Leyonhjelm,Day and ALP can’t read
CROSSBENCH senators David Leyonhjelm and Bob Day are threatening to withdraw support from the Abbott government if it pushes ahead with an element of its national-security laws which they fear will allow ASIO staff to torture suspects.
Senator Brandis denied that the new laws would give ASIO the capacity to torture.
“Under no circumstances has ASIO ever, or would ASIO ever, be authorised to torture,’’ Senator Brandis said. “This is not something that any Australian government agency, no matter what the circumstances, could ever do. “No operation involving torture could ever be authorised under the ASIO Act.’’Opposition legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus said Senator Brandis had a duty to make it clear that no Australian law could be interpreted as providing an immunity for the commission of an act of torture. He just did Doofus.
Facebook
Twitter
It’s happening again, the old currency is being re-minted..
We watch grabs of earnest looking old white men with ties using words such as “evil”, “counter measures” and “national security”.
We see images of rows neatly uniformed diggers and grey liveried fighter aircraft being prepared for overseas deployments.
And something new and sinister –federal police appearing at carefully orchestrated press conferences explaining how, in concert with their state counterparts, they have successfully prevented us from being murdered in our beds.
It all serves to take those of us into our sixth decade into a strange land of déjà vu.
Remember when the evil de jour was Communism? Remember when Bob Menzies, election after election, successfully kept Australians in thrall with the Great Fear?
Mind you, he had a lot of help from the likes of Bob Santamaria. No doubt the use of fear was one of the many lessons the current PM absorbed from his erstwhile mentor.
Remember how skilfully wee Johnny wedged the opposition using 9/11 and Tampa as catalysts to initiate an almost chemical reaction with fear and loathing as its residue?
We see this residue bubbling to the surface in the desecration of mosques, the abuse of women in traditional clothing, and the daily ranting and raving on scrofulous blogs.
Abbott absorbed many useful lessons from his predecessors, and the manipulation of the basest instincts in his fellow Australians is one of them.
The cost of fear in blood and treasure is rarely counted. Consider Vietnam – around 500 dead, thousands wounded – tens of thousands sickened with foul chemicals, and countless lives and families damaged by both trauma experienced and rejection upon return.
And then there was Iraq, a war fought on a lie.
Afghanistan followed, although the returning diggers are generally greeted and thanked – not forced to return home at 3am wearing civvies. They were volunteers. Many Vietnam Vets weren’t, and they were abused for participating in a conflict without the luxury of choice.
Xenophobia and bigotry always dissolves logic when mixed with a tincture of fear.
The price of fear and loathing has always been high. Unfortunately, it seems to be a price that our political masters continue to be prepared to pay. It’s currency is our soldiers, sailors and airmen.
And they, are, apparently, entirely expendable………..
Remember when the evil de jour was Communism? Yep – I remember them killing a couple of hundred million of their own citizens. I also remember your mob on the wharves refusing to load our supply ships because they supported the Communists and wished us dead. I remember Jim Cairns actively supporting the communists, raising money for them, organizing moratoriums to support them and inviting the Vietnames Generals to lunch in Sydney while we were still burying our dead.
Yep, I remember – do you?
They were volunteers. Many Vietnam Vets weren’t, and they were abused for participating in a conflict without the luxury of choice.
Abused by your mob other than the one and only incident in the Western world where a conservative politicican said something nasty to a vet – you.
Johnny wedged the opposition using 9/11 and Tampa as catalysts to initiate an almost chemical reaction with fear and loathing as its residue?
Who didn’t fear and loathe the animals that committed the 9/11 atrocity – no one I’d like to spend time with.
Our soldiers, sailors and airmen are doing a good job even though you and your mob denigrate and downplay their services and the service of our political leaders as they protect us us.
Kev,
You refer to “my mob”.
I am affiliated with no political party, so “my mob” could be my family, my old unit, various clubs for which I hold memberships, or maybe my work colleagues.
The point is, each of these “mobs” includes people with a wide range of opinions. That is a feature – not a bug.
Your estimate of “a couple of hundred million of their own citizens” needs a bit of context. I’ll let Paul Ham provide it –
“The human cost of the war, in terms of personal grief and moral degradation, is immeasurable. In our helplessness, we surrender to statistics: 520 Australian soldiers dead and about 3,000 wounded; 58,193 Americans dead and about 300,000 wounded; 220,357 South Vietnamese troops dead or missing in action and 1.17 million wounded; 666,000 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops dead, with the possibility that a third were civilians mistaken for enemy troops or deemed legitimate targets. Of South Vietnamese civilian casualties, about 325,000 were confirmed killed (rising to a million, depending on your source and definition of a ‘civilian’), 30 per cent of whom were children younger than 13. In total, an estimated 65,000 North Vietnamese civilians died as a result of US bombing. The Viet Cong assassinated 36,725 civilians between 1957 and 1972; the North Vietnamese and/or Viet Cong assassinated 166,000 South Vietnamese civilians. About three million Vietnamese people are believed to have suffered herbicide poisoning. In total, 3.5 million people died in Vietnam over fifteen years.”
Yes – it was a bloody business. I wonder whether the Australian people, had the issue been put to referendum, would have supported our involvement? They were never given the chance, of course, but eventually expressed their opinion in 1972.
I don’t fear the individuals involved in 9/11. Most are dead, and the rest are either locked up or mentally ill. As a rule, I feel sorry for people with mental illness.
Our ADF personnel are indeed doing a good job. They are a fantastic bunch, which is all the more reason to ensure that they if they are being put in harm’s way, it’s because our security is threatened.
For our soldiers, sailors and airmen to be used as political collateral is shameful.
From my own personal experience Colonel Grey actively encouraged a few Nashos to transfer out of 7 if they didn’t want to go. He was a very intelligent officer who had an insight into the way the political wind was blowing. He also didn’t want to rely on those that didn’t want to be there. I also presume that those he didn’t ask were usually those that he probably thought needed a bit of manning up.
Can’t work all the time though.
My memory of those times is the same as yours Roly in relation to the boss and those who did not wish to accompany the rest of us on the tour. With the correct approach Grey transferred those who did not wish to take the tour. I brought that to the attention of 1735099 and he promptly indicated that I was a furphy spreader or similar. Truth is that he didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to make the approach at the time and now uses the experience/service as a crutch to attack the reasons behind everything related to military service and the use of firearms. He goes one further and blames everything on the liberals and nationals. He even wants compensation for lost teachers ages…..he really is strange.
Have to agree there Bob. And rereading through his usual rant, I would say that the majority of it was plagiarised. I seem to have read something similar elsewhere.
“I brought that to the attention of 1735099 and he promptly indicated that I was a furphy spreader or similar.”
The strange part is the lack of any record of these opt-out parades.
The army kept good records.
In the light of the lack of evidence, “furphy” is a reasonable description.
“and now uses the experience/service as a crutch to attack the reasons behind everything related to military service and the use of firearms”.
Show me where I have “attacked the reasons behind military service”.
What I object to is soldiers being used as political currency.
As for firearms – I’m quite happy with the current legislation introduced by Howard in 1996.
I said from personal experience numbers, can’t you understand plain fucking English.
Hello 17….
You wrote: “….. And then there was Iraq, a war fought on a lie…..”
“Earlier today, I ordered America¹s armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq¹s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.” – President Clinton 16 Dec 98
Some other Democrats who believed Saddam had WMD were Madeline Albright, Al Gore, Senator Ted Kennedy, Senator John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi and Senator Hillary Clinton.
Mr Philip Flood in his Report of the Inquiry into Australian Intelligence Agencies which was submitted to the Prime Minister on 20 July 2004, wrote on page 26: “..it is noteworthy that prior to the coalition¹s military action against Iraq on 19 March 2003, the only government in the world that claimed Iraq was not working on, and did not have biological and chemical weapons or prohibited missile systems was the government of Saddam Hussein.”
Israel is bordered on three sides by hostile elements. Its survival depends on accurate and timely intelligence. Yet in 1973, Israel failed to detect Egyptian planning for an attack across the Suez Canal, and Syrian planning for an attack across the Golan Heights. It was not until hours before the attack that Israel reacted to it, by which time it was too late to mount an effective defence.
Israel came close to defeat and at the end of the war the Agranat Commission was formed to determine what had gone wrong. Essentially, the Commission found Israel¹s lack of preparedness was due to a failure of intelligence.
Mr Flood came to precisely the same conclusion in regard to Australia’s assessment of Iraq. No scheming, no plotting and no sexing up – there was just a straightforward failure of intelligence.
There is a book called Saddam’s Secrets written by Iraqi General Georges Sada. In it he gives his version of what happened to the WMD. If you don’t want to read it try this link.
I think 17…. you ought to quit obsessing over the “lie” and think back to the number of times our intel got it wrong in regard to the VC/NVA. That is not a criticism – any military force worth its salt will strive to mislead and deceive the enemy – just as we did.
The justification for the invasion of Iraq was the presence of WMD.
No WMD were found.
That’s why Howard was “embarrassed”.
No surprise Howard was embarrassed. So was everyone else who accepted the intel.
On the other hand, Richard Butler (UN Weapons Inspector) had no need to be embarrassed, You must remember his statement “Of course Iraq had WMDs, I’ve held them in my hands”.
Now Butler was no mouth frothing right winger – he was earlier appointed by a Labor government as our Ambassador for Disarmament.
So now we have the intel agencies of the world, general Sada and Richard Butler all of whom maintain Iraq had WMDs. On the other hand we have yourself, who knows they were all lying.
Any chance your intel might be wrong?
Without covering what has already been covered by others, you numbers are simply the most loathsome piece of excrement I have ever encountered in the filthy cesspit that is the internet.
To push your own agenda you seem happy to ignore ISIS mass murders, rapes etc etc (the sane already know the full list).
If you were worth the effort I’d throw a few more facts at you, but you are not – you are so predictable now that you are only worth the entertainment value, as usual you bring the whole thing back to it being all about you “They were volunteers. Many Vietnam Vets weren’t” – nobody cares that you were conscripted, get over it.