{"id":80115,"date":"2017-08-06T13:54:08","date_gmt":"2017-08-06T17:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=80115"},"modified":"2017-08-08T21:39:14","modified_gmt":"2017-08-09T01:39:14","slug":"with-friends-like-these-who-needs-allies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=80115","title":{"rendered":"With Friends Like These (Who Needs Allies?)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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by Greg Maybury
\nPoxAmerikana.com<\/p>\n

\u2018[For us] i<\/em>t is one thing to remain a good friend, but too close an embrace will lead Americans and others to resurrect the \u201cdeputy sheriff\u201d tag. The Americans have always put their own interests first and will continue to do so; we should follow their example. American interests will not always be the same as Australian and vice versa. The bottom line, however, is the domestic political one. Australians are afraid of the outside world and convinced of their inability to cope with it. Any Australian government which suggested that we do without a great and powerful friend to look after us would have to consider the electoral implications.\u2019\u00a0<\/em>Source: Cavan Hogue<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>\u2014 fmr. Ambassador and Dep. Permanent Representative when Australia was last on the UN Security Council. He has also served as head of mission in Mexico, Kuala Lumpur, Moscow and Bangkok, along with other posts. He is an Adjunct Professor in International Communication at Macquarie University, Sydney.<\/p>\n

\u2014*\u2014<\/p>\n

The Brief: By and large, the Australian-U.S. alliance is considered by the majority of political, policy, and media elites on both sides of the Pacific Pond to be mutually beneficial, indeed essential. But behind this pact, like as with so many countries with economic, strategic and\/or military ties to the empire\u00a0du jour<\/i>, there is a downside, one rarely acknowledged \u2014 and when it is, often rejected \u2014 in public discourse. More Australians though are beginning to express considerable concern (a reality borne out by\u00a0recent PEW research<\/a>\u00a0findings). This mindset is precipitated in no small measure by the increasingly heavy-handed influence the U.S. seeks to exert globally. This is exemplified as much by its well-documented interference in the affairs of other countries and its propensity for imposing its frequently self-serving economic and strategic agenda on the international community. Along with examining why Australia might benefit from re-assessing the oft-presumed benefits of this partnership, and from there, seeking a more independent pathway, we will also reveal some of the past history of this complex, and for the U.S. in the ongoing pursuit of its hegemonic (global) ambition, sure to be a increasingly vital, geopolitical partnership.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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\u2014*\u2014<\/p>\n

\u2014 High Dudgeon in Low Latitudes \u2014<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Aussie Journalist and Filmmaker John Pilger \u2014 Perennial Fly in the Imperial Ointment<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

When it comes to my country Australia, to the extent that less worldly Americans might think about it, amongst the first things likely to come to mind are kangaroos, convicts, koala bears, and Crocodile Dundee. Far beyond just broadening folks\u2019 geographical awareness and cultural horizons, the following should provide a deeper appreciation of how our past history has fatefully intertwined with that of their own country. In so many cases this shared past has been to our detriment, our involvement in Korea, Vietnam for example, with\u00a0Afghanistan<\/a>,\u00a0Iraq<\/a>,\u00a0Syria<\/a>, and\u00a0Yemen<\/a>being more recent notable examples.<\/p>\n

As we\u2019ll see such \u201cdetriment\u201d includes one momentous and consequential CIA-inspired gambit in 1975 that culminated in the ousting of our then duly elected prime minister (PM). In short, it was a\u00a0coup d\u2019\u00e9tat<\/em>, the hammer in the U.S. foreign policy toolbox, the resort to which being a recurring theme in the Washington playbook. In a recent interview with the Intercept\u2019s\u00a0Jeremy Scahill,<\/strong>\u00a0renowned\u00a0author and historian\u00a0Alfred McCoy<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0touched on this very subject. McCoy was speaking with Scahill to promote his forthcoming book\u00a0In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<\/strong>the title itself suggesting that it\u2019s this \u201cplaybook\u201d which has contributed significantly to the titular \u201cdecline\u201d.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Citing numerous examples, McCoy went on to say that,<\/p>\n

\u2018all around the globe\u2026any time that there was a\u00a0serious electoral contest<\/u>\u00a0in which the outcome was\u00a0critical to our geopolitical interests<\/u>, the U.S. was intervening.\u2019<\/em>\u00a0[Emphasis added.]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With the allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election now a self-replicating meme, the profound irony of McCoy\u2019s statement should not be lost on anyone! In a\u00a0recent piece<\/a>\u00a0I also examined Uncle Sam\u2019s decades-long penchant for coups and colour revolutions. Perhaps the least known \u2018beneficiaries\u2019 though of America\u2019s\u00a0well-documented regime renovation<\/a>\u00a0gambits involves Australia. As with the Iranian coup of 1953, ably backed up on this occasion by British intelligence in the form of MI6, the CIA had their not always plausibly deniable prints all over the\u00a01975 Constitutional Crisis<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>that triggered the dismissal \u2013 the\u00a0firing<\/em>\u00a0in effect \u2014 by the then Governor-General\u00a0Sir John Kerr,<\/strong>\u00a0of PM\u00a0Gough Whitlam<\/strong>\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0his government. As it turns out, the history of the CIA\u2019s clandestine involvement in Australian politics is a story that is well documented. But like so many of these things often are, it is a history that is far from familiar even to most Australians, let alone Americans. And insofar as the dismissal of Whitlam went, this was one of these situations where the\u00a0indelible\u00a0Henry Kissinger<\/strong>maxim<\/a>\u00a0prevailed:<\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the [Ed. Note: insert name of offending country here] voters to be left to decide for themselves.\u2019<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Few would argue that Australia was experiencing a \u201cserious electoral contest\u201d at the time of this crisis, and it was one that certainly qualified as \u201ccritical\u201d to U.S. \u201cgeopolitical interests\u201d. In succumbing to its interventionist impulses however, whether America was justified in the covert actions it took is an entirely different matter. The track record in so many other countries would lead most to suggest it wasn\u2019t. As Australia\u2019s own dissident elder statesman and renowned\u00a0filmmaker and investigative journalist\u00a0John Pilger<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0noted in a piece he wrote in 2014 eulogising on the death of Whitlam at age 94, Kerr was not just the \u201cQueen\u2019s man\u201d in Australia; prior to being appointed as Australia\u2019s head of state, he had \u201clong standing ties\u201d to both Britain\u2019s MI6 and the CIA. Whitlam, who assumed power in 1972 after twenty-three years of conservative rule by a coalition of the Liberal and then Country (now National) parties, tellingly a ruling clique increasingly viewed by many as too subservient to Washington, believed that a foreign power shouldn\u2019t control his country\u2019s resources or dictate its economic, military and foreign policies.<\/p>\n

Even though he\u2019d\u00a0visited China the previous year<\/a>\u00a0in his capacity as opposition leader, the eventual aim to both recognize that country and open up diplomatic relations once in office, Whitlam was hardly a card-carrying, left-wing radical. Yet the freshly minted Aussie PM was treated at first by many in and across the Washington establishment with no small measure of suspicion, paranoia, and later, by outright contempt and animosity. This tellingly extended to the palace intriguer\u00a0nonpareil<\/em>\u00a0and then resident coup-meister\u00a0du jour<\/em>\u00a0Henry Kissinger<\/a>,<\/strong>\u00a0along with his boss the estimable U.S. president\u00a0Richard Milhous Nixon<\/a><\/strong>, a man with \u201csuspicion\u201d, \u201cparanoia\u201d, \u201ccontempt\u201d, and \u201canimosity\u201d to spare.<\/p>\n

Yet in seeking an entente of sorts with China, the political visionary Whitlam wasn\u2019t just ahead of his time; he was way ahead of both of these folks in playing the Great Game as it was beginning to unfold then in Asia. As history tells it, less than twelve months later both Kissinger and \u201cTricky\u201d were making a beeline to Beijing to do same, the media breathlessly announcing Nixon\u2019s impending trip during Whitlam\u2019s visit. To the best of this writer\u2019s knowledge, there\u2019s no record of either Nixon or his Grand Vizier publicly acknowledging Whitlam\u2019s history-making diplomatic initiative and geopolitical\u00a0meister stroke<\/em>. It seems safe to say then that these much-touted masters of international diplomacy and consummate practitioners of\u00a0realpolitik<\/em>\u00a0would\u2019ve been less than happy that a political neophyte from Down Under of all places \u2013 not even yet in high office \u2014 had shown them both a clean pair of heels on both counts!<\/p>\n

Described by Pilger as a \u2018maverick social democrat of principle, pride and propriety\u2019 (he wasn\u2019t even of the left of his party, let alone communist), amongst other things Whitlam pledged to pull Australia out of Vietnam, provide universal health care, abolish university fees, and tellingly, proposed to\u00a0\u201cbuy back the farm\u201d<\/a>, a term which would\u2019ve come loaded with all manner of hidden meaning for many from Wall Street to Washington. Suffice it to say this was akin to Tonto telling the Lone Ranger he was moving on and that he could no longer count on him to have his back once the silver bullets ran out and the Native Americans began closing in on them. \u2018Kemo Sabe\u2019 it\u2019s fair to say was not in the least bit pleased!<\/p>\n

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Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and President Richard Nixon Enjoy a Fireside Chat, 1973. Whitlam wanted his \u201cfarm\u2019 back; Tricky, Hank & Co. had other ideas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Whitlam had positioned himself then as an\u00a0Antipodean<\/a>\u00a0version of\u00a0Guatemala\u2019s\u00a0Jacobo Arbenz Guzman<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0or his contemporary\u00a0Chile\u2019s\u00a0Salvador Allende<\/strong>,<\/a>\u00a0(Chile incidentally, being the country Kissinger was referring to earlier) although one should add our politically ill-fated PM got off very light compared to Allende. Above else, he subscribed to basic principles of national sovereignty and self-determination in the management of our political economy, with any notion of empire or hegemony, much less any outward manifestation of it, being utterly anathema to him.<\/p>\n

To say Australia \u2013 arguably America\u2019s most steadfast to a fault vassal state \u2014 had not experienced anything quite it before or since is an understatement of heroic proportions. And the reason why it has not happened since that time is simple: Our politicians, especially those from the nominally left side of politics, to their credit (dubious as such \u201ccredit\u201d might be for many) learned their lesson well. They have behaved themselves for the duration, with now little sign any of Whitlam\u2019s political heirs in the Labor Party will ever try and repeat history anytime soon. In what many Americans I suspect will view then as a not dissimilar state of play on their own turf, there is little daylight between the foreign policy positions of both our major parties. This is especially so when it comes to Australian-U.S. relations (much like one suspects that of the U.S-Israeli relationship where each party tries to top each other in its demonstrations of fealty to Tel Aviv, the key distinction being that the roles of David and Goliath are reversed), and that of\u00a0ANZUS<\/a><\/strong>, the formal foreign policy and military-intelligence-security alliance that underpins these relations.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Screwing Around & Bouncing Up & Down (Spies Amongst the Pines) \u2014<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For our purposes herein it is instructive to look at at least part of the backstory of this prototype\u00a0colour revolution<\/a>. Space herein precludes a blow-by-blow of the skulduggery and \u2018hugger-muggery\u2019 that brought about Whitlam\u2019s downfall, and we\u2019ll revisit this regime renovation project in a future narrative in more detail. Suffice to say that a number of \u2018household\u2019 \u201cDeep State\u201d names either played key roles in the removal of Whitlam or made not insignificant cameo appearances in the long, drawn out saga. Admittedly they did so ever so discreetly whereby it wasn\u2019t until sometime later the true, if still incomplete, nature of their roles were revealed, an all too familiar leitmotif in the annals of CIA-inspired regime change management.*<\/p>\n

(*This was especially applicable in relation to the notorious\u00a0Nugan-Hand Bank<\/strong>\u00a0(NHB) scandal,<\/a>\u00a0an epic John le Carre meets Warren Zevon \u2018[Bring] Lawyers, Guns, Drugs, \u2018n Money\u2019-like saga that prologued early in the Whitlam era and which is \u2018up there\u2019 with the best \u2018entertainment\u2019 that the\u00a0CIA\u2019s \u201cFamily Jewels\u201d<\/a>\u00a0chronicle has to offer. Along with recounting the deeper narrative of Whitlam\u2019s career demise, we will look into the NHB Thing in a future article.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At this point, it\u2019s enough to know the main catalysts for the coup. This requires an overview of some of the history and strategic nature of the U.S.-Australian relationship itself, if for no other reason than most Americans (and doubtless more than a few of my fellow Aussies) would probably not appreciate the importance to the U.S. \u2013 indeed, to the Anglo-American alliance overall \u2013 of this long-standing, albeit one-sided, marriage of convenience. As always with these things, context and perspective matters. If it indeed was a \u201cmarriage\u201d, then it was one made less in heaven than in Washington, unless America\u2019s capital might, in an as yet unimagined alternative universe, qualify as some idyllic empyrean equivalent thereof, a \u2018meditation\u2019 of sorts even its most deluded, deranged denizens might have difficulty undertaking.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0one of the Five Eyes<\/a>, Australia for this reason alone, was not then \u2013 nor now \u2014 just another tin-pot, \u201cThird World\u201d backwater on the butt-end of the Big Blue Ball. For one thing our\u00a0location,\u00a0<\/em>to say nothing of our sheer size, our modern economic and industrial infrastructure, our political stability, our continental island nation status and its very isolation, provided then as now the near perfect locus point from which the U.S. could project into the Asian region its all-encompassing hegemonic ambition via the charter explicit in its\u00a0\u2018full-spectrum dominance\u2019<\/a>\u00a0strategy. As in real estate, in geopolitics we might argue it\u2019s also about \u201clocation, location, and location!\u201d These considerations are even more critical now, some might opine existentially so. This is especially so with the ascendancy of China both strategically and economically, along with more broadly that of the East Asian, and increasingly\u00a0South<\/em>and\u00a0Central<\/em>\u00a0Asian, nations.<\/p>\n

It might surprise most Americans (and again, no doubt a few Aussies as well), that one of the most vital components of the U.S. imperial communications network is located at Pine Gap in the middle of the continent. This controversial, state-of-the-art facility forms the centrepiece of our Five Eyes infrastructure, and has done going back well before Whitlam\u2019s heyday. So important is this facility, it\u2019s arguable that without Pine Gap, the Apollo program \u2013 including the 1969 moon landing \u2014 would\u00a0not<\/em>have been possible. But Pine Gap was never\u00a0just<\/em>\u00a0about getting a man on the moon and back: Of even greater relevance for our purposes, the facility serves as the linchpin satellite reconnaissance station for spying and surveillance of friend and foe alike. Its principal task throughout the Cold War was keeping a keen eye on those decidedly untrustworthy Soviets, essentially monitoring how diligently they were adhering to arms control treaties and nuclear testing agreements. The Pine Gap facility remains still an integral component of the central nervous system of the\u00a0imperial panopticon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The Pine Gap Facility, Alice Springs. Nerve Centre of the Imperial Panopticon Down Under. Once a \u201cmatter of contention\u201d, now not so much!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

For this reason alone, it is worth explaining a little more about its current\u00a0raison d\u2019etre<\/em>. Along with affirming Pine Gap as the most important communications facility outside [the U.S.], performing a vital role in the collection of a wide range of \u2018signals-intelligence\u2019,\u00a0Richard Tanter<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>of\u00a0The Nautilus Institute of Security and Sustainability<\/a><\/strong>(NISS) notes also that it functions in,\u2019\u00a0providing early warning ballistic missile launches; targeting of nuclear weapons; providing battlefield intelligence data for U.S. armed forces operating in Afghanistan; and elsewhere\u2026.critically supporting\u2026. missile defence, supporting arms control verification, and contributing targeting data to drone attacks.\u2019<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

As Aussie based geopolitical analyst\u00a0Binoy Kampmark<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>notes drily in a recent piece on the 50th anniversary of Pine Gap and the controversy such milestones inevitably give rise to,<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2026all this cut, dried and smoked material [in the NISS Report] conveys the relevance of Australia\u2019s continued geographical role as a dry goods merchant for Washington. It supplies the isolation and the means for the U.S. imperium, as officials in Canberra keep mum about the sheer extent [to which] Pine Gap operates. It also\u00a0supplies the bloodied hand<\/u>\u00a0that assists U.S.-directed drone strikes in theatres where neither Washington nor Canberra are [sic] officially at war.\u00a0Australia remains America\u2019s glorified manservant<\/u>.\u2019\u00a0<\/em>[Emphasis added.]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Pilger again has noted, from the off Whitlam didn\u2019t exactly go out of his way to endear himself to Washington\u2019s elites or the U.S. security establishment, akin to waving a red flag in a wounded bull\u2019s face. Soon after his euphoric, Obama-like election triumph in 1972, he ordered that his staff should not be \u201cvetted or harassed\u201d by the\u00a0Australian Security & Intelligence Organisation (ASIO)<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 then, as now, effectively a wholly owned subsidiary of The Company. Moreover, when his ministers\u00a0publicly condemned<\/a>\u00a0the U.S. bombing of Vietnam as \u201ccorrupt and barbaric\u201d, according to Pilger, an unnamed CIA station officer in Saigon said:\u00a0\u2018We were told the Australians might as well be regarded as North Vietnamese collaborators.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Whitlam stretched Washington\u2019s friendship further by demanding to know if the CIA was running a spy base at Pine Gap. Notwithstanding its official, somewhat anodyne function as described by NISS, Pine Gap was a giant vacuum cleaner, one which, as\u00a0Edward Snowden<\/strong>\u00a0revealed<\/a>, allows the U.S. to spy on everyone everywhere.\u00a0\u2018Try to screw us or bounce us\u2019,\u00a0<\/em>the prime minister warned the then US ambassador\u00a0Marshall Green<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 himself a Kissinger hatchet-man, and a key architect of the 1965 Indonesian coup ushering in the decades long rule of \u2018klepto-brutocrat\u2019 and U.S. client dictator\u00a0President Suharto<\/strong>,\u00a0resulting in the wholesale massacre<\/a>\u00a0of upwards of 1m people \u2013\u00a0\u2018[and Pine Gap] will become a matter of contention\u2019.\u00a0<\/em>Widely seen himself as no slouch in the \u2018coup-master\u2019 stakes, Green was, in Pilger\u2019s summation,\u00a0\u2018an imperious, sinister figure who worked in the shadows of America\u2019s \u201cdeep state\u201d\u2019<\/em>. Indeed, an alarmed audience member hearing his first speech to the Australian Institute of Directors described its as,\u00a0\u2018an incitement to the country\u2019s business leaders to rise [up] against the government\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n

As for Whitlam\u2019s implied threats regarding Pine Gap, to say such utterances ruffled a few feathers in Washington would be an understatement, and it\u2019s probably safe to say [that] from that day onwards, Whitlam\u2019s political career \u2013 and Australia\u2019s short-lived independence \u2014 entered its fateful downward trajectory. According to Pilger,\u00a0Victor Marchetti,<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0the legendary CIA officer who later went \u2018rogue\u2019 by writing a \u2018kiss \u2018n tell\u2019 expose on The Company and who was actually involved in setting up the facility, told him that,\u00a0\u2018This threat to close Pine Gap caused apoplexy in the White House\u2026[after which] a kind of Chilean [coup] was set in motion.\u2019<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 The Wicked Witch is Dead \u2014<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Christopher Boyce, A sort of Edward Snowden of his Day. Hobbies: Falconry, and Espionage<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It\u2019s worth noting that the highly classified intelligence that Pine Gap gathered was deciphered and later\u00a0revealed publicly by\u00a0Christopher Boyce<\/strong><\/a>, who worked for a company called TRW, at the time a CIA contractor. Boyce was troubled by the\u00a0\u2018deception and betrayal of an ally\u2019<\/em>\u00a0and this was apparently what motivated him to do what he did. This espionage narrative was later turned into a film called\u00a0The Falcon and the Snowman\u00a0<\/em>(from a book of the same name), and amongst other revelations Boyce disclosed that the CIA had infiltrated Australia\u2019s political and trade union elite and they actually referred to the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, as \u201cour man Kerr\u201d.<\/p>\n

Boyce, who eventually did twenty-five years in prison for treason for selling secrets to the Soviets, in a wide-ranging 2014 interview, again confirmed his belief that the CIA was behind Kerr\u2019s decision to oust Whitlam, by using a little known Constitutional provision that enabled the head of state (Kerr) to revoke Whitlam\u2019s commission, and appoint a caretaker government. In CIA circles at the time he said,\u00a0\u2018<\/em>you couldn\u2019t say Whitlam\u2019s name without the spooks\u2026looking nauseated. He was viewed as a threat to the [Pine Gap] project\u2026\u2019<\/em>\u00a0On the day of Whitlam\u2019s dismissal he recalled the reaction of the CIA folks whom he liaised with:<\/p>\n

\u2018[There] was a party, it was jubilation. The wicked witch was dead, you know. He was gone, nothing more to worry about. And it was just a sense of relief because they really did think he was going to close [Pine Gap] down. He was going to turn off our eyes, and they were worried, you know.\u2019<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At this point also we require an appreciation of some additional history of our country, in particular how we morphed from being at the beck and call of the British Empire to playing a similar role\u00a0vis a vis<\/em>the U.S. imperium. Again the man who provides us a most illuminating insight into the events of 1975 is our own John Pilger. In seeking to break free from the confines of U.S. imperial power, Whitlam was up against as much opposition internally as he inevitably came up against externally, a not uncommon scenario in such instances where a new ruling party in an ostensible independent nation decides to take it up to Washington. And although his removal from office in such an unprecedented, unceremonious manner doubtless never figured into his trail-blazing reform calculus,\u00a0in Pilger\u2019s summation<\/a>, Whitlam had few illusions about what might lie ahead of him, in either the domestic or foreign policy front.<\/p>\n

In the post-World War Two era, having by then weaned ourselves off the attachments to imperial Britain that attended our former colonial status, the legacy of which had remained intact despite the country becoming an independent Federation in 1901, Australia\u2019s political establishment was nonetheless wedded to the notion of dependence on a Great Power alliance for its national security. After all, to this end we\u2019d dutifully served\u00a0perfidious Albion<\/a>\u00a0from the\u00a0Boer War<\/a>\u00a0to the\u00a0Boxer Rebellion<\/a>, from the Great War on up to the \u201cGood War\u201d (WWII), with interestingly little or nothing to show for such fealty to an empire which by then had morphed into the\u00a0ancien r\u00e9gime<\/em>. If this sounds like Britain got the better part of the deal then so be it, and it also begs another question as to whether anything has changed, a theme to which we shall return.<\/p>\n

After WWII, that new Great Imperial Power of course was the United States, although admittedly in the immediate post-war years this incipient status was not immediately apparent. Less than five years after the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ending the war in the Pacific, Australia once again found itself sucking up to empire in Korea, and fifteen years after that, in Vietnam, a war in which, as befitting our vassal status, we virtually begged to become involved. Put another way, it was \u201csame deputy, different sheriff!\u201d<\/p>\n

For his part investigative journalist\u00a0Jonathan Kwitny,<\/strong>\u00a0in his seminal 1987 classic expose\u00a0The Crimes of Patriots:\u00a0<\/em>A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA<\/em><\/a><\/strong>\u00a0noted that Kerr was a fully paid up subscriber to the long-since defunct Australian Association for Cultural Freedom (AACF), effectively the Antipodean \u2018franchise\u2019 of the Congress for Cultural Freedom. The CCF was a U.S. based entity established by the CIA in 1950 whose mission ostensibly was to combat Communism and Soviet propaganda, and by extrapolation, to promote global democratic principles, at least as they were defined (then as now in a moving feast kinda way) by Uncle Sam. If this sounds awfully familiar for some, it is meant to be. Which is to say, clearly the Washington regime change playbook has been around so long now it\u2019s no longer subject to copyright!<\/p>\n

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The Crimes of Patriots: Jonathan Kwitny\u2019s Epic Tale of CIA hugger-muggery and skulduggery Down Under.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Founding secretary of the AACF was a man called\u00a0Richard Krygier<\/a>, who also founded, and became the first editor of,\u00a0Quadrant<\/em><\/a>, a conservative Aussie periodical (still \u2018Johnnie Walker\u2019), also originally funded by AACF and the CIA.\u00a0<\/em>Put another way, the AACF was an early forerunner to the\u00a0types of front organisations<\/a>such as\u00a0Freedom House<\/a>\u00a0and the infamous, democracy-defying\u00a0National Endowment for Democracy<\/a>\u00a0(NED).\u00a0These NGOs as we now know are much favored by the Langley crowd and their neo-conservative confreres the Beltway Bedlamites, their titular nomenclature in true Orwellian tradition masking a\u00a0raison d\u2019\u00eatre<\/em>\u00a0somewhat at odds with their real mission. Indeed, it was organizations such as these to which the CIA outsourced its regime renovation activities in 1983 under then\u00a0CIA director\u00a0William Casey<\/strong><\/a>. As\u00a0noted geopolitical analyst\u00a0William Engdahl<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0has said,\u00a0\u2018the NED<\/em>\u00a0has been at the center of all major US State Department-financed \u201ccolor revolutions\u201d in the world since 2000 [including toppling]\u2026Milosevic in Serbia.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 A Matter of Contention No More \u2014<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In order to view the U.S.-Australia relationship in a more contemporary context, it is important to consider the opinions of some prominent Australian public figures about the ever-evolving geopolitical landscape, and from there showcase a more detached, less insular appraisal of U.S. economic, foreign, and national security policy as it has been unfolding in recent years. The aim here is to portray how the continued maintenance of this relationship \u2013 a strategically lopsided affiliation which remains all but a bedrock principle of our own foreign policy, one embraced with equal, unerring enthusiasm by both our major political parties and which is likely to assume even greater importance to the U.S. over the coming years and decades \u2013 potentially places our political economy, our national security, our self-determination and sovereignty, and that of our future place in the increasingly Asian-centric geopolitical and geo-economic order, at even greater risk.<\/p>\n

In an article earlier this year distinguished Australian public figure\u00a0John Menadue<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0posted\u00a0an article<\/a>\u00a0on his blog Pearls and Irritations, which suggested that the \u201cincreasing\u00a0<\/em>influence\u201d of\u00a0the military and defence establishment in shaping Australia\u2019s foreign policy is such that it has effectively undermined the authority of our Foreign Affairs Minister\u00a0Julie Bishop<\/strong>\u00a0and that of her Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade (DFAT). In what should amount to a familiar refrain for many in Washington, Menadue noted the following:<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018Our \u2018foreign policy\u2019 (sic) has been taken over by the defence, security and military clique led by the Department of Defence, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute which is financed by DoD and defence contractors, ASIO, Border Protection and the Office of National Assessments\u2026\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although active players in contemporary political, diplomatic, and mainstream media circles might refute the tenets of his article, the most telling of Menadue\u2019s observation was the following: For him it is patently obvious that our military and defence clique in Australia is in turn\u00a0\u2018heavily dependent<\/u>\u00a0on the US Departments of Defense, State, [the] CIA and FBI for advice.\u2019\u00a0<\/em>[Emphasis Added].<\/p>\n

To underscore both the legitimacy and credibility of Menadue\u2019s views,\u00a0some understanding<\/a>\u00a0of his place in the political firmament and his background of achievement over six decades in both the public and private sectors is useful. From 1960 to 1967 he was private secretary to then deputy opposition leader\u00a0Gough Whitlam<\/a>. Menadue then moved into the private sector for seven years as General Manager of\u00a0Rupert Murdoch<\/strong>\u2019s News Limited<\/a>, and from 1974 to 1976 was head of the Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet. Interestingly, he was \u201cclosely involved\u2019 in the events of 1975 that led to Whitlam\u2019s dismissal, and then served in the same position under\u00a0Malcolm Fraser<\/strong>\u00a0(of whom, more soon), the man who controversially succeeded Whitlam as PM. After a stretch as Japanese Ambassador from 1976 to 1980, Menadue returned to head the Department of Immigration & Ethnic Affairs, and later in 1983, the Department of Trade. From there he was appointed CEO of Qantas (1986-1989), became a Director of Telstra (our biggest telco; 1994-996), and was also Chairman of the Australia Japan Foundation (1991-1998). So all up, Menadue was not a man whose opinions might be dismissed easily. At 82, he\u2019s still \u2018Johnnie Walker\u2019 and as his blog attests, remains a respected, robust voice in national and business affairs, and in public policy.<\/p>\n

Whether academic, politician or public servant, as a prominent public figure, Menadue, of course is not on his Pat Malone in highlighting issues\u00a0vis a vis<\/em>\u00a0maintaining our relationship with the U.S. in its current form. The failure or unwillingness of successive governments\u2019 to grasp and respond to the new realities that are almost daily presenting themselves as the balance of the geopolitical\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0geo-economic order tips irrevocably eastward are of particular concern. Of equal concern is that of our reigning political and policy elites \u2013 and again our mainstream media \u2018opinionocracy\u2019 as well \u2014 continued insistence that the bedrock precepts of our foreign, national security, and even our trade policies \u2014 should remain aligned with, even in service thereof, the interests of Washington and Wall Street.<\/p>\n

As he noted in\u00a0an article last year<\/a>, long time defence and intelligence analyst, Professor\u00a0Hugh White<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0of the\u00a0Strategic and Defence Studies Centre<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0at the Australian National University (ANU), criticised the most\u00a0recent Aussie Defence White Paper<\/a>\u00a0(DWP) in its presumption of America\u2019s enduring global primacy. In White\u2019s view, whether in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, or especially in Asia, said \u201cprimacy\u201d is no longer a given, even if Washington is struggling to come to terms with such realities. As he observes, the DWP promotes a vision of the\u00a0\u2018rules-based global order\u2019<\/em>\u00a0as a\u00a0\u2018seamless and indivisible whole that must be either preserved unaltered or surrendered in its entirety\u2019<\/em>. It sends he says,<\/p>\n

\u2018a clear message\u00a0Australia should be willing to join a war against China<\/u>\u00a0to preserve [the rules-based global order] unaltered.\u2019<\/em>\u00a0White doesn\u2019t mince words here,\u00a0\u2018This is plainly wrong\u2019.<\/em>\u00a0[Emphasis added.]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The implications for this should not be lost on Australians, and are increasingly seen that way, especially by younger folks. As to whether we might say the same for Americans is an entirely different matter. It most certainly will not be lost on the Chinese themselves \u2013 or for that matter other rising Asian powers such as India, South Korea, or indeed, even an economically resurgent Japan. All this, to say little of other potentially quiet achievers like Indonesia and to a lesser extent, Vietnam.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The latest PEW research indicating that amongst the above key U.S. allies, all are increasingly concerned about the threats posed by U.S. power. (The increases are up from PEW\u2019s research from 2013.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

To add to all of this \u2013 and to underscore the reality that it isn\u2019t just always about geopolitical considerations \u2014 for the first time in Australia\u2019s history, we are facing a geopolitical and national security dilemma of considerable magnitude: Our long-time major business and trading (or economic) partner China \u2013 an alliance kick-started by Whitlam, and which has contributed enormously to our country\u2019s stellar economic performance over the past two decades or more and which played\u00a0no small part<\/a>\u00a0in enabling us in ways the U.S. itself wasn\u2019t able to, [to] weather the fallout from the Global Financial Crisis (itself largely the consequence of the monumental recklessness of America\u2019s multi-national corporate and financial behemoths, fortified by the enduring subservience and acquiescence of its political, legislative and regulatory elites), is now being challenged directly and no less recklessly and provocatively by our long-time military and security (or strategic) partner the U.S., in the words of a\u00a0former Prime Minister<\/a>\u00a0\u201cOur great and powerful friend\u201d\u2018.<\/p>\n

Here again, the implications are stark indeed. It would not be unreasonable to suggest this \u201cdilemma\u201d, this challenge\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0the existential risk that attends it, far surpasses certainly anything we were presented in the First World War, and arguably even that presented to us in the Second World War, when\u00a0Japanese planes were bombing Darwin<\/a>\u00a0and their Navy\u2019s submarines were\u00a0mischief-making in Sydney Harbour.<\/a><\/p>\n

In an assessment in last year prior to our Federal election, renowned former\u00a0diplomat and senior public servant\u00a0Richard Woolcott<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0also shared views not dissimilar to both O\u2019Neill and Menadue. As a highly regarded commentator on international affairs with a special expertise on the Asian region (he was at varying points Aussie Ambassador to Indonesia, the Philippines, and the United Nations, along with at one point, president of the UN Security Council), his views cannot, indeed should not, be lightly dismissed.<\/p>\n

For the now 90-year-old Woolcott \u2014 whose diplomatic pedigree, as impressive as that of Menadue\u2019s in the nation\u2019s public service, saw him in Australia\u2019s embassy in Moscow at the time of Stalin\u2019s death in 1953, and much later as the most senior diplomat at the DFAT \u2014 it is imperative for any future Australian government to be ever mindful of geo-economic factors as much the mutable geopolitical ones. Woolcott seems to appreciate in ways other commentators and analysts possibly don\u2019t \u2013 including those on either side of the Pacific Pond and on both sides of the political divide Down Under \u2014 the indisputable historical reality that it\u2019s (geo)economic factors that drive geopolitical developments (from relatively minor border skirmishes to world wars) and not so much the other way around. As he observes, the<\/p>\n

\u2018<\/em>unprecedented transfer of wealth from the West to the East, from the Atlantic to the Pacific\u2026will continue into the foreseeable future.\u2019\u00a0<\/em>This seismic shift he says,\u00a0\u2018constitute(s) an historic global turning point to which Australia\u00a0must respond if we are not to find ourselves left behind<\/u>.\u2019<\/em>\u00a0[Emphasis added.]\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For his part in 2016,\u00a0former PM\u00a0Paul Keating<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(1991-1996) also threw his hat into the ring questioning the alliance. Keating said it was time to\u00a0\u2018cut the tag\u2019<\/em>, and that\u00a0\u2018focusing less on the alliance between the two countries and concentrating more on relationships within Asia\u2019<\/em>\u00a0was the way forward. He added,\u00a0\u2018We\u2019ve got to this almost sort of crazy position now where the American alliance, instead of simply being a treaty where the U.S. is obliged to consult with us in the event of adverse strategic circumstances, it has taken on a reverential, sacramental quality\u2026.I\u2019m not talking about simply the [present Liberal] Government, I\u2019m talking about people on the Labor [opposition] side as well.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 Going Forward Down Under (With or Without the Empire) \u2014<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And if that might not have been enough to unsettle the Beltway Bedlamites, in 2014, another of our former prime ministers\u00a0Malcolm Fraser<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(1975-1983), gave an eyebrow raising interview. Fraser was at the time promoting his book\u00a0Dangerous Ally<\/em><\/a>, the \u201cally\u201d in this case being the Empire\u00a0du jour<\/em>\u00a0the U.S. Here was a former Liberal (read: \u201cconservative\u201d) PM of America\u2019s most faithful geopolitical sidekick not simply emerging from the political closet and declaring our\u00a0ANZUS alliance<\/a>\u00a0with the U.S. in need of a major strategic review \u2013 such opinions being anathema in political circles on both sides of the divide no matter how cautiously one advances them \u2013 but proclaiming it \u201cdangerous\u201d to adhere to this treaty.<\/p>\n

In referencing our history of \u201cstrategic dependence\u201d \u2013 firstly on Britain, then on the U.S. after WWII \u2014 he recommended a more independent stance, free of the diktats of Washington\u2019s war-meisters. Fraser went even further by noting that not only is conflict between China and Japan \u2018possible\u2019, but that the U.S. have\u00a0\u2018made it plain that they would side with Japan\u2019<\/em>\u00a0if there is such a conflict. As things stand he said,<\/p>\n

\u2018[We\u2019d] get dragged in to that conflict, when our interest would be to stay well clear of it. Now, if you\u2019ve got those troops in Darwin being used in relation to such a conflict, and Pine Gap was being used to give direction to a variety of weapons systems, the prime minister could [not] get up and say \u201cOh, look, we\u2019re not involved, we\u2019re not complicit\u201d. [But] we would be complicit [and] the world would know [we were]. And that means that [America]\u00a0has the power to take Australia to war<\/u>\u00a0[just] as Britain a hundred years ago had the power to take Australia to war because we were part of the Empire.\u2019<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What made such declarations both fascinating and anomalous at the same time was because it was Fraser \u2013 the man succeeding Whitlam after his unceremonious ouster \u2013 who was the primary political agitator for Whitlam\u2019s demise, and a man who thereafter became reviled by the left and more liberal\/progressive elements for his efforts in creating the Constitutional crisis. (There is no evidence of which I\u2019m aware that Fraser knew of any CIA involvement in initiating the Crisis, either before, during, or after. For his part, and for reasons best known to himself, Whitlam always played the CIA factor down. One wonders as to what they might have talked about privately though in their years of dotage and many discussions.)<\/p>\n

Fraser was also a Defence Minister for a period at the height of Australia\u2019s involvement in the Vietnam War, a military commitment on our part entered into by his own party, and one he later came to regret. For this writer, the fact that these men later became friends remains one of the most glaringly ironic and unpredictable developments in our own (and possibly anyone\u2019s) political history.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser \u2014 He used to be a Fan of Uncle Sam you Know?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

And for Fraser to come out albeit many years later to declare that Australia should seek more independence from the U.S. \u2013 the very stance upon Whitlam\u2019s part which upset Washington so much at the time and which contributed so emphatically to his political demise \u2013 is the stuff you simply couldn\u2019t make up! Few politicians of which I\u2019m aware have undergone such an extraordinary Damascene conversion on so many policy levels, and left so many folks including some of our sharpest political analysts and commentators scratching their heads, many as much in bewilderment and in wonderment,with unsurprisingly, more than a few less than impressed..<\/p>\n

It has to be said then that much of this soul-searching about our relationship with Uncle Sam can be attributed to the feelings generated by America\u2019s ill-fated and ill-judged response to the attacks of 9\/11; in particular the invasion of Iraq and the consequential blowback from that disastrous decision, and from the so-called War on Terror in general that has been raging seemingly without end since 2001. Like all countries, Australia has not been immune to the immense economic and strategic transformations that have taken place as a result of America\u2019s relentless and ruthless campaign to achieve full spectrum dominance in all spheres of geopolitical influence \u2013 one triggered by 9\/11 and on which said \u201ccampaign\u201d continues to be justified, without any serious protest thus far from its Western partners and allies \u2014 whilst countering, even aggressively pre-empting, with every resource at its disposal any real or imagined challenge from other upstart power players. Until and unless the Bedlamites who seem to be running the Beltway circus begin to appreciate how catastrophically their actions and provocations are impacting on global peace, security, and stability, we are unlikely to see any change.<\/p>\n

The argument here in Australia for those who unequivocally support this alliance will be that this is not a good time to be second guessing it, given the increasingly precarious situation in global affairs. These same folks though confuse cause and effect, and it is a specious argument. The reality is that in the pursuit of full spectrum dominance, that \u201cpeace, security, and stability\u201d has been consistently and deliberately undermined by the U.S. ever since the fall of the Soviet Union, a project that went into hyperdrive after 9\/11, with no sign of slowing down anytime soon. The irony here is as inescapable as it is profound. We could well end up embroiled in a cataclysmic\u00a0confrontation not of our own making \u2014 yet as Fraser observed rightly, one in which we\u2019ve allowed ourselves to become \u201ccomplicit\u201d \u2014 not unlike that of\u00a0the one in 1914<\/a>\u00a0with the\u00a0ancien regime<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And although an aspect of the relationship that will be discussed another time, it\u2019s worth noting the following. Given the largely bipartisan embrace of the now defunct\u00a0Trans-Pacific Partnership<\/a>, much the same could now be said of the economic relationship between the two countries. Again, that is unlikely to change anytime soon, if and when some future variation of the TPP is presented for consideration, which we can all expect that it will be at some point. Further evidence of this acquiescence and fealty in economic and financial matters can be found in both parties who for decades have until recently dragged the chain on calling major multi-nationals to account \u2013 predominantly U.S. incorporated companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Chevron, Pfizer, ExxonMobil, News Corp, and AMEX to name a few of the usual suspects \u2014 on their well-documented\u00a0tax dodging sleights of hand<\/a>. Even though the present Liberal\/National coalition government has been signalling plans to halt these practices which are short changing Aussie taxpayers by tens of billions of dollars if not more in lost revenue, they are at the same time (wait for it!) planning to\u00a0reduce<\/em>\u00a0corporate tax rates, with the companies presumably on a recruitment drive to employ more tax accountants, lawyers and lobbyists to minimise the negative impact of any new legislation designed to curtail their current avoidance scams and maximise the benefits of the lowered tax rate when both come into effect.<\/p>\n

The result: At best, a two-steps forward legislative \u2014 and revenue \u2014 outcome; at worst: the opposite! Though Australia fared relatively well in the wake of the 2008 GFC, in the view of many we will not fare anywhere near as well the next time around. In the absence of a\u00a0Glass-Steagall-type\u00a0<\/a>legislative initiative imposed on our biggest banks, their current practices are beginning to emulate those of the Wall Street banks, which have themselves done little to curb their criminal ways, forever seeking to prevent any and all attempts to address the structural deficiencies in the U.S. financial system that brought the system to the precipice almost a decade ago.<\/p>\n

For a lot of folks, it\u2019s only a matter of time before the \u201cprecipice\u201d comes to us. Whether on a geo-economic level or a geopolitical level, our continued alliance with the Empire du jour\u00a0under the present arrangement<\/em>\u00a0is a zero-sum game for us. Those countries with similar alliances and attachments would do well to be also similarly concerned.<\/p>\n

Greg Maybury,
\nPerth, Australia<\/p>\n

___
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