On July 29, Australia’s ambassador to the Philippines was called in to that country’s foreign ministry to be given a justly deserved “dressing down” over foreign minister Alexander Downer’s attacks on Philippines President Gloria Arroyo’s decision to pull her country’s contingent of 51 soldiers and police out of Iraq.
Despite enormous pressure from Washington not to do so, Arroyo ordered the contingent to withdraw five weeks ahead of schedule in exchange for Iraqi resistance fighters releasing Filipino truck driver Angelo de la Cruz. The resistance fighters had threatened to execute de la Cruz if Manila did not order an immediate withdrawal of its troops. After it did he was freed and returned home to a hero’s welcome.
Arroyo explained that she had made the decision to withdraw the troops earlier than originally planned not only to save de la Cruz’s life but because of the safety of the 5000 Filipino workers in Iraq, and the more than 1 million Filipinos working in the Middle East.
On July 25, Downer claimed that Arroyo’s decision, and that of Spain months ago to withdraw its troops from Iraq, had encouraged Islamic terrorists to threaten the lives of Australians. He asserted this after the Tawhid Islamic Group, which claims to be al Qaeda’s European branch, posted an online threat to turn Australia and Italy into “pools of blood” if they did not withdraw their troops from Iraq. A week earlier, the group had threatened terrorist attacks in Bulgaria and Poland if those countries did not withdrawal their troops.
Downer told the Nine Network’s Sunday program: “Unfortunately these actions have encouraged terrorists to continue these threats and now we are subjected to them, the Italians are, the Poles, the Bulgarians, by this particular group.”
It is patently ridiculous for Downer to claim that in deciding to withdraw its 1300 troops from Iraq, the Spanish government was caving in to any terrorist threat. Spain pulled its troops out after then Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar’s conservative government was defeated by the opposition Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) in the March 14 election. The PSOE had opposed the US-led war of Iraq and made an election pledge to withdraw Spain’s troops in government.
The PSOE government took particular offense at Downer’s claim that its troops’ withdrawal showed it was caving in to “terrorism” — having announced two weeks earlier that it was dispatching 500 Spanish troops to participate in the US-led occupation of Afghanistan.
The latest al Qaeda-linked threats of terrorist attacks against Australians have nothing to do with Manila. They stem solely from a decision made by Downer’s government — its endorsement and enthusiastic participation in Washington’s post-9/ll “war on terror”, the centrepiece of which is the US war machine’s installation of pro-US puppet regimes throughout the largely Muslim, oil-rich Arab world.
The first al-Qaeda-linked terrorist attack on Australians — the Bali bombings of October 2002 — took place long before Spain and the Philippines decided to withdraw their forces from Iraq. But almost a year ealier, Australia had committed troops to the US-led invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.
Downer’s attack on Spain and the Philippines was a crude attempt to deflect public attention away from the fact that his government’s participation in the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq provides al Qaeda with a justification for terrorist attacks on Australians.
Downer criticised Arroyo’s decision as a capitulation to terrorism before the Tawhid Islamic Group posted its threat. On July 21 he declared that “it’s very regrettable that the Filipinos have decided to cut and run ... because cutting and running in the face of terrorists is always the wrong thing to do”.
The same day ALP federal leader Mark Latham also criticised Arroyo’s decision, even though he has pledged to withdraw Australia’s troops from Iraq if elected. “Labor has the same approach”, he said. “You’ve got to take a tough line in the war against terror and you don’t shift policy.”
Latham’s comments make it clear he has no sympathy for the Iraqi people’s struggle to free their country of the US and allied foreign occupiers. Like Downer, Latham regards the Iraqi national liberation movement as an example of anti-Western “terrorism”.
He also agrees with the claim made by Washington and the Coalition government that the US-led occupation of Iraq is part of the “war against terrorism” — even after the official US inquiry into the 9/11 attacks refuted Bush’s claims that Iraq had any “collaborative relationship” with al Qaeda.
Where Latham differs from the Coalition government is that he believes Australian troops should be committed to protecting Western corporate interests — “waging the war on terror” — in Australia’s “backyard”, South-East Asia.
From Green Left Weekly, August 4, 2004.
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