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the value of a downer .....
Former foreign minister Alexander Downer has criticised the United States' strategy in the Iraq war, saying more troops should have been deployed in the early stages of the conflict.
Mr Downer says getting rid of Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do but the Americans failed to back up their gains with sufficient troop numbers after the initial invasion.
US Should Have Sent More Troops To Iraq: Downer
------------------------Gus: more troops would not have made an ounce of difference except more death.
- By Gus Leonisky at 20 Mar 2008 - 10:05pm
- Gus Leonisky's blog
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enough clowning?...
Former foreign minister and Liberal leader Alexander Downer is expected to announce on Thursday that he will quit federal politics after 24 years.
Mr Downer was Australia's longest serving foreign affairs minister, but has been a Liberal backbencher since last year's federal election loss.
After leading the Liberal Party in opposition for eight months in 1995 he stood aside to make way for former prime minister John Howard.
Mr Downer has told The Australian newspaper he has no regrets about leaving federal politics.
Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson says Mr Downer has done an "enormous service" for Australian politics.
Mr Downer's resignation will prompt a by-election in the South Australian seat of Mayo, which would be held later in the year.
retirement from a non-retiring sort...
Bias ignores years of hard work on foreign policy
Alexander Downer
July 11, 2008
The tragedy of much public commentary in Australia is that it is blatantly anti-conservative, fascinated with trivia and, when it comes to conservatives, rich with personal abuse.
Peter Hartcher's retrospective last week of my 12 years as foreign minister was a case in point. For any commentator who is a self-styled serious analyst of Australian foreign policy to reduce a dozen years of diplomacy to a tirade of personal abuse is to reveal a stark and embarrassing anti-intellectual bigotry.
...
We were all appalled by the Volcker report's findings for the United Nations about AWB. That's why we set up a full, transparent inquiry. The Cole commission unravelled the web of deceit by AWB. And it vindicated government officials and the relevant ministers.
...
One of the saddest things about modern Australia is we still have commentators such as Hartcher who don't care about any of these issues. They just want to make puerile anti-conservative party political points built on a foundation of trivia.
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Gus: I am impressed. Our Mayo-clownaize is retiring with a well-deserved musket volley serve to the media... But Peter Hartcher, a leftie??? Pleazzze!!!
...And I have a few qualms about the singing at one of the Asian meeting. I'm tone deaf, but I can spot a screaming cat or a piece of chalk in love with a blackboard, a kilometre away... So sorry I'm unkind...
Beyond that, "And it vindicated government officials and the relevant ministers" and "a full, transparent inquiry" are pieces of s%$#@t. The development of the AWB scandal has only two sides:
a) the government DID know about the shenanigans and Downer is telling porkies again,
or
b) the government DID NOT know... In this case, one would have to say that ASIO was not doing its job: dereliction of duty... bypass of the binoculars...etc...
Sure, probably under instruction from the famous fishnet FM and our glorious Rattus, ASIO was concentrating its limited energy at lobbing kilotons of WMDs at Saddam's doorsteps no matter what, when ASIO would have had to know there were none, zero, zilch, nada, nothing... I knew that 100 %, so why wouldn't they?...
And if my recollection is correct, ASIO had a few unexplored whiffs of AWB doing a few nifty-trickydickies to bypass the UN in order to secure contracts "in the nation's commercial interest". Even the cleaning lady at the Foreign Office was dusting funny footprints. Thus, all in all, if we accept "the Rattus-gang did not know about the AWB wrongdoings", the relevant ministers should have been hung by the short and curlies for dereliction of duty or for at least having had an awareness bypass to things that were happening under their noses AT THE SAME TIME as they were preparing for war against Saddam, while selling him some Aussie wheat...
Furthermore, anyone doing business in the middle east has to come "bearing gifts", and when gifts aren't allowed by the UN sanctions, a tax deductible kickback under table is "de rigour"... Many firms (if not all those) doing business with Iraq got caught with their pants down... Ask our friend Aussie Tony and the BAE aircraft deal with the Saudis AND also refer to Bushit himself overtly giving US$ 22 billions of weaponry to the Saudis despite paying an extortionist premium for oil...
To say: "And it vindicated government officials and the relevant ministers" is finding glory in a cowpat you placed your extreme right shoe in the midddle of. No-one was vindicated. The smell will be still lurking in the air till certain documents surface after 30 years of secrecy.
To me, it appears that all the gymnastics described by the Mayo-gentleman in his grand-time as a fishnet Foreign Minister was performed mostly "in the grab-all Liberal interest" with many double twists of porkies, rather than under any form of humanitarian vision, including that of stealing the oil royalties from Timor Leste.
I could be wrong, so gimme some rose tainted glasses so I can see better...
See all the relevant Clowner toons along these glorious pages...