Citizens Electoral Council of Australia

Media Release  5^th of October 2012

Craig Isherwood‚ National Secretary
PO Box 376‚ COBURG‚ VIC 3058
Phone: 1800 636 432
Email: cec@cecaust.com.au
Website: http://cec.cecaust.com.au
 

Malcolm Fraser: Australia heading for nuclear war

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser has sounded the same clear warning first issued by the Citizens Electoral Council and U.S. statesman Lyndon LaRouche a year ago: that the present direction of U.S. and Australian defence policy is leading to the unthinkable—nuclear war. His carefully-reasoned warning was met with outbursts of denial by most of Australia’s media, typified by an editorial in Murdoch’s The Australian, “Fraser should be dismissed”, and an hysterical rant by the ALP’s Michael Danby, chairman of the parliamentary Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Trade, that “No rational examination of the foreign policy of the US under Obama or Australia under both prime ministers Gillard or Rudd could lead anyone to believe Canberra or Washington had sought or encouraged nuclear confrontation with China.”

[NOTICE: LAROUCHE WEBCAST LIVE FROM WASHINGTON, THE MOMENT OF OUR GREATEST CRISIS, SATURDAY 6 OCT. 10am Australian EST—see below for details.]

Mr Fraser’s Sep. 25 speech to Melbourne University’s AsiaLink centre, on Australia-US Relations in the ‘Asian Century’, was followed by an even more sobering analysis from nuclear weapons expert Professor Richard Tanter, a former Senior Consultant to the Australian Defence College’s Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies, who emphasised Mr Fraser was not exaggerating: “If anything, Mr Fraser has understated those dangers, both in range and severity.”

Mr Fraser situated his warning in the context of the global strategic development following the 1990 fall of the Iron Curtain, which he recalled presented an opportunity for global economic development to build a “fairer and more just world”. Instead, the opportunity was “brushed aside”, and NATO [under Anglo-American control—Ed.] “behaved as if the Cold War was still on” and aggressively encroached on Russia’s sphere of influence.

“In so doing, the West destroyed the opportunity of building a cooperative partnership with Russia,” Mr Fraser said. “This was compounded by further mistakes when President Bush 2nd started talking of anti-ballistic missile sites in Poland and a radar site in the Czech Republic. The public mantra was that these anti-ballistic missile sites would be a protection against Iran. It was one of those public lies which only the most fanatic would believe. It was of course, directed at Russia.” [Emphasis added.]

Fraser’s analysis parallels that of Lyndon LaRouche and the CEC, who have repeatedly exposed that America’s aggressive foreign policy, under British direction, is aimed at two targets: Russia and China. Towards China, Fraser said, the U.S. is pursuing “A policy of containment”, which includes:

“More use of naval facilities in the Philippines, Singapore and potentially Vietnam; troops based in Darwin; more use of air force facilities, surveillance and communications facilities and military exercising in Australia; spy planes based in Cocos Island; Stirling Harbour perhaps to become a home base for an Indian Ocean aircraft carrier taskforce, and strategic discussions with India.”

He added, “We should also note the recent report published by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies which feeds off a close relationship with the United States Defense Department. It may not be American policy yet, but the CSIS report points clearly to the direction of policy. It is worth looking at the extracts concerning Australia. They are written as though we are a strategic colony, taken for granted, total support for whatever the United States may do.

“They suggest an entire Marine Air-Ground Task Force which will be based in Darwin. Arrangements will also need to be made so that marines could be moved in high speed vessels and including appropriate naval facilities. America clearly expects us to pay part of the cost of the marines already agreed and also for the other elements that they intend to locate in Darwin. The wording of the report makes it quite clear that such discussions have begun. The Australian Government should be required to be open and honest about its intentions.”

(To this must be added another idea mooted in the CSIS report, of a U.S. aircraft carrier base at HMAS Stirling near Perth, which would escalate tensions with China even more. Defence Minister Stephen Smith recently denied it was on the agenda, but Smith has repeatedly lied on the subject of the US military presence in Australia.)

Continuing, Mr Fraser sternly criticised Australia’s present bipartisan attitude of mindlessly accommodating U.S. war plans. “President Obama’s inappropriate speech in the Australian Parliament last November implied that Australia was fully in support of American militarisation of the Western Pacific and the policies of containment which this involves,” he said. “If our Government and Opposition indeed take that view, they serve Australia’s interests very badly indeed. …

“The Australian Government, especially the Defence Minister says there are no American bases on Australia soil and there will not be. This is straight political spin of the worst kind because it is designed to deceive Australians on matters of peace and war. We certainly have both United States and joint bases in Australia, even if technically they are under Australian control. …

“Australia has under this Labor Government and with apparent consent of the Coalition, become the southern bastion of America’s re-arming in the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia. This is an extraordinary consequence of Australian Government ineptitude and of military planning, which might recognise America’s interest, but pays little account of our own. …”

And then noting that the U.S. would find a conventional military conflict against China very difficult, Mr Fraser zeroed in on the main danger—nuclear war. He warned, “Any use of nuclear weapons between the United States and China would be a global humanitarian catastrophe, and any armed conflict between nuclear-armed powers risks nuclear escalation. So conflict—and provocation that might lead to it—must be prevented at all costs.”

To this end, the former prime minister urged a major rethink of Australia’s foreign policy. “We must urgently re-establish the reality of independence in our own policies,” he stressed. “… We should also make it clear that United States’ communications and other facilities on Australian soil will not be used for targeting or triggering or facilitating use of nuclear weapons of any kind.”

The public has a right to know

Professor Richard Tanter then delivered a chilling follow-up to Mr Fraser’s speech, detailing the extent to which Australia is now a major target in a potential nuclear exchange between the U.S. and China. “The Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap outside Alice Springs remains the most important US intelligence base outside the US itself,” he reported. “In the secret appendix to the 2009 Defence White Paper, the Defence Department confirmed it knows Pine Gap, the eyes and ears of the US military, is a high priority target in the event of US-China war. …”

The professor called for the government to be held publicly accountable for this defence policy: “We need to ask the Australian government questions and keep pursuing rational and responsible answers beyond spin—and contempt—for the public’s capacity to decide its view on the basis of comprehensive and reliable information.”

Prof. Tanter listed a series of incisive questions for the Australian government to answer:

“How will the government ensure that no operations of the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap contribute to a nuclear attack on any country?

“How will the government ensure that the planned deployment of a large space radar facility at North West Cape under the auspices of the US Joint Space Operations Center will not contribute to armed conflict in space and possible escalation into nuclear war?

“Under the US policy of ‘rebalancing to Asia’, including the application of the Air-Sea Battle Concept to offset China's defence of its home waters, how will the government ensure that that US forces deployed to ADF facilities will not be drawn into an escalation to nuclear conflict? …”

Prof. Tanter concluded, “We are at peculiarly dangerous time strategically. If anything, Mr Fraser has understated those dangers, both in range and severity.” [Emphasis added.]

These striking warnings, from an experienced statesman, and an expert in nuclear conflict come in the wake of the saturation of 250,000 copies around Australia of the CEC’s June/July New Citizen newspaper under the banner headline: “British Crown’s End-game: Financial Collapse and Nuclear War”. In extraordinary detail, illustrated with maps of the subjects touched upon by Fraser and Tanter, this paper documented that the British-Obama policies of ballistic missile defence targeting Russia and China, combined with “regime change” in the Middle East riding roughshod over the principle of national sovereignty, have provoked both Russia and China to explicitly warn that they are being pushed into a nuclear confrontation. The paper also documents the foolhardy direction of Australia’s present defence policy, in support of the British-Obama agenda, which is almost guaranteed to provoke a war with China.