Warmonger, Cricket Fan And Former Australian PM
John Howard Rejected for ICC Post
By Dr Gideon Polya
07 July, 2010
Countercurrents.org
Former Australian PM John Howard is an extreme rightwing warmonger but is also a cricket fan. Much to his chagrin, the West Indies and African and Asian members of the International Cricket Council (ICC) united to reject his UK-supported nomination by Australia and News Zealand for the Vice Presidency of the ICC (and hence the Presidency is several years' time).
According to Adelaide Now (30 June 2010): “ Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard failed in his bid to become vice president of the International Cricket Council, after his name was withdrawn today because of insufficient support. The ICC said in a statement today that Cricket Australia and Cricket New Zealand, which jointly proposed Howard for the job, have been asked to submit a new candidate by August 31” (see “Former PM misses out on ICC”, Adelaide Now, 30 June 2010: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/cricket/former-pm-misses-out-on-icc/story-e6frectl-1225886216247 ).
The Australian Cricket Board had nominated cricket-watching former PM John Howard while New Zealand backed its former chairman and ICC representative Sir John Anderson for the position of vice president of the ICC but eventually they put forward John Howard. If it had been successful John Howard would have become ICC president after 2 years. The Australia and New Zealand nomination of John Howard was supported by the UK but met growing opposition on the board from Africa ( Zimbabwe and South Africa ) and from South Asia .
The Executive Board of the ICC is composed of the presidents and chairmen of the so-called 10 Test-playing nations: Australia , England , New Zealand , Bangladesh , India , Pakistan , Sri Lanka , South Africa , West Indies and Zimbabwe .
According to leading Australian cricket writer Peter Roebuck: “And now comes the long-feared divide between black and white. All six predominantly black countries objected to Howard. The three white nations backed him.” (see “Tragic cricket failure as Howard sent to pavilion”, The Age, 1 July 2010: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/tragic-cricket-failure-as-howard-sent-to-the-pavilion-20100630-zmpb.html ).
However whatever the machinations of the ICC it is important to see why Caribbean, African and Asian countries would have objected to this cricket watching, non-cricket playing, extreme right wing former PM of Apartheid Australia, a country that has participated in all post-1950 US Asian wars and which variously applies race-based laws and regulations against Indigenous Australians as well as Afghan refugees and Tamil refugees.
John Howard has had extraordinary double standards on Apartheid South Africa and Mugabe Zimbabwe . According to the ultraconservative newspaper The Australian: “Howard's political past caught up with him. His opposition to sanctions against apartheid South Africa, believing they would do more harm than good, and support for selected sanctions and travel bans against Zimbabwe's Mugabe regime, which included Zimbabwe Cricket president Peter Chingoka, were held against him.” (see “John Howard pays price of political past”, 1 July 2010, : http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sport/john-howard-pays-price-of-political-past/story-e6frg7t6-1225886427641 ).
John Howard had also raised the ire of the cricket-mad Sri Lankans by made criticisms of Sri Lankan bowler Muttiah Muralitharan for alleged “chucking” (see “Howard bowled over by ICC”, 30 June 2010: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/30/2941174.htm ).
However, worst of all by far, John Howard has an appalling record of support for horrendous US violence in Latin America, Africa and Asia (the US has invaded about 30 countries since 1945). Howard has supported Australian involvement in all post-1950 US Asian wars, atrocities that have been associated so far with 24 million violent and non-violent avoidable deaths (mostly of women and children), the breakdown of violent and non-violent excess deaths being Korea (1 million), Indo-China (Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam; 13 million), Palestine (0.3 million), Iraq (4.4 million), Afghanistan (4.5 million), and opiate drug-related deaths from US restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry (0.8 million) (see “Muslim Holocaust, Muslim Genocide”: http://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ ).
Howard has been a prominent supporter of US-backed Apartheid Israel even when it was bombing 25,000 Australian citizens in Lebanon in 2006 (indeed the Israelis have named a forest after him on stolen, ethnically cleansed Indigenous Palestinian land; see “”Howard's dubious Jewish National Fund honor”, Electronic Intifada: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6927.shtml ), and ordered the illegal Australian invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and of Iraq in 2003 (see “John Howard”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Howard ).
Data from the UN Population Division, UNICEF, WHO and the medical epidemiological literature (for methodology details see my book "Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950": http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/2008/08/body-count-global-avoidable-mortality.html ) indicate that in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories post-invasion non-violent excess deaths from war criminal Occupier-imposed deprivation total 0.3 million, 1.1 million and 3.5 million, respectively; post-invasion violent deaths total about 12,000, 1.4 million and about 1 million, respectively; under-5 infant deaths total 0.2 million, 0.8 million and 2.4 million, respectively; and refugees total 7 million, 5-6 million and 3-4 million, respectively, with a further 2.5 million Pashtun refugees generated in the major cricket-playing country of Pakistan (for details Google "Muslim Holocaust, Muslim Genocide": http://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ ) .
Former Australian Liberal Party national president John Valder stated "Bush, Blair and Howard, as leaders of the three members of the coalition of the willing, inflicted enormous suffering on the people of Iraq . And, as such, are war criminals. I believe the only deterrent to a repetition of the Iraq situation is punishment in some form as war criminals " (see "Howard is a war criminal", Sydney Morning Herald, 19 July 2004: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/18/1090089035899.html ).
However, it was not just former Federal Liberal Party president John Valder who wanted Howard, Bush and Blair prosecuted as war criminals.
Thus Dr Mahathir of Malaysia (who wonderfully reduced Malaysia 's infant mortality to about that of former Occupier Britain) advocated NGO tribunal war crimes trials for Bush, Blair and Howard, stating "We should not hang Blair if the tribunal finds him guilty, but he should always carry the label "War Criminal, Killer of Children, Liar". And so should Bush and the pocket Bush of the Bushland of Australia" (“ Malaysia 's Mahathiir inaugurates peace conference: “Bush, Blair murdered more than Saddam, Qaeda””, Daily Times, 6 February 2007: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\02\06\story_6-2-2007_pg7_30 ).
Indeed outstanding Jewish British writer and Nobel Laureate, Harold Pinter, in demanding war crimes trials for Bush and Blair before the ICC over the Iraq War atrocity, stated (2005) "How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal"? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice" ("Art , Truth and Politics", Nobel Prize Acceptance speech, Countercurrents, 2005: http://www.countercurrents.org/arts-pinter081205.htm ).
The 8 million deaths from the 21st century Iraq and Afghan Wars? More than enough, I would have thought. Warmonger John Howard should be arraigned before that other ICC, the International Criminal Court.
Dr Gideon Polya currently teaches science students at a major Australian university. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). He has recently published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contribution “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007): http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ). He has just published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/
bengalfamine_programme.html ). When words fail one can say it in pictures - for images of Gideon Polya's huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/ .
