Seriously, how many of you knew who the Prime Minister of Australia was before this week? How many of you knew that Australia had a prime minister? How many of you thought that Australia was run by: (a) Crocodile Dundee, (b) the CEO of Fosters Brewing, (c) a koala bear.
Well it turns out that, not only is John Howard the Prime Minister of Australia, but he has taken an interest in the upcoming election for President of the United States.
Standing close by a billabong, that jolly swagman Mr. Howard postulated that al-Qaeda members should be praying for the success of Presidential candidate Barak Obama. His logic is that Obama's desire to withdraw US forces from Iraq is exactly in line with the wishes of Osama and his cohorts. Well thank you Mr. Howard. Your opinion has been heard and noted. May we now hear from the honorable delegate from Burkina Faso or Tonga.
Australia, it should be noted, is not a bystander in the war on terror. They have committed a startling 1,400 troops to the conflict in Iraq. (America has 140,000). Thus far the Aussies have suffered 2 casualties; that's one less than Latvia, the same as Thailand and Estonia. The Australians loose more men than that in a three-man scrum. Considering the frequency with which roads explode in Iraq, one suspects that most of the Australian force is spending the war in a hotel in Basra watching reruns of Quigley Down Under.
Mr. Howard probably feels that his country has little to fear from the terrorist hoard. Aside from a few lovely cities on the east coast most of Australia looks like Afghanistan without the nice view. Al-Qaeda could blow stuff up for months and on one would even notice. For all anyone knows, bin Ladin could have built a Sandals resort in the Outback.
So again, thank you Prime Minister Howard for you insightful comment. You are now free to return to your primary duty, explaining the rules in Australian-rules rugby.
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