Boyish Bluster
Thursday, July 29, 2004
Bob Brown's breathless berating of Bush (Australian, 29 July) is boyish bluster. It sounds like an adolescent protest - all attitude and no substance. Why is Brown obsessed by such trivial matters as Howard and Bush posing for the cameras waving at a non-existent crowd? The media do convenience shots like this all the time.
He clings doggedly like other Bush-bashers to the no-WMD-no-war line. But from the outset, it was obvious that there was more to this war than WMD - else how come we didn't go for Pakistan or any of the other WMD nations?
The only hard argument I can find in the long outburst is the final idealistic question with which all caring people feel a sympathy, namely, what if we spent the military billions on humanitarian aid?
Sadly, we still live in a world where people want to start wars between nations and cultures. We still have to waste billions on defence. Should Bush have called this pre-emptive strike? Consider this: if we had moved against Hitler one year earlier, we might have saved 50 million lives!
If the democratisation of Iraq succeeds, and diverts the frustrated hotheads of the Middle East from assassinating infidels to advancing the political structure of their own stagnant nations, Bush will go down in history as a force for good.
Philip O'Carroll