The Ultimate Dear John Letter by Hugh Mackay The Age 2:05pm 16th Mar, 2003   Melbourne, Australia.March 14, 2003    No, Mr Howard, we do not want a war with Iraq.    Dear Prime Minister,    Speaking as one of the mob, I've had enough. Like 49 per cent of voters, I've never been a supporter of your government, but I have often had reason to respect your political skills. Now, having so resolutely ignored the mind and mood of the Australian people, you seem destined to go down in history as the prime minister who made us feel ashamed of being Australians.    It's a pity our military leaders don't have the freedom to disobey your orders when they contravene both international law and common sense. What a sweet moment it would be if the top brass could simply say, "Sorry, we won't act unjustly. If you want to invade Iraq, get someone else to do the job. We're coming home".    As things stand, we are in imminent danger of aligning ourselves with the infamous "rogue states" you and your mad mate George keep talking about - the states that ignore the military and humanitarian rules and resolutions of the United Nations.    If I've got it straight, your logic runs like this: because Iraq has failed to respect its obligations to the UN, Australia should do the same. We'll invade Iraq and, in the process, give our imprimatur to international lawlessness and thuggery. Is that to be your legacy - to be identified, throughout history, as the prime minister who said that we, like Saddam Hussein, should thumb our noses at the UN?    Apart from your singleminded determination to drag us into an ill-conceived war, a couple of other things worry me - for instance, your failure to draw the proper distinction between acts of terrorism and acts of war. George Bush's rhetoric notwithstanding, terrorism is not war; it is criminal activity that should be dealt with like any other crime. Tracking down terrorists is a job for intelligence services and police forces, not armies.    The Bali terrorists are being arrested by the Indonesian police, as is proper. But the unsuccessful hunt for Osama bin Laden involved the invasion of Afghanistan by a mighty army (Or was that war really about "regime change"? I'm confused). Is the attack on Iraq being carried out in the name of the so-called "war on terror" or not? If it is, then, as well as being illegal, it's based on a category mistake.    I notice you and Bush keep shifting your ground on Iraq, and that makes me nervous, too. Long ago, I was taught that if someone gives you two reasons for declining an invitation, that probably means they're hiding the truth (which is, presumably, that they simply don't want to come). The anti-Iraq propaganda is a bit like that.    First we were told Saddam had to be disarmed by force before he had a chance to deploy his weapons of mass destruction. When it became less certain that he had such weapons, and even less clear why or where he might want to deploy them, the focus switched to the need for "regime change" in order to establish democracy in Iraq (though not, we assume, the Florida-style democracy that installed Bush in the White House).    Now we're being told an invasion can be justified on humanitarian grounds and we will be the heroic liberators of an oppressed people. Too many reasons, John.    And another thing: George Bush isn't our president ... and neither are you. You are our prime minister, yet you seem, on this issue, to be acting against Australia's interests and in defiance of public opinion. Where's the consultation with the Australian people? Where's the parliamentary debate that should precede any decision to deploy Australian troops - especially when they are about to undertake an unprecedented and unprovoked invasion of another country?    We've heard your legalistic assertion that this is a decision for cabinet, not parliament. And we've heard your undertaking to recall parliament to debate the question once the decision has been made. (What's the point of that, by the way?) But when you seem prepared to do what no other Australian prime minister has ever contemplated doing, tarnishing our nation's reputation for integrity in the process, mightn't a bit more collegiality, a bit more inclusiveness, have been in order?    As for your breathtakingly cynical attempt to forge an emotional link between Iraq and Bali - suggesting we should make ourselves feel better about soldiers coming home from the Gulf in body bags by recalling our outrage over the Bali massacre - well, this time, you went too far. We saw through that cheap rhetorical trick: it looked like a last desperate attempt to win support for your war - yours and George's - and we rejected it.    Please think again, Prime Minister. The word on the street is: No, John, no.    Hugh Mackay is an Australian author and social researcher. Visit the related web page
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