The Insiders interview reveals journalists are not prepared to analyse and challenge the accepted orthodoxy on the US alliance. Barry Cassidy's interview came across as a paid up commercial for US & Australian government interests. The North Korean situation has been mishandled by the Bush administration. Iraq is a disastrous travesty and Australia's prosecution of good governance strategies in the South Pacific takes place within a neo-colonial construct that disempowers local leaders and does'nt address sustainably the underlying structural causes of institutional weakness and poor services. Australia has not modeled good governance (AWB, Pacific Solution etc ) but hectored and lectured on the subject. We have reinforced our stance with threats of aid withdrawal and other bullying.
The Howard Government has undermined our long term strategic interests by slavish acceptance of US unilateralism, preemption and other tragically flawed foreign policy postures. These approaches will be discredited and Australia will be seen as complicit in not contesting their basis and for our simple minded pliability. The Bush administration has badly misjudged global realities, exacerbating security tensions and the various divides between rich and poor nations on vital issues such as global warming, trade, refugees etc.
Anyway, I'm sure Mr Hill went away comfortable in the knowledge that not even enquiring journalists challenge the propaganda nonsense of 'cut and run' and 'stay the course' - heaven forbid we should actually contest the dangerous mindset that got us into this morass in the first place and which prevents the prosecution of strategies to minimise the damage and to retrieve our international position.
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