Rudd's war marches to the beat of racism

By Hamish Chitts

While the wars of occupation against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, like most wars, are being fought for big-business profits, they cannot be waged without the assistance of racism. Racism breaks down human solidarity, and there is no greater example of this than when seemingly rational people are able to be convinced that it is acceptable to kill other people simply because they have a different skin colour.

The armed forces of imperialist countries like Australia and the US have a long history of consciously fostering racism to justify their wars against non-white people fighting for their national liberation. The word “gook” for example has been used by US military forces for more than a century. According to dictionary.com, it was used by US forces in the Philippines in 1899. It was then used by US forces that invaded Nicaragua in 1912 and Haiti in 1920. It was revived again by US forces during the 1950-53 Korean War and brought out again in the 1960s to de-humanise the entire Vietnamese people.

When the US military invaded Somalia in the 1992, its great military thinkers came up with the word “Skinnies” for Somalis because they couldn’t make any reference to the colour of their skin with so many black soldiers in the US army. Australian infantry from a Darwin-based battalion training to deploy to East Timor in 1999 were told they had to come up with a de-humanising name for the East Timorese and the Indonesians. The theory was that if soldiers had to shoot a “monkey” (an East Timorese) or a “rice monkey” (an Indonesian), they would not be emotionally affected by it.

Racism and Islamophobia
Since 9/11, state- and corporate-sponsored racism against Muslims — under the cover of a “war on terrorism” ­— has been ramped up to justify wars to impose governments in Afghanistan and Iraq that would be “friendly” to imperialist political and economic interests, particularly the profit-making interests of the big Western oil corporations. While Muslims are not a racial group, because the vast majority of the world’s Muslims are non-whites the promotion of Islamophobia has taken on a distinctly racist character.

This of course is not the first time that a non-racial group has been “racialised” to justify waging war against them. During the first inter-imperialist war (1914-18) the British rulers sought to dehumanise their German enemy as non-white, referring to all Germans as “the Hun” (the Turkic-speaking nomadic pastoral peoples from Central Asia who invaded the collapsing Roman empire in the 4th century). The German Nazis portrayed all European Jews and all the Slavic-speaking peoples of Europe as biologically inferior races to “Aryans” (non-Jewish northern Europeans), as untermenschen (sub-human).

In today’s world, as Dr Bobby Sayid, director of the Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies at the University of Leeds, has observed, Islamophobia is the “racism that takes up the white man’s burden for the New American Century. It’s a humanitarian intervention not a mission civilisatrice, it only wants to spread democracy not to expropriate resources, it does not want to exterminate ignoble savages, only to domesticate unruly Muslims … themes associated with previous expressions of racism can be (and increasingly are) brought back into style. Muslim extremists can join the Black mugger, the Gypsy thief, the Jewish anarchist … as the stars of racism’s narratives. Expertly opined, scientifically classified and institutionally enshrined, Muslims are inserted into a pubic discourse as almost isomorphic replacements for previous arch-villains of racist anxieties and fantasies.”

Rudd’s ‘counter-terrorism’ white paper
The Australian government’s white paper on counter-terrorism, released on February 23, is an exercise in just such demonisation. When he released the paper, PM Kevin Rudd said, “the government’s security intelligence agencies assess that terrorism has become a persistent and permanent feature of Australia’s security environment” and “Another apparent shift has been the increase in the threat from people born or raised in Australia, who have become influenced by the divisive narrative espoused by al-Qaeda”.

The paper provided no evidence of such a threat. The best Rudd could come up with was recent “terror” witch-hunts that have imprisoned Muslims for thought crimes, including five men who were sentenced on February 15 to jail terms of between 23 and 28 years, despite not even the slightest evidence of a plan or target for a terrorist attack. You are tens of thousands of times more likely to be killed by your boss (or someone else’s boss) cutting corners on safety to save money than you are to be killed by a Muslim terrorist. A 2003 Access Economics report for the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission estimated that there are 8168 work-related fatalities every year in Australia.

The Rudd government paints the Australian military’s participation in the US-led occupation of Afghanistan as a form of self defence against terrorist attacks against Australians, but it is the civilians of Afghanistan who are being slaughtered and terrorised by the US-led occupation forces — workers and subsistence farmers who possess neither the capability nor the desire to attack countries like Australia or the US. Meanwhile, Washington’s puppet government in Kabul headed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai provides government positions, business deals and cash to the same people who are supposed to pose a terrorist threat to ordinary Australians.

Last year the US set up and funded an Afghan government department to offer sweeteners to people like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is on Washington’s “most wanted” terrorist list. Hekmatyar is the leader of Hezb-i-Islami, which has been fighting NATO troops alongside the Taliban. Unlike the majority of Afghan resistance fighters, Hekmatyar has been committing war crimes and acts of terror since the 1970s to advance his personal wealth and power. In the early 1990s, even after being named prime minister, Hekmatyar’s forces subjected Kabul to relentless artillery and rocket bombardment for months, destroying half the city and killing 50,000 people, deliberately targeting civilians.

It is a racist lie that the Western powers are trying to bring “democracy” to the Afghan people. The recent fraudulent elections in Afghanistan cost nearly $300 million, and added to a growing dissatisfaction among the Afghan people. Only 30% of Afghanistan’s 15 million registered voters cast their ballots in the elections, which were simply aimed at presenting a facade of representative government to public opinion in the countries of the occupying armies, while entrenching the rule of pro-US warlords.

If the people of Afghanistan were able to freely express there views, the majority would be in favour of the foreign troops leaving. Even under the heel of the occupation, only 37% of Afghans said they supported the presence of the US-led military forces in their area, according to a public opinion poll released on February 9 last year by the US ABC News, the BBC and ARD German TV networks.

The US-led war in Afghanistan is not about bringing “democracy” to anyone or about combating “terrorism”. It’s about consolidating the political and economic domination of the US and its imperialist allies in the Middle East and Central Asia, two regions extremely rich in oil and natural gas. Cheap access to oil is needed, not only to generate super-profits for owners of the big oil corporations, but also to run the US military. In 2007 the US Department of Defense’s per capita consumption of oil was 10 times more than per capita consumption in China, or 30 times more than in Africa. This has only increased as US President Barack Obama has ramped up the war in Afghanistan.

[Hamish Chitts is a member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party and one of the founders of Stand Fast — a group of veterans and military service people against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For information about Stand Fast visit the Stand Fast website or phone 0401 586 923.]

From Direct Action, Sydney, Australia

US-Australia alliance: an axis of evil

By Hamish Chitts

When the visit of US President Barack Obama was announced last month, an official White House statement said he “is looking forward to commemorating the 70th anniversary of Australia-US relations”. Far from being a cause of celebration, the anniversary represents 70 years of cooperation in attacks, invasions and occupations in the pursuit of economic dominance and profit for a handful of obscenely rich people in both countries — a 70-year axis of evil pitting working people from Australia and the US against working people resisting imperialist exploitation.

This alliance for profit-driven slaughter is as strong today as it has ever been. In response to the announcement of Obama’s planned visit, Kevin Rudd told ABC News on February 2: “We have a whole truckload of areas of military cooperation and to work out where we go in the future together.” When Rudd visited the US in March last year, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared: “America doesn’t have a better friend in the world than Australia. A friend through good times and hard times.” It is, in fact, a “friendship” saturated in the blood of the victims of their joint war efforts.

British Empire wanes
On January 8, 1940, the governments of the United States and Australia announced the establishment of bilateral diplomatic relations. Australia was already officially at war, having immediately followed Britain’s declaration of war on September 3, 1939. At this time the Australian capitalist ruling class still saw its interests tied firmly to the British Empire and its global trade and military strength. However, Britain could not defend the Australian capitalist ruler’s interests from the rapidly advancing Japanese imperial forces. When the Japanese army moved into Australia’s New Guinea colony, Canberra turned decisively toward reliance on an alliance with Washington to protect Australian corporate interests in Asia and the Pacific. The US capitalist rulers needed a willing strategic and logistic base for its war drive against its Japanese imperialist rival.

The inability of European colonial powers ravaged by war to hold onto their colonies at the end of World War II opened the door for an upsurge of national liberation struggles, particularly in Asia. The example of the Russian Revolution in 1917 and the influence of the USSR meant that many of these struggles took on socialist aspirations. The close relationship between US and Australian imperialist ruling classes was forged in their common struggle to crush the worker-peasant anti-imperialist revolutions throughout Asia.

Robert Menzies (Australian PM in 1940 and then again from 1949 to 1963) was a virulent anti-communist who espoused the theory of “forward defence”, which he described: “We either commit ourselves with great friends and allies or we do not. If we do not, then we must attend to our own defence … If there is a war of our own existence it should be carried out as far from our soil as possible.” By “a war of our own existence”, Menzies meant a war for the existence of Australian imperialist capitalism. “Forward defence” was used to justify the wars for defence of US and Australian corporate profits that underlies the US-Australian alliance.

Military intervention in Malaya
Britain and Australia used their militaries to advance the interests of their own ruling classes, whenever possible in alliance with Washington. In 1950, Australia sent Royal Australian Air Force transport planes and bombers to help British colonialism fight the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA), the refounding of the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army, the guerrilla force that had been the principal resistance in Malaya against the Japanese occupation. The Malayan “emergency” was the term used by the British colonial government for the war against the MNLA because the British owners of rubber plantations and tin mines in Malaya demanded use of the term “emergency” rather than war so that their losses would be covered by insurers. The MNLA called it the “Anti-British National Liberation War”. The combined use of massacres, heavy bombing, paid spies, the forced relocation of some 500,000 rural Malays into concentration camps and, most critically, the playing off of different ethnic groups against each other allowed the British and Australian forces to eventually defeat the MNLA. This took until 1960, and from 1955 to 1960 Australia sent thousands of troops to fight against the MNLA.

Korean War
In August 1945, with Japan defeated, Korea’s workers and peasants rose in revolution. Grassroots “people’s committees” mushroomed and took sweeping control of industry and the land. On September 6, independence fighters and representatives of the people’s committees proclaimed a Korean People’s Republic in Seoul on the basis of a 27-point program. The key points related to land redistribution, nationalisation of major industries, rent control, an eight-hour work day and a guaranteed minimum wage.

Washington and Moscow had agreed during the war to jointly oversee Korea’s “decolonisation” on either side of a “temporary” border at the 38th parallel. The US immediately set up a counter-revolutionary government, the US Military Government in Korea (USMGIK), which began the brutal suppression of the working people’s committees. The USMGIK banned strikes and ordered the people’s committees to disband. The director of the US Department of Transportation described the US military’s role as strikebreakers: “We were out to break that thing up and we didn’t have time to worry too much if a few innocent people got hurt. We set up concentration camps outside of town and held strikers there when the jails got too full. It was war.”

The USMGIK oversaw sham elections in the south in 1948, creating a still-existing partition of Korea. Despite the brutal repression, workers in the south continued resisting and large uprisings kept occurring. Finally, after a long debate among the Communists in the north, they decided to help liberate the workers and peasants of the south and sent their army across the 38th parallel on June 25, 1950. The unpopular Republic of Korea regime in the south began to rapidly collapse, with masses of ROK Army soldiers deserting en masse to Communist-led Korean People’s Army. By September, the US-ROK forces held only 10% of Korean territory.

On September 15, 1950, the US and its imperialist allies, including Australia, began a massive offensive against the KPA forces, pouring in reinforcements from occupation bases in Japan under cover of a heavy naval artillery and aerial bombardment. After retaking the south, the imperialist forces overran the north, but were then driven back to the 38th parallel by a combined Chinese-KPA counter-offensive. Over the next two years, the areas controlled by the two sides would remain virtually the same. In July 1953 an armistice was signed. Four million Koreans had died, two-thirds of them civilians. US carpet bombing destroyed 75% of North Korea’s cities and villages. China lost at least 114,000 soldiers, and the US lost 36,934. Of the 17,000 Australians who fought in the Korean War; 339 died and 1200 were wounded.

The US-Australian war on Vietnam
Most people have some idea of the history of the war in Vietnam in the 1960s and early 1970s. Less well known is the part US imperialism played in actually starting the war. After the Viet Minh resistance fighters defeated France, they were forced into an international agreement in 1954 that partitioned Vietnam pending national elections (under international supervision) to be held by 1956. Like Korea, the agreement created two governments separated by a temporary demarcation line (known as the demilitarised zone) against the wishes of the Vietnamese people. The “international community” (i.e. the US and its imperialist allies) forced a partition and were not interested in elections because they would not allow the whole of Vietnam to be communist. US President Dwight Eisenhower later wrote, “80 per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh”.

Washington backed a brutal puppet regime in South Vietnam, hailing sham elections as “democracy” and supplying military aid and trainers. When US officials realised that its South Vietnamese puppet regime could not survive against the popular uprising being waged by the workers and peasants, it mobilised and drafted the young men of its own working class (and lost nearly 60,000 of them) to show the whole Third World the price in lives they would pay if they challenged US domination. Australia’s rulers willingly joined in the war and also introduced conscription. More than 50,000 Australians fought against Vietnamese self-determination, of whom 520 died and around 2400 were wounded. More than 4 million civilians died in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos during the war, and more than 1 million Vietnamese died fighting for their freedom.

While the US and its allies used similar tactics to those the British used in Malaya, they were defeated and driven out of Vietnam by a population convinced of revolution and by mass anti-war movements in the US and in allied countries like Australia. The anti-war movement cut through government and corporate propaganda and revealed the truth that working people in the US and Australia had more in common with the Vietnamese workers and peasants fighting for independence than they did with the fat cats of industry who were pushing the war.

Indonesia and East Timor
The policies of nationalising foreign-owned business and supporting strong unions pushed by Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno from 1945 to 1965 did not suit the interests of Australian and US big business. The Australian and US government’s supported the right-wing military coup of General Suharto in 1965. They continued to support Suharto’s military dictatorship right up until its demise in 1998. In the course of establishing this dictatorship, between 500,000 and 2 million Indonesians were slaughtered by the military and right-wing militias. Hundreds of thousands of people were detained and many of them were tortured.

Canberra knew in advance of the October 1975 Indonesian invasion of East Timor. Memos, cables and letters sent and received by Australia’s foreign department between 1974 and 1976 confirmed that PM Gough Whitlam’s Labor government gave tacit approval to Suharto for annexation of the former Portuguese colony. In March 1975, the US ambassador to Indonesia, David Newsom, recommended a “policy of silence” on the Suharto regimes plans to invade East Timor. On October 8, 1975, a member of the US National Security Council, Philip Habib, told an NSC meeting: “It looks like the Indonesians have begun the attack on Timor”. US secretary of state Henry Kissinger’s response to Habib was, “I’m assuming you’re really going to keep your mouth shut on this subject”. Australia and the US both provided weapons and training to the Indonesian military during its invasion and occupation of East Timor.

Global war
In the last decade, we have seen the US-led invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, actively assisted by Australia. These wars, supposedly against “Islamic terrorism”, are really being waged against Third World countries that won’t make themselves “free and open” to super-exploitation by US or allied capitalists. Socialists in southern Yemen are labelled al Qaeda by the US to justify attacking them. Trade unionists resisting exploitation, whether in Iraq or Colombia, are labelled terrorists. The revolutionary socialist governments of Cuba and Venezuela are accused by the US of sponsoring “terrorists”, while Washington actively supports groups committed to carrying out terrorist attacks in both countries. Australian politicians parrot US politicians, saying that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are for “democracy” despite majority opposition to the wars in the countries occupied and the countries occupying, and almost everywhere else in the world. Today the imperialist politicians use the same tricks as they did last century: sham elections, indiscriminate bombing, puppet regimes, political assassinations, widespread detention and torture.

These wars and the US-Australian alliance are only for the benefit of the capitalist ruling classes in both countries — the same bosses who will risk workers’ safety to make more money, the same bosses who let people die waiting for medical treatment because they can’t pay up front. The capitalist ruling class does not have any regard for the lives of workers when there are profits to be made, whether or not the workers wave the same national flag as the capitalists. Working people in Australia and the US are duped into fighting and supporting (or staying silent about) these wars through the nationalist illusion that workers’ interests are the same as their capitalist bosses simply because they live in the same country and speak the same language.

In an October 11, 2009, TVNZ interview, Kurt Campbell, US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, stated: “I think Australia ... in the last 10 years, has ascended to one of the closest one or two allies on the planet, so very hard to think of any issues in which the United States and Australia are not coordinating on, whether it’s Indonesia, whether it’s Afghanistan, whether it’s Iraq, and so generally speaking there is a desire to work as closely as possible with Australia, because of what it does, what it has done and will continue to do with the United States.” What the Australian nation-state has done and continues to do with the US rulers is to inflict death and destruction on working people in order to protect the global system of capitalist exploitation and oppression. Their alliance is an axis of evil that needs to be fought against and ended.

[Hamish Chitts is a member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party and one of the founders of Stand Fast — a group of veterans and military service people against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For information about Stand Fast visit the Stand Fast website or phone 0401 586 923.]

From Direct Action, Sydney, Australia

Support the troops - bring them home now!

By Hamish Chitts

[The following article is based on a speech given on behalf of the war veterans group Stand Fast at a public meeting in Rockhampton on July 10 as part of the Peace Convergence protests against the bi-annual joint Australian and US Talisman Sabre war rehearsals that occur in and around environmentally and culturally sensitive Shoalwater Bay. Talisman Sabre ’09 occurred between July 6-26 and involved 30,000 Australian and US troops. — Ed.]

Stand Fast is a group of veterans and former military personnel who oppose the current wars of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our members include veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the first Gulf War, East Timor and the current occupation of Iraq. We who have borne arms denounce these wars because they are about money, power and fear.

Stand Fast seeks to add weight to the antiwar movement in Australia through organising veterans to speak out against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and by debunking the myth that “If you’re against the war, you’re against the troops”. We are also encouraging current serving members of the Australian Defence Force to inform themselves about what is really happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will provide advice and support for those who may question serving in either of these wars.

During the Vietnam War, an antiwar movement grew within the US military and by 1970, the US Army had 65,643 deserters — roughly the equivalent of four infantry divisions. In an article published in the June 7, 1971 Armed Forces Journal, Marine Colonel Robert D. Heinl Jr., a veteran combat commander with over 27 years experience in the Marines and the author of Soldiers Of The Sea, a definitive history of the Marine Corps, wrote: “By every conceivable indicator, our army that remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and non-commissioned officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where not near mutinous. Elsewhere than Vietnam, the situation is nearly as serious … Sedition, coupled with disaffection from within the ranks, and externally fomented with an audacity and intensity previously inconceivable, infest the Armed Services ...”

In 1972, there was fear among some US generals that the majority of their armed forces would mutiny and take control if the Vietnam War did not end soon. Of course, we should recognise that ultimately it was the determined resistance and courage of the Vietnamese people that ended the war there.

Stand Fast also draws inspiration from the US-based group Iraq Veterans Against the War. Through IVAW, many have heard public testimony of the horrors of Iraq and Afghanistan across the US. Hundreds of IVAW members travel to schools, universities and demonstrations to speak out against these wars. Their testimony is having a strong pull on people in the US to protest against these wars, and their organisation is growing amongst the US armed forces. In the past few years, tens of thousands of US soldiers have resisted the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan in a number of different ways — by going AWOL, seeking conscientious objector status and/or a discharge, asserting the right to speak out against injustice from within the military, and for a relative few, publicly refusing to fight.

While there are those who would like to dismiss war resisters as “cowards”, the reality is that it takes exceptional courage to resist unjust, illegal and/or immoral orders. For many resisters, it was their first-hand experiences as occupation troops that compelled them to take a stand. For others, “doing the right thing” and acting out of conscience began to outweigh their military training of blind obedience.

When an Australian soldier dies everyone is made aware of it, but there are Australian casualties occurring everyday in Iraq and Afghanistan that no one sees or hears about. Through my own experiences as a former infantry soldier and through those of my mates, I can tell you no-one who sees active service comes back the same. Recent figures from the US have shown that troops coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering three times more Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder than their counterparts did on return from Vietnam.

Military personnel are risking their minds as well as their bodies. But for what? For what are Iraqi and Afghan civilians paying with their bodies and their minds? It is being done for oil, in the interests of multinational corporations and it is being done for strategic real estate for the US military. Most people recognise this about Iraq, but not everyone knows that the same reasons have brought about the occupation of Afghanistan. In 1998, Californian company Unocal withdrew from negotiations with the Taliban government after failing for several years to be allowed to build a gas pipeline from gasfields in Turkmenistan through western Afghanistan to Pakistan and the Indian Ocean.

One of the negotiators for Unocal was a fellow named Zalmay Khalilzad. As a special adviser to Bush, Khalilzad was involved in planning the US invasion of Afghanistan, and afterwards it was named US ambassador to the puppet regime installed by the occupation forces. That regime, headed by Hamid Karzai, is comprised of warlord thugs and opium barons who are no better to the people of Afghanistan than the Taliban thugs they replaced. But the pipeline project is back on track.

Apologists for these invasions try to frame them as some form of self-defence, as if the thousands of Iraqi and Afghan civilians who have been slaughtered by these invasions had the capability or even the desire to attack countries like Australia or the US. Anyone who has any illusions that these wars are about stopping terrorists should look at the current deals being done between the Karzai government, the Taliban and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Hekmatyar, who is on America’s “most wanted” terrorist list, is the leader of Hezb-i-Islami, which has been fighting NATO troops alongside the Taliban.

Karzai has said that he would bring members of the Taliban and Hezb-i-Islami into peace negotiations (including offers of government positions and regional governorships) and include them in a tribal council. The US has voiced its opposition to this but, in what is becoming the defining character of the Obama administration, it says one thing and does another. The US administration has agreed to fund an Afghan government department to conduct negotiations with Hezb-i-Islami and the Taliban. It has agreed to kick in nearly US$69 million to offer sweeteners to win over the Taliban and other resistance forces.

Kevin Rudd has called Afghanistan a “good” war. It is not. It is no better than the war in Iraq and it is being fought for the same reasons. Many people thought Rudd and his party were antiwar. When they voted they hoped to end Australian involvement in these occupations. Many are still sitting at home hoping, but after two years and an increase in Australian involvement, it is clear this hope is an illusion. There are still almost 1000 ADF soldiers and sailors in the Iraq war zone, allegedly to assist operations in Afghanistan.

The majority of people in this country oppose the occupation of Iraq. The majority of people in this country oppose the occupation of Afghanistan. We can’t rely on Rudd anymore than we can rely on any other politician. That is why we need to keep building a movement against these occupations. We need to build a movement that can unite dissenting soldiers, peace activists, antiwar activists, political groups, community groups and unions. To do this we need to campaign for demands like “Bring the troops home now!” — demands that all these diverse groups can rally behind.

This weekend is a good example. There are many different people protesting for many different reasons but they are all here rallying behind the demand “Stop the Talisman Sabre war games!” We need to build this movement to show real support for the people in the armed forces, to show our real support for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan by demanding from the Rudd government a true and complete troop withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan immediately.

Both the ADF and the US military describe Talisman Sabre as, “focusing on operational and tactical interoperability through a high-end, medium intensity scenario involving live, virtual, and constructive forces. Includes combat operations transitioning into peacekeeping or other post-conflict operations.” Now if you cut through the military jargon, this means the Australian and US militaries refining their ability to conduct future Iraq and Afghanistan-style invasions and occupations of sovereign nations. This is one of the reasons I’m here representing Stand Fast in protest against these invasion and occupation rehearsals. Support the troops — bring them home now!

From Direct Action Sydney, Australia http://directaction.org.au/

Veterans Group reflects on brutality of war and question how politicians use our armed forces on ANZAC Day

Press release

23 April 2009

The Australian-based veterans group Stand Fast, comprised of veterans and former military personnel who oppose the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, today called on people to reject blind patriotism and flag waving this ANZAC Day. Stand Fast has called for reflection on the brutality of war and for people to question if Australia’s current wars are really in the interest of the people of Australia.

In Brisbane Stand Fast spokesperson and East Timor veteran, Hamish Chitts said the group thinks the increasing spectacle of flag waving and cheering on ANZAC Day departs from its origins as a sombre day of remembrance. The group is concerned that this trend stops people openly questioning these wars amid fears that they will be accused of being ‘unpatriotic’ or not supporting the troops.

Vietnam veteran and Sydney based Stand Fast member Gerry Binder said, “The original idea was to remember the brutality that war is so that we would never let it happen again, not marching up and down with bands and people waving and shouting and cheering.” He said, “I’ve marched in Anzac Day marches and I was horrified that people are bringing their kids to cheer, to clap. I don’t want to be congratulated; I want them to understand that this must not be repeated.”

In Melbourne former army Major Chip Henriss, a Bouganville and East Timor veteran said, “I march on ANZAC Day every year but along with my medals I wear a button that says "War is Terror". For us in Australia it's been about mainly young people that have gone off time after time on what we believed was a just crusade only to return wounded physically and mentally. Yes I love the mates I served with and many of whom continue to serve but it doesn't mean I can't see these wars for what they are.”

According to Chitts Stand Fast believes that “to claim these wars bring democracy and that they are in our best interests are ridiculous. Stand Fast believes politicians are looking after the interests of big business and dressing it up to look like the people of Afghanistan or Iraq have the capability and desire to attack Australia”.

Former Royal Australian Navy officer Mark Rickards led over 70 vessel boardings in the Red Sea following the first Gulf War. Speaking from Hobart Rickards said, "Anzac Day is an opportunity to pay tribute to those who served, and particular who died, in wars which were fought in defence of peace. However it is also the perfect time to stop and reflect on the growing death toll of Australian service personnel who are currently serving in unjust wars.

Chitts continued, “These members of parliament, both Labor and Coalition vie with each other to be more ‘the diggers friend’ than the other. Most have never served in the Defence Force and would be horrified if their children did. As veterans, our thoughts are with all those who have suffered from war, those still suffering physically and mentally because of war and all those still in harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan. No more blood should be shed for the profiteers. Those who truly support the troops should join the call to bring all the troops home now”.

For further information contact Hamish on 0401 586 923 or email standfast.au@gmail.com or visit www.stand-fast.webs.com

A year of Rudd's wars

By Hamish Chitts

Many who voted for the ALP on November 24, 2007, did so thinking that a Rudd Labor government would end Australia’s involvement in the US-led war in Iraq. One year on and the Australian military under PM Kevin Rudd is still an active cog in the US-led imperialism war machine in Iraq.

In the lead up to the 2007 election, Rudd described the decision by the Howard Coalition government to go to war in Iraq as the “single greatest error” of Australian foreign policy since the Vietnam War. He told voters that if Labor was elected “the combat force in Iraq, we would have home by around about the middle of next year”, adding that a Rudd government would leave behind some Australian soldiers to provide security at Australia’s embassy in Baghdad.

Upon Labor’s election, newspaper headlines in Australia and around the world proclaimed that the incoming Australian government was going to withdraw its troops from Iraq in 2008. On June 28 Rudd used a welcome home parade through Brisbane’s streets marking the return of 550 Australian Battle Group troops from southern Iraq to give the impression that he had fulfilled this promise to withdraw Australian troops from Iraq. But according to Australian defence department figures, the reality of Rudd leaving “some Australian soldiers” in Iraq is that there are currently 980 Australian troops are stationed there — nearly twice the number that were withdrawn in June and an increase of 145 troops on the 835 that remained in Iraq in June.

When confronted with this fact, Rudd’s apologists will argue that his government did bring home from Iraq the “combat” troops as he promised, but this too is false. Many of the 980 Australian Defence Force personnel that are in Iraq are in officially recognised combat roles. Furthermore, all of the ADF personnel in Iraq play some role in the continuing US-led war. There is no such thing as a “non-combatant” role for someone wearing an Australian uniform in Iraq.

In a speech to parliament in March, on the fifth anniversary of the US-UK-Australian invasion of Iraq, Rudd denounced Howard’s decision to commit Australian troops to fight in Iraq, saying: “Have further terrorist attacks been prevented? No, they have not been, as the victims of the Madrid train bombing will attest. Has any evidence of a link between weapons of mass destruction and the former Iraqi regime and terrorists been found? No. After five years, has the humanitarian crisis in Iraq been removed? No it has not.” Rudd says one thing then does another. It’s complete hypocrisy for Rudd to publicly denounce Howard’s decision to invade Iraq, make a show of bringing some of the troops home and yet still provide nearly 1000 troops to the US-led occupation of Iraq. If Rudd were really opposed to the occupation of Iraq he would have already withdrawn all the ADF personnel from Iraq.

While Rudd, his spin-doctors and their willing apologists in the corporate media have led many people to believe that all Australian troops have been withdrawn from Iraq, his phoney withdrawal is merely a re-shuffling of warfare for the tiny and overstretched ADF. Most of the 550 troops who have returned will soon be used to bolster Australian efforts to defend the corrupt US-installed puppet government of Afghanistan. One of the first things Rudd did after being sworn in as prime minister on December 3 last year was visit Afghan President Hamid Karzai to assure him and his US masters that Canberra was fully committed to the imperialist war in Afghanistan. Rudd told Australian troops in Afghanistan: “We’re committed to being here for the long haul.”

Rudd has always maintained that Afghanistan is a “just” war and that somehow Australians are safer for it. In an October 15 address to the C.E.W Bean Foundation at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, Rudd said: “Our commitment to Afghanistan is critical. It is critical because it is clearly in our national interest.” He added: “Under the Taliban, the people of Afghanistan lived in an environment of oppression and extreme poverty with the constant threat of violence.”

But under the rule of US-backed warlords and opium barons, the people of Afghanistan face even greater oppression and poverty than they did under the Taliban. They not only have to endure the constant threat of violence from local warlords and their militias, but also from US-led foreign occupation forces who carry out indiscriminate air attacks on their villages. On July 6, for example, US warplanes attacked a village wedding party killing the bride and 22 others.

In September 2006 the BBC’s South Asia bureau chief, Paul Danahar reported that “when the Taliban were driven out [of Kabul and other Afghan cities] and the old regional warlords came back, so did a lot of robbery, rape and murder”. Danahar reported that the Taliban had made “southern Afghanistan a lot safer for ordinary people than it is now”.

As the US-led occupation continues, more and more Afghans aren’t just voicing their opposition to it; they are willing to take up arms against the world’s most powerful military and its allies. Many were not previously supporters of the Taliban but now see it as a lesser evil to the horrors of the US-led occupation.

The majority of military and intelligence analysts around the world agree that the invasion of Afghanistan has increased the likelihood of terrorist attacks against those countries involved in the invasion and occupation. In a 2007 Center for American Progress survey, 91 of America’s top 100 foreign-policy experts believed that the world was less safe for US citizens after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. While there has never been a strong credible threat of a terrorist attack in Australia, the Rudd governments continual involvement in the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq actually increases this threat.

On July 8 SAS Signaller Sean McCarthy became the sixth Australian soldier to die as part of the occupation of Afghanistan when a roadside improvised explosive device was detonated as the vehicle he was in passed by. McCarthy’s death was the first by an Australian soldier in Afghanistan since Rudd’s election. Commenting on McCarthy’s death, Rudd said: “We’ve had losses before, my fear is we will lose them again.” This was an attempt to prepare the families of Australian soldiers for more deaths in the face of growing Afghan resistance to the occupation of their country. Rudd’s “fear” was confirmed on November 27 when another Australian soldier was killed by a roadside bomb during a skirmish with Taliban forces.

Under Rudd there has been an increase in ADF personnel numbers in Afghanistan — from 950 when he came into office at the end of 2007 to 1090, according to the latest defence department figures.

Currently we have the absurd situation where most people in Australia oppose Australian participation in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq yet the protests against them have gotten smaller and smaller since the election of the Rudd government. This is largely due to Rudd’s success in convincing opponents of the Iraq war that Australia has withdrawn its troops and the corporate media’s success in demonising the Afghan resistance — convincing them that the occupation is a lesser evil to the return of Taliban rule.

One lesson that can be drawn from this past year is that it wasn’t a particular right-wing ideology under John Howard or George Bush that resulted in Australian and US troops being sent to and kept in Iraq and Afghanistan. The capitalist rulers and their politicians in both the US and other imperialist countries including Australia need these occupations to secure their control over the energy resources of the Third World. This is why Australian Labor, a party that has always defended the interests of imperialist capitalism, is just as committed to the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq as John Howard and George Bush.

From Direct Action, Sydney, Australia www.directaction.org.au

Rudd and Nelson reveal contempt for soldiers

By Kathy Newnam

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and federal Liberal Party leader Brendan Nelson have shown their willingness to use the soldiers they claim to honour and respect to suit their own political ends, cynically using the emotions generated by the return of Australia’s Overwatch Battle Group from southern Iraq and the death in early July of the sixth Australian soldier in Afghanistan since 2002, to promote their bipartisan pro-war agenda.

On June 28, Rudd used a welcome home parade through Brisbane’s streets marking the return of the 500-member battle group from southern Iraq to give the impression that he had withdrawn Australia’s troops from the US-led war on Iraq. Hamish Chitts, a former Australian infantry soldier, East Timor veteran and spokesperson for Stand Fast, a group of veterans and former military personnel who oppose the current wars of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan, told Direct Action: “Stand Fast is glad that those soldiers are no longer being placed in harm’s way for the sake of the profits the Western oil corporations hope to get out of Iraq. But this so-called withdrawal is less than one third of the Australian military personnel deployed in Iraq. The other two thirds will continue to remain in harms way supporting this unpopular and unjustifiable occupation.”
Phoney withdrawal

Chitts went on to note that Canberra’s direct military commitment to the occupation of Iraq is now approximately 835 Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel, including: a combat team of about 110 soldiers comprised of two infantry platoons, a cavalry troop, a military police detachment and some combat service logistic support personnel. “This continued commitment of direct support for the US-led war belies the claim, made by much of the media in Australia, that all Australian combat forces have been withdrawn”, said Chitts. He also noted that a Royal Australian Air Force detachment of about 160 personnel operates three C-130 Hercules transport aircraft and that about 110 ADF personnel are either part of the US-led Multi-National Force headquarters or serving on exchange in the militaries of other nations in Iraq. There is also an RAAF detachment of about 170 personnel conducting maritime patrol operations, with two AP-3C Orion aircraft.

“There is also a Royal Australian Navy ANZAC-class frigate with approximately 160 personnel patrolling the northern Persian Gulf as part of Operation Catalyst, which works with US and British warships to guard Iraq’s offshore oil assets, and to carry out provocations along Iran’s coastline”, said Chitts. He pointed out that 15 ADF personnel are employed with the Coalition Counter Improvised Explosive Device Task Force that coordinates efforts focused on intelligence collection, material solutions and training for the US-led occupation forces throughout Iraq, and that there is a tri-service (army, RAAF and RAN) grouping of 110 personnel that are responsible for a range of logistic, training and communications activities.

“The removal of some combat elements is far from a withdrawal of Australia’s involvement in the war against the Iraqi people. It is a re-shuffling. Most of the troops who have recently returned will soon be used to bolster Australian military efforts to defend the corrupt puppet government of Afghanistan and Western business interests in that country”, said Chitts. Australia currently has just over 1000 troops in Afghanistan, making Canberra the 10th-largest provider of foreign occupation personnel to the Central Asian country and the largest non-NATO occupation contingent.

The emotive atmosphere created by the relief of the battle group soldiers to be out of Iraq and the relief at their safe return by their relatives was too tempting a political opportunity for Rudd to pass up. At the June 28 ceremony he proclaimed: “Freedom is not for free. Freedom comes at a price and you are our front line in the defence of our freedom.” But, Chitts observed, “since the previous Iraqi government headed by Saddam Hussein, ousted through the US-British-Australian invasion of 2003, never had the means nor the aim of invading Australia (or the US or Britain), the ADF’s role in Iraq was not and isn’t to defend ordinary Australians’ freedoms. As the AWB scandal revealed, Australian troops were sent to invade and occupy Iraq to protect Australian business interests there. Labor has always claimed to have opposed the Iraq invasion, but now Rudd tells us it was to protect “our freedom”!

With 63% of Australians opposed to Australia’s involvement in the war in Iraq and just over 50% opposed to Australian involvement in the war in Afghanistan, Chitts asked: “How can Rudd claim to be acting for freedom and democracy when a majority in this country want all the troops bought home? And it is not just freedom and democracy here that is being ignored; the majority of Iraqis and the majority of Afghans don’t want foreign troops occupying their countries. That’s why the people of Iraq and Afghanistan will keep resisting the occupation forces. The only freedom being fought for by Australian troops in these countries is the freedom of the big corporations to exploit new markets and to secure control of Iraq’s oilfields. It only costs $1.50 to extract a barrel of oil out of the ground in Iraq. With oil now priced at around $140 a barrel, and predicted to go higher, the privatisation of Iraq’s nationalised oil resources will bring a profits bonanza to the big Western oil companies.”

In March this year, on the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, Rudd denounced the Howard Coalition government’s decision to involve Australian troops in the Iraq war, telling the federal parliament: “Have further terrorist attacks been prevented? No, they have not been, as the victims of the Madrid train bombing will attest. Has any evidence of a link between weapons of mass destruction and the former Iraqi regime and terrorists been found? No. After five years, has the humanitarian crisis in Iraq been removed? No it has not.” Chitts told DA: “While opponents of the war in Iraq will agree with these comments, Rudd says one thing then does another. It’s complete hypocrisy for the Labor politicians to publicly oppose the war in Iraq, make a show of bringing some of the troops home and yet still provide nearly 1000 military personnel to support the US occupation of Iraq. The troops still in Iraq not only provide practical support for the occupation but also help legitimise the notion that the occupiers are a coalition of nations rather than essentially just the US. If Rudd really opposes the occupation of Iraq, he should withdraw all the ADF personnel.”
Afghanistan

On July 8, SAS Signaller Sean McCarthy became the sixth Australian soldier to die as part of the occupation of Afghanistan when a roadside improvised explosive device was detonated as the vehicle he was in passed by. Two other soldiers and a “coalition national” were injured by the blast. The soldiers were based at Tarin Kowt military base in Oruzgan province in the south-east of Afghanistan. Rudd’s response, said Chitts: “highlighted his commitment to keeping Australian troops in Afghanistan, propping up the US-installed puppet regime” of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Rudd said: “We’ve had losses before, my fear is we will lose them again.”

Brendan Nelson, seeing an opportunity to use McCarthy’s death to try to turn public opinion to support the war in Afghanistan, claimed that: “Signaller McCarthy has given his life in our name, in the cause of fighting extremism and the Taliban in particular. It’s essential that we continue to fight these terrorists in their own backyard so they do not get into ours, here in Australia.” Chitts pointed out that the Taliban is not, and never has been, officially listed by either Washington or Canberra as a “terrorist” organisation. He said Stand Fast was disgusted by Nelson’s patronising rhetoric. “To hide this war under the cloak of a war against terrorists is ridiculous. As veterans and ex-service personnel, we reject this attempt to say that anyone in Afghanistan has died in our name. We think Dr Nelson is looking after the interests of Australian big business and trying to justify it up by claiming the people of Afghanistan have the capability and desire to invade Australia. That’s absurd. Stand Fast would like to ask Dr Nelson and Mr Rudd, did the bride and 22 other members of her wedding party who were killed by US bombs in Nangarhar province on July 6 also give their lives in our name? Were they terrorists, plotting to invade Australians’ backyards? Have the thousands of other civilians who have already died as part a result of the occupation of Afghanistan also given their lives in our name?”

Not to be outdone by Nelson’s comments on McCarthy’s death, Labor war minister Joel Fitzgibbon told July 14 Australian newspaper, Australians have a “quite robust” tolerance for battlefield casualties in Afghanistan, and “Australians understood the national interest was under direct threat in Afghanistan, and accepted the risks facing the Diggers”. Chitts told DA: “If both Australian soldiers and civilians think the Canberra politicians are really risking the lives of the troops for them, they wouldn’t think it acceptable. Fitzgibbon’s, Nelson’s and Rudd’s comments are that of butchers preparing the Australian people for the bill in lives that ordinary Australians will have to pay as the resistance to foreign occupation in Afghanistan escalates.”

Chitts explained that before the US-led invasion, production of opium, the key ingredient in heroin, had virtually been wiped out from Afghanistan by the Taliban regime. “Since then Afghanistan, one of poorest countries in the world, has re-emerged as the world’s main opium supplier. The UN estimates that Afghanistan now accounts for 93% of the global market in illegal opiates. The total area used for opium cultivation increased by 59% in 2006 and by a further 17% last year, according to a UN report released on March 5. The US bribed and continues to bribe Afghan warlords, who profit from the opium trade, to gain their support, which has not only allowed the rapid growth of opium production but has also created a culture of corruption in Afghanistan. In 2001 alone, Afghan warlords were given US$70 million in bribes by the CIA to turn against the Taliban government.

“The US-backed government of Afghanistan controls little more than the capital, Kabul, with the warlords ruling the rest with an iron fist. Corruption among police and local authorities is worst in southern Afghanistan, where drug profits are highest. Despite his repeated public denials, President Karzai’s half-brother Wali, head of Kandahar’s provincial council, continues to be accused by senior government sources, as well as foreign analysts and officials, as having a key role in orchestrating the movement of heroin from Kandahar westward through Helmand province and out across the Iranian border.” Chitts explained that the continued occupation of Afghanistan is aimed at securing US oil corporations’ access to the huge gasfields in Turkmenistan and the oilfields in Kazakhstan, to the north of Afghanistan, including a possible pipeline from these fields through Afghanistan to lucrative markets in Pakistan and India.”

Chitts said that the war in Afghanistan was initiated to use the shock of Al Qaeda’s terrorist attack on New York’s World Trade Centre to prepare public opinion for an already planned attack on oil-rich Iraq. “Soldiers are sacrificing their lives and civilians are being killed so that big-business interests in the West will be able to earn huge profits from controlling the energy resources of Central Asia. Of course we in Stand Fast don’t support the politics and religious fanaticism of the Taliban. Initially the Taliban was easily defeated because they didn’t have the support of most Afghans. Now their ranks are being swelled, not by people who have suddenly been won over to the Taliban’s view of the world, but by people who oppose US-backed Karzai regime of warlords and opium barons whose rule our troops help impose.

“The Labor and Liberal politicians in Australia are vying with each other to be more `the Digger’s friend’ than the other. Most of these politicians have never served in ADF, and would be mortified if their children served. These politicians betray the criminal disregard they have for the soldiers in sending them to risk their lives to impose Western business interests on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. Whether it is the use of a welcome home parade to hide the continual participation in the bloody US-led occupation of Iraq or the disgusting use of a soldier’s death to sell the unpopular and unjustifiable war in Afghanistan, these politicians must be exposed, condemned and publicly challenged. We can write letters to these politicians and send out media releases but these will not change anything if there isn’t visible public pressure on them in the first place. We need to get people back onto the streets in protest. No more blood should be shed for the corporate profiteers and their political servants. Those who truly support our troops should support Stand Fast’s call to bring all the military personnel, from all the foreign countries involved, home from Iraq and Afghanistan.”

For more information about Stand Fast or if you are a veteran, currently serving or have served in the armed forces and would like to get involved, phone 0401 586 923, email standfast.au@gmail.com or visit www.stand-fast.webs.com/

From Direct Action. Sydney, Australia

Veteran Group disgusted by Nelson’s patronising rhetoric about soldier’s death

The Australian-based veterans group Stand Fast today rejected statements made by Federal opposition leader Brendan Nelson regarding the tragic death in Afghanistan of SAS Signaller Sean McCarthy.

Stand Fast spokesperson Hamish Chitts said the group, comprised of veterans and former military personnel who oppose the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, regards the rhetorical remarks of Dr Nelson as a vile attempt to turn public opinion to support the war in Afghanistan.

“This war is primarily about having easier access to the oilfields in Turkmenistan to the North of Afghanistan, including a possible pipeline from these oilfields through Western Afghanistan to lucrative markets in Pakistan and India. Soldiers are sacrificing their lives so that others can earn a profit from it,” he said.

“To bury this war under the cloak of democracy and a war on terror is ridiculous. As veterans and ex-service personnel, we reject this attempt to say that anyone in Afghanistan has died in our name. We think Dr Nelson is looking after the interests of big business and dressing it up to look like the people of Afghanistan have the capability and desire to invade Sydney,” Chitts said.

Chitts’ comments came after Brendan Nelson was quoted as saying; "Signaller McCarthy has given his life in our name, in the cause of fighting extremism and the Taliban in particular.”

“Stand Fast would like to ask Mr Nelson and Mr Rudd did the bride and 22 other members of her wedding party who were killed by U.S. bombs in Nangarhar province on Sunday (July 6) also give their lives in our name? Have the thousands of other civilians who have already died as part of the occupation of Afghanistan also given their lives in our name?” Chitts asked.

“Of course we don’t support the politics and religious fundamentalism of the Taliban. Initially the Taliban was easily defeated because they didn’t have the support of most Afghanis. Now their ranks are being swelled, not by people who have suddenly been won over to the Taliban’s view of the World but by people who oppose the puppet regime of thugs and opium barons whose rule our troops help enforce.” he said.

“These members of parliament, both Labor and Coalition vie with each other to be more ‘the diggers friend’ than the other. Most have never served in the Defence Force nor left the comforts of their parliamentary offices. The fact that these politicians use this death to sell their unpopular and unjustifiable war in Afghanistan is disgusting. As veterans our thoughts are with Sean’s family and all those still in harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan. No more blood should be shed for the profiteers, bring the troops home now,” Chitts said.


For further information
contact Hamish on 0401 586 923
or email standfast.au@gmail.com
or www.stand-fast.webs.com

Anti-war veterans group welcomes home troops, condemns false withdrawal

press release press release press release press release press release press release

23 June 2008

A parade through Brisbane streets on June 28^th marking the return of last Australian Battle Group from Southern Iraq is being falsely heralded as a withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq.

“Stand Fast, welcomes home the troops that have recently returned from Southern Iraq,” said Hamish Chitts, former Australian infantry soldier, East Timor veteran and founder of Stand Fast, a group of veterans and former military personnel who oppose the current wars of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We are glad that they are no longer being placed in harm’s way for the sake of oil and the interests of global corporations. Unfortunately this so called withdrawal is less than one third of the Australian military personnel currently in Iraq. The other two thirds will continue to remain in harms way supporting this unpopular and unjustifiable occupation.”

Chitts explained that “it is far from a withdrawal - it is a re-shuffling. Most of the troops who have recently returned will soon be used to bolster Australian military efforts to defend the corrupt puppet government of Afghanistan and U.S. government and business interests in that country.”

63% of Australians today are opposed to the war in Iraq and over 50% oppose the war Afghanistan. Chitts asked, “How can Kevin Rudd claim to be acting for democracy when a majority in this country want all the troops bought home? And it is not just democracy here that is being ignored; the majority of Iraqis and the majority of Afghanis don’t want foreign troops occupying their land. That’s why the people of Iraq and Afghanistan will keep resisting the occupation of their countries.”

“So while we welcome home these troops, we continue to condemn the criminal politicians who sent them to Iraq, who kept them there and are continuing to send troops to participate in the bloody US-led occupation. Those who truly support our troops should join our call to bring all the military personnel, from all the countries involved, home from Iraq and Afghanistan.”

For further information

contact Hamish on 0401 586 923

or email standfast.au@gmail.com

or www.stand-fast.webs.com

Veterans Join Anti-war Movement in Australia

The following speech by Hamish Chitts marked Stand Fast's public launch at the Palm Sunday Peace Rally in Queens Park, Brisbane, 17th March.


Photo: Hamish Chitts at Palm Sunday Rally by Willy Bach


I would like to acknowledge the Turrabul and Jaggera people on whose land the people of Brisbane live and continue to profit from with no true recompense to the Jaggera or the Turrabul.


I am from a new veterans group called Stand Fast which is being launched nationally today. We have someone speaking at the rally in Melbourne today and someone in Sydney as well.

Stand Fast is a group of veterans and former military personnel who oppose the current wars of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We who have borne arms denounce these wars because:

· These wars are about money, power and fear.

· Soldiers are people; they are our neighbours, our sons, daughters, brothers and sisters.

· Too many have died, often leaving behind partners, children and other loved ones.

· Many will carry the psychological scars for the rest of their lives.

Stand Fast seeks to add weight to the antiwar movement in Australia through organising veterans to speak out against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and by debunking the myth that “If you’re against the war, you’re against the troops.

We are also encouraging current serving members of the Australian Defence Force to inform themselves about what is really happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will provide advice and support for those who may question serving in either of these wars. During the Vietnam War an anti-war movement grew within the U.S. that by 1971 had, in the words of one colonel, infested the entire armed services. This group added great strength to the anti-war movement and by the Pentagon’s own figures, 503,926 “incidents of desertion” occurred between 1966 and 1971; and by 1971 entire units were refusing to go into battle in unprecedented numbers. In 1972 there was fear among some generals that the majority of their armed forces would mutiny and take control if the Vietnam War did not end soon.

Stand Fast also draws inspiration from U.S. based group Iraq Veterans Against the War. Last year when Matt Howard from Iraq Veterans Against the War spoke in cities around Australia he said, “In Iraq you saw this testosterone filled bloodlust. A lot of people just shot things for the sake of shooting things. Buses, vehicles, houses, whatever. Donkeys, camels...people.” Today, Matt and hundreds of other veterans travel to schools, universities and demonstrations to speak out against the war. In Australia alone his one tour encouraged thousands to protest against these wars. It is his testimony and that of other veterans that is having strong pull on people in the U.S. to protest against these wars.

There are Australian casualties occurring everyday in Iraq and Afghanistan that no one sees or hears about. Through my own experiences as a former infantry soldier and veteran and through those of my mates I can tell you no one who sees active service comes back the same. Recent figures from America have shown that troops coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering 3 times more Post Traumatic Stress Disorder than their counterparts did on return from Vietnam. But it doesn’t just effect those who’ve been directly involved, it effects their children and even their grandchildren. A recent survey of 2500 children and grandchildren of Australian Vietnam veterans has found 70% of children and 30% of grandchildren suffer psychiatric or psychological problems. The average for Australia is 18%. So currently the thousands of Australians sent to Iraq and Afghanistan each year equates to tens of thousands of lives adversely effected either directly or indirectly by mental health problems that has a flow on effect through generations to come.

So military personnel are risking their minds as well as their bodies and for what are we as people and as communities paying this high price for? For what are Iraqi and Afghani civilians paying with their bodies and their minds for? It is being done for oil, in the interests of multi-national corporations and it is being done for strategic real estate for the U.S. military. Most people recognise this about Iraq but not everyone knows that the same reasons have brought about the occupation of Afghanistan. In 1998 Californian company UNOCAL withdrew from negotiations with the Taliban government after failing for several years to be allowed to build a gas pipeline from fields in Turkmenistan through Western Afghanistan to lucrative markets in Pakistan and India. The top negotiator for UNOCAL was fellow named Hummed Karzai. The same Karzai that is currently President of the puppet regime in Afghanistan which is comprised of warlord thugs who are no better to the people of Afghanistan than Taliban thugs they replaced. The pipeline however is back on the agenda.

Our new Prime Minister has called Afghanistan a ‘good’ war. It is not. It is no better than the war in Iraq and it is being done for the same reasons. But he knows this that is why he still supports the occupation of Iraq. Rudd has made a big public show of bringing the troops home from Iraq later in the year, but, when you look at the fine print he is only bringing back one third of the personnel currently over there.

That is why we need to keep coming out on the streets and why Stand Fast has formed. To show real support for the people in our armed forces, to show our real support for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan by demanding from the Rudd Government a true and complete troop withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.

If you want further information about Stand Fast or if you are a veteran or have served in the armed forces of any country and would like to get involved (or know someone who would) please see me after the speakers have finished.

Bring the troops home now!