KIMBO THE BIMBO

A “ Who said this?” question in the middle of the heated debate over Australia’s commitment of troops to the war against Saddam Hussein.

And Prime Minister Howard’s repeated public pledges of this country’s support for the United States because of the Australian-American Alliance.

Who said: “The alliance with the US is critical. The relationship with the US is critical in combating terrorism.”

It wasn’t John Howard. It wasn’t Defence Minister Hill. It wasn’t Downer. It wasn’t Abbott – or even Costello.

It was the former leader of the Federal Opposition Kim Beazley. Kimbo said it!

As I said on radio the other day, perhaps unkindly, Mr. Beazley is not physically a small man and yet he has hardly cast a public shadow in the debate over Australia’s involvement in the war with Iraq.

The comment was made after a number of talkback callers had commented that, with his background as a Defence Minister and as a passionate consumer of military history, Beazley would be more likely to support John Howard than the current Opposition leader, Simon Crean.

But I was remiss. Kim Beazley was talking. He made what I consider to be a discombobulated appearance on the ABC’s The World Today and his logic sounded like he had been on the giggle juice. Or at least had taken hypocrisy pills.

To be brutal—Kimbo sounded like a Bimbo.

The ABC’s Alexandra Kirk asked Beazley about his mate Tony Blair, who decided to commit British troops to the war with or without a new United Nations mandate.

The man, whose party caucus recently called for the immediate withdrawal of all Australian troops from an “ illegal” war, was euphoric.

The former party leader who thinks John Howard, is immoral and a mental midget said: “ I think Tony Blair has been the standout amongst the international leaders in this, for being primarily motivated by a deep moral commitment, a sort of core central commitment”.

When asked, couldn’t that be applied to John Howard as well then he replied: “ No, no you can’t. We’ll set that one aside. Not at all, not a bit of it, and nor the force or understanding that Blair brings to this subject”.

What on earth does that mean? Labor’s Blair in Britain can commit troops because he has a “ deep, moral commitment” but Howard can’t?

Beazley also told the ABC that his mate Blair was “ infinitely superior a person when it comes to determining the course he ought to go down”.

To that argument you could say ‘well, wasn’t John Howard smart just following Blair down that path’.

But the thing that riled me about the Beazley interview, and Simon Crean, and the Labor caucus and the ACTU – which speaks ‘ on behalf of all working Australians” as its president Sharon Burrow told me – is their double standard on America as our ally.

They are hypocrites and fair-weather friends.

I don’t expect a re-run of Harold Holt’s gushing and sycophantic “ All the Way with LBJ” which I heard him utter in the Rose Garden at the White House in 1966. And I remember John Gorton at a White House dinner in 1969 telling Richard Nixon “we’ll go Waltzing Matilda with you”.

(That was just before Jolly John made a drunken fool of himself dancing too close to a gossip columnist from the Washington Post. Maxine Cheshire, I recall, was the name).

But can anybody doubt John Howard when he says that the United States is, and will be, the most important nation to Australia’s long-term security? Anybody?

I remember when President Bill Clinton came to this country and addressed Parliament. I thought Kim Beazley’s eloquent, steeped in history, speech about our two countries and shared experiences and shared heartaches easily surpassed a stilted performance by Prime Minister Howard. Beazley knew (then) what he was talking about.

Our alliance with the US has given this country access in the international arena to information and technology a small country at “ the arse end of the world” (as Keating once said) could only dream of.

In fact, when he was Defence Minister in the late-1980s, Kim Beazley estimated that if Australia tried to accrue for itself all the info and material gained from the US it would take an extra 1% of our GDP.

We not only need America – many/most of us embrace America. Their movies, their music, their TV shows. Our Nic even won Best Actress at THEIR Oscars this week. And I would bet that some of the protesters burning American flags in the city the other day had a McDonald’s on the way home to watch Friends.

But it is more serious than that.

Beazley and Crean attack John Howard because they claim his support of the US offends countries in our neighbourhood. And yet Beazley praises Tony Blair for his moral stand. Has anybody pointed out that his Mate Tone has not exactly endeared himself or his country to such European colleagues as France and Germany in his neighbourhood?

Since coming out in support of and defending the Bush-Blair-Howard invasion of Iraq I have received heaps of e-mails and talkback calls on air.

The calls are mostly supportive of our troops and the war effort. Virtually anonymous e-mails are more cryptic and cruel. I have been called a warmonger. I have blood on my hands. I must enjoy the sight of battered and bandaged little kids in Iraqi hospitals. And I obviously have a clause in my contract that forced me to change my voice and espouse some 3AW line.

As a journalist who has been fired many times for holding a different or unpopular point of view I find that one really offensive.

I believe Australian troops should be committed to this war because it is a just war. Saddam Hussein must be removed. Rogue states must be forced to surrender weapons of mass destruction.

The sad thing is that the best way to prove our troops right-- and the protesters and whingers wrong -- would be for Saddam to unleash those weapons. What a hellish way to win an argument

Sunday 30th March 2003

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2002