Australia Vs. Canada

[shams]

stof said:
Must be a time zone thing. Not many Canadians want to post on message boards at 10 AM. I'm sure my canuck friends will flood this thread later in the evening.

And a question for the Aussies out there. What do you guys think of John Howard and his...um... "friendliness" with Bush?

Please - don't get me started.

The only reason Howard (i.e. Liberals) are still in power is because he is a really good politician. Never admits mistakes, good at arguing, is boring enough to not do anything "seedy" in life, etc.

In the 80's/90's, Labor pushed a "pro-Asia" policy. When the Liberals took back power, they instantly reversed this into a "Pro-US" policy - which has been around ever since.

Why it happened - I'm not so sure. There is a theory about the core of both leaderships being driven by ultra-conservative Christian policies - but there is probably more to it than this.

I do believe that Bush entered into Iraq on "false pretenses" (i.e. "Saddam tried to kill my Daddy") - and that probably Howard acted in good faith, and honestly tried to backup his "Friend & Ally" (Bush) by doing what seemed to be the right thing at the time (WMD = bad).

The problem has been that ever since all the dodgy Iraq evidence has come to light - nothing has changed. At the least Howard should have confronted Bush about what is going on. Its even possible that he might have, and knows exactly what is going on - but refuses to budge for political reasons.

The problem for Howard now, is the US is slowly starting to talk about a "phased withdrawal" from Iraq. Howard however remains completely stubborn, does not accept anything actually went wrong - and refuses to do anything about it.

...

Luckily all this coincides with our Federal elections (taking place around Oct? this year) - the Liberals will certainly lose power, Howard may even lose his seat - and will quite probably retire from politics completely (about time).