\n\tScott Morrison\u2019s obsequious falling in behind the United States and \nUnited Kingdom in targeting Iran again confirms the late former Prime \nMinister Malcolm Fraser\u2019s assertion that Australia does not have an \nindependent foreign policy.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\tAt least elements of the media, unlike the Labor Party, are sceptical \nabout this decision, as they should be, given that it is so clearly a \ncrisis orchestrated by the Trump administration and British government, \nand yet another deadly Middle East regime-change fiasco in the making.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\tSo why is Labor supporting it? Once again, ALP stands for Another \nLiberal Party\u2014like with banking abuses, police-state laws now used to \nraid journalists, and mistreatment of refugees, Labor is desperate to be\n bipartisan on foreign policy, not just because it is scared of its own \nshadow, but because it is also subservient to the Anglo-American war \nmachine. The only differences between Labor and the Liberals are in \ndegree and tone, not in substance. \n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\tMore lies<\/strong>\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\tThe government claims it is deploying the ADF to the Strait of Hormuz \nto \u201cde-escalate\u201d the situation, and to protect \u201cfreedom of navigation\u201d \nfrom Iran, which has been seizing ships. As usual, their claims are \npremised on lies.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\tThe current flash point in the Strait of Hormuz has its origins in US \nPresident Donald Trump\u2019s decision in 2018 to unilaterally withdraw from \nthe nuclear agreement with Iran. \n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\tIt escalated on 5 May when Trump\u2019s National Security Advisor John \nBolton\u2014one of the notorious neoconservative liars who orchestrated the \n2003 invasion of Iraq\u2014suddenly announced the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln<\/em>\n carrier strike group and a bomber taskforce to the Gulf in response to \nan unspecified \u201cnumber of troubling and escalatory indications and \nwarnings\u201d.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\tVery significantly, on 14 May the top UK Commander in the region, Maj. \nGen. Chris Ghika, publicly contradicted Bolton in a Pentagon briefing to\n state that there was no increased threat level from Iran. Just two days\n later, the UK government overruled Ghika and agreed there was an \nincreased Iranian threat.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\tFrom that moment, the British escalated the situation, in coordination \nwith the Washington neocons. On 19 May the UK announced the deployment \nof its waterborne SAS equivalent, the Special Boat Service, to \u201cprotect \nshipping\u201d. Only then did shipping incidents start to occur\u2014indicating \nthat either John Bolton and his British cronies are the prophets of our \ntime, with greater insights than even local British commanders, or that \nthey have orchestrated the incidents to provoke an escalation that can \nbe the pretext for an invasion to achieve Bolton\u2019s longstanding goal of \nregime change in Iran. \n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\tThe following shipping incidents have occurred after the deployment of US and British forces to the Persian Gulf:\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\tNow, Australia is buying into the lying Anglo-American narrative, \nciting the freedom of navigation chestnut to justify our presence.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\tA comparison must be made to China and the South China Sea, where our \nAnglo-American allies use the freedom of navigation excuse to sail naval\n forces with enough firepower to blow up the world. The two countries \nthat most depend on freedom of navigation in both the Persian Gulf and \nSouth China Sea are not the USA and UK, but China and Iran. \nNotwithstanding the current crippling US sanctions, Iran depends \nentirely on shipping through the Gulf to sell its oil. Iran\u2019s biggest \ncustomer is China, which depends on shipping through the Persian Gulf \nfor half of its oil imports, which then must also be shipped through the\n South China Sea. \n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\tBizarrely, Iran and China are being demonised as the risk to the \nshipping lanes they depend upon most, when in fact the real risk is \nAnglo-American provocations. This demonisation was taken to its extreme \nwhen Australian Liberal MP Andrew Hastie compared the rise of China to that of Nazi Germany<\/a>,\n and called China a \u201cchallenge\u201d to our \u201cdemocratic values\u201d. Hastie made \nthe comments in a 26 June speech to the neoconservative Henry Jackson \nSociety in London, one of whose founders, Cambridge University professor\n Brendan Simms, trumpeted his Society\u2019s vision in a 2011 article \npraising the Libya intervention entitled, \u201cDemocracy can be dropped from\n 10,000 feet\u201d i.e. \u201cdemocratic values\u201d can be bombed into countries. \nAfter destroying Iraq, Libya, and Syria, Hastie\u2019s neoconservative \nfriends are now targeting Iran for a regime-change bloodbath, and \nfantasise about ultimately overthrowing China. \n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\tAustralians must face the fact that Iran and China are not threatening the world, we are<\/em>.\n It is our responsibility as citizens to demand our government withdraw \nfrom the Anglo-American regime-change agenda, assert a truly independent\n foreign policy, and support a new international economic order based on\n sovereign nation-states respecting each other\u2019s sovereignty, but \ncooperating on economic development that can lift the world out of \npoverty and ensure prosperity for future generations.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Scott Morrison\u2019s obsequious falling in behind the United States and United Kingdom in targeting Iran again confirms the late former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser\u2019s assertion that Australia does not have an independent foreign policy. At least elements of the media, unlike the Labor Party, are sceptical about this decision, as they should be, given that … <\/p>\n