Alison Dellit
Mark Latham’s March 30 claim that the federal Labor caucus voted In March 2003 to withdraw Australian troops from Iraq, initially gave us at Green Left Weekly pause for thought.
Had we been too hard on Labor? Had the ALP clearly opposed the war, and we had simply not noticed?
If Labor caucus did take a vote, they never announced it.
On April 9, 2003, I wrote an article titled, “Labor fudges position on Iraq”. It concluded: “Neither Crean nor any other shadow cabinet member can even bring themselves to say publicly, no matter what is said in caucus, that this war is an injustice that must be stopped immediately.”
Labor did not have the spine then to come out and clearly oppose a war that Washington was waging. Instead, Crean tried to be all things to all people, always careful to defend Canberra’s fundamental alliance with the warmongering US ruling class.
Latham’s pledge to bring the troops home by Christmas should be applauded. But already, as the ire of Washington descends, we are seeing cracks in the ALP’s anti-war position.
Labor amended a Democrats Senate motion on March 30, so that it reaffirmed “The need for Australian military forces in Iraq to be withdrawn from that country as soon as practicable once Australia's responsibilities as an Occupying Power have been discharged, with the intention of returning our forces to Australia by the end of 2004.”
Labor has come out publicly in support of bringing the troops back because a consistent, passionate campaign has made it a necessity. If we want to hold Latham to his pledge, we will need to keep it going.
[Alison Dellit is the Green Left Weekly editor.]
From Green Left Weekly, April 7, 2004.
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