John Winston Howard, former Prime Minister of Australia, today received the highest civilian award that a United States President can bestow; the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Does he deserve it? Let’s take a look at not only some of the main criteria for this award, but also the reason why Mr. Howard has that medal dangling around his neck tonight. You make up your own mind.
The official criteria for this award is:
It is designed to recognize individuals who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”
Howard’s ‘especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States’ consisted of seizing a chance to play with the big boys of world politics and make himself look good. I believe Tony Blair, also a recipient today, thought about his decision a little bit longer. However, Blair’s worthiness of such an award is also highly dubious.
So what is Howard’s ‘especially meritorious contribution’ to the peace and stability of not only America but the world? He, like Bush and Blair, listened to bad or even false intelligence. He sided with a President who we now know had no plan in Iraq beyond killing Saddam Hussein, needlessly bombing the shit out of a country, and shouting ‘Mission Accomplished’ from the nearest aircraft carrier.
Leaders from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and many other countries, disagreed with the proposed military action, and refused to be a part of it.
In a 2004 U.S. presidential debate, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry questioned the size of the coalition participating in the initial invasion, saying, “…when we went in, there were three countries: Great Britain, Australia and the United States. That’s not a grand coalition. We can do better”. President Bush responded by saying, “Well, actually, he forgot Poland. And now there’s 30 nations involved, standing side by side with our American troops”. The phrase You forgot Poland subsequently became a sarcastic shorthand for the perception that most members of the coalition were not contributing much to the war effort compared to the main three allies. The majority of the population in most countries involved did not, according to surveys, support the endeavour or their nation’s participation.
Howard should have felt alienated, but instead felt like he had got into a club that had once refused him entry. He most likely felt, like Blair, that if he sided with Bush, and this Iraq thing paid off, he would be regarded with the same pride as the Churchill’s, Menzies’ and Roosevelt’s.
This war has been a disaster from the start until now, and those leaders who did not side with Bush, Blair and Howard are now grinning from ear to ear. But for at least today, Mr. Howard can stand smug and egotistical, as if the world’s opinion is dead wrong. He can think that as much as he likes. What the world saw today was one of the worst US Presidents giving out medals to his ‘yes’ men. He called John Howard his ‘man of steel’. If John Howard was a man of steel, he would have had the metal to tell Bush where to get off when asked to assist in invading a country for no good reason.
With the presentation of these medals today, what George W Bush is saying less than two weeks before he leaves office, is that no matter how many people can prove that he went to war on a myth, and because of oil, he will stand by his decision, and so will Blair and Howard. Yes, they all have conviction. Yes, they all have courage to stick to their conviction. But that doesn’t make it right, and it certainly should not be the basis for the bestowing of the highest civilian honour. If the Iraq War showed George W Bush’s supreme lack of knowledge and judgement, then giving these two men this award is like writing that supreme lack of judgement on a neon sign and flashing it in Times Square. Stephen Kenny, former lawyer for Guantanamo Bay inmate, Australian David Hicks, had this to say:
“I think in view of what’s happened at Guantanamo Bay and John Howard’s involvement in it, I think that it is extremely regrettable and clearly devalues the Medal of Freedom,” he said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/01/14/2466221.htm?section=justin
But back to John Winston Howard. He beamed as he was accepting the medal, and for him, it was his only moment in the sun since being defeated in the November 2007 election. As matter of fact, the only times he does get honoured, it seems to be on American soil, surrounded by right wing Republicans. It seems Australia is not so quick to thank him for turning a respected alliance between Australia and the United States into nothing short of a bizarre Master/Slave relationship. All that was needed was the whip and the dog collar. My father’s favourite joke during those early days of the Iraq War was, “Why do they call John Howard a Bonsai? He’s a little Bush.”
If that’s an indication of how Australia and Howard were viewed around the world, then Howard, like the biblical character Judas, can take his thirty pieces of silver in the form of that medal.
My recollection of that story is that Judas felt so guilty about what he had done, he hanged himself.
I suppose Howard does have a head start there. He does have something hanging around his neck.
Enjoy your day
