TONY Abbott has committed RAAF combat aircraft and army special forces advisers to join the fight in Iraq against the Islamic State terrorist group, in an operation that could last for “many months”.

Eleven years after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Prime Minister announced today that within days, the RAAF would send to the United Arab Emirates up to eight Royal Australian Air Force F/A18 Super Hornet or “classic” Hornet combat aircraft, an E-7A Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft; and a KC-30A multi-role tanker and transport aircraft.

With them will go about 600 Australian Defence Force personnel — 400 from the RAAF and 200 from the Army. The Australian

Flanked by a human shield of top to bottom military brass including yet another war dork, Prime Minister Anthony Battlelines Abbott confirmed yesterday that he would be sending Australian troops to Iraq – if the country still exists by next Monday. And if anyone can discover a safe air route over a battle zone.   His uniformed ‘rent a regular’ nodded for the camera. The PM nodded back, training his eyes on his guest, a frisson of wild excitement barely concealed beneath his funereal suit and manner.

Details of the ‘mission’ were as we have come to expect in border protection classified unavailable and none of your business as befits ‘up in the air matters’. Mr Abbott, however, made it clear several times that no Australian would be doing any fighting. No-one. No combat. Their role, it seems, would be confined to the odd bit of air-striking, military advising, looting and trading recreational marijuana.

Wagering a crafty each-way bet that no-one in his audience was smart enough or old enough to see through his tired euphemisms and unsubtle double talk, fawning lickspittle and capitalist-imperialist lackey and running dog Abbott’s use of the phrases air strikes and military advisors was typically fearless . It pumped him up. It pumped his audience to see him pumped. And fearless with other peoples’ lives and futures.

What war-monger Abbott really meant was immediately clear to all viewers over ten years old. Australian forces would be fighting on the ground in Iraq or Syria or wherever for as long as it took. Or as long as the US required. For oil and multinational capitalism, amen. All Australians were committed without consultation. Dissenters would be thrown into prison under the newly formulated anti-terror laws that Attorney General Mr ‘Magoo’ George Brandis would rush through parliament immediately. Detention centres with surplus capacity had been placed on standby. Prison is too good for those who by their actions show they are not part of Team Australia, Mr Abbott said slowly. There need be no further discussion. The nation would be on standby for conscription when it became necessary.

Our commitment has been scaled back a bit. Abbott originally volunteered Australia’s entire armed forces, the reserves, school cadets and anyone on Centrelink benefits under 65. Lame Duck Obama, however kindly hosed the PM down in private, after a long jacuzzi and personal rubdown by young Maria one of the White House’s multinational personal staff, the President thanking him kindly but adding that this would not be necessary. Yet.

Digger Abbott’s bombshell was of course in some ways a fizzer. An anti-climax. After all, Mr Abbott had long treated the Australian people playfully to a cheeky sort of strip tease routine in which he gradually bared his intentions. All 37 members of the Turd Polishing communications unit had been working overtime for three months to put together this strategic product delivery. At last it all made sense. All we had witnessed prior from the PM were not so much premature ejaculations but a carefully planned softening up process in an orchestrated campaign of lies and tergiversation.

Naturally, to add to the arresting sense of deja vu, Mr Abbott was upstaged by the presence of yet another unknown War Dork an Air-vice Marshall  Bin liner, according to programme notes.

Despite looking like your local taxi-driver, Air-Vice Marshall Bearskin held the attention of the entire gathering effortlessly. Armed forces do that to an audience. Especially to the PM. Say what you will about natural leadership and authority you can’t beat a soft-spoken chap in khaki with a pistol in his pocket. Or eight Hornets in his carport. You could tell Bats-wing was used to captive audiences. You could tell he would take no prisoners. And he had to be more interesting than Abbott himself. And so it proved.

Telegenic Air Vice Marshall Blinky Bill was intelligible, coherent, measured, credible. And lethal. By the end of his softly spoken chat to the nation, ten chaps had perished in the UAE as they encountered friendly fire from Kurds, Sunni tribesmen, Peshmerga and other colourful local groups united by the presence of further western blood sport. They had spared a few other Australians to be passed over to ISIS for decapitation on social media. At the same time all terrorists in the Middle East had added Australia and Australians to their list of future targets.

It was a polished performance. Top marks must go to the Turd Polishers and to PMC on this pilot programme for what will inevitably be a very long running and highly successful reality TV series scheduled to run on all channels. The pilot show proved compelling viewing and, as befits reality TV, was in its own way both nauseating and grotesquely fascinating at the same time. At no time did it underestimate the intelligence of its spectators. Expect a lot more where this came from.

Sporting his latest ‘Gravitas’ aftershave, another Macy’s product from an admirer in the White House, and borrowing for the occasion Joe Hockey’s industrial strength deodorant, his Teflon coated comb-over dusted down for the lights, the Prime Minister affected a sombre bearing as befits one who must pretend to reluctantly bring such solemn news to a nation so far completely unused to seeing him do anything remotely decisive or wise or in the national interest. In anyone else’s interest.

Abbott’s awkward bearing resembled that of a school prefect, voted in because he was popular for being one of the lads who having just received his prefect’s badge, now for the first time in his life was expected to make a speech showing his leadership.  The effort was grotesquely fascinating, compelling and disturbing at the same time. The effect was unsettling. Even Abbott’s close friend Greg Craven has described the new pose as resembling a funeral director at a chancy funeral.

Yet birth rather than death and romance were the dominant subtexts of Abbott’s performance. Craven no doubt has yet to be informed of the budding bromance between Abbott and Obama. As revealed recently in The Herald Sun, the PM has disclosed a long-standing secret and unlikely admiration for the world’s most powerful leader, describing Barack Obama as an “extraordinarily gifted man” and a potential friend to rival past ­presidents. The spin unit, Mr Abbott’s strategic communications unit were still working on a catchy slogan. All the way with LBJ worked for the Vietnam War. Gung ho with B.O., on the other hand, was proving a little trickier to work with.

Viewers are settling in for a feast of quality viewing as more televised beheadings are scheduled in future episodes of the new big budget reality TV show which is provisionally entitled, Fools Rush in.