John Howard

The following is the purported transcript of the John Howard speech given this weekend to the Deakin society. There is some indication that it has been suppressed and/or may be a hoax. But I can find no real confirmation that it is accurate OR that it’s a hoax. I’m always reminded of the Kurt Vonnegut “speech” that he never gave but flashed around the net like crazy. All documents such as this must be read with skepticism. Over the next few days we’ll discover its authenticity. If accurate, it indicates that Australia might be considering leaving Iraq altogether, that’s what makes it interesting.

Some bloggers have picked up on the speech and other have determined it is a hoax. But curiously the links to the entire transcript seem to have disappeared from many of these sites. Even a hoax needs some reference. Snopes has yet to chime in on this document. So I present it to you in its entirety. Link for the entire speech is posted here.

Interesting and amusing excerpt:

All told, since the start of hostilities in Iraq, it appears that 82 media personnel have lost their lives. I must say, that it came as a surprise to members of my Government when General George Casey recently re-asserted the right of the US military to plant paid-for stories in the Iraqi press. We believe this sets an unfortunate precedent, in that it may lead to suspicion among Iraqi citizens that that the West prefers a paid press to a free press.

related link:
Iraq, the Doomed Adventure

UPDATE — Here’s the story about the hoax.



  1. Max says:

    Bush lied. So did (take a big deep breth here):

    Russia
    France
    Germany (funny, these three weren’t in the coallition, but still said Iraq had WMD)
    Israel
    UK
    Turkey
    Saudi Arabia
    Poland
    Australia
    Spain
    Italy

    I wonder if everyone lied?

    Bad intelligence? Maybe. Willful distortion of the truth? Hardly.

  2. Max says:

    Amnesia maybe… The case the US “ran around” with was comprised of intelligence from every single one of those sources. The debate wasn’t whether the WMDs existed (a charge even the previous administration made), but whether military force should be used in order to force Iraq to disarm and disclose.

    From the BBC:
    Academics such as Dr Gary Samore, at the British International Institute for Strategic Studies, is surprised that Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) have not been found.

    He says that British, American, French and Russian intelligence agreed that Iraq had some stockpile of chemical and biological weapons.

  3. Tank says:

    This is pretty much certainly a hoax. The language used in the speech are not what a Prime Minister of an allied force would use in regards to the situation even if Australia had/has the intent to withdraw.

    Even looking at the end of the speech, it is not how someone TALKING to an audience would typically end things, and lends itself more to a letter to the editor, or something similar.

  4. Shane says:

    I’d say this is a hoax. I recall an article recently saying that Australian troops will actually be taking on more frontline roles as opposed to the supporting roles they are doing currently.

    John Howard has been an ardent supporter of Bush (unfortunately) which has resulted in large puppets at rallies depicting him as a dog on a leash sniffing Bush’s behind!

  5. J.S. Scongilli says:

    The language doesn’t sound like the kind the PM Howard usually uses in his speeches. He also has been much more forceful and conservativ than Bush on almost every issue.

  6. Mr. Fusion says:

    Max

    Russia, France, and Germany all expressed doubts about the WMDs. They wanted to allow the UN inspections to continue. Bush declared war without the UN approval and over France’s objections when it became apparent that he could not bully or bull the United Nations Security Council.

    Congress was sold (lied to) the concept that it was a fact that Iraq had WMDs. Anyone disagreeing with the idea was branded a coward, traitor or worse. Or did you forget Valerie Plame’s outing?

    Turkey, Poland, Spain, and Italy were all looking for favors from the US. Israel won’t be happy until every Arab nation in the mis-east is smoldering ruins. Britain had evidence that the WMDs were a pretense for war, or have you forgotten the “Downing Street Memos”.

  7. A Badger says:

    One can only hope Australia will leave this criminal misadventure asap, but since Johnny Howard has been parrotting Dubya’s lies from day one, I dont hold much hope.

    It was also recently announced that Australian troops, who are on the ground in Iraq for purely symbolic reasons, will take on a more ‘front line’ role once the Japanese engineers they are protecting go home.

  8. site admin says:

    I’m leaning to hoax myself…

  9. Jim W. says:

    that shold read “folks” not “floks” lol

    As to the article, if it is true, whats the big deal? the Brits are pulling out because the Iraqis are doing so well in the South. These nations withdrawing their military forces is another sign we are winning the war. IMO

    http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2006/03/13/iraq-britain060313.html

  10. joshua says:

    France, Germany and Russia all HAD hundreds of millions of dollars invested in Irag, they didn’t want us blowing their holdings all to hell.
    Germany was selling the good, kind President Saddam computor technology for weapons systems, so was Russia, and just yesterday Russia admitted that they had been training Saddams secret police in counter-insurgancy and other *methods of secret warfare*.
    I don’t say if we should be in Iraq or not, but it gets really old hearing the same old thing over and over when so much of it has been proven to be wrong.
    Bush was either lied to by his spy’s or all the spy networks of western Europe were wrong. The tapes that sort of leaked out recently show that Saddam had either the weapons or the material to build them and moved it to other countries. If Bush was lied to, then so was Clinton and Al Gore in the 1990’s.
    And the Plame thing is just a crock, she wasn’t outed to discredit her husband, he had already been discrdited. He was proven to have lied about so many things including what he supposedly told his superiors about the yellow cake, but it all got lost in poor Valeries outing. Turns out, that she may have already been outed, long before her not so truthful hubby got his butt singed. Seems somebody in the CIA sort of let the cat out of the bag about a lot of operatives on the internet long before this supposed outing.
    Guess what…..Bush may be a hazard to our health, but he didn’t cause everything thats wrong with this country, it’s been goreing itself for a lot longer than I’ve been on this earth.
    Those who think that all will be well if the Democrats are in power are just as deluded as those who think the Republicans will save the world. There really isn’t much difference between them they both suck up money from the same corproate interests and neither have an ethical bone in their body.
    We, as Americans have no one to blame but ourselves for our leaders, our nations problems and our standing in the world. Both political parties appeal to the lowest common denominator of the voting public and there aim is right on. We are to interested in who won the American Idol program or what some christian said about homosexuals to be bothered with the real problems confronting us.

    But, back to this post…..it’s not true….it’s not John Howards style or words, he will be the guy who turns out the lights when our troops leave Iraq.

  11. Dean says:

    All I hear on the media here is how committed (!) Bush- er, Howard is to staying in Iraq and finishing the job. There’s no way he would up and leave the Americans just after the free trade agreement passed.

  12. Alphgeek says:

    Hehehhheheh. I am from Australia, so I am familiar with Prime Minister Howard’s style.

    And let me tell you, he would be more likely to roll up to parliament in a dress and suspenders preaching about the imminent saucerian invasion than he would reconsider his position on Iraq off-the-cuff like this. He is a very cautious man.

    He also demonstrates as little imagination or empathy as is required to meet his ultimate goal – stamping his legacy into Australian political history.

    Consider that Howard is by nature far to the right of GWB. A true man of the ’50s

    None of this is to imply disrespect, it’s just the way he is.

  13. Mr. Fusion says:

    Jim W

    Either you didn’t read the links you posted or you don’t care what is actually in them. I found nothing but contradiction and opinion. There were no facts that have not already been debunked by other sources. Or “facts” are actually pure speculation about something that the New York Sun may or may not have.

    Apparently you, and the rest of the neo-con Murdoch (NY Post, F-word Network) crowd, really like to ignore true facts and build upon opinion.

    There is just too much to pick apart piece by piece, but I don’t consider ANY Murdoch controlled media to be reliable. Try David MacKay and Scott Ritter who both said all weapons of mass destruction had been removed from Iraq in the early to mid ’90s. In case you didn’t know, McKay was the head of the UN inspection team and Ritter was a part time member of the inspection team and full time CIA agent.

  14. joshua says:

    I never trusted Ritter, but I think he and McKay were right about the mid 90’s being the time the stuff was removed from Iraq. The bad part is that Isreali, Italian, French, German and our own spy boys were still reporting to their superiors that the stuff was still there.
    Everyone seems to have had their own agenda and didn’t care that what they told clinton and bush would lead to a war.

  15. Mr. Fusion says:

    Joshua

    Saddam kicked out the UN inspectors because in 1998 they were not inspecting anything, they were all CIA, MI5, and other intelligence officers. It was when they wanted to tear apart Saddam’s multitude of palaces and other official residences that he said enough.

    The problem came when the Iraqis destroyed the material but didn’t record it to the satisfaction of those who didn’t want to know.

  16. Funkyfoxz says:

    Some Interesting Info

    Australia didn’t want to join with American forces because Iraq on one of Australian major export buyers that would always pay on time. They didn’t do anything against Australia to make Australia mad.

    Australia joined American forces because Australia need protection against the Indonesia. As they have a bigger army then the 21 million people living in Australia. The indonesia wants to take over Australia so they can live on our land. Australia believe that America will help the Australia’s if we have problems with Indonesia that is the reason why Australia is always agrees to help America where ever possible.

    I do think the statement from Johnny is false. Australia does want its troops back in Australia where they will be safe. But the government will not do this. Australia still has troops and peace keepers in East Timor in Indonesia and that war was back in 2001. So I don’t think that Australia would withdrawn its troop so soon.


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