:: Wog Blog ::

:: WHAT AM I THINKING ABOUT? ::

:: Tuesday 6 April 2004 ::

Fathead is making his Foreign Policy Speech - Paul Keating lite, New Zealand all over

Labor's foreign policy has three pillars:
- Oz will not be conciliatory to the US, we will not be a Deputy to US, we will just be ourselves. (Kinda like Howard has been himself and has seen good opportunities while Clinton was in office and now that Bush is in office too. Kinda like the Free Trade Agreement (no mention of it by the way).)

- Oz will re-engage with Asia because Asia is so important now at a time of real growth and it is our backyard. (Kinda like Howard and our Bilateral Trade Agreement with China (no mention of it by the way), and our engagement in the Solomons and in PNG and our complete financing of Nauru, and our refusal to cave in to the bullying from Indonesia and Malasia (no mention of these either).)

- Oz will be conciliatory to the UN, because multilateral diplomacy matters (Unlike Howard, the UN matters more to Labor than sovereignty matters, Labor won't be telling the Human Rights Commission to Gi Fa whenever it wastes our time trying to paint us as genocidal maniacs over the Aboriginals or the illegal entrants.)

And on Iraq, these gems:

A war conducted for a reason that was not true.

A debacle.

Diverted resources from the real war against terror. Had Bin Laden bin captured the world would be safer.

Most surprising is the lack of remorse. No sense of apology for the error that was made.

Troops home by Christmas.

We had no business in being there.

Not a word about Saddam. Not a word about removing a dictator.

So there you have it. Latham's foreign policy.

We should be ashamed of removing Saddam. We should be ashamed that the French derailed the UN and we did not back them up. We should have let the UN be derailed and do nothing to Saddam. So also we should be ashamed of our East Timor 'adventure' because Howard did that and it upset Indonesia and the UN did not approve it. Our engagement in the region viz our bilateral trade relationship with China means nothing. Our support of the Solomons and PNG mean nothing. Our payments to Nauru and offer to help their sinking population mean nothing. And the US matters no more than Latham deems necessary - and he deems the President 'the most dangerous president ever' or something immoderate like that.

New Zealand here we come. Irrelevant and thoroughly compliant to the UN and with a big ol'd streak of anti-US bias running through everything.

That is Fathead's foreign policy.

God help us, eh? Play nice to Indonesia. It is not like some Indonesians want to kill us or anything. Nooo.

Just a bunch of half-baked ideas.

Wonder how the press will spin it.

Urgh. No I don't.

:: WB 8:53 pm [link+] ::