Entry 87, on 2004-11-17 at 14:14:24 (Rating 4, Politics)
I listened to a very interesting interview this morning with former Australian prime minister, Malcolm Fraser. He was asked about his opinion regarding Iraq and especially Australia's cooperation with the US invasion.
He was really very scathing about the way the war in Iraq has been handled. For example, he described Bush and Blair as missionaries, imposing their fundamentalist Christian beliefs on the rest of the world, even where they are totally inappropriate. He said that democracy can't be imposed on a country through military force and the current efforts are misguided.
He criticised Australia for following the US into an illegal and unjust war and was complimentary of New Zealand, both for staying out of the US coalition, and for banning US nuclear ships from our ports for many years. In his view, Australia is a more dangerous place because of its support of the US in the war.
He firmly believes there was no evidence for weapons if mass destruction, and was confident the leaders knew this. He mentioned that surveillance of Iraq would have conclusively revealed their presence and that it was clearly an excuse for the invasion. He accepts the figure of 100,000 civilian deaths as a result of US attacks and comments that this was greater than the deaths attributed to Saddam Hussein.
Overall, it was a damning criticism of the war, and one which I agree with in every respect.
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