Category: Politics

Any assessment of what, if anything, countries outside the region should do about the seizure by ISIL of substantial portions of Syria and Iraq, should be based on the answers to three basic questions: what is the significance of this event; whose fight is it; what can be done about it, effectively.

On the principle that you will only get the right answer if you ask the right questions. It is important that these three questions be the right ones. They appear to be.

In arriving at the decision to, immediately join the US organized coalition to “ degrade and destroy” ISIL, the Abbott government advanced a simple answer to these questions.

In its view ISIL’s actions: pose a significant threat to Australia’s security and that of it’s friends; it is, thus, our fight; and, presumably it believes that the international coalition organized by the US can win this fight.

The elemental assessment of threat to Australia will have been made by competent Australian Agencies, in consultation with those of friends; particularly US and UK Agencies.

Barring a leak, we will not know what the Agencies have advised the Government and it has ruled out a Parliamentary discussion of the decision to commit Australian forces.

The main contours of the Agencies’ advice has possibly been shown by the remarkable media conference by the Prime Minister and the retiring Head of ASIO, David Irvine, in which the Prime Minister announced a significant elevation of the status of the threat to Australia but said no specific threat had been identified. Although we are now, apparently seriously threatened, Australians, he said, should go about their business as normal.

The Prime Minister has proven interesting in this context through the extent to which he seems to think: the people are truly simpletons; won’t get it but are able to be frightened; and, that he can rely on the reasoning that whatever is in US interest is in ours. Some people believe that, some don’t. Prime Minister Abbott seems not to feel the need to address it, or have it debated, publicly.

Much more important than such tired reasoning would prove to be, are the other two questions. Here, there is a serious dilemma.

By invading Iraq in 2003, the US and its friends, including Australia, played a fundamental part in creating the circumstances we now witness. Subsequent actions by the US occupying authority, then the Maliki Government in Iraq and the Assad Government in Syria, made their own

destructive contributions. The list of those who have also sought to influence, manipulate the situation to their own ends, both overtly and covertly, is very long.

It is not an oversimplification to state that the answer to the second question: whose fight is it, is that the fight belongs to those where it is taking place, in the region. No one else can solve the nationalist, political, and ethno-confessional problems involved

The states concerned, such as Iraq, are free, of course to ask for outside help. But there’s the rub.

It was intervention from the outside which authored the problem; it is such intervention which forms an extended and popular narrative within the region of: western aggression, transparent interests in oil, anti- Muslim policies etc. It is extremely difficult to see how another burst of intervention can be the cure to problems triggered initially by such intervention.

Thoughtful people in Washington and London have been making this point. Has the same been true in Canberra?

Then there’s the third question; the core dilemma: – can there be effective action?

There seems to be serious doubt that air strikes on ISIL will defeat them. The Chair of the US Joint Chief’s of Staff has recognized, in the Congress’ Armed Services Committee, that the US advisors now back in Iraq may need to be assigned to combat missions. Remember that President Obama came to office on the promise of ending US combat in Iraq.

There is also deep unrest about what action might be taken inside Syria that either does not have the agreement of the Assad government or would appear to be in support of that government. This would be unacceptable, for the obvious reasons: the innumerable dead in Syria and the 3 million refugees, from its civil war.

The idea that the self described civilized world should do nothing about a group as criminal as ISIL seems compelling, and indeed ISIL seems, perversely, to rely on this. That is presumably the point of the beheading of western prisoners; to cause western intervention, thus supporting the narrative referred to above. But knowing what exactly to do. What would be effective is still unclear.

The only solution to this dilemma on offer at present is the military action against ISIL now being set in motion, with Australian participation.

But, the necessary condition for this to succeed is actually not a military one but the forging of a common political purpose amongst the States of the region. They have a basic interest in ensuring that legitimately constituted States remain the actors in international relations, not self proclaimed entities such as the so called Caliphate. But, it is not yet clear that this common purpose is at hand.

Australia can readily endorse that interest and principle but it is not clear that this motive will be attributed to us by the States concerned rather than their seeing, once again, our simply siding with the US, on a Middle East issue, for alliance reasons, rather than because of the principle of State sovereignty.

The government should have emphasized our political and diplomatic support for that principle, rather than the allegedly heightened threat within Australia. This would have been the right decision, for the right reason.

But then, if we were to be consistent in our foreign policy we would vote in favour of a Palestinian State membership of the United Nations at the current session of the General Assembly. There’s another rub.

Richard Butler is a former Australian Ambassador to the United Nations and Executive Head of the UN Special Commission to disarm Iraq. He is a Professor of International Affairs at Penn State University.

How ironic it was that last week Saudi Arabia should host a meeting between the foreign
ministers of the Arab League and U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, to discuss what to
do about the growing crisis about Islamic State (IS). The fact is that IS is inspired by
Salafism, a small branch of Islam sponsored by Saudi Arabia. What’s more, it is said to
have got plenty of its money from Saudi supporters.
Salafism represents only about three percent of the world’s Moslems. It eschews modern
morality and the accepted ways of 21st century life. It wants what it regards as a pure form
of Islam which is really what applied in medieval times. It supports sharia laws long
abandoned by most Moslems. Within the space of a fortnight last month in Saudi Arabia 19 people were beheaded, nearly half of them for non-violent crimes. That may be why IS
adherents apparently regard this as the norm and acceptable practice.

The Saudis find themselves in a terrible dilemma. King Abdullah wants his country to move forward from some of its questionable practices, such as its strict dress code, zealous religious police and suppression of women’s rights, and put an end to cruel movements like IS. But he is a prisoner of the Salafi clerics.

‘The king is a moderniser’, says Ed Husain, a Moslem and adjunct senior fellow at the
Council on Foreign Relations in the U.S. ‘But he and his advisers do not wish to disturb the
270-year-old tribal pact pact between the House of Saud and the founder of Wahhabism,
an austere form of Islam close to Salafism. It is time to nullify that 1744 desert pact’.
Easier said than done, of course. While compromise is always possible in political matters,
it is out of the question when it comes to deep-rooted religious extremism.
Saudi Arabia faces another dilemma: What to do? It has already outlawed IS, has donated
$100 million to the United Nations to help with counter-terrorism, has banned public and
private donations to support IS (though they still happen) and has signed up to the U.S.-
led campaign to destroy IS. But the extent of that support is unclear. All U.S. officials would say was that the Saudis have agreed to provide bases for the training of moderate Syrian rebels fighting both the Assad regime in Damascus and IS militants in their country.
The U.S. is reluctant to push Saudi Arabia when for so long it has been an ally of
Washington, never mind its vast oil wealth and the influence that goes with it plus it being
greatest customer of American defence companies. Three years ago it signed the biggest
defence contract in history – $60 billion worth of weapons. Indeed Washington tends to tip-toe around sensitive matters in its relationship with Saudi Arabia. It continues to suppress 28 pages of the report of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into the September 11 attacks because, it is speculated, they contain evidence of Saudi complicity in the terrorist strikes.
Even though John Kerry has Saudi Arabia and nine other Arab states on board to crush IS,
it is hardly a case of ‘Here comes the cavalry’. They are mainly all Sunni countries which
do not want to risk disaffecting their people over a Sunni movement no matter how evil
they regard it. They will do their best to blacken the name of IS, choke off funding to it,
curb local support and punish countrymen who have joined the movement. The rest will be left to the U.S. and its traditional allies, including Australia. Arab states usually are reluctant to go to war. The last incident among them of any kind was in 2011 when a popular uprising in Bahrain threatened the dynastic regime there. Saudi Arabia despatched its national guard, the Emiratis sent their police forces and Kuwait assigned its gunboats to patrol the Bahrain coastline. The uprising was put down and the U.S. with its large naval presence there no doubt felt relieved.

For the Saudis, their most immediate concern is combatting the terrorist threat within,
including the Yemen-based al-Qaeda. They are also on the lookout for plots to assassinate
religious and Government officials as urged by Saudi IS members fighting in Syria.
They might also start quietly removing textbooks from schools and universities which teach Salafism. Next they could tackle the university in the holy city of Medina which, according to Ed Husain, recruits students from around the world to indoctrinate them in ‘the bigotry of Salafism’ with the aim to spread the word back in their own countries.
IS today has an estimated 30,000 active followers on the Iraqi and Syrian battlefields.
Australia, now that we are plunging back into this dangerous and unpredictable region,
should be ready for the long haul and the greater risk to our way of life. This crisis has all
the elements of a long-running one.
John Tulloh had a 40-year career in foreign news.

Friendship, states, peoples and Australia

The government of Japan struggles to reconcile servile incorporation in today’s US hegemonic project with Japan’s own nationalism, but the circle is not easily to be squared. Nationalism is distorted, denied and channeled into a ‘correct history’ movement, beautiful Japan campaigns, and antagonism to China and Korea. The wave of xenophobic abuse of China and Korea, speculation about a possible war, and ‘hate speech’ bullying of Zainichi resident Koreans, helps consolidate Abe’s support base and justify frontier militarisation. It constitutes the reverse side of his stealth revision of the constitution and promotion of military-first, US-serving priorities. Furthermore, basic insecurity is exacerbated by neoliberal policies that for more than a decade now have functioned to replace regular jobs with part-time, temporary or other non-regular ones (now accounting for 19 million people, or 38 per cent of the total workforce).

It is not as though the Abe agenda has widespread national support. He took office after the lower-house election in December 2012 delivered his party a substantial majority on the basis of 27.6 per cent of the vote in the national ‘bloc’ component (hardly different from 2009, when it took 26.7 per cent and suffered a humiliating defeat), and 16.62 million votes in the small electorate seats, more than two million fewer than the 18.81 million it took on the occasion of its 2009 defeat. Since then support levels have wavered, kept high through his first year of government by the rhetoric of Abenomics but suddenly dropping below 50 per cent (from 54 to 47 per cent] in July 2014 as the ‘collective self-defence’ doctrine was adopted.

There is now a thick fabric of cooperation and exchange between Australia and Japan. In both countries, the image of the other is generally positive, and they are urged to the embrace by their key security partner and ally, the United States. However, official Australia has a distinctive agenda not necessarily widely shared or understood in the community. It has long favoured Japanese constitutional revision and showed no sign in 2014 of concern at the way the Abe government was going about accomplishing it. It also favours an expanded Japanese regional military role and closer integration of Australian, Japanese and American forces. Official Australia is not known to have any reservations about the way the government of Japan has gone about constructing a new facility on Okinawa for the US Marine Corps or to have any apparent qualms about moves to switch the Japanese nuclear power grid (frozen in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster) back on and promote the export of nuclear-power-generation systems as a core sector of the Japanese economy. Australian silence on issues such as Yasukuni and the ‘comfort women’ is also appreciated in Tokyo, and naturally taken to signify agreement, or ‘shared’ values.

In short, Australia has yet to disentangle affection and respect for the Japanese people from identification with the values and policies of the Abe government. For the moment, few seem conscious of the distinction and so support for the Abe government and its agenda is scarcely challenged. However, those who believe they share values with the Abe government should look carefully at contemporary Japan’s complex crisis of identity, history and role; at the radical but contradictory agenda pursued by Prime Minister Abe; and not least at the burgeoning confrontation in Oura Bay in Okinawa, where the juggernaut of the state, with its monopoly of force and readiness to sacrifice nature to military ends threatens the local, non-violent, democratic and fundamentally ‘conservative’ citizenry.

Abe, the radical

Nominally conservative, Abe’s political career has been devoted to an extraordinarily radical agenda, nothing less than revision of all three of the country’s basic charters: the Constitution (1946), the Fundamental Law of Education (1947) and Ampo (the 1951/1960 security treaty with the United States). He aspires to ‘liquidate the post-war regime’ and replace it with a ‘new’ and ‘beautiful’ Japan.

Abe’s party has from its inception in 1955 been committed to revising the constitution, especially Article 9, the declaration of state pacifism. The current LDP draft constitution (of 2012) widens state prerogatives while narrowing citizen rights and transforms the existing Self-Defense Forces into a ‘national defence army’. But overt revision has never been politically feasible given the strength of public opposition. Abe has chafed especially under the constraint that all previous governments had accepted—that Japan might possess an ‘inherent’ right to collective self-defence, but the constitution ruled out its exercise. On the eve of his Australian visit Abe’s cabinet disposed of this problem by simply adopting a new interpretation, reversing the restrictive interpretation and freeing Japan’s forces for future global missions. The Japan that under its constitution from 1947 to 2014 could not go to war now can.

The evasion of constitutional principle by the simple device of reinterpretation, praised by Abbott and by the Obama government, was widely seen in Japan as a constitutional coup-d‘etat. It was in keeping with Deputy Prime Minister Aso Taro’s encomium (in a speech to party faithful on 29 July 2013) that Japan should learn from the Hitler example, the people in Germany simply waking one morning to find that their constitution no longer meant what they had thought it did. The New York Times editorialised that Japan was ‘facing a genuine test of its democracy’.

As for education, in his first term Abe succeeded in revising the Fundamental Law of Education, making it an educational requirement that schools promote ‘love of country’. Early in 2014, Abe’s Education Ministry announced that moral education was henceforth to be given a core part in the school curriculum and that history, geography and civics texts for junior and senior high schools would, from April 2016, have to ‘reflect the government’s official position on contentious historical issues’.

As for the security treaty with the United States, revision in 1960 caused such political turmoil that it has not been formally revised since then. Instead, however, de facto revision has been unceasing and fundamental, in accord with high-level governmental and inter-governmental understandings, including the National Defense Guidelines (1978, 1997 and forthcoming 2014) and the 2005–06 Agreements on ‘Transformation and Realignment’ of US forces in Japan. The fullest expression of the Abe security stance is expected to come in the late-2014 National Security Guidelines, but it is indicative that he has already opened the door to the export of Japanese weapons, established a National Security Council that concentrates power in his office, passed a ‘secrets protection’ law that prescribes draconian penalties for whistleblowers and investigative journalists and reminds some of the infamous 1925 ‘Peace Preservation Law’, is planning or constructing new Japanese bases in the far-southwestern islands of Amami, Miyako, Ishigaki and Yonaguni, and is working on plans to establish Japanese versions of the CIA and the US Marine Corps.

Australia has no known stance on educational policy, but it has long favoured constitutional revision and a ‘normal state’ (‘strong’ and war capable) agenda for Japan. The fact that Abe takes aim in particular at Japan’s democratic, citizen-based and anti-militarist elements, preferring instead a paradoxical mix of the Shintoist, the American, the beautiful and the new, seems not to have registered in the Australian consciousness.

Though Abe offends and worries the United States on many fronts, his redeeming quality is the enthusiasm he brings to the security agenda, implementing a substantial military build-up, merging with and functionally subordinating Japan’s military to that of the United States and building major new facilities for the Marine Corps in Northern Okinawa (as well as, more recently, in US territory (Guam and the Marianas)). For the cash-strapped Pentagon the prospect of such largesse,and of a 225,000-person subsidiary force, all costs met by Japan, well-trained and -equipped and ready for action on the Pentagon’s behalf under ‘collective self-defence’ principles in future wars, is irresistible.

Shared values

Much was made during the visit of the ‘shared values’ that unite Australia and Japan. But are the values of Abe or his government really widely shared? From the time of his entry into the national Diet in 1993, Abe immersed himself in the historical revisionist cause, resisting moves towards formal apology for the war and compensation for war victims and objecting to what he and his colleagues refer to scathingly as a ‘Tokyo Tribunal view of history’. He believes Japan was unjustly blamed for the China and Pacific wars of 1931 to 1945. As his friend Hyakuta Naoki, Abe-appointed director of national broadcaster NHK, put it earlier this year, the Nanjing massacre of 1937 never occurred and Americans had ‘fabricated war crimes against Japanese leaders in order to cover up American atrocities’. He and most of his cabinet today belong to organisations that look back to wartime Japan for inspiration, with names such as Dietmembers Associations ‘for the Passing on of a Correct History’, for a ‘Bright Japan’ and ‘Reflection on Japan’s Future and History Education’, and the ‘Shinto Politics League’. The basic principle of Shinto politics was articulated in January 2000 by then prime minister Mori Yoshiro, who referred to Japan as an ‘emperor-centred country of the gods’—precisely the view held by those who led Japan to the disastrous wars of the 1930s and 1940s.

The politician Abe professes to admire most is his own (maternal) grandfather, Kishi Nobusuke (1896–1987). Kishi was economic czar of Manchuria (Northeast China) in the 1930s, became minister for trade and industry in the Tojo Hideki cabinet from 1941 and signed the declaration of war against the United States, holding office in the wartime government till shortly before war’s end and being then held for three years as a suspected Class ‘A’ war criminal. Released, however, in December 1948, he became prime minister from 1957 (in which capacity he first visited Australia) to 1960. Tim Weiner’s History of the CIA refers to him as ‘one of the two most influential agents the United States ever recruited … [and who] helped carry out the CIA mission to control the government’ (which continued up to the 1970s). Commonly seen as nationalists, Abe and his grandfather are both better seen as servants of the United States posing as nationalists.

Unlike Australia, in the United States it is clear some harbour serious doubts over what values are shared with Japan. When Tony Abbott extended the invitation to Mr Abe to address a joint sitting of the Australian parliament, one wonders whether he was aware:

• that the US government has consistently denied the honour of a formal congressional address to Japan’s leaders, even though it has extended such an honour to successive Korean presidents (five in all).
• that Abe in his first spell in government (2006–07) had been subject to formal rebuke by the United States on human-rights grounds (House of Representatives Resolution 101 of 2007) for failure to acknowledge and compensate the victims of the wartime ‘comfort women’ system, and that similar resolutions had also been adopted by Canada and the EU.
• that while Abe in 2013 had to be satisfied with a businesslike White House lunch with President Obama, with no shared press conference, Chinese president Xi Jinping shortly afterwards got a respectful reception and spent a couple of days with Obama on a California ranch.
• that, when Abe brushed off strong US objections and in December 2013 visited Yasukuni Shrine, the US embassy in Tokyo released a statement that ‘the United States is disappointed [sic.] that Japan’s leadership has taken an action that will exacerbate tensions with Japan’s neighbours’, and ordered him not to repeat it.
• that President Obama himself directly rebuked Abe (in reference to his China policy) in front of a Tokyo press conference in April 2014. 

In short, the present government of the United States has serious differences with the Abe Japanese government on both war memory and China (and Korea) policy. Japanese governments have striven desperately to secure from Washington the sort of honour bestowed on them in July 2014 by Canberra. Indeed it may well be that it was Washington’s ‘Japan handlers’—some at least of them also its ‘Australia handlers’—who put together the Australia honour. Much as the George W. Bush administration put together a visit by Prime Minister Koizumi in 2007 to the Elvis Presley shrine in Memphis to compensate him for the invitation to Congress he too desired but could not be granted, so for Abe Canberra would substitute for Washington. In its apparently unlimited enthusiasm over its new ‘special relationship’, Australia now is notably out of step with Washington, and Abe’s uncritical and extravagant Australian reception must have delighted him.

These posts (published over 4 days) are extracts from an article by Gavan McCormack, entitled ‘Partnership 135 Degrees East’ which will be published in Arena.org.au. 

Our best friend

The current Japanese and Australian governments came into being in December 2012 and September 2013 respectively. Both are headed by conservative, neoliberal, climate-denialist, pro-American leaders, of similar age, who quickly established a close rapport. Following their first meeting, at an ASEAN summit in October 2013, Abbott declared Abe Australia’s ‘best friend in Asia’. In meetings that followed, in Tokyo in April and Canberra in July 2014, they resolved to transform the ‘strategic partnership’ into a new ‘special relationship.’ Both made unprecedented invited appearances at the highest-level national-security-council meeting of their counterpart country, and signed agreements for free trade and defence cooperation (including ‘trilateral security cooperation with the United States’) and closer scientific and academic links.

Before the national parliament, Prime Minister Abbott delighted his guest and astonished many Australians by referring to the ‘skill and sense of honour’ of the imperial Japanese soldiers of seventy years ago. For his part, Abe resolved to ‘stay humble against the evils and horrors of history’, offering ‘sincere condolences towards the many who lost their lives’ and expressing his determination to do more to enhance peace.

The Murdoch press waxed hot with excitement. The Australian’s Greg Sheridan declared the Abe performance ‘masterful … as intricate as a fine Noritake pottery work, with as many moving parts seamlessly working together as the robotics of a Nagoya car plant’, signifying ‘nothing less than the birth of a new Japan’.

Abe’s expression of ‘condolences’ and his resolve to further the cause of peace were widely praised. Yet his ‘condolences’ were calibrated to convey sympathy while avoiding responsibility, and the greatest Japanese crimes—of Nanjing, Unit 731, and the sexual enslavement of hundreds of thousands of women across Asia—went unmentioned. It was as if those who ‘lost’ their lives at Kokoda and Sandakan had fallen victim to some mysterious ailment. Furthermore, by his references to peace, Abe plainly meant shedding the shackles of post-war constitutional pacifism and joining the United States in future wars because he sees it as heading the cause of global peace. Peace, in short, calls for war. It is a proposition worthy of Orwell.

As for his professed commitment to settling disputes by dialogue and the rule of law, Abe in fact has ruled out discussion with China on the territorial issue that China sees as critical (contested sovereignty over the uninhabited islets known in China as Diaoyu and in Japan as Senkaku). There is, he insists, no dispute, no room for discussion or negotiation. What is called for is ‘not negotiation but physical force incapable of being misunderstood’ (brute force, in other words).

Gavan McCormack is emeritus professor of the Australian National University, coordinator of The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus (http://japanfocus.org), and author of many books and articles on modern and contemporary Japan and East Asia.

In ten days’ time, Tony Abbott will be visiting Malaysia and India.

The visit to Kuala Lumpur will at last be an opportunity for him to thank on our behalf the Malaysian Government’s significant contribution to ‘Operation Bring them Home’.

Without fanfare the Malaysian Prime Minister secured two key outcomes that have been of great benefit to Australia and others who suffered losses as a result of the shooting down of MH17. The first major outcome was the release from rebel territory of the refrigerated trains that carried over 200 bodies out of rebel territory. The second major outcome that the Malaysian prime Minister secured was the handover by the rebels to the Malaysian Government of the black boxes.

Efforts of other parties particularly the Dutch Government and our own Australian Federal Police were helpful but the substantial breakthrough was organised by the Malaysian Government.

Yet in his overseas travels to the ‘Anglosphere’ Tony Abbot has been almost everywhere except visiting the one country that has been of the greatest help to us. For all our talk about the importance of Asia out focus is almost always Europe. That has occurred also on the Russia/Ukraine confrontation which is overwhelmingly a European issue.

Media headlines don’t necessarily make for a good foreign policy and particularly relations with countries in our region. And by the way, in that other diversion from the budget, nothing has yet been found of MH370 although Tony Abbott told us in April that he was confident that we had found the black boxes.

In addition to acknowledging Malaysia’s major role in ‘bringing them home’, thanking the Malaysian Government will also be a useful way to put more ballast in the relationship with the Malaysian Government particularly after the intemperate remarks that Tony Abbott made about Malaysia’s human rights record.

Justifying his opposition to the agreement with Malaysia over asylum seekers, Tony Abbott said in June 2011 in Parliament ‘Why would the Prime Minister send illegal arrivals to Malaysia where they could be detained and tagged, when she can’t guarantee the standard and accessibility of medical care and when she can’t guarantee the access to school for the children‘. Tony Abbott then went on ‘The one thing that is absolutely certain about this deal is that this Prime Minister, this Minister and this Government cannot be sure that boat people sent to Malaysia will be treated humanely.’

A gracious and earlier thank you to Malaysia over MH17 would have been most appropriate and helpful in many ways. But better late than never.

The Japanese have coined a new word, kopipe, from the English phrase ‘copy and paste’. It featured, for instance, in recent reporting of the discredited stem-cell researcher caught out copying images and data from one research paper to another. But the word kopipe has many possible applications, such as in the ongoing debates about history and Japan’s expanding security alliance with the United States.

On the matter of history, let me do some copying and pasting of my own from the text of the San Francisco Peace Treaty which Japan signed in 1951 to formally bring to an end the Second World War. Here is what it says in Article 11:

            Japan accepts the judgments of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East [IMTFE] and of other Allied War Crimes Courts both within and outside Japan, and will carry out the sentences imposed  thereby upon Japanese nationals imprisoned in Japan. The power to grant clemency, to reduce sentences and to parole with respect to such prisoners may not be exercised except on the decision of the Government or Governments which imposed the sentence in each instance, and on recommendation of Japan.

What are we to make, then, of Japan’s current prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who patently does not accept the judgments of the war crimes tribunals? Abe, on the contrary, is a determined revisionist who apparently thinks that those responsible for making war on their neighbours and conducting or condoning systematic atrocities are worthy of celebration. (For the record, the President of the IMTFE was Justice William Webb of Australia.)

During a parliamentary budget committee hearing last year Abe said the war crimes trials were a case of the Allies imposing their view of events on the Japanese. And in April this year Abe sent a message of support to a Buddhist event honouring Japanese who died after being convicted of war crimes. Abe wrote that they had ‘staked their souls to become the foundation of the fatherland,’ according to a report in the Asahi newspaper. The annual ceremony is held before a memorial statue that describes the war crimes tribunals conducted by the Allied powers as ‘retaliatory’ and calls executed Japanese war criminals ‘Showa Era (1926-1989) martyrs.’ Showa is the era name of the reign of Emperor Hirohito by whose authority Japan waged war in China and the Pacific. The memorial statue records the names of about 1,180 war criminals who were either executed or who died of illness or committed suicide in detention camps.

It’s not the first time Abe has sent a message of encouragement to the event. Last year he wrote: ‘I want to establish the existence of a new Japan that would not be an embarrassment to the spirit of the war dead.’

Abe’s maternal grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, wartime Munitions Minister, was held as a suspected Class ‘A’ war criminal himself though never put on trial. He later made a political comeback and served as prime minister between 1957 and 1960. Abe could be described as a kopipe of his blood relation. But while Kishi’s unpopular policy of closer military co-operation with the United States eventually cost him the leadership, Abe’s pushing through of a new interpretation of Japan’s post-war constitution that effectively strips away its pacifist intention has come at little political cost. The Japan of 2014 is much less alert to its wartime responsibilities than the Japan of 1960. (It is worth noting that Abe’s language when addressing the subject during his speech to the Australian Parliament in July was not as conciliatory as that used by Kishi when he visited Australia in 1957.)

The Japanese Government makes a lot of noise about the importance of observing international law­­­­ in its territorial disputes with China and South Korea, and over issues such as whaling. When convenient, however, it seems ready to bend or ignore laws and commitments. The official explanation that Abe was acting purely in a ‘private’ capacity when he honoured Japan’s war criminals is the usual ‘copy and paste’ for the double standard.

Abe’s kopipe method was evident, too, during last month’s ceremonies marking the end of the war and the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The war dead would be more than embarrassed, one imagines, if they had been able to hear the Prime Minister read out a statement in Hiroshima that was, in large part, identical to the one he made at last year’s ceremony. Some official had simply copied and pasted from the old speech and so little concerned was Abe for reflecting sincerely on the past he read the whole thing without either noticing or caring.

Finally, and probably most importantly, there is the continuing ‘copy-and-paste’ militarization of Okinawa, the island prefecture that occupies less than 1% of Japan’s landmass but plays host to 74% of its US-only military bases. For decades politicians have promised the people of Okinawa that their disproportionate share of the burden would be reduced. A primary focus of groups campaigning for the pledge to be fulfilled has been the Futenma Air Station operated by the US Marines in the centre of Ginowan City. The facility is an obstacle to local development and seriously affects the lives of nearby residents with its noise pollution and constant danger of aircraft accidents.

In 1996, the US agreed to return the land––but only on condition that another location was found in Okinawa.  As a result, work preliminary to the construction of a new facility recently began in Oura Bay at Henoko, Nago city, near the existing American base Camp Schwab. The city’s mayor and many others are fiercely opposed to the project, so the Japanese coast guard has been mobilized to haul in any protestors trying to breach a large exclusion zone in the bay proclaimed under a little-used provision of the criminal law.

According to Professor Gavan McCormack of the Australian National University, Oura Bay ‘happens to be one of the most bio-diverse and spectacularly beautiful coastal zones in all Japan. It hosts a cornucopia of life forms from blue––and many other species––of coral…through crustaceans, sea cucumbers and sea weeds and hundreds of species of shrimps, snails, fish, tortoise, snake, and mammal.’ McCormack goes on to say: ‘If the project proceeds, it will rival in scale Kansai International Airport in Osaka Bay, take a decade or more to complete and cost somewhere in the vicinity of $25 billion. Those [foreign leaders such as Tony Abbott] who believe they share values with [Shinzo Abe] should look carefully at the burgeoning confrontation in Oura Bay between the Abe state, with its monopoly of force, and local, non-violent, democratic citizens.’ 

Kopipe, rather than original thinking and genuine engagement, seems to be the fashionable way in Japan these days.

Walter Hamilton is the author of Children of the Occupation: Japan’s Untold Story.

A major problem with the situation in Ukraine is that you can’t believe anything anyone says because they all have their political agendas to push and don’t hesitate to lie.

Crimea, Odessa and the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine have Russian majorities who would produce a majority for being part of Russia in any free and fair plebiscite. So the issue is one of self-determination versus territorial integrity. There is also the question of Russian minorities elsewhere but only where they occupy a definable territorial area.

Russia wants friendly states around it and Putin has pushed a highly nationalistic line domestically which has been popular. He says he will protect Russians wherever they may be.  Domestic perceptions are vital to his continued success at home.. He is now in a position where he either bows publicly to Western pressure which will do him great harm domestically or continues to stand up to the wicked West which will be popular domestically..There is nothing unusual about Russians telling porkies about what they are doing. This is typical Russian behaviour and not unknown in the West.

It is increasingly clear that Russia has gone from arming and supporting the separatists (cf the US in Nicaragua and Chile) to the insertion of “volunteers” to actually fight (cf US and Australian advisers in Vietnam). It is highly unlikely that Russia would go beyond the Russian speaking areas because that would be a whole new ball game where the Russians would find themselves amidst a hostile population. However, they are unlikely to stop supporting the separatists and presumably the ultimate aim is separate Russian states well disposed towards Russia.

Putin’s reminder that Russia is a major nuclear power should be seen as simply tweaking the American nose because he knows that neither the US or the Europeans will commit troops. Kiev’s talk about full scale war is an obvious plea for stronger Western support which goes beyond threats of sanctions.

The problem for the West is that sanctions will only strengthen Putin’s resolve and any solution must involve some kind of face saving formula which the Ukrainians will not be interested in finding. The Europeans are also vulnerable to counter sanctions from Russia in a way the Americans are not. Ukrainian membership of NATO would probably be seen by Russia like the US saw Soviet missiles in Cuba and, in any case, the Europeans would not be interested in this. Pushing NATO right up to the border with Russia was not a smart move.

Australia’s hairy chested approach has lost our farmers export markets and achieved nothing else. We are not a serious player but are vulnerable if Russia wants to punish the monkey as a way of getting at the American organ grinder. Our approach has served to show our neighbours that, for all our talk about Asia, Europe is still our focus otherwise why would we be so strident about what is essentially a European problem? The Government’s aim is probably to appear tough domestically and to get our tummy tickled by Washington.

Cavan Hogue was former Australian Ambassador to USSR and Russia.

The seeds of the disaster in Iraq were sown long ago. We are now reaping a very bitter harvest.

A major contributor to the upsurge in violence, terrorism and extremism in Iraq is the sense of outrage that many young Muslim men feel about the invasion of their country by successive Western powers, including Australia.

The Howard Government and News Corporation which supported our participation in the coalition of the willing must bear a heavy responsibility for the unfolding horror.

I have set out below an article by Tony Walker in The Australian Financial Review of 29 March, 2003, headed ‘America’s hard history lesson’. I have also a link below to an editorial in the National Catholic Reporter of only a few days ago, entitled ‘Editorial: Path of destruction in Iraq began in 1991’

Both articles draw attention to the futility of earlier Western interventions in Iraq.

In 2004, Mick Keelty, the AFP Commissioner warned us that our involvement in Iraq made us a greater target for terrorism. In 2010, The Head of UK’s MI5, Baroness Manningham-Buller, told the Chilcott Inquiry that ‘ Our involvement in Iraq radicalised … a whole generation of young people, … who saw our involvement in Iraq, on top of our involvement in Afghanistan, as being an attack on Islam.’

George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard were obviously unaware of the history of Iraq. We are now seeing a catastrophe because of leaders who were unable to learn from history.

John Menadue.

AMERICA’S HARD HISTORY LESSON

By: Story Tony Walker, DOHA    

Through the centuries, the Middle East has proved hostile territory to invaders from the west and north. Even if the invaders won the battles, none, ultimately, won their particular war.

‘The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia [what is now Iraq] into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information … Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far out from disaster.’

That dispatch was written for The Sunday Times by its special correspondent T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia). It appeared on August 22, 1920. How extraordinary that the same words could be published today and seem almost contemporary, depending on your point of view.

What Lawrence was talking about was the irredeemable arrogance of British colonial rule although he might just as easily have been referring to the consequences of a new American unilateralism. He was not talking about an all-out war, like the one we are witnessing now, but about the aftermath of conflict, namely World War I, in which the Ottoman empire crumbled and was replaced across the Middle East by Pax Britannica. In Mesopotamia it was no benevolent pax; far from it.

As Iraq braces for a further intensification of a conflict whose aim is to rid the country of its leader and his regime, Iraqis must fear that the war itself will be only part of the horror. If history is a guide, war will be followed by an uncertain possibly bloody aftermath.

Ten thousand Arabs were killed, according to Lawrence, by the British military governors in Baghdad in putting down an uprising in the summer of 1920, two years after the end of WWI.  ‘We said we went to Mesopotamia to defeat Turkey. We said we stayed to deliver the Arabs from the oppression of the Turkish government, and to make available for the world its resources of corn and oil … Our government is worse than the old Turkish system,’ Lawrence wrote.

Britain’s occupation of Mesopotamia might not have ended in the disaster predicted by Lawrence, but the clumsy redrawing of the map of the Middle East under the Treaty of Sevres by the ‘Great Powers’ actually, the dividing up of WWI spoils contributed in no small way to the general volatility of and latest convulsion in the region.

Whatever happens in Iraq over the next days, weeks, months and years, it requires a level of optimism to believe that good will necessarily come from the destruction that is being visited on Iraqis and their country.

Baghdad’s bloody history is not encouraging. Built in 762AD by the Abbasids, it has endured war and conquest repeatedly. It was sacked by the Mongols in 1258, the streets turned into rivers of blood, the alleyways filled with corpses. It fell to Tamerlane in 1401. The Persians seized it in 1508, then it was captured by the Ottoman Turks in 1534. It was recaptured by the Persians in 1623, before the Ottomans regained control in 1638 for the next three centuries.

While it might be argued that no fate is too dreadful for Saddam Hussein, to achieve such a desirable result as his demise it should not be necessary to raze cities. You shudder to think what Iraq and its people will look like if the bombing continues for a few more weeks, followed by an assault on Baghdad itself. The errant missiles that slammed into a suburban Baghdad market on Wednesday, killing 15 civilians and wounding many others, are unlikely to be an isolated tragedy, even though the US has said repeatedly wrongly, as it turns out that the precision of modern weaponry makes this strike the military equivalent of laser surgery: no blood, no scars. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sounds more like Dr Strangelove every day.

Speaking of Rumsfeld, his observation on Tuesday that the war was much closer to the beginning than the end was a belated nudge towards candour in light of the obvious that Iraqis, whatever they think of Hussein, are resisting more determinedly than expected.
It’s interesting to note here that last week the Americans, repeating their mantra of ‘shock and awe’ to describe the initial bombing campaign, were telling people to stay in their homes and await further instructions while exhorting the Iraqi military to surrender. Now the message to people, especially in the southern city of Basra, is to rise up against their oppressors. Sceptics might conclude this is an admission that the undermanned invaders their supply lines stretched, their ability to secure their rear shaky need some help on the ground.

If there is a querulousness in the latest statements by US officials it is quite simply because, whatever they pretend, things are not going according to the script. The regime has not imploded, the populace has not risen up, the liberators are not being welcomed with hearts and flowers. It is entirely possible that when the blowtorch is applied to Baghdad, a horrible regime will indeed collapse, or shrivel up in its burrows deep below the city. But on the evidence so far, it seems unlikely the Iraqi citadel will fall without a fight.
In the meantime, George Bush, Tony Blair, John Howard and their advisers might reflect if it is not too late on some historical amber lights, starting with the Crusades, a campaign 900 years ago to liberate the heathen and enlighten them in the ways of Christianity (note that word: liberate). It failed.

Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf remarks in his book The Crusades Through Arab Eyes that ‘the Arab world simultaneously fascinated and terrified by these Franj [Frankish invaders], whom they encountered as barbarians and defeated but who subsequently managed to dominate the earth cannot bring itself to consider the Crusades a mere episode in the bygone past. It is often surprising to discover the extent to which the attitude of the Arabs (and of Muslims in general) towards the West is still influenced, even today, by events that supposedly ended seven centuries ago.’

Whether Westerners believe reference to the Crusades by Hussein or Osama bin Laden to bolster support to be legitimate, these historical events do resonate in the minds of many Arabs as if they happened yesterday.

As the editor of the London-based Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat said in one of this week’s more acute observations: ‘I think this is an emotional time rather than a rational time.’

Princeton University professor and Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis noted in a 1990 essay, ‘The Roots of Muslim Rage’, published in The Atlantic Monthly, that just as blind Arab prejudice about the West weighed heavily, so Americans functioned in a fog of ignorance about the Muslim world. When Lewis wrote then that American policy had not suffered disasters in the Middle East comparable with those in South-East Asia or Central America, he could not have imagined that things would change so dramatically in a decade or so.

Regime change was but a twinkle in the eyes of Richard Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Donald Rumsfeld, and there was no sign of a malleable occupant in the White House.

‘There is no Cuba, no Vietnam, in the Muslim world, and no place where American forces are involved as combatants or even as “advisers”. But there is a Libya, and Iran, and a Lebanon, and a surge of hatred that distresses, alarms and above all baffles Americans,’ Lewis wrote.

The bafflement is set to deepen in fact is deepening, as it seems that since September 11, 2001, Americans have lost a sense of proportion. Certainly normal prudence has been jettisoned.

Among the more frequently cited historical lessons about the perils of Western hubris in the Middle East is the experience of Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon may have been the world’s most brilliant general, but he suffered his worst defeat in the Middle East when his forces were repelled in 1799 in a siege of a stronghold of the Ottoman Turks at Acre, in what is now Israel. Attack after attack failed, and hundreds of French soldiers died in the process. Napoleon eventually retreated to Cairo with a decimated army.

Accounts of the siege of Acre are not recommended bed-time reading for Bush, Blair and Howard. Blair, whose troops are laying siege to Basra, may draw some encouragement from the British experience in Mesopotamia during WWI. British troops occupied Basra in 1915. By 1917, they had control of Baghdad, and a year later they took Mosul. By the end of the war they held the whole of Mesopotamia. That was when the real trouble began as nationalistic Arabs formed anti-British secret societies. Riots broke out in 1920.

These are the events that Lawrence, doubling as journalist and agent for British military intelligence, described in his dispatch for The Sunday Times. His final paragraphs make interesting reading in light of current events, especially the need for the US to rush additional troops to the region to cope with nagging Iraqi resistance.

‘We have not reached the limit of our military commitments,’ Lawrence wrote. ‘Four weeks ago the staff in Mesopotamia drew up a memorandum asking for four more divisions. I believe it was forwarded to the War Office, which has now sent three brigades from India. If the North-West Frontier cannot be further denuded, where is the balance to come from? Meanwhile, our unfortunate troops, Indian and British, under hard conditions of climate and supply, are policing an immense area, paying dearly in lives for the wilfully wrong policy of the civil administration in Baghdad.’ And, in conclusion: ‘We say we are in Mesopotamia to develop it for the benefit of the world … How long will we permit millions of pounds, thousands of Imperial troops and tens of thousands of Arabs to be sacrificed on behalf of colonial administration which can benefit nobody but its administrators?’

All this underlines just how complicated will be the task of pacifying Iraq and then reconstructing it, which is why there has been such a premium on a swift military victory causing minimum civilian casualties and avoiding large-scale destruction of infrastructure. That prospect has faded. A viper’s nest has been stirred. The legacy of bitter conflict will further contaminate what is in any case a poisonous cocktail dating back to the days of British rule.

As a paper on regional fallout from a war in Iraq by the Middle East program at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) points out: ‘Iraqi politics, from the creation of the state in the aftermath of World War I, have been dominated by the deployment of organised violence by the state to dominate and shape society; the use by the state of oil revenue to give it autonomy from society; and the recreation of ethnic and communal divisions within Iraqi society. The degree to which these dynamics can be overcome will depend upon the extent and nature of external influence in the aftermath of regime change. This in turn is dependent on the way war is waged.’

The signs at this early stage are not promising. These are worrying moments for members of the coalition of the willing, no matter what sort of face they seek to put on progress in the war. History is not necessarily a comforting guide.

The National Catholic Reporter, editorial, August 25, 2014.

 http://ncronline.org/news/global/path-destruction-began-1991

Australia will be dealing with a new Indonesian government in just two months. This will involve challenges and opportunities for both countries.

The Constitutional Court in Jakarta has now confirmed the election of Joko Widodo as President-elect with 53.15% of the eligible vote. The Court’s decision is not appealable and he will be sworn in as President on the 20^th of October.

All Australians, especially our political leaders and senior officials, should be in no doubt that no bilateral relationship will be more important in the future than that with Indonesia.

Indonesia stretches across our north, a distance from Broome in Western Australia to Christchurch in New Zealand. It is a country of some 250 million people, 81% of whom are Muslims. It has a literacy rate of 94%, an increasing middle class, and its economy is growing rapidly.

Prime Minister Abbott has described the relationship with Indonesia as “our most important relationship” in many respects. His policy that his foreign affairs approach would be “more Jakarta and less Geneva” was shorthand for this approach.

Our relations with the United States, China, and Japan, as well as neighbouring New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, are also of great importance to us. The future stability and prosperity of a democratic Indonesia is, however, of paramount importance to us.

President-elect Joko Widodo, 53, represents a generational change and the potential for a significant shift away from established Indonesian politics. From central Java, he is a businessman who made furniture. He was the mayor of Solo, and then served 18 months as the Governor of Jakarta. He has a reputation of being a nationalist and a relaxed and friendly “man of the people”.

While his experience of politics and of foreign policy issues is limited, he has indicated that he wants to unwind corruption and patronage in Indonesian politics and focus on raising the standard of living of the poor. His vice President, Yusuf Kalla, has more experience having been Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s first vice President for several years.

Our government will need to discuss in depth with Widodo and Kalla, and the foreign minister when appointed, bilateral and wider foreign policy issues. Widodo has said that he is looking to make professional rather than political appointments, and it may be that Marty Natalegawa will be reappointed as foreign minister because of his wide knowledge and experience of foreign policy issues, with which Widodo is not familiar.

Joko Widodo has said he wants good and consistent relations with Australia, but Indonesian sensitivities about territorial integrity and earlier allegations of phone tapping are seen as irritants in the relationship. Joko himself has referred to a “lack of trust” and he is aware that many Indonesian politicians and officials consider Australia as unpredictable and untrusting of Indonesia.

The Joint Understanding on a Code of Conduct to manage more effectively the reaction to allegations that the Defence Signals Directorate was monitoring the phones of the President, his wife, and members of his staff is hopefully an important step forward if it is implemented to the satisfaction of both parties.

The reason for the Indonesian reaction was that SBY had understood from his discussions with then Prime Minister Rudd that Australia was seriously seeking a closer, friendlier strategic relationship with Indonesia. Indonesia therefore saw the allegations as undermining trust. It was not, foreign minister Natalegawa argued, the way to treat a major neighbouring strategic good friend.

It would be unwise not to acknowledge that the relationship has been damaged. In the 2014 Lowy Institute poll, 40% of Australians polled considered the relationship to be “worsening”. According to the Lowy institute the priorities on which Australia and Indonesia will need to consult most closely are asylum seekers, security, and terrorism. This will be a prickly task, calling for a courteous, culturally sensitive, sophisticated, and professional approach to restore and maintain the firmly based relationship we need.

In our future relations with Indonesia Australia also will need to avoid several approaches, which have been disruptive in the past. One is “gesture politics” that is making statements and appointments that are insubstantial gestures in response to perceived public opinion.

Australia should also avoid making statements on foreign policy issues which are essentially made for domestic political reasons but which are criticized by Indonesia, for example the suspension of live cattle exports without any prior consultation and towing boats back to Indonesian territorial waters.

I believe we should listen more and lecture less. We also need to avoid making unnecessary statements that are seen as unbalanced in the region, for example alleged “assertiveness” by China and Japan are widely seen in Indonesia as responses to United States and Japanese assertiveness towards China.

Joko Widodo is likely to make it clear that Indonesia will not take sides in China/US disputes, in China/Japan disputes, or on the South China Sea claims. Indonesia is not a claimant and has been assured by China that it does not claim any Indonesian territory. This underlines the desirability for Australia of a more nuanced focus on the region we share, and the regional problems that we need to manage.

In this context I believe Australia does need a fundamental change to our national psyche, that would focus more on Asia than our traditional and well established links with the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada (collectively the “Anglosphere”), and Europe.

We do need a continuous and sustained approach to the main countries of Asia. In this context a key task for the Australian government, when the new government is formed in Indonesia next October, will be to determine an appropriate and updated balance with our relationships with the United States, China, and Japan and to reinforce the government’s rhetoric about our role in the Asia-Pacific region with action and funding. We should consult Indonesia on a range of political issues, such as the Middle East for example, rather than limit our consultations to the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe.

There will be a major role for public diplomacy in that Australians and Indonesians do need to know much more about each other. It is regrettable that many Australians still regard Indonesia as a mysterious, chaotic, and corrupt country in which the rule of law is weak.

According to the Lowy institute polls many Indonesians still see Australia as a potential military threat. This is largely because of historic fears, Indonesia’s size, its proximity, and its presumed potential instability as well as the situation in West Papua.

While Indonesia, like Australia, welcomes a constructive and continuing United States involvement in the Asia-Pacific there is concern in Indonesia about the so-called “pivot to Asia” – now referred to as “rebalancing”. Many Indonesians regard Australian policy as too closely tied to the United States.

The incoming Indonesian government can be expected to be concerned, for example, about close cooperation on the reported use of US missiles by the Australian navy and the purposes of drone flights from Australia.

Also there will be concern that the Cocos Islands, so close to Indonesia and Malaysia, yet now part of Western Australia, might be used for security purposes in South-East Asia and the South China region. Such activities would be seen as directed at the containment of China, notwithstanding rhetoric to the contrary.

To conclude, the importance of our bilateral relations with Indonesia, and regionally in the context of the Asian century, cannot be overstated.  As a nation we need to be genuinely and continuously engaged with the incoming Widodo government of our very large neighbour of increasing global and regional importance.

Richard Woolcott was formerly Head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Australian Ambassador to Indonesia