sharon Freezes the Road Map
Tom Turnipseed
Blowback in Iraq
Gary Leupp
Condi's
Speech: From Birgmingham to Baghdad, Imperialism's Freedom Ride
Website of the Day
Tony Benn's Greatest Hits
August 13, 2003
Joanne Mariner
A Wall of Separation Through the
Heart
Donald Worster
The Heavy Cost of Empire
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
Elaine Cassel
Murderous Errors: Executing the Innocent
Ralph Nader
Make the Recall Count
Alexander Cockburn
Ted Honderich Hit with "Anti-Semitism" Slur
Website of the Day
Defending Yourself Against DirectTV Lawsuits: 9000 and Counting
August 12, 2003
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Ron Jacobs
Revisionist History: the Bush Administration, Civil Rights and
Iraq
Josh Frank
Dean's Constitutional Hang-Up
Wayne Madsen
What's a Fifth Columnist? Well, Someone Like Hitchens
Ray McGovern
Relax,
It Was All a Pack of Lies
Wendy Brinker
Hubris in the White House
Website of the Day
Black
Mustache
August
11, 2003
Douglas
Valentine
Homeland Security for Whom?
Mickey
Z.
Bush's Progress
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: Meet the New Bitch, Same
as the Old
Elaine
Cassel
Indicting DNA
Dr. Mohammad
Omar Farooq
Civil Liberties and Uncivil Super-Patriotism
Uri
Avnery
Who Will Save Abu Mazen?
Website
of the Day
RIAA Subpoena Clearinghouse
August
9 / 10, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
California's Glorious Recall!
Saul
Landau
Bush and King Henry
Gary
Leupp
On Terrorism, Methodism, "Wahhabism"
and the Censored 9/11 Report
Paul de
Rooij
The Parade of the Body Bags
Michael
Egan
History and the Tragedy of American Diplomacy
Rob Eshelman
A Home of Our Own
Daoud
Kuttab
Life as an ID Card
Philip
Agee
Terror and Civil Society: Instruments of US Policy in Cuba
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Marc Racicot: Bush's Main Man
Walt Brasch
Schwarzenegger, "Hollyweird"
and the Rigtheous Right
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush, Bribery and Berlusconi
Josh Frank
Mean, Mean Howard Dean
Elaine
Cassel
Will the Death Penalty Ever Die?
Sean Carter
Total Recall
Poets'
Basement
Hamod, Engel, Albert
August
8, 2003
John
Chuckman
What the US Says Goes
Roberto
Barreto
Defend the Vieques 12!
Bruce Gagnon
Iraq War Emboldens Bush Space Plans
Elaine
Cassel
The Reign of John Ashcroft
Dave
Lindorff
Snoops Night Out
Website
of the Day
Zero Boy
August
7, 2003
M.
Shahid Alam
It the US a "Terrorist Magnet?"
Toni
Solo
Neo-liberal Nicaragua: a New Banana
Republic
Adam Lebowitz
Hiroshima Commemorated: the View from Japan
Hanan
Ashrawi
When the Bully Whines
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Conscience Takes a Holiday
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Lets Slip: Iraq Not Behind 9/11; No Ties to Al-Qaeda
Mike Kimaid
What's the Score?
Elaine
Cassel
The Smell of VICTORY: Ashcroft's Latest Stinkbomb
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
August 6, 2003
Steve
Higgs
Going to Jail for the Cause: It's Not
Easy Confronting King Coal
David
Krieger
Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Robert
Fisk
The Ghosts of Uday and Qusay
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's War on the National Forests
Elaine
Cassel
No Fly Lists
Stan
Goff
Military Equipment and Pneumonia
Hugh Sansom
An Open Letter to Nicholas Kristof on the Nuking of Japan
August
5, 2003
Uri
Avnery
The Prisoner of Ramallah: Arafat at
74
Forrest
Hylton
Terrorism and Political Trials: the
View from Bolivia
Ray
McGovern
"We Cook Estimates to Go"
David
Morse
Poindexter's Gambit
Edward
Said
Orientallism: 25 Years Later
George
W. Bush
My Darn Good Resumé
Hammond
Guthrie
It's Incremental, Watson!
Website
of the Day
National Prayer Day
August 4, 2003
Bruce
K. Gagnon
Another Peace Activist Detained by
Airport Cops: My Story
David
Lindorff
Fear-Mongering About Social Security
Mark
Zepezauer
George F. Will: Descent into Self-Parody
James
Plummer
Tracking You Through the Mail
Mickey
Z.
Marriage Insecurity from Sharon to Bush
Bruce
Jackson
News that Isn't News: How the NYT's
Pimps for the White House
August
2 / 3, 2003
Tamara
R. Piety
Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down
Francis
Boyle
My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool
David
Vest
Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side
Neve Gordon
Nightlife in Jerusalem
Uri
Avnery
Their Master's Voice:
Bush, Blair and Intelligence Snafus
Robert
Fisk
Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq
Jerry
Kroth
Israel, Yellowcake and the Media
Noah Leavitt
What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to
Intervene?
Saul
Landau
The Film Industry: Business and Ideology
Ron Jacobs
One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson
Thomas
Croft
In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta
Amadi Ajamu
Def Sham: Russell Simmons New Black Leader?
Poets'
Basement
Vega, Witherup, Albert and Fleming
August
1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Stopping Prison Rape
Alex Coolman
Who Moved My Soap: Trivializing
Prison Rape
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Stan Goff
Injury and Decorum: The Missing Wounded in Iraq
Wayne
Madsen
Europe Unplugs from the Matrix
Robert
Fisk
Wolfowitz the Censor
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Loses Big in Puerto Rico
Website
of the Day
Stop Prisoner Rape
July
31, 2003
Ray
McGovern
The Prostitution of Intelligence
Brian
Cloughley
Wolfowitz's Operative Statement
Sheldon
Hull
The RIAA's Jihad:
The Devil's Music (Industry)
Elaine
Cassel
The Next Time You Crack a Lawyer Joke, Think of These Attorneys
Sheldon
Rampton
and John Stauber
True Lies: Propaganda and Bush's
Wars
Hammond
Guthrie
Speculation Blues
Website
of the Day
Army of One?
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
July
30, 2003
David
Lindorff
Poindexter the Terror Bookie
Marjorie
Cohn
Why Iraq and Afghanistan? It's About
the Oil
Elaine
Cassel
How Ashcroft Coerces Guilty Pleas
in Terror Cases
Zvi
Bar'el
The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War
Lisa Walsh
Thomas
Killing Mustafa Hussein: Death of a Child, Birth of a Legend?
Sean
Carter
Pat Robertson's Prayer Jihad: God, Sodomy and the Supremes
ND Jayaprakash
India and Ariel Sharon
Steve
Perry
Bush's Top 40 Lies
Standard
Schaefer
Correction about Bloomberg and Outscourcing
Website
of the Day
Bring Them Home Now!
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Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
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Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
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Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
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August
19, 2003
"Our Patch"
Australia
v. the Evil-Doers in the South Pacific
By GARY LEUPP
Disorder in the Solomons
Few people in the U.S., and probably
in the world, are aware that there is a small nation called the
Solomon Islands, independent since 1978, east of New Guinea and
about a thousand miles northeast of Australia's state of Queensland.
This cluster of about 1000 islands, best-known perhaps as the
venue of the Battle of Guadalcanal during the Second World War,
is home today of some 450-500,000 Melanesians, speaking 70 languages,
alongside a handful of Polynesians, whites, Chinese and "other."
It exports insignificant quantities of timber, fish, copra, and
palm oil, but is also rich in zinc, lead, nickel and gold that
remain unexploited because of political chaos. Some of the disorder,
according to Australian Prime Minister John Howard, might be
caused by terrorists operating in an environment that
the U.S. CIA describes as one of "ethnic violence, government
malfeasance, and endemic crime [which] have undermined stability
and civil society" for years.
Thus, Mr. Howard determined last month,
Aussie troops (battle-hardened by "anti-terrorist"
tasks in "Operation Iraqi Freedom") ought to free this
obscure Garden of Eden from its "evildoers." Indeed,
the Australian Associated Press reported that the nation's military
presence in Iraq had been scaled back from about 2,000 to a smaller
token force "to ensure there [were] sufficient resources
to participate in regional peacekeeping operations, such as in
the Solomons." On July 24 Howard told reporters, "If
we do nothing and the [Solomons slide] into further anarchy,
and then [the country] becomes a haven for evildoers, whether
they're involved in terrorism, or drugs, or money laundering,
or anything else, we will rightly be condemned, not only by the
Australian people, but also by countries around the world. This
is our patch and we do have a special responsibility here,
and we're doing it in a very careful deliberate cooperative fashion.
We're not throwing our weight around, but we're willing to do
our fair share of the heavy lifting in an area that the rest
of the world sees as very much Australia's responsibility
[emph. added]."
Australia's Record
in its "Patch"
I have to doubt whether the world actually
acknowledges that Howard's "patch" extends beyond the
borders of his continent-nation, or regards regional "peacekeeping"
as Australia's divinely appointed mission. Anyway, Australia's
relations with its neighbors in recent years have actually been
characterized by opportunistic expansionism, dealing no blows
to "evil" but rather cooperating with evil, big-time.
Australia maintained military aid to the Suharto dictatorship
in Indonesia following its brutal seizure of East Timor in November
1975, even while the U.S. and Britain somewhat distanced themselves,
for political reasons, from the Djakarta regime. (This followed
the U.S.-backed suppression of communists, and people in general,
conducted by Suharto in the mid-60s, when the Indonesian Army,
to Canberra's applause, killed around 700,000.) Australia, keenly
interested in the gas and oil resources of the Timor Sea, alone
among nations decided to recognize East Timor as part
of Indonesia. In 1989 it signed an agreement with Djakarta
establishing a "Zone of Cooperation... in an area between
the Indonesian Province of East Timor and Northern Australia."
In 1995 the two nations signed a security
agreement. But in May 1998, Suharto faced a Filipino-style "people's
power" rebellion, and his allies abroad, including Australia,
determined it was time for old thug to go. (He had been losing
western support anyway because of his failure to comply with
some IMF demands.) U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
gently pressed him to step down in order to "preserve his
legacy as a man who not only led his country, but provided for
its democratic transition." The following year, when the
U.N. chose to advocate immediate independence of East
Timor, Australia suddenly presented itself as the guarantor of
that independence, acquiring UN authorization to midwife it by
dispatching about 4000 troops (out of its total army of about
24,000) to the former colony and to protect it from the Indonesian
army (which Canberra had been assisting for years). About 1000
Australian troops remain, along with Thai, Malaysian and other
forces. East Timor's Foreign Ministry complains they have not
effectively prevented border raids by pro-Indonesia militiamen,
but they do help maintain stability as Australian firms prospect
for oil.
Beyond East Timor
It's quite natural that Canberra, as
a minor imperialist power, should seek hegemony in the Southwest
Pacific. As many predicted in the months before the attack on
Iraq, norms governing international relations since the Treaty
of Westphalia in 1648 are breaking down. Now any nation may,
citing real or imaginary terrorist threats to itself, deploy
its forces against "evil" in emulation of the Bushites.
Since Australia was one of a handful of nations that joined the
"coalition" invading Iraq (despite massive popular
opposition), it enjoys Washington's favor and may assume U.S.
cooperation as it strengthens its hand in its Melanesian patch
and even in Southeast Asia. (Last month the Federal Police Commissioner,
Mick Keelty, said Australia might consider sending forces to
the Philippines to fight "terrorism" there. What he
means, of course, is counter-insurgency. Aussie forces gained
some experience in that in Vietnam, where some 50,000 "served"
and 432 were killed in action.)
The major rival in the region is France,
which still owns Tahiti (mother of Polynesian civilization),
and has intermittently (including under the current Chirac administration)
conducted nuclear tests on the Mururoa and Fangataufa atolls.
(These have been "suspended" since 1996.) "Without
Polynesia," Chirac has said, "France would not be the
great power that it is, capable of expressing in the concert
of nations an autonomous, independent and respected position."
Australia has opposed the tests, not because it's opposed to
nukes in principle but because the tests cause serious damage
to the environment--all those irradiated fish and clams, etc.--and
to its economy, as well as the economies of neighboring states
which it would like to organize into a regional bloc.
It's quite natural that Australian capital
should seek inroads into the economies of French territories
like New Caledonia, which boasts 25% of the world's nickel resources,
and that Canberra should seek to stabilize disorderly island
nations like the resource-rich Solomons. But Howard, like Bush,
needs a pretext for imperialist expansion, saleable to his electorate,
and what better pretext than a terror threat posed by
evil-doers? Some warn, of course, against intervention, expressing
skepticism about the rationale. Peter Urban, former chief economist
for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, claims, "We
don't have any significant security interests [in the Solomons,
which] can't be used really effectively as a base for money laundering
or terrorism, all of those things" (Australian Associated
Press, July 22). He adds that by dispatching troops Australia
is supporting "a bad government" and sending a "poor
signal" to the islanders. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer
himself called the idea "folly in the extreme" in an
article published in January.
But in June, Downer (who in the interim
had signed on to the "coalition of the willing" assault
on Iraq, opposed though it was by the great majority of Australians)
expressed a different view. Given the global threat of terrorism,
he announced, "instability and even state failure in our
neighborhood is a growing concern." Noting the "inexorable
grinding down of the [Solomons'] institutional and economic fabric,"
and the inability of Australian "aidto turn around the situation,"
he trumpeted the virtues of intervention. "Australia is
not a neo-colonial power," he straight-facedly emphasized,
"and we are sensitive to regional concerns about our role,
but we will not sit back and watch while a country slips inexorably
into decay and disorder."
"Operation Helpem
Fren" and "Fears of Neo-colonialism"
No indeed. (Never mind that the Solomons
had been in disorder for five or six years, and that the "War
on Terror" had simply provided legitimating rhetoric and
precedent for Australian action.) On July 24, the first contingent
of a 2,225-strong Australian-led force (including 450 combat
troops) arrived on Red Beach in Guadalcanal, site of some of
the fiercest fighting in the Pacific War, and entered the Solomons
capital of Honiara. Australia will be fielding 1,700 troops;
New Zealand, New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa will provide
the remainder, constituting a sort of "coalition of the
willing" endorsing the Aussie project. Canberra envisions
a 10-year intervention, costing some 356 million pounds. It's
called "Operation Helpem Fren" (Operation Help a Friend,
in Melanesian pidgin English), and is headed by Nick Warner,
a senior official in the Australian Foreign Affairs Department.
The Solomons now becomes the third largest recipient of Australian
"aid" after Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.
So the largest military operation in
the South Pacific since World War II is now underway, largely
ignored by the world, but with potentially important long-term
repercussions. Arms smugglers in Papua New Guinea supply militias
in the Solomons; so far the Aussies have declined to deploy forces
in "hot pursuit" actions into New Guinean waters, but
since the Melanesians don't necessarily respect the borders drawn
up my western colonial powers in the nineteenth century, and
some go about their business back and forth, Canberra might wind
up expanding its operations by further tightening control over
what is already an Australian neo-colony.
But whence this evil disorder occasioning
the Aussies' mission, their heroic assumption of the white man's
burden in their patch? The key factor in the ethnic violence
seems to be tension between Malaitans (from Malaita Island) and
groups native to the island of Guadalcanal, and to involve the
Malaitans' role in the Guadalcanal economy. In 1997, a Malaitan
was elected prime minister. The next year, the Isatubu Freedom
Movement, purporting to represent the interests of the native
peoples of Guadalcanal, started forcibly evicting Malaitans.
Twenty thousand were sent home. The Malaitans responded, forming
the Malaitan Eagle Force (MEF), and pulling off a coup in 2000.
Peace agreements between the rival militias were signed in 2000
and 2001, but fighting has continued, and there has been a general
breakdown of government. The main threat to the regime of the
current prime minister, Sir Allan Kemakeza, has been the Guadalcanal
Liberation Force, headed by Harold Keke, based on the Weather
Coast of Guadalcanal. Keke's militia, which seeks independence
for the island, has reportedly razed villages, murdered, looted,
raped, and engaged in kidnapping for ransom. The police force
for its part is accused of rights abuses and corruption; a newly
appointed Australian police commissioner brands some officers
"drunkards, thieves and extortionists." Keke has now
surrendered to the Australian-led forces.
(Not to digress, but the breakdown in
law and order came at an ideal time for the Bush Administration
as it sought, in the face of global opposition, to cobble together
a broad international coalition to support its attack Iraq. The
Solomon Islands was right there on board, listed on the White
House website as one of almost 50 nations enthusiastically endorsing
the invasion in March. But when Prime Minister Kemakeza heard
about it March 26, he said his government was "completely
unaware of such statements being made, therefore wishes to disassociate
itself from the report." Apparently Canberra had told Washington
that Honiara was cool with the war, before even having a chat
with the Solomons leadership. That might sound borderline neo-colonial
to some people, but no problem; Kemakeza soon endorsed the imaginary
coalition, and everybody was able to avoid embarrassment.)
The Sydney Morning Herald reports
that "Helpem Frencould be a precedent for further combined
military-police security force deployments in the region."
Howard declares it "it will send a signal to other countries
in the region that help is available if it is sought, that we
do have a desire to help all the peoples of the Pacific to have
conditions of law and order and hope and peace and stability
for their future generations." Opposition leader Simon Crean
agrees, wisely exploiting the domino effect fear factor: "You
look at the problems in the area and they are on our doorstep.
If you let the criminals take over in any country, that does
let the gangland in, the drugs, the guns, all the smuggling operations
- and that becomes a wider threat to the whole of our region."
Meanwhile, Independent journalist
Kathy Marks reports from Wellington, August 14: "Australia
has [urged] tiny South Pacific states to unite with it in a European
Union-style political and economic community with a common currency--the
Australian dollar." And concerned that the Solomons, Vanuatu
and Papua New Guinea constitute an "arc of instability"
Howard proposes that states in the region establish a joint police
training program, to be based in Fiji (former British colony
that sends 26% of its exports to, and receives 40% of its imports
from, Australia), to fight evil-doers in its patch. Marks notes
that such statements have "ignited fears that [Australia]
nurtures neo-colonialist ambitions."
Understandably. The Pacific islands,
while in some cases densely populated, are home to a tiny percentage
of humankind. There are only about seven million people in Melanesia,
three-quarters of them in Papua New Guinea. There are just over
a million in Micronesia and Polynesia (excluding Hawai'i). All
the states in these regions are weak and small. Australia, with
a population of 20 million (over 90% of them white), a GDP larger
than that of the Netherlands, and a powerful military backed
by the U.K. and U.S., would be intimidating to neighboring countries
even without the recent "war on terror" posturing and
rhetoric.
Ask the Aborigines
But I wonder how Australia's Aborigines
view all this. In 1788, numbering between 300,000 and 750,000,
they had the continent all to themselves. (In the Torres Straits
there was and is another, far smaller separate ethnic community.)
But the British found Australia suitable for use as a penal colony,
founding Sydney with 700 convicts. By 1853, 160,000 convicts
had been so settled, including about 27,000 originating in Ireland
(the Irish, of course, particularly victimized themselves by
British imperialism). In other words, you could argue, they "let
the criminals take over" the country, there being no international
peacekeeping force at the time to prevent them from destroying
the indigenous culture, which enjoyed a primitive-communistic,
innocently pre-class society. Obviously that society had
to go, and this was just the beginning of a pattern of colonial
plunder and rapine throughout Oceania. The Aboriginal population
on Tasmania was wiped out, virtually for sport. On the continent,
whole tribes were destroyed when they revolted against the settlers;
the survivors were herded into reservations and church missions.
Cattle and sheep raising destroyed the Aborigines' water holes.
The Gold Rush of the 1850s brought a huge wave of immigration,
and further appropriation. Disease took many lives; only about
60,000 Aborigines were left by the 1930s.
But that was then, and this is now. Australia's
changed, of course. The decade of the '60s saw social progress,
Down Under as in most other places. While entertainer Rolf Harris
gained the world's attention with his "madcap" racist
single "Tie Me Kangaroo Down ("Let me abos go loose,
Lew/ Let me abos go loose/ They're of no further use, Lew/ So
let me abos go loose/ Altogether now!") the Aborigines
were actually accorded Australian citizenship, with the
same rights as anyone else in the land they'd inhabited for over
50,000 years. This they could enjoy in their slums (most of the
200,000 Aborigines live in cities now, rather than the idyllic
Outback), along with illiteracy, high infant mortality, high
unemployment, low wages, low longevity, and drug addiction. Since
the '60s, they've been able to vote. They can serve in
the Army. Two-thirds of the Northwest Mobile Force, bolstered
after the November 2002 Bali bombings that for some reason targeted
Australians, consists of Aboriginal men. Maybe some are even
helping cleanse the evil-doers from a country which (did I mention
it?), is rich in zinc, lead, nickel and gold.
"Australia," Downer says, "is
not a neo-colonial power." If that's true, there
are no neo-colonial powers on the planet, but there are
settler states that have grown into imperialist powers. Although
Australia's record pales in comparison with some others in this
category, it is not a happy one. As a general rule, oppressors
can't be liberators, and while the sketchy reports from the Solomons
suggest that Helpem Fren has met with local acceptance so far,
the historical record on imperialist help and friendship, in
the Pacific and everywhere else, is hardly encouraging.
* * *
(Raising a Fosters): Here's to the millions
of Australians who have opposed the war on Iraq, and the "coalition"
juggernaut of no further use. Let's tie the crazy, out of control
kangaroo down.
Gary Leupp
is an an associate professor in the Department of History at
Tufts University and coordinator of the Asian Studies Program.
He can be reached at: gleupp@tufts.edu
Weekend
Edition Features for August 16 / 17, 2003
Flavia Alaya
Bastille
New Jersey
Jeffrey St. Clair
War Pimps
Saul Landau
The Legacy of Moncada: the Cuban Revolution at 50
Brian Cloughley
What Has Happened to the US Army in Iraq?
William S. Lind
Coffins for the Crews: How Not to Use Light Armored Vehicles
Col. Dan Smith
Time for Straight Talk
Wenonah Hauter
Which
Electric System Do We Want?
David Lindorff
Where's Arnold When We Need Him?
Harvey Wasserman
This Grid Should Not Exist
Don Moniak
"Unusual Events" at Nuclear Power Plants: a Timeline
for August 14, 2003
David Vest
Rolling Blackout Revue
Merlin Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Sherman Austin
Adam Engel
The Loneliest Number
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Hamod & Albert
Book of the Weekend
Powerplay by Sharon Beder
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