Category: Uncategorized

Australia needs to get real on Ebola crisis

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When the going gets tough, in Billy Ocean’s song, the tough get going. Yet when it comes to Ebola, Australian PM, self-styled tough guy Tony Abbott, wants to firmly stay put.

Abbott’s advisors need to work harder. They need to tell the PM frankly that putting his head in the sand is not a good look; opting for non-involvement is not an option. They could start with the message that his non-involvement sends. It is not flattering: it he doesn’t suit his macho man of action image and it certainly does not signal any deep concern or even a sound grasp of realities. Indeed, he is choosing to ignore local experts; ignore popular opinion.

Abbott’s stance is not representative of all Australians. Certainly, it fails to meet the expectations of Australian health care professionals. Australian medical experts understand that Ebola concerns us all. They want the government to see that the disease demands an effort from all nations. And they want their government to act immediately.

AMA President, A/Prof Brian Owler, sees an evolving international humanitarian crisis, in which Australia must provide urgent direct assistance. Australia should be providing more money to help contain the spread of the disease, and we should also be sending teams of medical and health professionals to help treat the thousands of people, across several countries, affected by Ebola.

“The AMA acknowledges the recent commitment of $18 million by the Australian Government, but it is clear now that much more needs to be provided. If the Government can get military arms airlifted to northern Iraq at short notice, surely we can airlift medical arms and legs to West Africa just as quickly to save lives. Australia and other developed nations must show leadership and act immediately to provide greater support to WHO and the people of West Africa affected by this human tragedy,” A/Prof Owler said.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop is quick to remind us, Australia has virtuously contributed 18 million dollars but will not send medical personnel. Why? The Abbott government’s reasons sound like excuses. West Africa is too far away from Australia. We are already donating money. We need to have safety guarantees.

Many individual Australians see it differently; they have not hesitated to exercise their humanity. They have no trouble ‘getting it’.  They have quickly shown greater insight and understanding than their government can muster. Australian volunteers understand that money is not enough. Personnel are urgently required.  On the ground. Ebola is a big enough threat to world health to risk your life fighting.

Accordingly, thirty Australians are estimated to be working in West Africa for organisations such as the Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières fighting Ebola. Their commitment is admirable, reassuring. These men and women understand what needs to be done and they get on with it.  They appreciate that Ebola is everyone’s business, the collective responsibility of every one of us.

Disappointingly, Abbott appears determined to ignore Australia’s responsibility as an international citizen. What is he playing at? His cautiously timid response contrasts markedly with his other forays into international relations such as his recent hairy-chested response to ‘shirt-front’ Vladimir Putin. No shirt-fronting here. Just a quick side step or perhaps a duck and weave, keeping his head down.

Abbott’s response is also in dramatic contrast to his eagerly pledging Australian Military support to the United States call for a joint mission to fight ISIS in the Iraq and Syria. He made the pledge before being asked. Despite having no clear strategy, carrying high risks and with no Iraqi legal indemnity in place except for a loose agreement on a legal framework, Australia has agreed to commit half a billion dollars a year at least to the ‘humanitarian mission.’

Abbott has been quick to fend off critics. He counters suggestions Australia is not doing enough to fight Ebola, by working the responsibility angle: he claims it would be “irresponsible” to send personnel to West Africa without ‘an iron-clad guarantee’ that any health worker requiring treatment after becoming infected with the lethal virus would receive it from one of Australia’s political allies.

Health Minister Peter Dutton argues that an infected person would not survive the 30-hour flight to Australia if they were to contract the virus in West Africa. Government officials claim it could take up to a week to evacuate an infected person to Australia. It hasn’t stopped the volunteers. And it ignores potential medical care for infected personnel partnerships in other countries such as Cuba.

On the face of it, Australia’s response is damning. Australia’s donation of 18 million dollars, is ‘lethally inadequate’ according to Médecins Sans Frontières International, Dr Joanne Liu who contends that ‘The fight against Ebola is like a war and we need to send a clear chain of command.’

Some wars, it seems, are more popular than others to Australia’s leaders. The Australian government is perfectly willing to commit at least half a billion a year on air strikes and military advisers which are guaranteed to ensure the deaths of innocent men, women and children in Iraq. It is willing to give millions to Cambodia with no strings attached to induce that country to take asylum seekers. It is prepared to spend billions on off-shore camps for asylum seekers. Yet it baulks at rolling up its sleeves and fighting Ebola.

All of this begs the question of Australia’s priorities. Our present stance is both unrealistic, unsustainable and unworthy.  We pride ourselves on our national mythos of capability and mateship. We are proud to take our part on world agencies. If we are genuinely deserving of our seat on the UN Security Council or our place in G20, however, we need to put up or shut up.

The Ebola outbreak is our worst on record. 9000 people have been infected. More than half those affected have died. On 8 August, the World Health Organisation (WHO) described the epidemic as “the most severe, acute health emergency seen in modern times”.

The UN has given the world a deadline of 60 days to get the disease under control or face “unprecedented situation for which we don’t have a plan”, warning Africa could see up to 10,000 new Ebola cases a week if the disease is not contained.

Australia needs to take its head out of the sand and act in a way that equates with its responsibilities as a world citizen.

Economic Girly Man

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In what can only be described as another clumsy fumble for attention, Australia’s FInance Minister Mathias Cormann has lumbered into the budget debate calling Bill Shorten ‘an economic girly man’.

Cormann did intend any compliment as Eva Cox brightly suggested on ABC Radio this afternoon. The Finance Minister was not enlightened or inspired by a view of economics that was not all about secret men’s business. Believe it or not, he meant it as a type of taunt.

Perhaps it’s a cultural thing. Perhaps Belgians fall about laughing when their government ministers use this stunt. If so, it fell very flat yesterday and only succeeded in taking down further Cormann’s reputation as someone who should not be let near a microphone or a job in politics. Further taking down any remote chance he could be taken seriously. And further trashing the government’s reputation with it.

Perhaps we should not be surprised by your behaviour, Mathias. It may well be a form of Tourette’s syndrome. Perhaps it is some form of medical complaint, a type of compulsive verbal tic. Your Prime Minister Tony Abbott certainly has a few. Perhaps it’s catching. Pointless, needless repetition certainly is. Certainly is. Trouble is it sends a message that you are a ‘couple can short of the six pack’. You may know the 1984 movie this comes from.

And it is something Mathias Cormann has said before. Groundhog day again. And again. This is far from the first time that the Finance Minister has performed the girly man stunt and it is unlikely to be the last. There’s not a lot of spare material in the minister’s grab bag of funny lines and other distraction tricks, apart that is from the dark glasses and the white stick. Internationally acclaimed treasurer, Wayne Swan and before him Kevin Rudd were also singled out for the recycled line, figures who tower so far above Cormann that he’d need a ladder to tie their boot laces.

Terminate the practice, Mathias. Go ahead make our day. We know you would like to be a funny man. We know it must get boring as Finance Minister to an incompetent Treasurer in a party falling almost every key performance indicator. We know you crave attention. It comes with the territory. Yes, we agree you do sound like the former Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger but then so, too do millions of other misogynists. It must be like having somebody else’s shadow.

But you are not the Terminator. Give it away. Keep your day job, whatever that is. You couldn’t be any worse at treasurer stuff than Joe, ‘The Gaffer’ Hockey. You don’t have to do anything really challenging. Or even be original. You will find the public servants will generally do it all for you. There must be a few left on the payroll. And help is available. Tony will get Peta to give you simpler instructions. Bi-lingual instructions. You will get the hang of it in due course. Just promise to stop referring to her as Attila the Hen.

And, bonus! In a quick couple of years you won’t have to worry because you will be out of office, as no doubt you have shrewdly calculated along with your access to entitlements and after-politics Costello-type overpaid job sinecures. But not before you have done some serious damage. Damage mainly to your party but also to the image of Australia as a progressive, egalitarian society governed by the rule of law.

But for you and your comrades, termination looms. Fatal political damage as inevitable predicted in a well-known movie: “Listen and understand. That Terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.”

What were you thinking, Mathias? Was the stunt to distract attention from your boss Joe Hockey who has once again made a complete arse of himself in public appearing to make another basic mistake on UK television? On BBC’s “ Hardtalk”, a program of vigorous political interviews, it was put to Hockey that Australia was “one of the dirtiest, most greenhouse gas-emitting countries in OECD group of developed countries.” The Treasurer, however, described his interviewer’s statement as “ridiculous”. The trouble for Hockey is that, per head of population, Australia is, indeed the worst.  Many Australian school children could helped correct his answer here. If it was a cover for the boss, it was not necessary.

And it hasn’t worked. Most voters know what to expect with Joe Hockey and cringing embarrassment and a sense of wounded national pride are very much lesser evils when compared, for example, with the potential damage to be caused by not understanding the first thing about what you are supposed to be doing. Of course, Mathias, you have probably worked out the very reasonable odds on quietly inheriting Hockey’s job soon.

Or was it an attempt to cover for Prime Minister and Minister for Women, Abbott’s decent into gibbering madness fleeing as far as he could possibly get from ‘getting in touch with his feminine side’ with his shirt-front challenge to a leader who deigns to wear one. A leader with martial arts credentials and moves that are likely to be a little bit more terminating than the rusty shadow-boxing of a former Oxford Blue.

Was it a quote from Shaun MicAllef’s satirical Mad as Hell? “Shaun, you’re being an economic girly man,” a Cormann character told host Shaun Micallef in an April skit? We are pleased the ABC holds appeal for you, Mathias. Or were you looking with a view to wind up all avenues of criticism. We have read your Prime Minister’s comment that he doesn’t appreciate being criticised on government-funded ABC. Perhaps you can now offer more support. A broader mind, perhaps.

Bill Shorten counter-attacked on Saturday, proposing that rather than “borrowing lines from Republican Tea Party conventions to joke about hurting vulnerable Australians”, Mr Cormann should “face up to his unfair budget”. Bill is spot on but stopped short of adding that Matt could always seek professional help if his condition did not improve. There are many distinguished women in psychiatry, experts and world leaders in their field who would be pleased to prescribe appropriate treatment for the Finance Minister.

 

Enlightened and humane, Italian solution to asylum seekers puts Australia’s to shame.

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“When my friends and family ask me, Why are these people coming to Italy? I respond, our ancestors also escaped when there was war. There went looking for their fortunes in America, Australia, Switzerland and other places. Where there is no war it gives you hope of a better future.” – SERGEANT MAJOR FRANCESCO CUONZO, Italian Marines

The Italian Solution, screened on ABC’s Four Corners last night, documented Italy’s humane, compassionate and enlightened approach to migranti, those men, women and children, who desperately set out to sea from Lybia in dangerously overcrowded and flimsy vessels, including rafts, to seek refuge from conflict and misfortune, including war, persecution and economic adversity. They travel to the island of Lampedusa, approximately half-way to Italy and make contact with the Italian marines by satellite phone from the tiny island. It is a risky business. Three thousand migranti have drowned in the attempt this year alone. Few can swim and there is always the danger that panic will cause disaster in overcrowded, unseaworthy craft.
The documentary starred Italian naval personnel so clearly enjoying their mission: rising to the challenge of difficult rescues each evidently, effortlessly heeding the voice of the heart, the voice of compassion and faith, that tells each one of us that it is right to reach out to strangers in need; that we have a duty and a human need to reach out to others in distress.
The Italian Solution told more than the story of saving lives at sea, it dramatically and powerfully reaffirmed our duty to each and every other human being in need. At the same time it illustrated what can and what should be done by any self-respecting, nation when challenged to provide a solution to the rapidly growing numbers of people who are forced to risk everything in fleeing for their lives and those who are prepared to risk everything to make new lives in another country. At no time at all did we encounter anyone attempting to blame the victim or to make invidious distinctions between types of migranti. Nowhere was heard the despicable term illegal or economic migrants, Australia’s favourite pejorative term for asylum seekers. Nor do Italians use the terms ‘asylum seekers’, ‘refugees’ either, they simply call them the migranti.
Nowhere was there an air of secrecy or that tight-lipped determination to conceal the facts which characterises Scott Morrison, Australia’s minister and his department. Those involved were open and keen to show and share every detail of their controversial strategy.
We have the duty in these cases when we are at sea to intervene to save human life. If we are not at sea then we can’t see what happens, we can close our eyes, turn off the lights and in that way, there’s no need to “turn back” the boats because they will die. We need to remember that International Rights exist. There are international laws that our countries have ratified. – VICE ADMIRAL FILIPPO FOFFI, Commander in Chief Italian navy.
The documentary made you want to migrate to Italy yourself, so refreshing is the contrast with Australia’s punitive attitudes and strategies to those forced to seek asylum and so eloquent was the humanity expressed in Mare Nostrum the Italian government’s search and rescue strategy, underpinned as it is even in its title, (our sea) by a sense of obligation and responsibility to all humanity. Italy, despite being a nation in recession itself, can, nevertheless, respond to the plight of the dispossessed first and foremost and sideline any carping in domestic politics or critics in other countries. It shows courage and it shows leadership. The Italian government is prepared to make waves by actively, strenuously, pursuing a generous, non-judgemental strategy of acceptance and support and deal later with any criticism from other European neighbours. Non Importe. (It doesn’t matter.) It is to be applauded for daring to make a principled stand; admired for setting a shining example to other nations.
By contrast, the elephant in the room, Australia’s own benighted asylum seeker policy, appears more than shabby and morally threadbare. Both Australia’s “Sovereign Borders” modus operandi and the fundamental nature of its policy are the antithesis of the Italian. Instead of welcoming and accommodating, we invest huge sums in repelling, returning or detaining those who have a right to expect our help if not our sympathy and understanding. Indeed, viewed against Mare Nostrum Australia’s “turn back the boats” seems primitively mean-spirited, divisive and shamefully indifferent to suffering as it denies its duty to humanity and its own natural compassion in policy and practices crafted by politicians seeking votes by pandering to the lowest common denominator, of widespread popular domestic prejudices fanned by shock-jocks and others with a vested interest in fear-mongering and scapegoating. By contrast The Italian Solution indicts Australia for its cruelty, its inhumanity, studied indifference and the grotesquely elaborate self-delusion of our official justification. Scott Morrison should take a close look at this programme. Then take a close look at himself.

Of course, the Italian solution is controversial. It is expensive, costing $13 million per month. But more expensive, in the long run is the cost of apathy, indifference or hostility. Of course it makes Italy vulnerable to accusations that it is swelling migration numbers irresponsibly adding to those who move from Italy into Germany and other more prosperous countries. There are critics who claim that the policy encourages people to migrate illegally but to this the government points out that the situation in Syria and in other Middle Eastern states has become increasingly more dangerous or hostile and that Italy would prefer to respond to suffering than count numbers. More than admirable is the courage, the initiative and enterprise embodied in the Italian solution as a vision which seeks first to do good. It is inspiring in an age of increasingly narrowing self-regard to see a nation which is prepared to reach out to help others in distress and not to count the cost. That account can be properly wait for later if the moral balance is right.

Abbott’s shirt front stunt affronts on all fronts.

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 “I’m going to shirt-front Mr Putin,” “You bet you are, you bet I am.

“I am going to be saying to Mr Putin Australians were murdered.”

Tony Abbott at press conference in North Queensland

The Australian Prime Minister raised eyebrows yesterday when he vowed to ‘shirt-front’ Russian President Vladimir Putin when he attends the G20 conference to be held in Brisbane. Abbott’s promise to deal tough with Putin comes in the context of criticism of his decision not to disinvite Putin in the wake of the downing of MH17 by pro-Russian troops equipped with Russian arms and Putin’s subsequent lack of co-operation in Australia and Holland’s attempts to retrieve bodies from the wreckage of the downed airliner. Abbott’s macho tough-talking was matched by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s public questioning of Putin who was even less diplomatic in suggesting that Putin ought to be too ashamed to attend.

Some of the eyebrows raised belonged to Aussie journalists who later reported that they did not understand the phrase at first and had to look it up. The media consensus is that the phrase is an Australian football term for a type of full-frontal body tackle, a head-on charge aimed at bumping an opponent to the ground although it may be contended that the term has wider currency denoting a ‘please explain’ confrontation amongst other English-speaking peoples. What is certain, however, is that the words would have raised eyebrows in the Kremlin where translators would have wasted only a few nanoseconds in confirming with the Russian President that he had been insulted by his prospective G20 host who was vowing to hold him to account over the downing of MH17.

The Russians did not waste time in getting into the bear-pit with Abbott, responding via the state-owned Pravda, that their leader wash his hands. In an opinion piece Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey writes

I would advise Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to wash his hands carefully and sterilize them after shaking the paw offered to him by Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott at the forthcoming G20 Summit in Brisbane. It is not about Ebola Virus Disease, it is about the disease called insolence and Australia’s colonial chip on its shoulder.

Thank God no Australian can be Head of State, that privilege belongs to Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, because judging by the arrogance displayed recently by its Prime Minister Tony Abbott, it appears the political class doesn’t have what it takes. … Tony Abbott displays a degree of insolence, arrogance and incompetence which mirrors the intrusiveness, belligerence and chauvinism inherent in other members of the Anglo Saxon alliance in NATO. You know, that global terrorist organization whose budget is a staggering one point two trillion USD a year, each and every year.

When Australia isn’t busy crawling around the legs of its colonial master, England or trying to crawl up the anatomy of London’s master, Washington, participating in their wars to pick up a few crumbs thrown Canberra’s way, its politicians are busy kowtowing to Europe and the USA making stupid and unfounded remarks about Russia.

Was it a stupid and unfounded remark? Unless his minders have gone on holiday it is not impossible that Abbott has been given a licence to offend Putin on behalf of Australia’s more powerful friends, a role Abbott would happily perform and capably morphing into mighty mouse, an eagerly athletic antipodean mouse that stands up on its hind legs and roars. Whilst the role of the political sock-puppet is not unknown in history, it is more likely, however, that Abbott simply improvised. Given his earlier tough talk towards Russia over the downing of MH17 ten weeks ago, it would seem, on the face of it, that Abbott was reassuring Australian voters that he was not weakening Australia’s position by now agreeing to Russia’s participation in the G20 and that he would in fact be demanding answers. Whatever the true motivation, the gaffe was not helpful either to Australia’s diplomatic responsibility in hosting the G20 or in terms of Abbott’s increasingly compromised capacity to successfully discharge his elected responsibility as Prime Minister of Australia.

The macho challenge is unlikely to help Abbott’s proposed dialogue with Putin. Cynics or perhaps realists would say this does not matter because there was never the faintest prospect of any genuine dialogue with Putin let alone any acceptance of responsibility for the downing MH17 or the annexation of Ukraine. In this sense Abbott had nothing to lose by inflaming relations with intemperate language.

Yet Abbott has everything to lose in terms of his perceived capacity to observe diplomatic protocols and in the example he sets on the world stage. Naturally, there are many tempting diversions and distractions in his path to success in international affairs. It may be that his ego has been over-nourished by his close relationship with Murdoch’s Daily Telegraph and his regular on-air massages with Alan Jones on 2GB, both of whom have invested some time in promoting the Australian leader as a blunt-spoken antipodean hero who in his rough-hewn Australian way can cut through red tape dispense with indirection and other formalities and call a spade a spade. If this is the case, Abbott’s minders need to wean him off such boosters before he has done too much damage to his own and Australia’s cause. As it stands, Russia has been quick to quash any prospect of a bilateral meeting with Australia in Brisbane. Abbott’s much-vaunted opportunity for dialogue, the rationale for inviting Putin in the first place, has evaporated along with his own credibility.

Abbott’s language is a big step down at a time when what is needed is just the opposite. His shirt front challenge evokes the primitive physicality of the Australian true-blue bloke, squaring off against his adversary and settling a difference of opinion with his fists. Apart from the ludicrous image it conjures of a mismatch between the keen amateur and the hardened professional slugger, Abbott’s promise to square off against Putin is an empty gesture. It is a faint reassurance to the nation. His comical but wrong-headed vow to put pressure on the Russian President, to confront him as the only way of holding him to account is a patently silly and potentially risky gambit against a ruthlessly powerful adversary with nothing to lose in continuing on his chosen path of denial and disavowal when all the evidence points to an increasingly compelling case for indictment. In terms of his electoral appeal, it may be that Abbott’s instincts sense a primitive point of resonance with the average voter over his Paul Hogan type heroics but wiser heads would question whether he really needs another caricature at this moment in his career. Nor does it help the cause of international relations when any leader descends to this type of behaviour. The shirt front stunt is an affront on all fronts.

To invite Putin to Brisbane is to invite disaster for all.

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The Australian government has recently defended its controversial decision to allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend the G20 leaders’ meeting to be held in Brisbane. The Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s main defence that inviting Putin would subject him to a ‘full and frank discussion’ is both highly implausible and in clear contradiction to Australia’s previously adversarial stance towards the Russian Prime Minister. As Opposition leader Bill Shorten put it the government had “gone from talking tough to trying to pretend Putin coming here isn’t an issue Australians are concerned about”.

There was nothing accommodating about the Australian Prime Minister’s treatment of Putin over the MH17 disaster on 7 August this year. Mr Abbott, accused Russia of preparing to invade Ukraine. Telling him he “has been a bully”, Abbott called on Putin to hold back his forces from crossing the border into Ukraine or risk becoming an international outcast.

“Right at this moment, Russian forces are massing on the border with Ukraine,” Mr Abbott told reporters in Sydney, “If there is any movement by his forces across the border, it won’t be a humanitarian mission, it will be an invasion. It will be an invasion.”

Ten weeks ago, clearly, Abbott was disputing Putin’s intentions in Ukraine and threatening to review Russia’s invitation to the G20. Now comes a complete back-down. Instead of using its status as host and its seat on the UN Security Council to prevail upon other G20 members to back Australia in declaring Putin unwelcome, the Abbott government appears to have become weak-kneed. Yet there is ample precedent. Australia could have followed the G7 example from June when the planned G8 Sochi meeting, to be hosted by Russia, was cancelled with G7 leaders holding their own meeting without Putin. They underscored the point by symbolically choosing to meet in Brussels, the headquarters of NATO and the EU instead.

Why the change of heart? So far the explanations are neither convincing nor adequate. The Australian public and the international community have been fobbed off with lame excuses about consensus, the need for open discussion and the MH17 red-herring. Joe Hockey, yesterday pleaded that Australia was powerless to disinvite:

“The G20 is an international gathering that operates by consensus – it’s not Australia’s right to say yes or no to individual members of the G20. I think it will be pretty crystal clear that we think that Russia needs to fully cooperate in the investigation into the MH17 atrocity.
I think it’s the world’s expectation on Russia that there will be full cooperation with the investigation and there will be a willingness to hand over to police for trial anyone who Russia might have access to who turns out to have played a part in the downing of that aircraft.”

The downing of MH17 and its implications must not be overplayed as dominant and problematic as it may be. Whilst Russia’s involvement in this outrage alone should merit it exclusion from the meeting, that exclusion must rest also on the many other ways in which Putin has demonstrated that his conduct violates all reasonable expectations of human behaviour let alone the actions of a reputable statesman let alone any type of international citizen. Putin’s Russia is a country where political rivals and vocal critics are often killed, and at least sometimes the order comes directly from the president’s office.
Gessen, Masha (2012-03-01). The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladmir Putin (p. 226). Granta Books. Kindle Edition.

Nor should ‘our right to say no’ to the G20 be underplayed. It may not be Australia’s right to hijack G20 consensus protocols but it is most definitely Australia’s responsibility to take a stand and to take the initiative in lobbying to change that consensus. Otherwise, especially in the light of Abbott’s earlier condemnation of Putin, Australia loses credibility and sacrifices its capacity to be a useful world citizen as far as it is able. Doubtless that capacity has already been significantly compromised by the Abbott government’s stance on a range of critical issues including global warming, climate change, the sale of brown coal, carbon trading, renewable energy, asylum seeker detention and its unquestioned allegiance to US foreign policy in Iraq. An Australian stand against Putin, might begin to stem if it cannot staunch international critics of our credentials as global citizens with a commitment to a sustainable future.

Ironically, in inviting Putin, Abbott risks undermining his own stance on terror. Refusing the Russian leader is clearly mandated by our newly revamped, stronger anti-terror stance. Whilst some may quibble at the label terrorist, Putin is no stranger to rule by terror, it is intrinsic to his absolutism and his determination to eliminate of all forms of domestic opposition from liquidating opponents to control over media. It is also plays an integral part in his aggressive foreign policy of annexing neighbouring states. It is seen in his support of the genocidal strategies of Syria’s Assad.

Clearly Putin’s behaviour at home and abroad, disbars him from Brisbane’s G20 event. It is, therefore, vital that Australia summons the resolve required to put pressure on other members of the G20 to exclude the Russian leader or hold the meeting somewhere else. The consequences of making him welcome threaten the very foundations of the G20 itself if not the spirit of international cooperation whilst signalling that we may be afraid of him or just don’t know what to do with him.

Inviting Putin to Brisbane helps give the Russian President the legitimacy he covets, the legitimacy that helps him cloak Russia’s war of terror in a veneer of acceptance. That rule of terror includes the annexation of Crimea, ethnic cleansing, abduction, torture and murder, the downing of flight MH17 plane; violating international law yet claiming that Russia is not “involved.” Do we really need to help him legitimise his “humanitarian” convoys and referendums in Ukraine, his assistance to Syria? Are we to condone his economic sabotage, Russia’s recent history of quietly undermining US and world economies? In 1998, for example, Russia defaulted on $40 billion of domestic debt, forcing the Federal Reserve to engineer a bailout of hedge fund Long Term Capital Management.

More recently Russia’s ‘aid’ to Ukraine represents a unique form of political control if not loan sharking. Instead of handing aid money directly to Ukraine, Russia had the Ukrainian government float $3 billion in bonds denominated in Euros. Russia then bought the bonds. A cunning provision written into the bond is that if the Ukraine’s debt-to-GDP level reached 60%, Russia could call the bonds for immediate payment. The highly unusual qualification brings Ukraine further under Russian control. Today, Ukraine has Eurobonds outstanding to several countries, so it has no option of defaulting on Russia alone because it would hurt the price of all their debt. Putin’s foresight thus also ensures that US aid money will find its way to Moscow.

Groucho Marx’s wish not to belong to any club that would accept him as a member applies to Putin. His involvement demeans the status of the G20, itself a creature which has yet to acquire international credibility in achieving long-term strategic coordination between all members on some of major global issues or in failing to reinvigorate global trade or complete the WTO Doha development round. To its critics, including Australia’s Chris Berg of IPA it seems more a meeting to exchange platitudes about free trade and to endorse neo-con economic positions about small government than pursue significant international reforms such as the green agenda proposed by Korea or Bill Gates’ recommendations for alternative methods of financing development tabled in 2011. In brief, Putin needs the G20 more than it needs him. The Abbott government, on the other hand, urgently needs to summon the courage to say ‘Nyet’ to Putin before it further loses its will and with it the capacity and the credibility to achieve any significant initiative as an international citizen. To say nothing of the continuing cost to its electoral support and credibility at home.

The war will cause death of an Abbott government unprepared to share the true realities of situation in Iraq.

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Eager to send Australian troops to war in Iraq, doubtless for perceived benefits to himself and his government’s electoral standing, Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott appears to have less appetite for due diligence. Or is it a matter of political will and instinct?. Whatever his motives, he is failing the nation in his responsibility as PM and courting electoral disaster for his party in his haste to commit us to Iraq.

Abbott’s attraction to Iraq is, no doubt, complex and ultimately unfathomable, even to himself but the following elements appear clear. He appears energised somehow as if he believes that combat itself enhances his leadership stature.  War engages his political and personal instincts, including his impatience with detail and depth. It also resonates with his moral view of the universe as a struggle between good and evil. At the very least it can be presented in this attractively over-simplified yet electorally appealing manner. The ‘pure evil’ of the ‘death cult of ISIS’ then leaves him with no alternative but to intervene on the side of the forces of good.

Yet it is far more than this. And yet so often, it will appear rather less: Abbott the political animal loves appearing at the centre of the action. Photo-opportunities beckon with men in uniform, men with arms. Soon images of Abbott in a flak jacket, Abbott sighting a rifle, Abbott inspecting troops will displace the current costume of hard hat and hi-vis vest. Yet there is more to it than appearances. War appeals also, no doubt, to Abbott’s macho man of action’s sense of himself. In some matinee theatre complex of his mind he is a type of antipodean Spider-Man, ever-vigilant over the rise of evil, ever-ready to stamp out wickedness and moral depravity.

Yet surrender to any of the charms of war could be the undoing of Tony Abbott and his party. The stakes are high – higher than he appears to recognise, at least publicly. Regardless of its innate appeal to the ‘fight before flight’ psychology of the former Oxford boxing Blue and irrespective of his shrewd political intuition that a war leader can be a popular leader, a commitment to war is not to be rushed into.  Even putting to one side for a moment his almost indecent eagerness to follow the US leader like a pack rat, boosting US-Australia relations, as he may see it, or ingratiating himself as might appear to others, being over eager to play the war card is a risky strategy. Make war in haste. Repent at leisure.

The Australian people deserve better leadership from their Prime Minister than hasty and ill-conceived military misadventures. What we need in a time of international crisis is a responsible leader whom we can depend upon to exercise due diligence before acting. Before entertaining any notion of military intervention in another country’s bloody civil war, Abbott must reveal a rational strategic plan which is based on more than impulse and intuition. And he must be prepared to publicly unpack his thinking. It is his responsibility. It is expected of him, not unreasonably, by the population at large and especially by those whom he is committing to war on their country’s behalf. Neglect of this step in maintaining trust, in vouchsafing his compact can only hasten his decline, and could easily be his government’s death warrant.

Due diligence would involve Abbott knowing what he was getting us into, and openly sharing what he knows. It would also involve a clear plan for aims and objectives as well as the nature and extent of combat.  So far what we have been fobbed off with is neither open nor realistic. Abbott’s explanation that we have kept our troops back until we have got the Iraqi government to sign an indemnity for Australian forces to operate as ‘trainers’ in Iraq ignores the political reality that such a signature would not be worth the paper it is written on. Iraqi politicians are drawn from those who were victims or who are relatives of Saddam Hussein’s Baathists. At best they represent a quarter of the population. Eighty per cent of government jobs, moreover are filled with members of this group who are often ill-equipped and unqualified for the positions and responsibilities they are expected to discharge. Most Iraqis are not happy to have foreign troops on their soil, despite what the political classes might claim. The signing of an indemnity by a yet to be appointed Defence Minister has been compared to signing his own death warrant.

Last Tuesday Iraq’s political leadership, including Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki; President Jalal Talabani; Mr. Maliki’s chief rival, Ayad Allawi; and several other high-ranking officials evaded the ‘deal-breaker’. Government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh’s statement, said the leaders had agreed that there was “no need to grant immunity to trainers,” instead of the clear commitment which Abbott and the US were insisting was essential to deployment. We have yet to hear Abbott’s comment or indeed yet to have the PM share his setback with the nation. There has been no announcement that Australian troops are coming home.

‘Degrade and destroy’ is a slogan not a plan. Getting the Iraqi forces trained up to fight on their own is beyond any external agency. The US could not do it. Hundreds of billions of US dollars have already been wasted in pursuit of this chimera. And as for ‘helping the Iraqi government’, little research is required to reveal that this is a fool’s errand. The Iraqi government is severely compromised in its lack of political and military authority, its appearance as a puppet of the US, its dependence on embedded jihadi terrorists as capable of atrocities as ISIS and its record of Sunni persecution. Above all in a theatre of war riven with factions, shifting alliances, multiple flashpoints and against a determined, skilled, well-financed and well-equipped adversary with a commitment to fighting not matched by any outsiders, it is likely to be protracted difficult and long. For our troops’ sake for our country’s sake, Australia’s Iraq war III plans must contain an exit strategy, some idea of how and when we might get out. For, as modern history should show us, as in Viet Nam, or Afghanistan or Iraq 1 and 2, it is easier to get into an international fight than to get out of it. Above all, whatever their initial popularity, protracted engagements are likely to prove ruinous to any government in the end.

When news of the prospect of Australian military intervention in Iraq first broke, Prime Minister Tony Abbott appeared to jump to attention and salute the opportunities this might provide to boost his standing with an indifferent or alienated electorate. He’d already had a bit of win on the world stage although to some he seemed to be over keen on chasing ambulances, air disasters and other media opportunities to promote and stage-manage his statesmanship. Some of these wins proved illusory as in the free trade agreement with China which that country has not broken. Similarly unfulfilled were his promises regarding recovery of bodies of victims of the MH17 disaster and his advice regarding MH 370’s imminent discovery. Yet it was not for lack of trying: Abbott almost upstaged himself, such was the energy and lack of reserve with which he threw himself into the new role. Many spectators were unnerved rather than reassured by the newly minted desperately international statesman Abbott crashing about on the world stage.

At home it was toned down Tony who played to captive domestic audiences. Soberly, steadily, slowly enunciating the compass of our likely involvement, his new performance values allowed him full rein to practise in public the advice of his vocal coaches whilst inwardly basking in the warm after-glow of the self-invited, over-sharing partner to the righteous in an international crisis rich with opportunities to moralise. Dickens would have loved him.

Public office demands high performance and high performance standards. In leading our intervention in Iraq Abbott has been working himself into the role. As ever, his instinct is to play to the gallery. Or else he patronises audiences, talking down to the little people who on other occasions he claims gave his party a mandate. Little matter that even to close friends he has all the credibility of a dodgy funeral director. Or that he risks appearing self-indulgent, inconsistent, or inauthentic. Or all three. At his worst, Abbott resembles a method actor in continual rehearsal for a work in progress.  The act threatens to undo him, unravel the very fabric of his presentation of self, the fibre of his political being.

Events will quickly conspire to unseat Abbott’s lazy complacency and lack of due diligence. The myth of one united Iraqi people allied with us against evil will quickly be shattered by the reality of battle. It will become apparent that the Iraqis we say we are defending have a tenuous grip on power and are a diverse group, many of whom resent our presence. Many Iraqis are conflicted with intersecting allegiances to competing religious, tribal and political identities. Much of the government, and its administration has to be negotiated with factions . The negotiations are not going well.  Many political commentators believe that the government has lost legitimacy and any real authority. The Iraqi government is now resorting to trying to persuade Sunni armed factions and tribes to help it fight ISIL but Sunni leaders want greater rights and representation in government. In brief, we are backing up the US in its ‘pick a winner’ strategy but invest it as we may with moral justification as Abbott has our fight against pure evil is much closer in reality to fighting alongside troops who comprise a range of groups and affiliations many of whom are as evil or slightly less evil than ISIS itself. The propaganda war has to be laid to one side. Abbott has to share fully the complexity of the theatre of war before Australia is bogged down in a costly, protracted war of attrition between forces who may change sides at a moment’s notice.

Success would bring only another power vacuum. So embedded is ISIS and those factions who have allied with ISIS for the meantime to hitch a ride into a more promising political future that victory against ISIS would not usher in any period of peace and stability but rather just mark the next stage of an increasingly desperate and bloody civil war.

Abbott’s gambit of risking his fortunes and the fortunes of his party on an overseas adventure in Iraq will quickly prove costly. The ‘humanitarian mission’ will fail as it becomes wrecked on the rocks of political realities which it will become all too readily apparent, realities which could and ought to have been foreseen at the outset. There will be a huge cost to the nation in terms of all of the resources of war, as military strategists like to see them men, materiel and money. But greater than these losses will be the rapid disintegration of the theatre of integrity with which the Abbott government has sought to bolster its legitimacy. Australia is not an international moral policemen scrambling to mobilise against evil but an over-eager US catspaw rushing headlong into a doomed battle without a real plan. An already alienated or at best disaffected and doubting electorate will find even greater reason to mistrust the Abbott government and to resent being taken for a ride; resent its sordid descent into political expediency at the price of integrity and democratic responsibility and accountability.

Australia needs to be told the true cost of war in Iraq.

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How much will it cost the Abbott government to be at war in Iraq? Estimates vary. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott claims that his country’s intervention in Iraq will cost half a billion dollars per year. On ABC television 9 October, the PM volunteered the figure in the context of growing internal debate about where the funds are going to come from. Defence Minister David Johnstone more candidly and credibly has said the government has no idea. Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen has cautioned the government that the Opposition will not provide a blank cheque and pointed to savings in scrapping the PPL scheme. Hockey, unsurprisingly cheaply politicised the issue by proposing that Labor, indeed issue a blank cheque to underwrite the war effort as the price of its bipartisan commitment.  Finance Minister Matthias Cormann has not ruled out a war tax. We’ll be told in December or perhaps May.

“We’ll address that going forward without speculation in MYEFO [the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook] in December and then in the budget in May. We don’t need to get ahead of ourselves on this.”

What does Cormann mean?  Could it be that by December we will be treated to emotional blackmail? Shown graphic images of military personnel valiantly suffering the deprivations that only war can confer whilst we are told that we need funds to support their efforts on the nation’s behalf? Told: ‘We must let them finish the job they were sent there to do.’ Except no-one can tell us what that job is. Instead the PM serves us the warmed-up US military briefing leftover: the alliterative ‘degrade and destroy’ slogan. We have yet to learn precisely what this means. Perhaps by December, someone clever will have worked out a plan. Or is it that once we go to war, the whole budget morphs into a magic pudding?

Are we likely to be told the true cost? Don’t hold your breath. Today, Abbott appeared evasively up-beat and keen to brush aside the issue of the likely cost as he dampens any speculation that the cost of fighting in Iraq will be a drain on a budget which he has already described as ‘in crisis’ and worse. Surely it would be irresponsibly extravagant to commit further funds when we can’t afford to meet our current expenses. Indeed, in his party’s determined but unconvincing spin on the state of the nation’s finances, he or any other LNP spokesman will fondly trot out the tired old chestnut that the nation faces imminent financial ruin because of ‘the debt and deficit disaster that Labor left us in.’ If there is no money in the kitty what are we doing? Spending what we don’t have? Pledging more than we can honour? Following the US example into financing our efforts by increasing debt until it becomes so massive that it bleeds us dry?

Yet the debt and deficit rhetoric is a handicap on the cost of war issue. It begs the question of the wisdom of incurring further debt when as he would have us believe we are already up to our necks in hock. Consequently most would expect Abbott to play down the true cost of the war or it will look as if he has signed the nation up for another costly item it cannot afford, as, indeed, it seemed with his now shelved PPL scheme. In addition to appearing reckless with spending, it will add to the gathering impression that in an Abbott government the urge to be glad-handed with the nation’s resources comes ahead of any sober reckoning of either support or true cost. Finally, Abbott’s pro-US stance appears to override caution or common-sense. It stretches our credulity and damages his credibility. We are getting into something unforseen, something ill-defined with no precisely specified outcome yet he would have us believe that it is likely to come within budget? Or is that we must jump at the first opportunity or even before to honour our curiously one-sided alliance with our ‘great and powerful friend; to give and not to count the cost.’ Perhaps it is high time we had a serious look at the ANZUS Treaty. Should we be under attack at home the US pledges only to consult us in the matter.

Abbott’s estimate cannot go unchallenged. First it appears to be yet another attempt to fob off a reasonable line of enquiry on behalf of those who have a right to know, the Australian people. Why should we believe Abbott? What makes this any more credible than any other Abbottism? After, all we don’t have it in writing. Yet he should know. It is his responsibility to know. His duty to share. Surely his advisors would have already provided him with an estimate.

Although Abbott is on record for acknowledging that he can seem to be fast and loose with the truth when it suits him; or unreliable with oral or off the cuff commitments, he should be briefed on the real cost and on the likely cost of our foreign adventure. He should also be briefed on his need to level with the nation. Instead, it seems as if we are being told, once again to ‘run along, sonny’. Or, as in the curiously gradual nature of his disclosure of our military involvement in Iraq, we are treated to a dance of the seven veils, a type of strip-tease of a series of partial revelations.. The strategy further erodes our trust and Abbott’s paper-thin credibility.

A straight answer would be welcome. Time and again we see Abbott quickly prevaricate or be dismissive when challenged. ‘Tell them anything to shut them and we will sort it out later’ up appears to be his typical strategy. Yet the remark is not acceptable. It is not a credible estimate. He should not be allowed to get away with it.

First, his comment does not acknowledge any likely expansion of Australia’s military involvement. Expansion is more than likely, however, given expert advice that to defeat ISIS will require BOG (or boots on the ground.) US Defence Chief Martin Dempsey has already warned of a likely need for a deeper involvement including combat troops on the ground. The odds are Australian will be expected to step up its commitment to a war which will become protracted, difficult and debilitating.

Second, the cost of involvement is also the cost of rehabilitation and reconstruction both in Iraq, whatever is left of it and at home for those who have served, whatever is left of them. If the war effort continues even for even five years and it could well go for much longer, its cost in terms of repair and restitution will be high. Just how high is impossible to estimate but the Viet Nam legacy provides some valuable clues for comparison.

The cost of war in Iraq is not something Tony Abbott should treat lightly. He should stop his dance of the seven veils approach to difficult subjects. Withholding information or the staged gradual revelation will never establish the genuine partnership, the equal relationship needed if Australia is to be put on a war footing.

The nation demands more from its PM than a figure plucked out of the air. If you don’t know, Mr Abbott, it is your job to find out. Similarly, Australia also deserves a PM responsible enough to share this information and all other key concerns and considerations openly from the outset. It is alarming to see a shifty evasiveness masquerading as consultation in our nation’s leader when what is required is candour. Not only is the nation entitled to honest communication and open accountability, it is the only way to secure the support required to sustain a war effort, especially Iraq War III, an intervention in a foreign war of attrition between rival local factions whose real interest to the West amounts to their capacity to obstruct the flow of oil from the Middle East and threaten US strategic bases.

Obama’s Promise and the reality.

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Barack Obama inspired us from the first as he inspired countless others who yearned for a leader who was a reformer, someone who could make things better all around the world. A real leader and a man of promise in so many ways had appeared among us, it seemed when we heard him, when we saw him in those early days of his presidential campaign.
Obama vowed to bring change to Washington and the world. A conviction politician, he held a special appeal for us. We were sold on the promise of integrity. Overnight, he became a big hit in our household and in many others all around the world for who he was and what he seemed to represent.
Engaging also was his personal style, the easy, yet practised ways he could articulate his powerful personality and his potential. Obama seemed refreshingly original and different yet there was some resonant quality about him. Something there was that reached out to us and held our attention, captured our belief. He seemed to reach out to everyone.
Part of it was his gifted speech. His sonorous tone and the steady, measured cadences of his speaking voice recharged and nourished our own modest hopes and dreams of a better future, a fairer society a flowering of the human spirit.
Part of it was the timing. Unlike, any candidate we had ever seen before, Obama uniqueness as a man and as a politician came at a time when there were seemed so many prior disappointments to counteract. His vital presence, his direct yet respectful manner and his upright bearing conveyed dignity. His words were a words to listen to; his delivery combined a natural eloquence with a passionate commitment to reason and justice tempered with the hard-won wisdom of experience. We wanted to believe in him. We believed in him. And there was a lot to believe in.
As a presidential candidate, we rated him highly. We thought he would be a natural. Wanted to believe he was a natural, so well did he present himself. Indeed, his gifts seemed to make him more than just an outstanding contender, we thought he had a unique and intrinsic merit. Obama seemed the president his nation and the world deserved.
From afar we saw him as a candidate whose commanding credentials and abundant natural talents were so clearly apparent that it was as if his merit spoke for itself; as if his campaign should succeed as a matter of natural justice.
Clearly intelligent, articulate, eloquent, educated and progressive, Obama’s appeal was also visceral. He could move his audience and move it to believe he felt for them, that he was moved by their suffering and shared their dreams. Obama seemed passionate about the great cause of the people, all of the people, a politician of deep conviction and abiding faith in the cause of humanity. Not only was he young and photogenic he seemed, vital, energetic, charged with the passion of men with vision. He seemed fired up to fight for freedom, equality, justice and all the other ideas, issues and causes that matter to an open society.
Barrack Obama was a beacon of hope to us. A black man in The White House, his origins also added to his charisma and his promise. Yes. We. Can. With this simple yet profoundly empowering slogan, he rekindled belief in the power of faith and hope and optimism. We expected him to build a better world by the exercise of his many gifts and by providing real leadership; a capacity to attract and to inspire the best to devote their talents to the challenges of harmony and peaceful co-existence.

Eight years later the enchantment of the Obama phenomenon has faded into history. Long gone is the enchanted spell of his campaign and inauguration, our hopes of an extraordinary new man and a new beginning. Obama’s charisma has all but vanished, dispelled by a record of achievement which has failed to match the promise of his lofty rhetoric. And Obama the man has revealed more mortal fallibility and frailty than his initial, brilliant presentation of himself ever suggested. More than we vested in him by the sheer power of our belief and hope. Obama the politician, moreover, has failed to live up to the high expectations, he set for himself and his followers from his inauguration.
One of the highest hopes was that Obama would be a healer of a divided nation. Somehow in the achievement he personified, the confidence he exuded, we believed we saw a special gift if not a personal mandate to unite black and white, rich and poor in the common interest of a humane and open democratic society. In the event he has achieved little. Indeed, his critics would argue that he has instead been uninterested in promoting unity or he has been ham-fisted in his actions, risking inflaming division, by dealing in what opponents saw as a partisan manner with such issues as they arose in the Ferguson riots:

There’s no excuse for excessive force by police or any action that denies people the right to protest peacefully. Ours is a nation of laws: of citizens who live under them and for the citizens who enforce them. So, to a community in Ferguson that is rightly hurting and looking for answers, let me call once again for us to seek some understanding rather than simply holler at each other. Let’s seek to heal rather than to wound each other.

A second, critical test of Obama’s presidency was his management of the GFC. From afar, his actions appeared admirable. His first significant act was to endorse a package of billion-dollar stimulus spending programmes, financed with debt, aimed at ‘jump-starting’ the economy. Yet the stimulus was all in the rhetoric. Whilst Congress voted for these ‘shovel-ready’ projects, it soon became clear to Obama and others, that the projects were fictions. The projects attracted funds which then disappeared. In the end, Obama has presided over a period in which the poor have got poorer, labour force participation has declined during the slowest recovery since the Great Depression. Nor does there appear to have been any really effective recession proofing. Whilst the Dodd-Frank reforms looked good in principle, the old system in which the big banks and other institutions were too big to fail has been preserved.
Other internal reforms including Obamacare which has benefited ten to fifteen per cent of those it promised to help and immigration reform which has largely been ignored in favour of an abandoned amnesty programme resting on an executive authority which the President does not have. The result is said to have alienated all groups in the immigration debate. ‘Nobody is happy and nothing has been accomplished.’
It is in foreign policy, however that Obama has been caught out most severely. His exit strategy for Iraq was not a success. It may be as some suggest that he was in too much of a hurry not to be George W Bush but in the rush to withdraw he seems to have neglected to see that Iraq was in danger of being destroyed from within and without. Unkind commentators have suggested that Obama was unwilling to interrupt his golf schedule but his administration seems to have been caught napping by the rapid deterioration in Iraq’s stability and integrity as a nation state and the rapid growth of ISIS. Much as we may admire his candour in admitting to not knowing now how to deal with ISIS, the rest of the world is less than impressed with the US’s belated attempt to quickly force an unlikely coalition to deal with a complex and intractable set of problems in the region.
The Arab Spring represented missed opportunities for Obama to develop its power and influence across the Middle East while he is criticised for being so slow in responding to events in Egypt that he is regarded by most Egyptian liberals as a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood. The outcome has been to see Egypt revert to the autocracy of its previous regime whilst its government views the US as an ineffectual ally.
Similarly critics of Obama’s isolationist administration take issue with its lack of initiative in exploiting opportunities to In Libya and in Syria to have taken advantage of the Arab Spring to help topple two brutal dictatorships. Many see US failure to intervene in Syria, as three years of dithering which permitted ISIS to rise and then establish itself as a real threat in Iraq. Finally, some see a missed opportunity in the US failing to back popular uprisings in Iran.
In Europe, also the Obama administration has been slow to respond to Putin and the apparent growth of Russian hegemony. Indeed, during a debate with Romney in 2012, Obama was dismissive of the potential risk of a renewed Russian autocracy:
“The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back.”

Critics have unkindly but not unreasonably responded that it now seems as if the 1970s are calling, as Russia invades neighbours, making US European allies feel vulnerable and unsure of real support from the US and NATO. Obama has responded to Russian aggression by imposing further sanctions and spoken out once against it in Estonia but appears to have no other plans.
Finally there are many observers world-wide who were dismayed that despite hope and promise, Obama kept Guantanamo operating, allowed the NSA to continue spying, and continued the use of drones.
Obama campaigned on the promise that America would be more respected in the world after the Bush years but in the event has achieved little to earn that respect. Rather the Obama administration has seen America treated less with respect than derision and contempt by its adversaries. The US is now viewed by its supporters as an unreliable ally and an ineffectual opponent by its foes. Rather than respect, opponents such as ISIS are treating it with contempt as they goad it into a confrontation which they are sure they can win.
In the beginning, Obama appeared everything we could hope for. And more. We constructed an image of an ideal type which rested on our hopes for change and his brilliant presentation not the least of which was the sonorous charm of his well-crafted rhetoric. In the end it looks as if we wanted to believe in a president who was different, enlightened, empowered to carry out our hopes for change without checking first more carefully the substance beneath the spin. History will not be kind to this President for seeming asleep at the wheel, his good intentions, his promises and his starry-eyed supporters all left in the dust by the wayside as events took their course.

Spinning out of control, Johnston’s case for war is no case at all.

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Australian Defence Minister and high flyer, David Johnston posing at the controls.

Australians breathed a collective sigh of relief last week when it emerged that not only did our nation have a defence minister, our very own colossus of modesty Senator David Johnstone, but that he had been despatched to Iraq. ‘Tongue-tied Titan’ Senator David Johnston is of course not the same as Chief of Joint Operations, Vice Admiral David Johnston who is the joint chief of staff although, remarkable as it may seem, the senator may be no stranger to a joint.

The proud Australian nation enjoys a richly-deserved reputation for its eagerness to follow-the-leader to any war anywhere, anytime, as much as for its historic involvement in a series of US-led military misadventures, and the odd disaster such as Gallipoli or Crete. Yet, until recently, the Australian people had simply assumed that their Prime Minister had assumed the defence portfolio, as is his wont, without telling anyone, including the hapless, low-profile Johnstone who until now has been flying completely under our radar. This is no longer the case, indeed, it seems ‘Joint-operations’ Johnstone has recently been flying high as a kite.

‘Stone-wall’ Johnstone, who appears by all reports, including ISIS agents’ photographs, phone taps and listening devices to have greatly enjoyed Iraqi hospitality was, it seems not AWOL but simply MIA. The senator is reported to have spent some considerable time ‘inside the tent’ with key Iraqi officials and other unconvicted fraudsters, con-men and petty felons whose topless personal assistants promised him a bit of the action as they plied him with sweetmeats, soothing unguents, emollients, sweet talk and endless Narghile (waterpipes) of Baghdad Bhang.

topless girl hookah party

photograph courtesy of Peshmerga candid portrait, passport and special event photography

Afghan Kush and other connoisseur’s choices were also on offer from the vast array of weed freely available throughout the city, a flourishing commercial centre, rapidly emerging as a major world cannabis supplier thanks to US aid and military investment in the region. Australian consumers can look forward to high quality imports before the end of the year as our troops keep their boots well and truly high off the ground in their high flying, morale boosting joint missions.

The hitherto camera-shy 58 year-old Senator ‘Pockets’ Johnstone, a barrister and solicitor in WA in civilian life, took the fight right up to ISIS by hunkering down well in a lavishly appointed mess tent well out of range of any real fighting while taking part in protracted and arduous smoke-filled negotiations lasting long into the Arabian nights with intervals only called for ingesting vast quantities of refreshing sweet things and finger food.

Johnstone, the defence chief whose personal mission is to put the joint into ‘joint forces’ is reported to have staggered from his tent some days later startling unwary security guards, by his state of undress and incoherent ranting. Gibbering nonsense about morale building, Australia’s mission and the sheer grace, athletic beauty and fighting spirit of the Aussie Digger and the desert camel, Johnstone was holding up his trousers with one hand whilst waving a befouled piece of paper in the other. The paper purported to be a type of agreement which has later become his script as Johnstone debriefed before the Prime Minister, Peta Credlin and the nation on national television.

‘Pockets’ Johnstone’s subsequent comments and his address to the nation have confirmed his commitment to evading the truth rather than merely ‘weeding out’ himself and his opponents. He has made a number of assertions, promises and undertakings that were it not for the weed he will help bring into the country, would have him committed instantly to a spell in psychiatric care. Amongst his claims is the statement that the Iraqi army not only exists but that it can fight. More precisely, ‘pockets’ Johnstone has repeatedly claimed that there are pockets of fighters which are highly trained and highly effective. Well done, Minister. No-one else has spotted anything like this. Nor will they, without a share of your herbal medicine. Just how pockets of fighters will be any good in a situation which needs a whole army as yet to be explained, although a few pockets of men may be nimble enough and sufficiently well-armed to make off with the drug stash before they are busted by ISIS. Pockets of men, further, is probably not the best morale-boosting form of words for a nation that is reported to have 275,000 active frontline personnel with another 500,000 in active reserve.  Pockets of men can only draw attention to the vast numbers who have simply deserted or joined the other side or highlight the widespread corruption and the practice of pocketing funds sent for buying arms and other useful materiel.

Johnston, Australia’s current Defence Minister says he is optimistic about how quickly a coalition of forces will be able to undermine the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group in Iraq. He does not detail how this might be done but the script so far is that air strikes will do the trick. This does not take into account such experiences to the contrary as VietNam, where a determined Viet Cong made steady advances despite massive air strikes. Nor does Johnston admit any concern with regard to collateral damage, a term which the United States gave to the world when its air strikes in Vietnam killed thousands of innocent civilians, including women and children.  Above all, he fails to explain the ways in which pilots will be able to discern targeted enemy combatants who will be hidden or embedded amongst civilians in cities.

There are many other elements of the Defence Minister’s briefing that are wacky if not outrageous but perhaps none so much as his confident prediction of victory which he cautions may be months rather than years. Even the expert spinner fellow Sand Groper West Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop is more cautious about the prospects of successfully defeating ISIS through military intervention. And most expert commentators warn that the engagement could last years and faces only a slender prospect of success – not that we have managed to draw up a battle plan or decide what success would look like.

Most baffling of all his pronouncements was Johnston’s confident assertion that our Australian troops would boost the morale of Iraqi soldiers who until now have yet to win a single battle and who have distinguished themselves only by their capacity for corruption and their readiness to run away from battles. Johnston’s major blind spot here is that he is wilfully evading the truth that the Iraqi armed forces, expensively trained at great expense by the US with some assistance from the West, have no commitment to fight to the death for a government which is alien, effectively a dysfunctional, unrepresentative, US puppet government. Even if, somehow, with the ingestion of certain ‘joint force’ substances, perhaps, Iraqis could be influenced to stay and fight, the elephant in the room is the corpse of the Iraq government which itself has failed, and in the process lost control over vasts parts of its territory to ISIS.

Putting his head in the sand is unlikely to help us or David Johnston’s career. Nor is it wise for him to collude in the delusion that a military adventure will boost his party’s electoral fortunes. He needs to get real and level with the nation before someone else does it for him: Iraq War III is about protecting multinational oil companies and their interests and about maintaining strategic bases in the area for the United States.  We are in it because our Prime Minister rushed to offer his country’s support without considering the matter closely or deeply or responsibly sharing the decision with the people.  And if, at the onset, our Defence Minister is so far off the ball, then heaven help us when basic truths about Iraq and its lack of real fighting capacity emerge, as they must, in the heat of combat. We will have rushed to join an unwinnable, protracted war for no good reasons but to curry favour with a United States which does not have the means to pay for its own involvement let alone look after its allies or manage the vast costs of rebuilding and reconstructing Iraq. Abbott and Johnston’s flag-waving is an appeal to patriotism and national sentiment but Australia’s true colours in this field are self-deception, self-interest and irrationality, the abandonment of rational, responsible decision-making is what causes us to join in the real battle in Iraq.

Burqa Berserker unveiled in Canberra

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Berserkers (or berserks) were Norse warriors who are primarily reported in the Old Norse literature to have fought in a nearly uncontrollable, trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the English word berserk.
‎Berserker (disambiguation) – ‎Harii – ‎Trance – ‎Old Norse literature

Wikipedia

The fury of the berserkers would start with chills and teeth chattering and give way to a purpling of the face, as they literally became ‘hot-headed’, and culminating in a great, uncontrollable rage accompanied by grunts and howls. They would bite into their shields and gnaw at their skin before launching into battle, indiscriminately injuring, maiming and killing anything in their path. Dating back as far as the ninth century, the berserker Norse Warriors were said to be able to do things that normal humans could not. According to ancient legend, the berserkers were indestructible, and no weapon could break them from their trance. They were described as being immune to fire and to the strike of a sword, continuing on their rampage despite injury. – http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/viking-berserkers-fierce-warriors-or-drug-fuelled-madmen-001472#sthash.OjUlp4Ue.dpuf

ned kelly

Sunday, October 05, 2014
3:56 PM

In a rare moment of capital Canberra madness this week, Australian Prime Minister Tony Berserker Abbott once again unleashed a perfect desert storm of unbridled ridicule and derision when he publicly exposed his position by professing to his finding the burqa ‘ personally confronting’. Abbott may as well have tipped his kitchen slop bucket, or his bedside commode over his own head or defended kick-back king Arthur Sinodinis before an ICAC hearing such was the ensuing great stench, a stench which threatened to put the PM even further on the nose, even, as he himself contended yesterday threatening to create such a distraction that it would upset important business such as his spin on Australia’s illegal invasion of Iraq.
What the PM really wanted to share with the nation was that the very good news, the very good news, his very, very good news, that when the Iraqi-US puppet government came back to work from its holiday (if it ever came back) and if it by then still had anything left of Iraq to administer, and further, should it ever have a defence minister, to even at this late stage, have a foolhardy person sign his own death warrant or strap himself into the virtual suicide bomber’s belt of the portfolio of Iraqi defence minister, why, at that point in time, the minister would sign the utterly worthless piece of paper which gives Australia permission to invade the country, kill other Iraqis and generally look after the interests of multinational oil producers and the strategic requirements and expectations of the United States. Up until now, the complete absence of any candidate was merely a testament to the ways Iraqis have so fully embraced the democratic process. This includes pocketing billions of dollars transferred from would-be supporters donated to build up their defence stocks of helicopters and armaments. Above all it includes engaging in the ruthlessly systematic, joyous wholescale persecution of infidels adhering to minority religions such as Sunnis which at last reckoning made up a fair swag of their nation’s population.
The push of thinly veiled scallywags, disguised as journalists, in the Canberra press gallery countered that Abbott should pull his head in, arguing reasonably that most Australians found the sight of a PM out in public in red underpants or speedos truly confronting. Some ventured that Bronwyn’s bouffant beehive hairdo was not only a cruelly confronting and tasteless parody of iconic children’s role-model, Marg Simpson, but that because of its inherent capacity for concealment was a security risk. Others, including the worthy but truly sidelined voice of mature reason, common sense and justice Christine Milne faced off against Abbott, making appeals to tolerance and acceptance even despite, or perhaps because of, their true feelings that a woman in a burqa is a symbol of oppression unless she is an Afghan cameleer in disguise fleeing exploitation in historic outback Australia.
On-the-record-Burqa opponent, Peta Credlin unveiled the complexion of her thinking eagerly compromising her boss with either an ill-considered piece of tactical advice or a shrewd dog whistle to those Coalition rednecks who wanted to put their heads up above the parapet to oppose the burqa to do so for security reasons. All this did, predictably, perhaps was set the hares after the Afghan hounds.
As if his unguarded comment was not enough of an ‘own goal’, Abbott was then ambushed by the right wing of his party which boasts such stalwarts as Cory Bernardi, Bill Heffernan, Bronwyn Bishop and sundry other rednecks, racists, chauvinists, boors, philistines, undiagnosed dementia patients and rabid haters of the ABC, tolerance, science and reason. The events proved especially embarrassing to Abbott who showed once again that he was out of touch both with contemporary mores and out of touch with the rabid beast that is his own party. Many took his gaffe and subsequent fall out as yet more evidence that he could not control his own rump, although one backbencher did pull his head in when Peta Credlin threatened to smite his neck in a thinly veiled allusion to the Koran and its sanction of decapitation as the just desert of all infidels, a fact which up until now the PMC and its spin unit have been keen to publicly deny.
Whilst some expert Tony-watchers claim that his moves were just the latest in a series of craftily veiled dog whistles, many others conclude that he spoke the truth. As Annabel Crabb has so capably put it, the truth parrot on his shoulder spoke out, as it has to his cost so many times in the past, to put the kybosh on Abbott’s thin and flaking veneer of moderation and his confected illusion of control.