Aussies 4 ANZUS Welcoming Vice President Cheney Feb 2007
ONE. The Battle of the Coral Sea. Why is it that Australians who are old enough to remember the 1940s are almost always staunchly pro-American? Its because in early 1942 Imperial Japan had conquered ALL of Asia and Australia was next. We were attacked by Japanese bombers almost 100 times including ten missiles that bombed Sydney's Eastern Suburbs. Plans were drawn up to defend Australia but everything north of Brisbane had to be written off as indefensible. On 12 March 1942 the Prime Minister of Imperial Japan, General Tojo, made this declaration:
Australia and New Zealand are now threatened by the might of the Imperial Japanese forces and both of them should know that any resistance is futile. If the Australian government does not modify her present attitude, their continent will suffer the same fate as the Dutch East Indies.
This was a terrifying threat from a power that had conquered all in its path. At the time Hitler had conquered Western Europe. Australia’s future was in the balance in May 1942 when the American Navy inflicted the first minor defeat on Imperial Japan in the Battle of the Coral Sea (near PNG). A month later the Americans in the Battle of Midway (near Hawaii) decisively hit the Japanese Navy and America then proceeded to liberate Asia and lay the foundations for its democratic stability and economic success of today.
One million Americans spent time in Australia during World War II. If America had not defended Australia I believe we Aussies would have eventually defeated Imperial Japan - but at the cost of half of our adult male population.
TWO. America has been a force for good in Australian history. The birth of Australia in 1788 is directly linked to the birth of the United States. From 1783 Britain could no longer dump its convicts in Virginia and so began looking elsewhere. Other European powers were sniffing around the ‘unknown southern continent’ at that time. If the Americans had not declared independence when they did, Australia may not have been founded by Britain and we would not be the nation we are today. We could be large scale East Timor.
Our population increased fourfold from 430,000 in 1851 to 1,700,000 only twenty years later because of the Gold Rush. Behind Britain, America provided the largest number of permanent migrants who brought invaluable mining experience from California. Americans melted into Australia and played a central role in our legendary democratic uprising at Eureka Stockade.
One of the icons of Australia’s second most important political party was an American-Australian named King O’Malley who was born in Kansas and educated in New York. O’Malley inspired his party to look to America and it choose the American spelling for its name, ‘Labor.’
The goodwill between our two nations was seen when Australia’s greatest Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies greeted then Vice-President Richard Nixon by saying, ‘I love America.’ In retirement Nixon recalled that meeting and wrote of Menzies, ‘…in other times and other places he might have attained the world stature of a Churchill.’
THREE. The Vietnam War. Two countries were created shortly after World War II – South Vietnam and North Vietnam. South Vietnam had the beginnings of democracy and a staunchly pro-west, pro-growth outlook. It was on its way to being an Asian tiger like the others taking off at the time - Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore.
North Vietnam fell under the control of Soviet-backed communists and thereafter didn’t have a flicker of democracy. Innocent South Vietnam was then invaded by North Vietnam. America, at the request of the South Vietnamese government and South Vietnamese public opinion, went over to help tens of millions resist tyranny. The Western left, however, wanted America to lose.
After being worn down internally America eventually withdrew when North Vietnam promised not to invade South Vietnam. As soon as America exited, surprise, surprise North Vietnam re-invaded and South Vietnam fell under the control of Stalinist North Vietnam.
1 million people were immediately imprisoned without charge. 165,000 were killed in re-education camps. Food shortages were soon everywhere. Vietnam got itself into a war with China and then with Cambodia where other communists were murdering one third of its population. Things were so bad that a couple of million brave Vietnamese jumped into leaking little boats and paddled as far from Vietnam as they could get. Good old America took in almost a million refugees followed by Australia and Canada at around 140,000 each. Lets never forgot however the countless unknown who drowned at sea.
Behind the South Vietnamese, the Australians did the most to encourage American engagement in Vietnam. While the Vietnam War was being fought hundreds of millions of poor people across South-East Asia were living in turmoil. The American intervention in Vietnam gave South-East Asia the breathing space it needed to get on its feet. Today American inspired democratic capitalism has won in South-East Asia and on Australia’s doorstep hundreds of millions of people have become our partners and friends.
FOUR. Leadership in the fight for freedom. Australia is the only nation to have fought with America in every major war of the 20th Century. Left-wingers like to say that all war is bad but overlook the fact that sometimes evil men leave good men with no choice but war. In the words of John Stuart Mill,
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling that thinks nothing worthy a war is worse”. Lets think about what those wars achieved.
World War I prevented militaristic, anti-democratic Germany from dominating Europe. World War II prevented the Nazis and Imperial Japan from taking over the world. After World War I the French demanded that Germany be punished but after World War II America insisted on being kind to Germany and Japan and funded their reconstruction. Has any victor in history ever been so magnaminous? No. The Korean War helped a majority of Koreans escape the hell of North Korea (according to the World Food Organisation, 1 million people starved to death in North Korea in 1999). The Vietnam War (see above). The Gulf War liberated Kuwait from a brutal occupation.
Since the toppling of Saddam in 2003 there have been three free and fair elections across Iraq. Parties calling for the immediate departure of Americans got minimal support. The Iraqis have formed a democratic government in the heart of the Middle East. If we have the guts to see Iraq through it will end up similar to Jordan and Egypt – a fairly stable nation where things aren’t perfect but are improving. The Western left does not want to see that outcome. They want a bloodbath, they want Iraq to fail so they can win a political point. They hate George W Bush twenty times more than their mild dislike for Saddam Hussein.
FIVE. Inventions. America has invented most of the really biggies – the things that positively changed our lives for ever: electricity, aeroplanes, the light bulb, mass car production, telephones, radio, TV, computers, internet, Google, modern health-care and on it goes. America’s detractors depend on these things all day, everyday but fail to ever feel any gratitude. America has produced almost twice as many Nobel Prize winners as the next most successful nation. (Britain).
SIX. The Cold War. It took more than 50 years but America superbly defeated the USSR without firing a shot and without gloating. If America didn’t exist Josef Stalin clones would be running the planet. The biggest beneficiaries of the fall of the USSR have been the Russian people who have never seen more prosperity and stability since admitting Marx was wrong and the Americans were right … about everything.
SEVEN. Humanitarian Aid. America does far, far more than any nation today or in history for those less fortunate. America does so because the American people are good.
The Australian Labor Party has been, is and probably always will be home to many who despise America. They will turn a blind eye to the world’s most brutal and corrupt dictators yet leap out of bed to attack the United States. But Labor’s leader recently said,
‘America is an overwhelming force for good in the world. It is time we sang that from the world’s rooftops. Whether you are looking at those who need nourishment in the rice fields and disused factories of North Korea or those in need of food aid in West Darfur. Whichever of the world’s hellholes I have travelled to in recent years there I see America’s helping hand at work.’
EIGHT. The American Constitution. This document has stood like a rock for over two centuries. France has had five constitutions in the same time. In 1789 there was one democratic government on the planet – but now it is the norm because of the inspiration provided by America. The Australian Constitution has provided us with beautiful stability of government and it is a merger of the best elements from Britain and America – the so-called “Washminster” model. Our terms ‘House of Representatives’ and ‘Senate’ are directly lifted from the American Constitution.
NINE. American Culture. In the global free market of the 21st Century merit rules. The world is in love with American music, movies, sports, websites, TV, books, art and food. If this distresses you ask yourself, ‘what is it about me that dislikes success?’
TEN. Rupert Murdoch. Thank you America for building such a massive economic platform so that the greatest businessman of our age, the Australian-American Rupert Murdoch, can fully demonstrate his awesome abilities. Bill Gates was asked what it feels like to be the most powerful person on the planet and replied, ‘I don’t know. Ask Rupert Murdoch.’ That was in the 1990’s. Rupert has his predictable detractors but there are many, many quieter Australians who are very, very proud of him.