For the last few months various top level US politicians from GW Bush downwards have been involving themselves with Australian politics. From its beginnings with the Australian Labour party decision to bring home our troops at Christmas should it win the forthcoming election. Earlier this week the US Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage chipped in claiming the Labour party was split on the issue of troop deployment.


From the SMH 9/7/04

Washington should keep out of Australian politics, the Opposition Leader, Mark Latham, said yesterday, denying claims by a senior Bush Administration figure that Labor is split over its policy on Iraq. The former Labor prime minister Paul Keating also bought into the row over the comments by the US Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, describing his intervention as "dumb" and saying that Labor would not be "thugged" by American officials.
Asked about the claims of Mr. Armitage that Labor was "rent down the middle" over his pledge to recall troops from Iraq by Christmas, Mr. Latham called on overseas figures to "respect Australia's democratic processes". "I just think there is too much overseas commentary and interventions in Australian politics just prior to a federal election," he said. Australians were "keen to make their own judgment in our own Australian way about the forthcoming election", he said.
Mr. Keating described Mr. Armitage's comments as "yet another unwarranted and untimely partisan intervention into Australian political debate". He said Labor would "not be thugged by US officials", and that, in his experience, neither former US presidents George Bush snr nor Bill Clinton had ever contemplated such behavior towards Australia. "Beating up on friendly foreign political parties is not only unsightly it is also dumb and counter-productive in the longer term," Mr. Keating said.
http://www.smh.com.au/frontpage/2004.../frontpage.pdf

Well the UN should stay out of American politics...

The USA is a member of the UN

And what has the UN got to do with scorning the opositon party in Australia? not once or twice but repeatadly?

(From the ABC)
And last night another former Prime Minister – this time from the other side of politics, Malcolm Fraser, also weighed in, telling ABC TV's Lateline program that if Mr Armitage had attempted to meddle in Australian politics during his time as Prime Minister, he would have told the American official in no uncertain terms to butt out.

MALCOLM FRASER: The intervention – not only of Richard Armitage, but of his bosses – in our political scene I think is quite unforgivable.

http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common...4/s1150108.htm

Well it seems like the Bush administration is pissing off it's closest allies too. Quite a feat for them really :rolleyes:

And what has the UN got to do with scorning the opositon party in Australia? not once or twice but repeatadly?

gee, wellard, isnt that what you and a bunch of other forumites here do with the republicans not once or twice, but repeatedly?

how about this, america will stop making comments about your country, if all you aussies stop making comments about ours.... or is it only your freedom of speech that matters?

Somehow I dont think my outpourings on Ironworks will cause much of a ripple in Washington DC ;)

The point is that when the pres and senior members of the USA administration make scathing, calculated and repeated attacks on Australian political policy people do sit up and take notice.

I think this might be a bit of overreaction on Labor's part, Wellard - I don't think that Australian voters really give two cahoots what Ricky Armitage says. Besides, Latham's pretty good at dishing out the criticism himself, as evidenced by his earlier statement last year about Geedubya being "the most incompetent and dangerous U.S. president in living history". To be fair to Mark, he did say it before he became Opposition leader, but I reckon he's just having a bit of a sook and trying to get a sympathy vote. :D


. :D

There is a view that this interference actually makes things worse for little Johnny Howard, Memnoch. No one really likes a bully but even if you are enjoying Latham’s week of sulking (and hasn’t he) and are middle of the road politically, how is this interference going to help the USA win approval for its free trade agenda and its desire to base it's armed forces in Australia? More importantly how willing will Australia be to help the USA in its future wars if this is the way it treats it allies, and arguably the USA's best ally over the years?

edit for poor spelling

[ 07-10-2004, 08:42 AM: Message edited by: wellard ]

It's politics, Wellard. Nobody expects too much of politicians. :D

True! yet they still dissapoint [img]graemlins/laugh2.gif[/img]