REMEMBERING
A BETRAYAL
One of Prime Minister Howard’s main arguments for going after
Saddam Hussein – apart from the quest for weapons of mass
destruction – was the fact that the United States is Australia’s
greatest ally.
In fact he described the U.S. as the most important nation in the
world when it came to Australia’s long-term security.
And I agreed with him.
I have also pointed out that the other major participant nation
in this war is Great Britain. Our other greatest ally.
Not always the case (even before they sold us out for the Common
Market in the 1960s). In World War Two they left us to our own devices
in the Pacific even though they promised a big naval presence in
Singapore to deter Japan – if we sent troops to Europe. Even
though at the start of the war we had no Navy, not much of an Air
Force, only a semblance of an Army and most of the pressure was
to train and build up an Australian-based militia.
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour in December 1941 and when
Singapore fell two months later, we were left alone and vulnerable.
The British Navy was nowhere in sight and Prime Minister Winston
Churchill – who had betrayed us at Gallipoli in World War
l – tried to stop American forces being sent to the Pacific.
For months Britain left us at the mercy of the Japanese. That’s
when Prime Minister Curtin turned to a bloke named General MacArthur
to organise our defence. That’s when things like the Battle
of the Coral Sea happened. That’s when Aussies fought alongside
Americans in the Pacific islands which saved Australia from invasion
by the Japanese.
And that’s when this country first “looked to America,”
in Curtin’s words, for help.
All of that history is undoubtedly lost on the anti-American protesters.
And I raise it because of a timely book, in a time of war, a booked
called The Politics of War, written by David Day. A massive tome
updating The Great Betrayal and Reluctant Nation. Worth reading
at this time. Published by Harper Collins.
Thursday, April 3,2003
©Copyright
Derryn Hinch 2002 |
