How the CIA took control of Australia in 1975

I'm not what I'd call a 'supporter' of the current government. Its doing a lot better at the moment than several of the more recent ones but that's hardly a glowing recommendation given how bad some of those were. Point is buying lots of new kit for the defense forces requires a big increase in taxation (not exactly the best time economically to impose those) and is its all pointless if you can't 'man' them once you do have them. The navy struggles to 'man' the vessels it has now (some are in dry dock because they can't be crewed.) The air force can't keep pilots etc etc. You'd be talking a huge increase in defense spending once wages and training are included. And again who pays for it?[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

 

Quite.

The idea that it is even possible for anyone but the US to attempt an invasion of Australia, let alone that it would be 'easy' is laughably ignorant. Australia is insanely difficult to invade at any point. The bits that make & grow stuff & where all the people live are even harder to invade. Anything that can be obtained from invasion can be obtained for a tiny fraction of the cost by just buying it.

I've spent decades listening to 'everybody knows' statements about how easy Australia is to invade. None of them stand up to the slightest bit of informed examination.

This thread started out with a conspiracy theory by a fourth rate anti-Western hack and has devolved into some sort of competition to make the most stupid possible statement about the defence of Australia. GIGO?

 

A typical reply from someone on the right side of the fence (sorry to say, but you don't give me much of an alternative view).
I understand, at the end of the day, the Iraq War didn't happen, and if it did, it was never our fault.
The goes hand in hand with the fact, the J.Howard never had to face a courtroom, the mass murderer....
And, by the way, France and Germany were opposed to the Iraq War, they did not take part in it.
Not all are following the orders when the US fabricates another lie to get rid of a country like Iraq, which had the guts to show the middle finger. Not that I liked Saddam, but that war was so cowardly and wrong, it makes the US as shameful as China or Russia, or Syria.
Go figure...

 

Are I see the problem now. FYI the figures I quoted (counties and casualties were for the the first Iraq War or Gulf war in 1990. not the second Iraq war or Gulf War in 2003. We need to get our wars strait.

Now with regards to round 2. My position is as follows;

1) It should not have happened, in general an exercise in draining swamps and finding alligators. But whats done is done.
2) To the extent we contributed (and no more than that) we get to reap both rewards (sans ending Saddam let me know if ever hear of any) and the recriminations such as they are.
3) Our cooperation/participation swung in the balance. Under a then Conservative Government we supported the US, just! Under a Labor Government? if we had had one at the time we almost certainly wouldn't have. The balance was that close.
4) The 2nd Iraq war was never widely popular with Australian voters and even when we did commit the Government of the day was careful to limit our involvement to the margins where the chance of Australia suffering significant casualties were minimal. The US committed some 450,000 plus personnel to the invasion we committed 2000 - most of whom were rear area support staff. A symbolic contribution at best. In short our 'support' limited in scope and (in terms of its impact largely symbolic.
5) To convict Howard of 'mass murder' you would have to prove specific incidents of mass murder involving Australian forces. Since most of our involvement related to air strikes that would be the deliberate bombing of civilians or surrendering enemy forces. The key word is deliberate. Could we have done so accidentally - quite possibly. Deliberately? Point to some examples.

Oh one last thing. I'm not a right winger, I'm a centrist - which basically means I get criticized by both the far right and far left for not seeing the 'Big Picture". Lucky me.

 

The Iraq War was unjustified,
as Saddam didn't have any weapons of mass destruction, point. That means that all civilians killed during that war can only be seen as mass killing.
John Howard has drawn us into that unjustified war (he could have said no to his US master), and as such is responsible for that killing, irrelevant of how many people were killed through US, UK or our own forces.
My observation (over time) is that people questioning the 1m killed in the Iraq War show a lot of right wing tendencies, to the degree that they downplay that war to the point of questioning the casualties......
So to answer your last point, this war was a deliberate and coward act and all those responsible should face a courtroom, imho.
Reg.

 

So it was unjustified - exactly how many wars in history have been justifiable any way? And even then why fixate on this one? Because the West started it? Also and as a point of international war the collateral killing of civilians is not regarded as a war crime. Civilian deaths have to be deliberate or at least reckless before that happens and in any event since the victors are the ones in a position to allow or nay-say any potential war crime investigation in the first place as far as Iraq goes its never going to happen. End of story. You want to help Iraq stop worrying about it's past past, roll up your sleeves and try doing something positive to assist its future.

 

Most wars past WW2 have been a catastrophe as most were completely unnecessary and preventable. And in most we took part, because our ill relationship to the US.
In regards to Iraq I will buy you a ticket as soon as travelling is possible and you can fly over to help a country to get back on its feet, because it was destroyed/fukked by us. As long as people downplay these events nothing will ever happen.
I think we are too far apart.....

 

I doubt most South Koreans would agree, unless of course you really believe North Korea is the workers paradise its leadership like to portray it as. That aside it is an indisputable fact that the world has never been as peaceful - with fewer wars and fewer killed/injured in those wars since 1945.

As for the rest I note you won't be coming on the proposed trip. Apparently your more interested in moaning than doing. That aside your also simply simply wrong. Yes the US definitely set up the starting conditions for what has unfolded in Iraq by removing Hussein and his regime in a move that grossly misguided and mismanaged. Their actions unleashed pent up ethic and religious and economic divisions that much is true. But the people of Iraq (or more correctly their leaders) are the ones who have been charting the countries course for the best part of a decade now. And it is their own endemic corruption, religious and ethnic rivalries that are fueling internal conflict now. Much to the dismay of a vast number of Iraqis who want better governance.

Yes the US let the cat out of the bag but the the cat was always inn there biding its time. Hussein's regime would have fallen eventually just like Tito's regime in the former Yugoslavia and for similar reasons with similar results. The US is NOT the arbiter of all that is right or wrong in the world (as much and some Americans may wish it). Based on the partisan nature of its own politics at the moment some would say its not even really the master of its own destiny at the moment.