This is the text of a speech I gave at a peace rally held in Queanbeyan Park at 10am on Saturday 15th February 2003. This was part of a weekend of mass demonstrations against war in Iraq. Around 200 people attended the Queanbeyan rally. Later the same morning about 8000 people were at a rally in Garema Place in the centre of Canberra. (February 2003)


Last Saturday the Canberra Times published on the front page photographs of two young Australian fathers farewelling their young boys before being deployed to the Gulf.

I am a former Israeli. During the first 27 years of my life I experienced 5 wars. When I saw these photos I cried. I remembered all the funerals I attended back in Israel of young men, some of whom were school mates and childhood friends.

War is not glorious and it is not some fancy way to test new technology. War is not nice, neat or well organised as politicians would like us to think. War is messy and those who manage to come back from it alive are hardly ever the same.

What will happen to these two young fathers and what will happen to their beautiful little innocent boys? Their journey of hurt has already begun by having to live with their fathers’ absence at such a tender age. What will they have to live with when their fathers come back, if they come back at all? What will happen to the structure of their families and the ability of their fathers and mothers to care for them? If these men come back alive and physically unharmed, there is a good chance that they will suffer from some form of trauma. War will change them one way or the other and it will affect their families too. In my work as a counsellor I see people who still suffer the consequences of having lived with a father or a grandfather who fought in the Second World War or in Vietnam. I also remember what war has done to Israeli families. Murder is not allowed in our society and for a good reason. When people are sent to commit murder in the name of their country it does unbelievable damage to them.

I call on John Howard to talk to trauma therapists and to the excellent counsellors at the Government-funded Vietnam Veterans’ counselling service before he dares to commit so many lives to the horrors of war.

And what will happen to hundreds of thousands of already exhausted Iraqis? They will be traumatised when the bombs begin to fall in their streets and villages, destroying so much of what they hold dear. Powerless against the machines of war parents will have no choice but to watch their children die, suffer injuries, or become insane with trauma and lose their sense of well being and safety forever. What reassurance or protection will they be able to offer them? Parents who are prevented from protecting their children, as we know so well from Holocaust research, become so traumatised, that even with excellent therapy they often never recover. War is a mental health issue.

I do not believe that there is anything that justifies going to this war on Iraq. Especially not American greed and desire to control oil reserves in order to enable their unsustainable economy to continue unchanged.

I learned the other day from a World Vision pamphlet that some Aboriginal communities in Australia are being supported by World Vision programs and donations. John Howard, his government and all of us ought to be horrified and ashamed that members of our own society need to resort to charity from outside when billions are being wasted on going to war. I would hate to know the exact amounts that the government has already spent on doing the US’s dirty work of blocking aid from getting to Iraq, starving its people and killing its children. Armies and wars cost a fortune, a fortune that could be put to better use here in Australia. This money should be used to support the vulnerable in our society, to close the gap between rich and poor, to help our deteriorating higher education, support our public school system, health care and the environment. Spending that much money on war is a crime on a grand scale. In another world these politicians would be going to jail for their actions. To allow them to get away with this is nothing short of madness.

Rather than watch the events on television I dare John Howard and all other politicians who support the war, to join our troops at the front line as leaders in the ancient world used to do. If they actually fought, saw people being killed and maimed around them and maybe suffered injuries themselves, I am sure they would not be so quick to promote war.

The story with Iraq is complicated. We are probably dealing with a backlash from yet another botched US attempt to further its own interests by meddling and re-organising other regimes to fit US purposes. What irritates me the most is that they try to sell it to the world as if a war on Iraq is somehow for the sake of democracy and peace and that it is for the benefit of the Iraqi people. It doesn’t make sense that the people of Iraq should be bombed and that the entire world should face the risk of a nuclear world war only to save the Iraqis from a dictator. It doesn’t take an expert political analyst to see that this is absurd and extremely dangerous. This war has nothing to do with democracy or with the welfare of the people of Iraq. The US has been perfectly happy to support dictators in other parts of the world and has used military action to depose democratically elected governments. Take Chile for example.

The US government is leading its people on a selfish and greedy path, displaying little compassion for humanity including the US’s own poor and homeless. If the US was an individual I would say that this person is in urgent need of therapy. I am horrified that the US can even be considered a world leader - a world bully maybe, but certainly not a leader in the true sense of the word. Australia has no business imitating and following such an appalling role model. If anything Australia should be at the forefront of calling the US to order.

I wonder what bribe the US has offered John Howard and Tony Blair. Whatever it is it cannot be worth the cost in human life and suffering.

There comes a time when each one of us has to take a stand and do the right thing. I call on all Australians to join those of us who are here today in opposing Howard’s megalomaniac and destructive path. I want to congratulate you who are here this morning, and all peace activists around the world for having the courage to stand up for truth and for peace. Activists in the US deserve special acknowledgment because it must be very difficult to stand against such a powerful machinery of paranoid propaganda from the inside and still be able to see reality.

John Howard, show the same courage and do the right thing. You are leading us on a path with consequences that none of us want. You are also undermining democracy and Australia’s trust in its political system. Bring the troops back and don’t make us participate in a blood bath. You still have time to redeem yourself and go down in history as a courageous peace maker rather than a perpetrator of war crimes.

Let us put all human beings wherever they are above narrow tribal considerations.

Page content last modified: 27 Apr 2003