Americans were given a poll before the war regarding their support for the impending invasion. Their overall support rose dramatically when the equation involved a multi lateral force. Americans don’t like to go it alone – sure they want to be the sheriff, but it is essential to have that posse tagging along right behind.

Enter Australia. Now let’s be honest – their involvement in Iraq is by all accounts militarily insignificant. But make no mistake, John Howard’s government is adding a political legitimacy to the Bush regime that cannot be underestimated.

I recently was invited to Oz by the Stop the War Coalition as they prepared for an unwelcome visit by GW for the APEC summit. They are fighting to force the complete withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq and Afghanistan – recognizing full well that their government is complicit in the killing and that a pullout would be a huge blow to the Bush regime and a great step forward for the antiwar movement here in the US.

While at times I was downright ashamed at my lack of knowledge of the region’s politics, the trip proved to be an invaluable learning opportunity as I was brought up to speed in the history of our imperial allies.

The connections between the two countries run deep. Many Americans don’t even know Australia was side by side with the US in Vietnam - 40,000 strong. They have always seen themselves as America’s proxy in the Pacific. In the Gulf War, they were beating down the hatch to have a presence, preempting a request from the US or even a debate at home.

Today that collusion continues. At the moment what nobody is talking about is a little known base in the outback called Pine Gap. This US satellite installation on aussie soil provides vital coordinates for US bombing missions in Iraq. Not only that, the US has secret plans to use Pine Gap in its latest schemes for missile defense; the prospects of which are already fueling an arms race with China while increasing militarism overall in the region.

Though when it comes to the public at large, the situation on the ground is the same there as it is in the US. The people are firmly against this war – have been from its onset. Yet the government refuses to listen to their constituency, and proceeds to act with impunity while continuing to clamp down on civil liberties in a campaign of fear.

Nowhere was this fear mongering more apparent than in the lead up to the APEC summit. The Asian Pacific Economic Conference draws thousands of protesters yearly, as its policies of free market reform are known by many to be thinly veiled maneuvers for further privatization and exploitation.

In response to a supposed heightened risk of terror, the city of Sydney literally shut down for George Bush’s arrival. A holiday was declared to get people out of the city, special restricted zones were set up complete with steel fences, and thousands of police were brought in from all over the country.

These police were given special police powers enacted specifically for the conference – to include drawing up a list of excluded persons that were not allowed in certain zones of their own city. It was something straight out of Orwell – at first they weren’t even saying who was on the list - but if you got caught in a restricted area you would be imprisoned for up to two years. Authorities claimed that those on the list “should know who they are.”

All that didn’t even include Bush’s own personal armada – which consisted of over 800 personnel, SWAT teams, dog teams, and attack helicopters. The man travels in a bubble wherever he goes - from the green zone in Iraq to the green zone in Australia.

In the end, in the face of all this manufactured hysteria, humanity prevailed. It came brilliantly in the form of a TV stunt. The crew from Australia’s The Chaser rented some motorcycles, some guys in suits and three black SUVs. They stuck little Canadian flags in the front grills of the vehicles and decided to go for a drive downtown.

Three security checkpoints later they were directly in front of Bush’s hotel. At that point they figured the gig was up – so they stopped and out jumped Osama himself. Well, a close approximation.

Three hundred million dollars in security and this is what they had to show for it. Obviously the security had nothing to do with any real threat, and everything to do with keeping away the thousands of protesters that were mobilizing against the war, Bush, and globalization.

With all the hype, it honestly felt like the Howard administration was secretly looking for violence from the protesters – certainly it could have been used to further tighten his grip on the country. Yet ultimately everything went off without a hitch. Thousands took to the streets not to be violent, but to protest the real violence being carried out in their name.

In the end, the IVAW presence leading up to the conference and at the actual protests was instrumental in keeping the focus on the war in Iraq. There were many in the government and media that tried to dismiss those denouncing the war, saying this was merely an economic conference helping to create peace and prosperity.

Well you don’t promote peace and prosperity through slaughtering upwards of a million people.

Quite frankly, all these issues are interconnected anyway. Australia has forty percent of the world’s uranium deposits. Now they are occupying aboriginal land with their military under bogus pretexts to steal that land and sell the uranium through trade deals brokered behind closed doors at APEC. And where will this uranium ultimately end up? Well when it has been turned into waste it will be repackaged into depleted uranium armor piercing munitions. And the poisoning of the earth through war and economics continues.....

Our struggles are the same, and our movements continue to find strength and solidarity in each other all over the globe wherever these injustices are occurring. The Australians should be commended for keeping up their continued pressure around the Iraq war, Pine Gap, uranium mining, refugee issues and all other injustices perpetrated by a government whose blatant disregard for humanity threatens us all.

And as footnote to all us vets out there – get this – Australian soldiers get around $180 a day in Iraq. Isn’t that a little shy of our monthly combat pay?