You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Down Under
Latham: 'Ditch the US alliance'
2005-09-19
FORMER Labor leader Mark Latham believed the US alliance should be ditched and called it "the last manifestation of the White Australia mentality".

The Latham Diaries reveal his in-principle support for the alliance during last year's election was completely insincere and driven by electoral politics.
Translation: he was lying.
Mr Latham mocks public support for the alliance and dismisses with contempt anybody who thinks it serves a purpose. The Diaries verify the judgment President George W. Bush made of Mr Latham - that his election would have put the alliance in serious jeopardy. "It's just another form of neo-colonialism," Mr Latham says of the alliance.

Writing after the election, Mr Latham says that he should go public and question the long-term need for the alliance, but laments that this "would turn the party upside down" and that "the Big Mac faction would go ballistic".

The Diaries reveal an extreme view of foreign policy and of Australia's role in the world. Mr Latham opposes every war Australia has fought, except World War II. He blames the US alliance for dragging Australia into unnecessary conflicts. His preferred foreign policy model is based on New Zealand's. He writes that if Australia prefers being "an American colony under (John) Howard, that's a nation not worth leading".

He accuses the Prime Minister and Mr Bush of being cowards, saying "they wouldn't fight themselves, of course, but they readily send other people's children to fight in their name".

In his diary entry of December 1, 2004, six weeks before he resigned, he says: "The Americans have made us a bigger target in the war against terror -- Australian lives are certain to be sacrificed on the altar of the US alliance.

"Look at New Zealand. They have their foreign policy right, and it's the safest country on earth.
It's the most out-of-the-way country developed country on earth. al-Qaeda will come after them last. That's security?
"Labor should be the anti-war party of Australian politics. Other than World War II, every war this country has fought was disconnected from our national interests. All those young Australian lives lost in faraway lands, the folly of imperialism and conservative jingoism.

"I detest war and the meatheads who volunteer to kill other human beings. The US alliance is a funnel that draws us into unnecessary wars; first Vietnam and then Iraq."

The Diaries reveal a far more visceral anti-Americanism and a deeper streak of pacificism than was apparent from his public comments as Labor leader. Mr Latham sees the US alliance and an independent Australia as completely incompatible. "A timid, insular nation at the bottom of the world, too frightened to embrace an independent foreign policy," he says.

"Politically, why does the alliance survive? Because a significant number of Australians still think we need an insurance policy against invasion by Indonesia, that's why. Poor old Indonesia. They can barely govern themselves these days, let alone invade us. The alliance is the last manifestation of the White Australia mentality."
He's right about Indonesia and wrong about everything else. Australians and Americans are essentially the same people: the rejects, the cast-outs, the petty criminals discarded by the British Empire. We got the Irish who preferred emigration to starving, the Welsh who found life in a Welsh mining pit to be too desparate, and the Scots-Irish who wouldn't submit to Anglican rule. America added many more immigrants from other countries, something Australia now is doing. But we have a lot of common ideas and virtues. That's why we have an alliance.
Mr Latham is convinced that "the Americans need us more than we need them". He says Pine Gap is "vital to their international security network". He claims that the Americans "restrict our capacity to trade and integrate with Asia" and that "one day their trouble with China will be our trouble".
Posted by:Steve White

#19  It's his memoirs that he has published.
Posted by: ed   2005-09-19 20:30  

#18  Ok, I'm confused. (Stop that snickering!) Did the Latham Diaries escape, or were they deliberately released?
Posted by: trailing wife   2005-09-19 19:43  

#17  That face... he looks like Admiral Ackbar.

Posted by: Phil Fraering   2005-09-19 18:30  

#16  Bit of geography/history: West Irian was the Indonesian name for Dutch New Guinea, which Indonesia took over by force in 1961. Dutch New Guinea is the western end of the island of New Guinea. The eastern end is the nation of Papua New Guinea. The Indonesians have been trying to convert the Papuans to Islam by force since 1961, with poor success. The entire western end of New Guinea is a human right abuse.

Indonesia wants to grab all of south Asia, including Australia, the Philippines, and Malaysia. They are the major supporter of Abu Sayyaf and other Muslim bandits in the Philippines. Their massacre of Timorese Christians is what they want to do to the entire region.

IIRC, the East Timor rescue operation was primarily an Australian action, with limited US back-up. I don't think we hand any troops on the ground in the region. If anyone has any further comments, I'd welcome them.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2005-09-19 18:06  

#15  My opinion of Aussies, already high, just went up another notch. They saw through this asshat.

Thumbs up.
Posted by: Mizzou Mafia   2005-09-19 17:02  

#14  Okay my history is rusty in this point, but who exactly pulled who into the East Timor operation? Somehow I thought the Australians pulled the US into that one.

And it was East Timor that Al Queda has sited as their rational for attacking Australia wasn't it? I mean hate America all you want, who cares, but at least keep your facts straight.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2005-09-19 14:37  

#13  "south Irian"? What the heck???
Posted by: Edward Yee   2005-09-19 14:30  

#12  

"I detest war and the meatheads who volunteer to kill other human beings."

Yeah, but we're not the only ones with Armies, dumbass.

Posted by: Elmeatle Crush5967   2005-09-19 12:26  

#11   "the Americans need us more than we need them"
Posted by: Elmeatle Crush5967   2005-09-19 12:24  

#10  Is the world getting crazier? WTF is going on with these people. There's some kind of sinister propoganda machine working in the background. All these so called pacifist are really sending out messages of hate and division, not healing and team work. I just call them hypocrits, but something else is at work, just like the Soviet moles in India and the UN Oil-4-Food scandel, people are being bought or brainwashed, but we won't know for years.
Posted by: Elmeatle Crush5967   2005-09-19 12:22  

#9  What, the ALP produced a psycho candidate? Color me shocked.

The whole damn party's psychotic.
Posted by: mojo   2005-09-19 11:11  

#8  Mark Latham hates White Australians!
Posted by: Kanye West   2005-09-19 10:15  

#7  Definitely follow Phil_b's advice and check out Tim Blair.

Even other ALP folks are saying that they're glad Howard beat Latham. They finally realize that Latham was lying through his teeth and that Oz dodged a major bullet.

Posted by: AlanC   2005-09-19 08:54  

#6  New Zeland has nothing anyone wants

I understand many al-Q find sheep very attractive.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis   2005-09-19 08:34  

#5  The ALP is schizophrenic on the US alliance and this is one of the biggest problems they have.
Posted by: phil_b   2005-09-19 07:49  

#4  Does anyone think Latham's opinions are all that unusual in the ALP?

Or in ANY of the left parties, from Blair's Labour to America's Democrats?
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2005-09-19 07:32  

#3  If he thinks Australia is safe from Indonesia or China by it's self he crazy. New Zeland has nothing anyone wants, this is not true of Australia. A Australia emptied of "white people" would be an attractive thing to certain peoples.
Posted by: Sock Puppet O´ Doom   2005-09-19 02:53  

#2  Look at New Zealand. They can't protect themselves. They rely on Australia who relies on America.

So by proxy they rely on America to protect them.

Way to go Loser Latham.

But I take comfort: the Australian electorate LOVES the US-Australian alliance so much that Latham at least knew he HAD to lie.

Snake.

Meanwhile how racist is he to call it the last vestige of White Australia. As if all Americans are white.

Besides which, it has NOTHING to do with race and EVERYTHING to do with culture.

Oh dear, does he not notice how people all around the world fracture along lines of culture and language? And we should be some global people without allies culture and language? We should pretend the rest of the world thinks just like Latham and rest our security on alliances with cultures with whom we share nothing in common and do not share a language?

Imagine us basing our security on an alliance with Indonesia... most expansionist racist supremecist colonists in the region. We are marked as 'south irian' on maps captured in the East Timor peacekeeping operation.

We are SOOO lucky Aussies were smart enough to throw red Latham out so convincingly at the last election!
Posted by: anon1   2005-09-19 00:53  

#1  Tim Blair has lots more.
Posted by: phil_b   2005-09-19 00:34  

00:00