Australia: End our subservience to America

Paul Sheehan

The Sydney Morning Herald

Australia has been “taken for granted” by America for far too long, said Paul Sheehan. Australia is the only country “that has sent its soldiers into battle beside American forces in every major war the U.S. has fought over the past 100 years.” Yes, the only one. Neither Britain, with its so-called special relationship, nor Canada, America’s closest neighbor, has been such a stalwart. Australian troops have died helping the Americans in Vietnam, in two wars in Iraq, and now in Afghanistan. Yet there has never been “a compelling case for Australia to engage in war after war”—particularly in the Middle East, where we have no strategic interests or even major trading partners. We sent our troops there to fight and die out of loyalty to our U.S. ally.

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Yet the Americans continue to ignore us. Twice in the past year, President Obama postponed a visit to Australia; now he’s canceled it altogether. “I don’t blame him” for having other priorities. I just wonder why our leaders can’t assert Australian priorities as well, rather than being “star-struck by the pomp of imperial Washington.” It is time to “stop wasting Australian lives on oiling the wheels of American favor.”