In June this year, 26,000 US and Australian troops will take part in bombarding the ancient fragile landscape of Australia. They will storm the Great Barrier Reef, gun down “terrorists” and fire laser-guided missiles at some of the most pristine wilderness on earth. Stealth, B-1 and B-52 bombers (the latter alone each carry 30 tonnes of bombs) will finish the job, along with a naval onslaught. Underwater depth charges will explode where endangered species of turtle breed. Nuclear submarines will discharge their high-level sonar, which destroy the hearing of seals and other marine mammals.
Run via satellite from Australia and Hawaii, Operation Talisman Sabre 2007 is warfare by remote control, designed for “pre-emptive” attacks on other countries. Australians know little about this. The Australian parliament has not debated it; the media is not interested. The result of a secret treaty signed by John Howard’s government with the Bush administration in 2004, it includes the establishment of a vast, new military base in Western Australia, which will bring the total of known US bases around the world to 738. No matter the setback in Iraq, the US military empire and its ambitions are growing.
Australia is important because of a remarkable degree of servility that Howard has taken beyond even that of Tony Blair. Once described in the Sydney Bulletin as Bush’s “deputy sheriff”, Howard did not demur when Bush, on hearing this, promoted him to “sheriff for south-east Asia”. With Washington’s approval, he has sent Australian troops and federal police to intervene in the Pacific island nations; in 2006, he effected “regime change” in East Timor, whose prime minister, Mari Alkatiri, had the nerve to demand a proper share of his country’s oil and gas resources. Indonesia’s repression in West Papua, where American mining interests are described as “a great prize”, is endorsed by Howard.