Trans. "Help! Bail us the hell out!"

[trixtah]

What a surprise. The Australian government trailing after Bush, wagging its little tail behind them:

Australia joins U.S. call for bigger U.N. role in Iraq
Australia asked the United Nations on Friday to take a bigger role in Iraq, particularly in helping to quell sectarian violence.

[Downer:] "We would like to see the United Nations become more active [in Iraq] than it already is and would like to see the United Nations perhaps working to take some sort of initiative to assist with the process of reconciliation over and above what it's already doing,"

Well, that tune has changed a bit from the previous line that if the UN isn't going to rubber-stamp US decisions, they should butt out, hasn't it? Oh, the irony, it burns us. Or maybe they think the new Secretary-General will be more of a lapdog than Kofi Annan. Who knows?

The annoying thing is that if the UN do send troops - and given the mess the whole thing is in now, it'd be criminal not to - the NZ government and those others previously, er, agnostic on the whole war issue will be effectively subsidising this big cock-up. I hope that any such troop deployments will be on the condition of some policy and strategic governance, but I doubt that will be an option.

Also, I love Downer's usual incisive command of English.  I wonder if that particular usage of reconciliation has made it into the latest OED?

Comments

[shangchi.livejournal.com]

I wonder how different things would be if Australia were a major world power, instead of the U.S.

Or maybe even NZ!

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

At the moment, things wouldn't be terribly different if Oz were a major power, since the current PM's policies are fairly similar to your POTUS's. Except for the fact that the big money here is in minerals, not oil. Oh, and he cares even less about off-white people, whether indigenous or not. And he's more about expediency rather than making his own policy and sticking to it. See, it could be worse. Sort of.

NZ as a world power would be interesting. The current PM is a political scientist who specialises in foreign affairs. She actually knows where most countries are! (if not all) She's even interesting in negotiating with them! And she ain't no member of no old-boys' club, that's for sure.