John Howard - Gutsy PM of Australia

Transcript sent to Katheryn J. Lopez at National Review Online

PRIME MIN. HOWARD:

Could I start by saying the prime minister and I were having a discussion when we heard about it. My first reaction was to get some more information. And I really don't want to add to what the prime minister has said. It's a matter for the police and a matter for the British authorities to talk in detail about what has happened here.

Can I just say very directly, Paul, on the issue of the policies of my government and indeed the policies of the British and American governments on Iraq, that the first point of reference is that once a country allows its foreign policy to be determined by terrorism, it's given the game away, to use the vernacular. And no Australian government that I lead will ever have policies determined by terrorism or terrorist threats, and no self-respecting government of any political stripe in Australia would allow that to happen.

Can I remind you that the murder of 88 Australians in Bali took place before the operation in Iraq.

And I remind you that the 11th of September occurred before the operation in Iraq.

Can I also remind you that the very first occasion that bin Laden specifically referred to Australia was in the context of Australia's involvement in liberating the people of East Timor. Are people by implication suggesting we shouldn't have done that?

When a group claimed responsibility on the website for the attacks on the 7th of July, they talked about British policy not just in Iraq, but in Afghanistan. Are people suggesting we shouldn't be in Afghanistan?

When Sergio de Mello was murdered in Iraq -- a brave man, a distinguished international diplomat, a person immensely respected for his work in the United Nations -- when al Qaeda gloated about that, they referred specifically to the role that de Mello had carried out in East Timor because he was the United Nations administrator in East Timor.

Now I don't know the mind of the terrorists. By definition, you can't put yourself in the mind of a successful suicide bomber. I can only look at objective facts, and the objective facts are as I've cited. The objective evidence is that Australia was a terrorist target long before the operation in Iraq. And indeed, all the evidence, as distinct from the suppositions, suggests to me that this is about hatred of a way of life, this is about the perverted use of principles of the great world religion that, at its root, preaches peace and cooperation. And I think we lose sight of the challenge we have if we allow ourselves to see these attacks in the context of particular circumstances rather than the abuse through a perverted ideology of people and their murder.

PRIME MIN. BLAIR: And I agree 100 percent with that. (Laughter.)

Howard is entirely right! As Marc Antony said in "Julius Ceasar:"

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,
--- Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue ---
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Até by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice
Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.

-- William Shakespeare

Info regarding the true meaning of the verse above is obtained from Thomas writing at Minstrels: from 'Julius Caesar'.

Context: This words are said by Mark Antony to Caesar's corpse. Antony, Caesar's most devoted friend, has just made his peace with Caesar's murderers (Brutus, Cassius et al.), hence the 'Pardon me'; yet, as these words make clear, he has already resolved to take revenge on the conspirators. As it turned out, his bloodthirsty words were indeed prophetic: for the next 10 years, the Roman empire was wracked by a series of civil wars, culminating (finally) in the ascension of Caesar's nephew Octavius (later known as Augustus) to power.

Commentary: As poetry, perhaps, this speech of Antony's may not be
remarkable, but as dramatic verse it is stunning. Note the gradual
escalation of tone and emotion, from the subdued and sorrowful 'Pardon
me' at the beginning to the heraldic fury of the four lines beginning
with 'And Caesar's spirit...' at the end - as Antony's feelings run
higher, his words become more intense and the imagery he uses becomes
simultaneously more complex and more powerful. At the end of the speech, one feels almost sorry for Brutus and his co-conspirators.

This short extract also illustrates Shakespeare's remarkable facility
for coining phrases which have passed into idiom - in just 20 lines
(that too, from a play not as highly regarded as some others), we have
'the tide of times', 'hot from hell', 'the dogs of war'...

thomas.