|
|
|
|
|
Australia Pulls Support For US Military Action On Iran
Darryl Mason Australian troops and special forces will not join the United States in proposed military action on Iran, according to foreign minister Alexander Downer. Of course, this is Downer speaking. Australian special forces may already be operating inside Iran, along with US troops, conducting sabotage and espionage operations, and paying off military units not to fight if the US goes to war, as they are widely alleged to have done in the months before the Iraq War officially began in March 2003. The point is, if Australian troops were already engaged in such operations with the United States inside Iran, Downer's hardly going to admit it. Certainly not in the lead-up to an election. Still, it's a substantial show of official non-support from Australia for the "all options (including nuclear attack) are still on the table" aggressive creed when it comes to Iran, from President Bush and the NeoCons.
From ABC News :
Downer, like prime minister John Howard, must be feeling extremely nervous about all the talk from American NeoCons and Israeli extremists demanding Iran be bombed, and soon. Australia has more than 800 troops and support staff in the south of Iraq. Iran would be expected to launch retaliatory strikes against US allies in the event of an attack, which would mean Australian forces, relatively close to the Iranian border, would presumably be targets for Iranian military and terrorist strikes. UPDATE : 'Australia's Next Prime Minister', Labor leader Kevin Rudd, has announced he wants to haul the Iranian president before the International Criminal Court and have him charged for "inciting genocide" :
Rudd also said a Labor government would not support the use of military force on Iran, but would support further sanctions, and that diplomacy was the best way to deal with the issue of Iran's "nuclear ambitions". Getting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad before the ICC on a charge of "inciting genocide" is never going to happen, and Rudd knows it. Despite the constant attribution of the quote "wipe Israel off the map" to the Iranian president, by supposedly accurate, fact-checking media like the Washington Post and the New York Times, Ahmadinejad never actually said those words. Ahmadinejad did say he wants to see the "Zionist regime" of Israel deposed or "wiped away", which is no less inflammatory than the recent run of American NeoCons who've repeatedly stated they want to see the Iranian president's regime overthrown, violently if necessary.
|
||||
