No blood, No oil, only democracy building!
It seems like a lifetime ago, when I and 349,999 other anti war protesters filled the streets of Sydney to beg this government not to join the Coalition of the willing in Operation Iraqi Freedom, better known as the illegal war in Iraq.
Many reasons and many positions were displayed on placards and on t-shirts, with No Blood for Oil being the most popular. We knew then and we know now, that this government’s motivation for the freedom of the Iraqi people, was significantly less than the motivation for to secure, continuous, supply of our oil.
The difference now is that the Minister of Defence- Dr Brendan Nelson, recently made the same point, if from a somewhat different perspective. He attempted to use the security of access to oil to sell the illegal war in Iraq.
“Energy security is extremely important to all nations throughout the world, and of course, in protecting and securing Australia’s interests. The Middle East itself, not only Iraq, but the entire region is an important supplier of energy oil, in particular, to the rest of the world.”- Dr Brendan Nelson.
Our PM- John HoWARd, will be having none of that, instantly coming out defending the indefensible by saying:
“We are not there [in Iraq] because of oil and we didn’t go there because of oil. We don’t remain there because of oil. Oil is not the reason. Oil comes from the Middle East – we all know that – but the reason we remain there is we want to give the people of Iraq the possibility of embracing democracy.” – HoWARd.
So the question has to be, how’s this democracy embracing in Iraq going? Because the question cannot be how’s our oil?
Update: Nelson has been pulled into the official line, with the following being his position a mere 24 hours later.
“Iraq has never been about oil”
Image from here
July 7th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
I will be voting HoWARd out!
July 7th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
🙂
This will the fifth time I will be voting HoWARd out!
July 8th, 2007 at 9:36 am
actually, i rather despise everyone of those 300,000 well-meaning people. if, instead of posing in front of the tv cameras, each had sent an email to the headquarters of every political party, saying:
“i will only vote for a party that promises to establish an effective and accessible power of citizen initiated referendum. if there is none, i will write “democracy” on my otherwise blank ballot.”
we would now be living in a democracy, and the adolescent protests would be replaced with effective citizen initiative action.
July 8th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
The problem, al loomis, is that we are living in a democracy!
In 2004, clearly not enough people were enraged enough about the illegal war in Iraq to vote HoWARd out, is the bottom line.
It is not about the mode of protest, it’s about the mood for protest. This year, I hope that the mood is there, and I’ll take any and all modes of protest to Vote HoWARd out!
I’ll support:
taking to the street with a banner,
signing a petition,
sending a letter to the editor,
wearing a ‘WAR- not in my name’ shirt,
pinning on a ‘No War’ badge,
writing a blog,
talking to your local member,
joining GetUp!,
donating time and money to a peace movement,
doing anything that’s more productive than despising those that do something!
July 8th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Al, if you think protest is adolescent, you ought to take that up with the blue hairs carrying ‘North Shore Against The War’ banners on 16 Feb 2003.
Don’t you think that if politicians were actually listening to ‘citizen initiated action’ that feet-in-the-street protest would be necessary?
Every one of those 300,000 on the street in Sydney DID something. What did you do, other than propose spoiling your ballot? Hey, that’s an effective vehicle for change…
Whose side are you on?
I will take my power back!
I will be voting HoWARd out!