Imagine that, 20 years since Iraq II: Bush Boogaloo began and made the world safe for… something or other? This time next year, the Iraq War will be of legal drinking age in the US, it can go out and blootered with September 11… Meanwhile, in Canberra, the War Memorial is marking the event in an interesting fashion:
On the morning of March 18, 2003, Australia was on the brink of going to war in Iraq, and Dave Burgess was scaling the Sydney Opera House in what would become one of the nation’s most infamous protests. […]
Mr Burgess and his fellow protester, Will Saunders, set about painting “NO WAR” in giant red capital letters on the side of the Sydney Opera House.
“We just had a five-metre roller pole and stood at the top writing the words upside down,” he said.
“Ferries started honking, the climbers on the Harbour Bridge stopped, and you could see them staring across.
“I was just thinking about the imminent conflict and the number of people who were going to die and how global politics would be changed forever for the worse as a result.” […]
Two decades later, the Australian War Memorial’s (AWM) $500 million redevelopment will include a new Iraq War gallery.
The centrepiece will be a F/A-18 Hornet, the first Australian aircraft to drop a bomb in conflict since Vietnam.
Alongside it will be the red paint, paint roller and paint-splashed Dunlop Volley sneakers used by Dave during his protest, as well as one of the snow globes.
This actually looks like it could be a really interesting display, it’d be nice if I could actually get to Canberra easily to see it… Mind you, it was another line in the article that really struck me:
No weapons of mass destruction were found, yet the conflict lasted a decade and cost four Australian lives.
I mean, it also killed tens if not hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians (sources disagree), but who gives a fuck about them? John Howard blindly following the US into war caused four Australians to die, that’s what always really matters to Australian media… Grrr. (And I don’t think Labor wouldn’t do the same; Richard Marles says we’re not committed to help the US if they get in strife with China over Taiwan, but we will if it comes to that. Of course we will.)
