In a joint press conference with Kevin Rudd in Canberra in 2009, now embattled Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki allegedly condemned the Howard Government over the AWB oil for wheat scandal, however an unnamed interpreter chose to change his words. Contributing editor-at-large Tess Lawrence reports.
AUSTRALIA’S MORAL COWARDICE has long impaled us between Iraq and a harder place.
Like it or no, we are inextricably linked to the current crisis and heinous slaughter that has turned Iraq into an abattoir for humans.
As we are to the circumstances that have led up to it, including President Barack Obama’s announcement yesterday to send in the marines and deploy precisely 275 troops to help quell the bad guys.
Just who the good guys are is anyone’s guess. We all bleed.
We have some of that blood on our hands and surely on our conscience for the flyblown dismembered corpses of massacred Iraqis and the spillage onto the pages of yet another ill-writ chapter of our fumbling military strategies in the Middle East.
To indecently paraphrase: First we invaded. Then we abandoned. Then we went into denial. Three strikes and we were out of there. We can’t keep blaming America for things we do. Or don’t do.
Even if we habitually acquiesce to US commands.
The world has long been aware of Iraq’s corrupt and Shia-dominated government and the weary inevitability of a mighty insurgent schism. For the greater part, we shamelessly averted our eyes.
