Downer, who is affectionately remembered in some quarters for being photographed wearing fishnet stockings and high heels, emerged this week with the message that those like former PM Paul Keating and former Hawke government minister, Gareth Evans, who opposed AUKUS were the Chamberlains of our time, seeking to appease an expansionist and belligerent China.
Downer’s intervention came with the warning that disaster awaited those who ignored the lessons of history.
Oh boy. The front of it all.
Alexander Downer’s romp through history took us all the way back to 1938 and the cautionary tale of Ireland’s then prime minister, Eamon de Valera. When war came, de Valera proclaimed Ireland’s neutrality.This was a selfish and immoral policy, Downer pointed out, with De Valera leaving the work of protecting our way of life to others.
All that and yet…what of Iraq?
Alexander Downer neglects his own contribution to history as a senior member of the Howard cabinet which went all in with the United States to topple the Iraqi tyrant, Saddam Hussein. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was based on dodgy intelligence concocted in the United States and it led to calamitous results which are still felt across the Middle East.
In response to terror attacks launched from Afghanistan, the US decided to invade another country altogether and to somehow spread the word of democracy throughout the Middle East. The so-called war on terror, underpinned by secret security and intelligence operations, was an enthusiastic joint endeavour between the US, the UK and Australia.
Sound familiar?
Being Alexander Downer, of course, means never saying sorry – but rather to carry on unbowed, sticking with the old Washington – London gang.
Yet to do so means ignoring another lesson of recent history: the United States of 2024 is not what it was in 2004 – or even 2014. As Joe Biden himself has warned, the US is fighting for its own survival as a liberal democracy and as a beacon of world freedom. The enemy has risen from within.
Even Downer’s old boss, John Howard has made concerned murmurings about the future of the US, telling Nine News that the potential next US president, Donald Trump, behaved in a way which was not “compatible with democracy”.
So if not “compatible with democracy”, what is Trump’s behaviour compatible with?
And do we assume that if Trump fails to win the US presidency then all is suddenly right with the US – even though close to 50% of Americans back a dictatorial, mendacious psychopath who right now is insisting that immigrants are eating your pet dogs and cats?
Trump may even depart the scene, but surely the lesson of America’s recent past is that Trumpism is alive and well – much as bin Ladenism has lived on beyond Osama bin Laden himself.
The really hard question for American loyalists like Alexander Downer is this: what is Australia’s get-out clause if and/or when the US democracy experiment collapses?
Is this when we fall back on the idea that those steely-eyed officers of the US military and security complex somehow provide the guardrails to political excess? If so it would be good to see where that is stated in the AUKUS owner’s manual.
There are already signs that AUKUS is sputtering at the nuts and bolts level and that it isn’t what we were told it would be. The ABC reports on staffing problems at the newly established Australian Submarine Agency. Several reports have highlighted that US shipyards are behind schedule in producing enough nuclear-powered submarines for the US Navy, let alone for Australia. www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/us-will-find-a-way-to-deliver-subs-promised-to-australia-20240404-p5fham.html
Alexander Downer himself has argued that building submarines in Adelaide – a core promise of AUKUS – is a misconceived economic project that is “financially untenable and a political fantasy”.
Already Australia has pledged many billions of dollars to support shipyards in the US and the UK.
You can quibble about the details of if, when and how AUKUS gets done – but the big picture question remains about the secret deal Scott Morrison cooked up and sprang on the Australian public three years ago: why in heaven’s name has Australia handed its defence sovereignty to a failing state which may well be run by a lunatic, backed by the evangelical christian right?
That is the royal commission we really need to have.
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