So, Abbott backs ongoing Afghan mission, does he?
First read this article, we really want to know what a government led by Tony Abbott would stand for. Unfortunately, this gives rise to a lot of anxiety. Abbott backs ongoing Afghan mission when Prime Minister Gillard's public statements were that Australia would withdraw and most sensible commentators have declared the mission a failure:
Abbott backs ongoing Afghan
mission
·
AAP
·
JUNE 22, 2013 2:20PM
My comment:
Australian soldiers are just guns for hire in the new scenario described in the Herald article. They will be working for the USA, commanded by US commanders and sent to fight wars that are only in the interests of the US and its corporate appendages and nothing to do with protecting Australia. Yet these new covert wars for the remaining resources of the world will make new enemies for Australia and make this country much less safe. We will lose the respect and trust of our neighbours and further lose control of our own foreign policy.
What will also happen is that there will no longer be a community of Australian veterans who are supported by the community and cared for by our government. We will breed a secret army with names like Soldier X. It will be a professional force that no one in Australia feels a connection with - professional only in advanced soldiering. Of course, they will come home with PTSD and other adjustment issues - but there will be little connection between them and the Australian community that did not approve their deployment and feel no ownership of the mission or the place where they secretly served a foreign entity.
Australian soldiers are just guns for hire in the new scenario described in the Herald article. They will be working for the USA, commanded by US commanders and sent to fight wars that are only in the interests of the US and its corporate appendages and nothing to do with protecting Australia. Yet these new covert wars for the remaining resources of the world will make new enemies for Australia and make this country much less safe. We will lose the respect and trust of our neighbours and further lose control of our own foreign policy.
What will also happen is that there will no longer be a community of Australian veterans who are supported by the community and cared for by our government. We will breed a secret army with names like Soldier X. It will be a professional force that no one in Australia feels a connection with - professional only in advanced soldiering. Of course, they will come home with PTSD and other adjustment issues - but there will be little connection between them and the Australian community that did not approve their deployment and feel no ownership of the mission or the place where they secretly served a foreign entity.
We can be sure that Julia Gillard's government was already heading in
this direction; Tony Abbott will accelerate this abandonment of all pretence of
honour. Abbott will be like a Gillard on steroids. This will be a Work Choices
military which goes to war for its clients, never retires and seamlessly moves
on to G4S, the next iteration of Blackwater and somewhere in the Congo where
there is a copper mine to defend from indigenous protesters. In short, Tony
Abbott's military will be comprised of soldiers who are without moral scruple
and have never sighted the Geneva Conventions. There will be no parades and no
memorials; only extravagant mansions for a few who profited from corporate
war-making and parked most of their gains in tax havens.
Pretty grim, eh!
posted by willy bach poetic thoughts at 7:13 PM
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