Will Australia benefit by staying in Iraq? John Howard should learn a lesson from LAOTIAN HMONG hilltribes

…........…. John Dubya Ducklips Howard has highly selective hearing.

John Ducklips Howard’s obvious folly of continuing to be Bush’s main ass-licking buddy is alarmingly paralleled by the ill-fate of the Hmong people from Laos. The Hmong hill-tribes supported the American CIA’s “Secret War” in Laos during the Vietnam War, but now America has betrayed them grievously by turning down their promised refugee status. In this article, FunkyPix2 asks the obvious question: "Why won't the same thing happen to Australia after Bush is dumped, 567 days from now?" Like the Hmong people, Australia is a relatively insignificant player on the international stage, a dispensable country of only 21 million.

The Hmong hill-tribes in the jungles of Laos fought and died for the US Military during the 1970s, based on the promise that they would benefit (either by getting their own Hmong homeland or, if the war were lost, a secure “Plan-B” escape route to the US as refugees with eventual citizenship). The US initially accepted a token few, but soon slammed the gate shut. Thousands are still left stranded in the jungles of Laos, rejected, betrayed by Uncle Sam, and persecuted to this day by the Laotian communist government.

Check out these photos we took in 2006 on Central Laos’s astonishing “Plain of Jars” - some show bomb craters, old trenches, and munitions, now overgrown. The mental scars on many residents, however, have not healed as well. After experiencing the trauma of tip-toeing through a minefield, I can begin to understand why.

The Hmong, who were staunch US allies on Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh Trail during the Vietnam War have been handed a rough ride by the US. Oi, oi, oi! ..Unfair!

.................................Agent Orange juice, anyone?

Laotian Hmong have well-and-truly earned US citizenship, but have been cruelly ignored now that they are no longer of use to America. Recently, 152 descendants of former fighters had tried to flee to Thailand to escape persecution, but were deported to an unknown fate at the hands of the Laotian communist government.

Given this ongoing tragedy in Laos, John Dubya Ducklips Howard is, as usual, clearly unable [or unwilling] to learn from history. This right wing dinosaur doggedly insists on staying the distance in Iraq, despite warnings from George Dubya Bush’s own Republican Party that America is losing the war badly.


Dubya Howard somehow imagines that by being ‘faithful’ to Dubya Bush, Australia is going to be showered with gifts and benefits in some rosier future. Tell that to the Australian lamb exporters who were shut out of the American market a few years ago by the US Dept of Agriculture. Tell that to Tony Blair, whose only parting request to Bush was to ask for some co-operation on EU Climate change resolutions (as a reward for the UK sending troops to Iraq). Blair was simply ignored - because he didn't matter any more. Some gratitude. Howard should expect no more.

Toni Blair was stood up by Bush the morning after. Mr Blair doesn’t care any more – he’s comfortably retired and in the Pink.

The US only ever acts out of self-interest, and Ducklips Howard is deluded if he imagines otherwise. Australia could very easily find itself side-lined, marginalised and rejected – exactly like the Hmong in Laos.

Moral of the story?..George W. Snake cannot be trusted:

With US foreign policy, what you see is rarely what you get.
(View more weird FunkyPix2 body art here).