Pathological subservience

Australia's compliance and subservience to the United States had now taken on pathological dimensions.

Australia's vote at the United Nations in support of the US to maintain the wall to keep Palestinians out of Israel is a further instance of dangerous servility.

At home, Australia's obsession with security matters is a direct consequence of John Howard's assigned role of Deputy Sheriff of an American administration that has lost its way.

The Howard-commissioned Flood Report stated that intelligence advice provided no realistic basis for Australia going to war.

It was the US's urging that persuaded the Howard Government.

Howard's policies of unquestioning and limitless support for the US, no matter how ridiculous US foreign policy failures and misjudgements, has made this country a prime target for terrorist attacks.

The Howard Government is the greatest threat to Australian security.

This is election issue number one.

A related folly is the US Free Trade Agreement that by virtually all accounts is not at all in Australia's interest.

It is feared now that "we are dudded again".

Why should Australians be dudded by anyone?

There is no need for that at all if the ALP is listening to the people who are clearly opposed to this grovelling exercise as much as to the senseless involvement in the Iraqi war last year.

What will it do for the nation's self esteem if the ALP Opposition caves in again, as they did in 2001?

Although Messrs Latham, Beazley and Rudd claim to have a good understanding of what a friend in the US Alliance relationship should do, we still have to see that the ALP is not going to make the same mistake as in 2001, when the then Opposition leader Beazley meekly complied with Border Protection and the Pacific "Solution" rather than take a principled stand against that.

If they flunk it again, we'll have two teams of wimps.

Klass Woldring, Pearl Beach