Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | A | Arena Magazine

Australia: not so innocent in Iraq.

Article Excerpt
Despite the ongoing controversy regarding the Howard government's troop deployment in Iraq, there has been remarkably little attention paid to what the Australian Defence Forces (ADF) have actually been doing there. The general perception is that Australia's presence is so small that it is inconsequential, limited to a peace-keeping role. and far removed from the ongoing human rights abuses, torture and outright allegations of war crimes committed by the US war machine.

Criticism has been directed more at Australia's support for, rather than any direct participation in, the serious breaches of international law the United States has pursued in its so-called war on terror. The illegal nature of the invasion itself, the widespread use of torture at Abu Ghraib, rendition, or perhaps best-known to Australians, the arbitrary justice meted out to Guantanamo detainee David Hicks and others, have all been condemned as serious breaches of international law that the Howard government has tacitly, and sometimes overtly, supported.

Considerably less well known in Australia are the allegations of war crimes in the conduct of military operations since the invasion, particularly the late 2004 assault on Fallujah--a case that Noam Chomsky in his Failed States describes as 'far more severe than the torture scandals.' Even fewer Australians know that they were committed under the direct command of Australian Major General Jim Molan.

Molan rose to the third highest rank in...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!