Having dropped the kids off at school, a friend and her toddler and I were sitting at an outdoor cafe in Oxford Street when we noticed that the street had gone completely quiet. No traffic. “It must be Cheney”, I said – Victoria Barracks was nearby.
We grabbed the kid and the dog and ran to see what was happening. Police lined the wall of the Barracks – traffic had been stopped as far as the eye could see. In a side street, in a large glossy white vehicle, sat two men in suits – looking every inch secret servicemen with their ear-pieces in.
Helicopters, which have been in training for the past week, began to buzz overhead. We stood opposite the entrance to the Barracks, from where we could see the police in jumpsuits with sniffer dogs. Oh if only I had my camera! If only we had a placard! We discussed what we would call out when he appeared… Large police vehicles appeared in every little residential side street, blocking them to traffic. There were only a few local residents and passers-by around. A young European couple asked us what it was about. “Dick Cheney,” we told them – they wrinkled their noses in disgust.
Finally the convoy came into sight. There must have been at least twenty vehicles – police cars in front, then vehicles with signs like LEAD and STAFF. Then came black cars with American flags – I caught a glimpse of Cheney. “Get out of Iraq!” we yelled – a motorcycle cop immediately parked himself in front of us. He needn’t have bothered because of course no one inside could hear us – they were hermetically sealed off from the world.
Following was some kind of armoured vehicle with what looked like a machine gun turret in the middle, an ambulance, more security vehicles, minibuses with passengers, cars with passengers (who are all these people?), more police cars. They all disappeared into the Barracks and a big police vehicle was parked in the entrance. The helicopters continued (and continue now as I write this) to buzz around.
A woman in her sixties, glamorous in golden sandals and pink lipstick, asked us what had gone on. It was Dick Cheney, the American vice-president, we told her. We called out a protest, but there wasn’t much point. To my surprise, she entered into a spirited conversation denouncing America’s (and Australia’s) involvement in Iraq, Cheney’s profiteering via Halliburton and the spending of so much taxpayer money on Cheney’s visit.
“Why can’t they just use the phone or email like the rest of us?”
Added: So that’s what he was up to: Peter Hartcher says “Cheney has the hide, during his visit to Sydney, to schedule an event at Victoria Barracks where he will pose with Aussie war veterans, hoping, one presumes, for valour by association.” (It’s well known that Cheney deferred military service during the Vietnam War.)
Yes Cheney has a hide – but I wonder who on the Australian side of things had the hide to dream this up? Who in the Australian military would want to pose next to someone like Cheney? Was it a politically-led idea?
Heh!
I was at the bus stop at Brunswick St in the Valley last weekend and overheard two very distinguished looking old ladies (one with hat and gloves, the other had a string of pearls) discussing “that awful Mr Howard”.
Excellent — though I can’t help being reminded of an opening-type event I queued for once at the SA Art Gallery because friends were involved, and for my pains was squashed up against a gloved and pearled society type whom it had clearly pained to come down out of the eastern suburbs into the CBD at all. ‘Of course I’ve only come to hear Alexander Downer speak,’ she remarked to her friend, ‘he’s a brilliant man.’ She seemed to mean it.
Speaking of getting caught in not knowing what’s going on, I was in Sydney earlier this week and a few minutes after I’d stepped out onto my little hotel balcony to take in the night air and spy on the nightlife scenes of Darlinghurst, fireworks began exploding over the Harbour. Until I remembered the ongoing traffic/crowds/Botanical Gardens fiasco over the people who’d come to see the Queen Mary, I simply assumed they were for me.
Early days with so much potential for things to go U/S, but you really get the feeling there’s some serious tidal movement happening don’t you?
One thing that hasn’t received much comment here is that one of the reasons for Cheney’s visit is he’s on the run from the Washington press corps because of the Libby trial.
Well those fireworks were particularly lovely, I thought – much prettier than the usual NYE shebang.
Seems like another ep. in JH’s annus horribilis. Cheney has to be here to underline our importance to the alliance (otherwise why not “…just use the phone or email like the rest of us?” and, poof!, it blows up in his face. Again.
Once, in a very long nightclub queue, the person ahead of me was a philosophy professor. My first brush with the reality that high intelligence and common sense can exist in inverse ratio.
âWhy canât they just use the phone or email like the rest of us?â?
Tell that to Al “The Goracle” Gore and Tim Flannery!
Oh, for goodness sake. Typical whining lefties. Stop bagging the visit just because of the massive expense and inconvenience. Why is no-one talking about all the GOOD that will come of it? All the BENEFITS to Australia?
The cost etc is totally worth it for many, many reasons…
The motorbike cop probably parked himself in front of you on the off chance that you wanted to do physical harm to Cheney, of course, given that they wouldn’t have known the intentions of everyone in the surrounds of the route.
Well of course they could, but I would prefer that communications between government leaders be done in a way that reduces misunderstandings to the greatest degree possible, especially in times of conflict (Mr Cheney may well be discussing the US’s plans (if any) for Iran).
I’ve added some more to the post above.
Sacha is right – actually they should have arrested you ‘on the off chance’ that you wanted to do harm to Cheney who was hermetically sealed in his own wonder world surrounded by heavily armed
thugssecurity guards. You just can’t take any chances with this sort of thing when you have the vice leader of the free world’s safety at stake.Sacha, it made us nervous to know that the secret service were carrying weapons – if we made a sudden move, if my dog barked too loudly, could we be shot? Preposterous, some might say, but to me it was preposterous and bizarre to witness this heavily armed cavalcade.
Lots of things seem preposterous and bizarre, but so what? If you’re around people with guns who *might* shoot first before asking questions, what do you do? There are plenty of places in the world where police or soldiers walk around with machine guns. You adapt.
Honestly.
adrian – thanks for the “thoughtful” comment. Obviously, the police do a risk analysis and they may have to do it very quickly on very limited information.
Stranger things have happened Suz. Remember Jean Charles de Menezes? At first, he was said to be going for the bomb trigger in his backpack…
This is the press statement after you and your friend were taken out by a fusillade of fire from Secret Service agents:
Two females, answering the description of two al Qaeda operatives connected with the notorious Finsbury Park mosque in London and now believed to be in Australia, and disguised as shoppers in Western dress, were fired upon after attempting to assasinate the US Vice President Richard Cheney in Oxford St Paddington.
They were subsequently conveyed to the nearby St Vincents Hispital emergency department where they were pronounced dead on arrival.
Secuirty alert was triggered when screaming obscenities in English and Arabic at the car carrying the vice president one of the women went for her suspicious looking handbag, which was seen to have a protruding wire.
A special response detail attached to the vice president’s party opened fire hitting the two women terrorists.
A NSW police motorcyclist was severely wounded in the crossfire and is now in stable condition at St Vincents Hospital.
Hmmm, I wonder if those missing anti-tank rockets have fallen into er, wrong hands.
Thanks for the compliment, Sacha. “Honestly”.
Sacha, I’ve been in places where the police have machine guns. I don’t like it. I don’t want Australia to be like that. I don’t think John Howard has made Australia a safer place by being such a willing member of the COW. I don’t want to be shot by accident or design in the street near my home. I don’t want to have to adapt to these circumstances and I will protest against them. (Of course I am not a fool either.)
I wonder if the helicopters and twenty car convoy is gonna spoil Shotgun’s fly-fishing any?
Suz
You need to get out more love. Ageing baby-boomers and tiwn-set and pearl set took over the Labor Party years ago. Oh, and if I’d been Cheney I would have run y’all over with the advice to have a bath!
Still, I hate the asshole as his damn helicopters kept me awake as they were “rehearsing” on Wednesday night until well after midnight.
Suz
Ah, maybe because they are not like the rest of us?
Suz, you were only another catcall from being thrown to the ground, pinioned & hooded whilst being held prone, then being summarily renditioned in a Hercules to Guatanamo Bay.
I can see Sacha’s point about the necessity for security, if only because of how damaging it would be for Australia if something icky happened to Cheney while he was here, but this thread is reminding me of the invasion of Canberra by the U.S. a few years ago when Bush himself was there — Yanks with guns seemed to have simply taken over the entire city, on the assumption that it was their call. I read Suz’s post as more a matter of ‘Hey, just a minute, what the hell has happened to my city?’
Andrew McGahan has described the feeling in Underground:
‘Actually, we all got a clue that day — 23 October 2003 — our first hint of what sort of Australia lay only a few years ahead … After a night rendered sleepless by the constant drone of helicopters and the shriek of patrolling jets, [the residents of Canberra] emerged at dawn on the twenty-third to find their city occupied by the U.S. … The President was terrorist target number one, and if we wanted to be blessed by his presence, then surely we understood the necessity of some inconvenience for the sake of protecting him. And truly, no one argued with that.
What amazed people was the sheer scale of it … the city inhabitants found all their major roads shut down, and Parliament House itself … locked off by a cordon a mile in diameter. Canberra was a small place, with a radial transport system. Block off a mile-wide circle right in the centre, and the city ceased to function. …
… Everyone could have put up with that if they’d at least known that the Australian security forces were in charge. If we were calling the shots. We weren’t. For that one day it was obvious to everyone that sovereignty of our national capital had been handed over to the United States.’
Sorry John, love, we don’t have a bath, only a shower. Baths are, you know, so yesterday, terribly water-wasteful.
I don’t really understand what the problem is. Cheney is a world leader on an overseas visit – that’s not at all rare, it happens all the time. Yes, he’s got a lot of security, but that happens when you’re the Vice President of the US – obviously a significant target for an attack – and are in a foreign country. This sort of thing happens occasionally. It’s not a symbol of Australia falling to the cultural imperialism of the evil Americans. It’s just a visit by an overseas deputy head of state.
Byrn
It is merely another example of bovine reflexive anti-Americanism by ageing “It’s Time” types.
Slight digression, but I gotta say P.C, living in Canberra at the time, McGahan’s description of a crippled city at the hands of the all the president’s men is ridiculously hyperbolic.
Aside from a few altered roads in Barton – certainly nowhere near all the major roads (what a silly thing for him to say) – and helicopters flying at least a hundred metres over the ground (probably over two hundred, imho) there wasn’t much difference.
Parliament was was definitely not blocked off by a two kilometre cordon, and I didn’t see a man with a gun during the whole time. Though I have no doubt Bush’s personal security were packing heat, it wasn’t like Civic was suddenly crawling with Agent Smith G-men.
Sigh, it’s hysteria like that that gives us lefties a bad name. Well that and, you know, believing in stuff.
This all said, I think the fuss authorities are making over Cheney is almost equally as exaggerated – just in the other direction.
patrick g
I agree with you. There is something, er, un-Australian about how heavy-handed the security is. It’s just a little crass.
Shit, it was a NOVEL, patrickg, you know fiction.
A pretty ordinary novel mind you, but a novel all the same.
Look on the bright side people. The more inconvenience, the fewer votes for these “national security” uglies.
But we really are entering a world where the bastards think they’re our masters, not our servants.
Yeah but Adrian, he is talking about the real event in the novel, I believe, isn’t he? (I confess, I haven’t read it; McGahan’s not really my cuppa). And if it is fictional, I still don’t really see it as a valid comparison, either to the real event, or Cheney’s visit.
That said, it’s all by-the-by; I do think it’s stupid to block any
oops. I’ll just finish that sentence. any road for Cheney, except perhaps for the one to Damascus, which he seems incapable of travelling on anyway.
That’s right! Bad names like ‘salt of the earth,’Principled living’,'Telling the Truth’ and ‘Supporting just causes”. Something that the rightwingers can never be accused of doing!
Cheney got locked – Cheney got loaded
Good God! Howards’ face just exploded!
What if there were children among the protestors. Would they be part of your murder spree too?
Why is it “surprising” that an elderley, “glamourous” woman (refer Suz 10:25) or an old lady wearing pearls, hat and gloves (refer Mark 10:27) would have an opinion on current affairs or be willing to express an anti-Howard, anti-Iraq-war opinion? Are these views only the domain of the unwashed and immature. Does one need to dress a certain way to have certain politics? What are these stereotypes about?
The point, I think, and I’m sure suz will speak for herself, was to counter the stereotypes that anyone who dresses in a certain way and is of a certain age necessarily shares the same opinion, rather than to reinforce them.
It did sort of come across like that D-Gen sketch with the two businessmen who’ve just tried to buy a blackfella’s tribal lands with a couple of trinkets…
“He seemed like a nice enough bloke.”
“Yes, not nearly as drunk as I thought he’d be.”
Mr T, I am of “a certain age” myself yet hold radical views. However, in the location of which I speak, it could almost be assumed that expensively dressed women would be of the Establishment.
[And I don't think of people in their sixties as "elderly".]
On the topic of somewhat unexpected popular shows of political feeling, did anyone catch the presentation following the NSL final?
Howard was on the podium, presenting medals and the trophy, and every time he was mentioned by the compare the whole of Telstra Stadium erupted in booing. Great photo-op, Johnny.
Ruddles was in the stands – must’ve been pissing himself.
I’m astonished at the stereotypical assumptions about people here – why even mention that people who present themselves in particular ways have attitudes different to the stereotypes? I don’t know why it’s even worth mentioning.
Agreed Sacha and others. Some people obviously should get out more – to use a boring cliche. The masks people choose to wear are multifarious. I, for one, rarely notice how a person dresses themselves. It is the least interesting and revealing thing about them. But just call me deep.
Kevin Rudd today described the Cheney protestors as, “violent ferals who should expect no sympathy from the police.” We all make stereotypical assumptions, it seems, suz.
Ferals? That stereotype is soooooo 90s.
I don’t think Rudd said all the protestors were ferals, but that there were some ferals among the protestors. In any case, it was bad form.
It’s indeed a fine distinction, Silkworm.
Here’s the quote:
http://www.sweetness-light.com/
Were these the Feral pigs that the Nats always want to put a bounty on?
Rudd’s theme for the day was obviously “I love Americans more than thou”.
“why even mention that people who present themselves in particular ways have attitudes different to the stereotypes?”
Because stereotypes can be stereotypical.
Mark
The only person indulging such stereotypes was Suz herself. It was me who pointed this out to her.
You need to get out more love. Ageing baby-boomers and tiwn-set and pearl set took over the Labor Party years ago. Oh, and if Iâd been Cheney I would have run yâall over with the advice to have a bath!
************
It is merely another example of bovine reflexive anti-Americanism by ageing âItâs Timeâ? types.
************
Mark
The only person indulging such stereotypes was Suz herself. It was me who pointed this out to her.
*************
Gosh, if you hadn’t pointed out that your comments above were pointing out stereotypes, I’d never have realised.
Did immigration check out Cheney for a criminal record?
On Cheneys security entourage, its a pity that Americans are still so ignorant of Australians that they don’t realize that we have so little respect for our politicians that putting some lead between their ears is not worth doing a single hours jail time for anyone. I hope Australians never become as paranoid as the Americans. Our politicians usually shoot themslves in the foot, anyway.
So has traffic been worse because of the visit or are they just holding that off until APEC? There is talk of APEC being a winner for the government but I can see the traffic chaos upsetting a heck of a lot of voters.
Watching that fleet of vehicles hooking along Oxford Street was bizarre. Suz is right. it did look like a machine gun turret poking out of that van.
The limos, the turret van and a few other Cheney vehicles rolled off military aircraft at RAAF Richmond on Wednesday.
So Cheney could squeeze in no interviews, not even a few questions at the American Alliance speech? You’d think after taxpayers forking out something beyond $4 million for the visit, he’d do the courtesy of answering a few questions.
Interesting to note that Cheney’s speech made no reference to Iran, a speech given on the same day that Iran declared it would not submit to UN Security Council demands.
Rudd stuffed up with his transparent ferals crack. He should have let this be about Cheney.
I reckon a lot of what drives such cavalcades is a big dick, prestige thing whipped up as much by the staffers as the principals.
And interesting to contrast the Cheney circus with Tony Blair ambling round Melbourne during the Commonwealth Games accompanied only by a couple of flunkies, three or four discreet wallopers in rather good suits and tailed by just a couple of equally discreet by armoured and very fast jags and a white Falcon full of very bored AFP bods.
Or look at Aus PMs who have to sit up front next to the driver through sheer force of public expectation and can get fined for not putting their seatbelt on. I kinda like that.
And in even more innocent times and places, there’s Alfred Deakin, who while he was Aus 2nd PM, got busted and fined for riding a bicycle on the footpath.
I beg to differ – small dick. Hence overcompensation. Ben Chifley walked to work.
Just a guess, but the machine gun turret gadget might have been mobile anti-air defence.
To be fair, Dick Cheney probably does face a for-real security risk, but the Secret Service guys are just a scream.
When I visited the (outside of) the White House and went for a wander round the fence, I spotted a security goon with a shotgun just the other side of the fence, hiding behind the shrubbery. As I walked, the guy continued to shuffle around, as if trying to hide from me like a four-year-old playing hide and seek. Didn’t matter; he wasn’t particularly difficult to spot. I asked him did he mind if I take a photo, to which I got a grunted “no photos”.
Of course, I had a telephoto lens on the camera, so if I’d wished I could have gotten a photo of him from 50 metres away.
Complete and utter load of rot.
What I want to know about this new law allowing foreign “dignitaries” to bring armed bodyguards into NSW with them is what would happen if one such bodyguard shot an Australian citizen? Would the bodyguard go on trial under Australian law? Does anyone know?
That is the idea Suz, for the armed bodyguards to shoot an attacker.
The Australian citizen, (if they lived) would be in lots of strife, having been shot whilst posing a deadly threat to the dignitary.
Furthermore the Australian citizen would not only have shamed us all by attacking a guest, but would have proved the point that the bodyguards need to be armed.
It is most likely the response would be that the dead person was just unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and things would go on as normal.
After all, that seems to be the case for over 60000 people in Iraq.
SATP, as Sir Henry pointed out awhile back, there are recent cases eg Menendez in London, of innocent people being shot by police who had mistaken them for ‘terrorists’. In that case at least there have been inquiries/legal processes and the London Met Police have been charged and will be tried later this year.
If a similar thing happened here but the shooting was done by, for example, a US bodyguard travelling with Cheney, would there be any public inquiry, would there be charges?
Even if there were charges it don’t bring the dead back to life. Best not give police and sodiers weapons in crowded public space because sooner or later either by accident or design guns shoot people.
Suz & Steve, are you serious? Government bodyguards, armed to protect a VIP are going to (seemingly for the heck of it) engage in impromptu shootings to death of passers-by?
Yeah right!
What if a boy saw these secret service agents with guns, and, having a water pisatol on him, thought it would be a playful thing to pull his water pistol out? The trigger-happy guards might mistake the water pistol for the real thing, and shoot the child.
If any so-called VIP is so important that they require special bodyguards to carry weapons in public, then that VIP is himself a security risk to the Australian public, and should be banned from Australian soil.
When it next happens that a demonstrator is shot SATP will back the demonstrator 100 per cent.
Yeah right!
Early in this thread Suz informed us that she is ânot a foolâ yet this whole thread reeks of foolishness.
Every day bombers are blowing up civilian targets throughout the world and itâs just over forty three years 22/11/1963 since I watched an American President have his head blown off despite being accompanied by armed body guards. You remember the guy that started the war against communists and nationalists in Vietnam. The lying liberal, John F Kennedy.
Even with the armed body guards that were with Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy they did not survive, though the Pope and President Reagan did.
Cheney is currently a bigger target for the enemies of all progressives than all but one and that is GWB himself. Yet Suz is whining about how she feels under threat!!
Cheney is at the centre of the war against Baathists, Jihadists and Shia death squads at the centre of draining the swamps but Suz shouts at him âGet out of Iraq!â? Practice chanting âleave Iraq to the enemies of all progressives!â or f*ck the ragheads! Suz, you are really shouting âignore the elected representatives of the Iraqi peopleâ. You are really shouting ârisk a massive regional warâ.
You are really shouting out that you know you got it wrong about oil and that you never knew what the war was really about but you know you’re still against Cheney, you are still anti-American. You havenât got a clue and your whole position is incoherent right-wing phony pacifism.
You are opposed to the current policies that are themselves a 180 degree reversal of U.S. Middle East policies since WW2. So you are either a supporter of those former utterly failed right-wing policies or you are a fool and I donât think you supported the former policies.
Cheney will go down in history as a person capable of addressing the failed strategic direction that the U.S. ruling elites over sixty years had kept ruthlessly pursuing till it ended in a massive blatant disaster with the potential to get even worse.
You will go down as just another âno blood for oilâ dolt that would refuse to engage at the level that Cheney could not avoid. He is on the war cabinet and he must come up with a strategy that can be victorious no matter how long it takes. He has to make the hard decisions even if they lead to a more protracted war than the bourgeoisie is used to.
Like it or lump it, protracted is what the new war (to drain the swamps of the Middle East) is; and the U.S. is in it now and there is no backing out for some years yet.
The Iraqi peoples have to win this and it is in western progressives interests to stick with them till they can go it completely alone. We are united with open right-wingers and Islamists in order to defeat the enemy.
Patrickm, unless you were in Dealey Plaza on 22 Nov 1963 and/or unless you were a member of the Warren Commission, you could not possibly have seen the Zapruder Film, the only depiction of JFK’s head being blown off, until the film’s public release in March 1975.
Until then, you only heard about JFK’s head being blown off.
You might like to temper your rhetoric a little with some actual facts.
We’ll take it from that Patrickm, that Katz is unhappy at the factual nature of what you wrote, and is kicking her dog over it.
The shooting dead of the average demonstrator Steve, would only serve to raise Australia’s GDP. Why would I stick up for someone who is dragging the country backwards every time they breathe?
No SATP. Wrong again.
I’m happy that I can point out the non-factual nature of what Patrickm wrote.
If my dog were close handy, I’d be patting her on the head.
Katz: now that you have proven beyond doubt that you can and will nit pick about gnats on a flea in order to divert attention or to just hide from the substantive issues, would you mind addressing the elephant that is rampaging around in your bankrupt Iraqi garden.
Is this thread not dopey beyond parody when people are belly-aching about protecting one of the highest profile targets in the world against car-bombers etc?
What is to be done about the people who are blowing up university students in Iraq?
Why ought the west not help the Iraqi masses?
Why is it not racist to ignore the government of the Iraqi people when they ask for help?
Ought not progressives demand that Australia do more to overcome the enemy and therefore welcome the (pathetic) extra 70 trainers as at least in the right direction? Isn’t Rudd even further to the right than Howard over Iraq and showing it by dumping on ‘ferals’ who share his right-wing views on running away from helping the Iraqi people?
This war is as noble as WW2 and the handful of demonstrators who turned up to shout at Cheney and call him a war criminal because he launched an illegal liberation against a lawful tyranny are outright pseudo-leftists and reactionary to their core.
Revolutions make laws, laws do not make revolutions. But Rudd shares the former analysis. He cannot see that the Iraqi elections have changed the whole deal. The Iraqi people require help. They get plenty of ‘help’ from Al Qaeda sorts from Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, and Egypt etc so why not some progressive help from the west?
You recall the advice that I said I would give to GWB, Cheney and the rest involved in the 100% required war cabinet. (and note the next comment by Mark). Nobody here has seriously attempted to argue against it. Have a think about the issues from that point of view.
After the Pearl Harbor attack proved the popular isolationist policies incorrect the America first movement people stopped and did an about face. You are just as bankrupt. You are reduced to hiding from the issues. Give it up, put the past behind you and support the war effort that is from any progressive standpoint 100% required. These forces must be stopped this war must be won. The new war is now the issue.
Patrickm.
Until you make an effort to comprehend my position on Iraq, I’m not inclined to address your quaint caricature of it.
BTW STAP, you got any children?
No, I didn’t think so.
Everywhere I have been Adrian. Apparently half of the births the year after I was in town have a more than passing resemblance to me. Not boasting of my prowess or anything, it could be just coincidence.
I think the “Iraqi masses” been thru enough helping lately. Cut them a break.
Silkworm
Any parent who exposes their children to an envirnoment like that should be reported to DOCS.
C’mon Katz this isn’t good enough. Stop acting like a running dog lackey of the paper tigers of islamofascist warmongering and answer this hopeless mangle of botched metaphor.
…What if there were children among the protestors. Would they be part of your murder spree too?
So you would still run over these kiddies in your CO2-chugging SUV? Or would you run over their parents too, and save yourself the trouble of reporting them to DOCS?
Would you stay at the scene of the accident?
What would be a suitable number of kiddies to run over?