this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2023
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683
CIA be like (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by HLMenckenFan to c/politicalmemes
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Even Australia is not immune.

(Not really, this is just a fun conspiracy theory with one of our most impactful PMs)

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s really not that wild of a theory.

  • The Australian government of the time was very left wing, doing things like creating universal healthcare and education.
  • Whitlam was threatening to shut down Pine Gap, the joint Australian-US spy station in the middle of Australia, and a key location for the CIA’s information gathering efforts in Asia.
  • The Governor-General of the time, John Kerr, had known ties to known CIA-backed organisations.
  • The US in the lead-up to the Dismissal appointed as its ambassador to Australia a man who has known connections to a coup in Indonesia, and he was also the ambassador to South Korea during a coup there.
  • Whitlam even threatened to reveal the identities of CIA agents in Australia.
  • A US military contractor has spoken out and said that the CIA internally referred to the Governor General as "our man Kerr".

The US had many clear motives for wanting this. They had the means thanks to Kerr. And they were afforded the opportunity by the Senate deadlock. There are certainly a few reasons to say otherwise, but at the very least it’s impossible to dismiss the theory as crackpot.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Agreed, as far as conspiracy theories go this is definitely on the more credible side at least in my view. I just didn't want to present it as fact.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Who?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Gough Whitlam

He was responsible for introducing universal healthcare and free university in Australia.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

TIL, thanks!

And probably why there's a band called "The Whitlams?"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yup. Here's a snippet from their Wikipedia page:

Freedman named the band after the former Prime Minister of Australia, Gough Whitlam, although Plunder had sought to call themselves, 'The Three Nice Boys'. According to Freedman "I loved the family names—the Smiths, the Reivers. I thought, the Whitlams, no-one's done that. I'll be able to steal all the goodwill that Australia holds in reserve for Gough Whitlam."

Also, if you didn't see it already, there are actually a lot of really good reasons to suspect US involvement in the event that has come to be known as "The Dismissal". A brief explanation of some of them are in another comment further up the page.