raped repeatedly......

It’s clear that Australian sovereignty is being seriously, perhaps fatally, imperilled by the policies of successive Australian governments populated by Austral-Americans.

Defence Minister Richard Marles’ address to parliament on February 9, entitled ‘Securing Our Sovereignty’, deserves a close reading.

It was delivered at a time when, in the minister’s own words, “it has never been more important to guard, reinforce and enhance our sovereignty”.

by GUEST AUTHOR MICHAEL CALLANAN

However, it’s clear that this vaunted sovereignty is being seriously, perhaps fatally, imperilled by the policies of successive Australian governments.

DM Marles defines sovereignty as “…the capacity of a people, through their government, to determine their own circumstances and to act of their own accord, free from any coercive influence”.

More specifically, he states that any “defence capability…which is not at the absolute discretion of the country which operates it does nothing to enhance sovereignty.”

True enough, but this is where the situation becomes rather confused. Recent treaties and agreements which have enhanced the “interoperability” of Australian and US forces, as well as allowing the “rotation” of military forces and materiel through Australian territory, have explicitly ceded both Australian control over those forces and materiel, and rendered opaque what might ultimately comprise these elements.

The 2014 Force Posture Agreement Article VII explicitly states that, “The prepositioned materiel of United States Forces, and Agreed Facilities and Areas designated for storage of such prepositioned materiel shall be for the exclusive use of United States Forces, and full title to all such equipment, supplies, and materiel remains with the United States. United States Forces shall have exclusive control over the access to, use of, and disposition of such prepositioned materiel.”

Therefore, in plain language, Australia has no control over access, use, or further disposition of US weapons or equipment stationed on Australian soil. This is a death sentence for our sovereignty, because it means America can attack a third country from these shores without the agreement or even knowledge of the Australian government, yet we will have become a target and will perforce suffer the retaliatory consequences, possibly even nuclear.

Marles states that a “defence capability…which is not at the absolute discretion of the country which operates it does nothing to enhance sovereignty”, implying he is referring to Australia. But this is a sleight of hand, because the significant defence capabilities in question will not be operated by Australia in any case, thanks to the FPA, and therefore can’t enhance our sovereignty, by his own fraught definition.

He reinforces this tendentious reasoning by implying that Australia is in the situation of having a “…high-end capability – the use of which is at the complete discretion of [our] country, [and which] contributes greatly to the capacity of [our] people to determine their circumstances and therefore contributes greatly to national sovereignty.”

The problem of course is that we have nothing like “complete discretion” in the use of US weapons and forces positioned on our soil. In fact we have no control, and it seems quite probable that no Australian knows whether or not, at any given moment, nuclear weapons are “prepositioned” in this country. Naturally, any enemy would assume the worst and act accordingly.

Yet Marles is implying that we have somehow enhanced our own sovereignty by allowing foreign military forces and weapons into our country, over which we will have no control, as agreed in the FPA treaty.

Thus the above considerations make laughable Marles’ conclusion that “our partnerships build our national capability and security…and are anchored in Australian sovereignty”, and that “our cooperation with…our US ally, is managed through robust policy frameworks and principles that maintain and protect our sovereignty”. Sadly, however, the continuous repetition of a falsehood doesn’t make it any truer.

A further related fantasy in this regard is Marles’ assertion that “a fundamental principle underpinning these activities is the longstanding bipartisan policy of having no foreign bases on Australian sovereign territory.”

What else is a foreign base other than an area of land on which a foreign power positions forces and materiel over which it exercises sole and unfettered control, including the further disposition of that materiel?

Marles’ collusion in the fiction that “partner activities occur on a rotational basis, within Australian facilities or as a part of jointly operated facilities” is patently untrue, and demonstrably so, by reference to the FPA provisions.

His further claim that “our US alliance fundamentally strengthens, rather than diminishes, our sovereignty” is explicitly denied by the treaty law that is the FPA, and is a brazen misrepresentation of the truth.

Finally, some attention must be devoted to unmasking yet another pervasive and corrosive fiction, that of “our long-standing and bipartisan policy of ‘full knowledge and concurrence’”.

According to the Defence Minister, “‘full knowledge’ means Australia has a full and detailed understanding of any capability or activity with a presence on Australian territory, or making use of Australian assets”.

Clearly, as a matter of logic, this contradicts the Australian government’s compliance with the US policy of ‘refusal to confirm or deny’ the existence of nuclear weapons being carried by warships or planes arriving in Australia. One can’t “know” if one is kept in the dark. As such, “full knowledge” is a bald-faced deception.

According to Marles, “‘Concurrence’ means that Australia approves of the presence of a capability or function in Australia, in support of mutually-agreed goals”. Again, quite clearly, if ‘knowledge’ is absent then ‘concurrence’ is irrelevant. One can’t approve of something if one is unaware of its existence.

Defence Minister Marles is apparently a nice chap, intelligent and well educated, who’s clearly very enthusiastic about the possibility of enhancing our sovereignty by becoming further enmeshed in desperate US planning for a coming war with China.

As such, it’s hard to know how to account for the quite glaring contradictions between his public reassurances and the provisions specified in the treaties and agreements with the USA to which we are bound.

Shuttling between the possibilities of his being either seriously deluded or wilfully deceptive, one is at a profound loss to explain the manifest inconsistencies between Marles’ unreasonably optimistic faith in our once-great-and-powerful friend and the black-and-white reality of the ink on those pages which have signed away our sovereignty, and quite possibly a relatively peaceful and prosperous future.

https://johnmenadue.com/richard-marles-and-the-betrayal-of-australian-sovereignty-marles-pic/

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By Gus Leonisky at 28 Feb 2023 - 8:34am
Gus Leonisky's blog
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transitioning......

By Lucy Hamilton

Australia is transitioning from our old colonial master to a self-selected new colonial master. We have those with power nostalgic for the glories of imperial Britain.

Many more ‘Austral-Americans’, however, are starry-eyed at the thought of the mastery of the USA. The America of which they wish to make us the 51st state existed largely in its marketing, and certainly does not exist any longer. Australia must cease following America’s lead into hell.

America sold itself as the shining light of democracy, freedom and reason in a troubled world. Disastrous economic and military imperialism abroad was in fact matched by subjugation of its masses at home. The American Dream was reserved for the white working class and a few outliers. Its systems ensured the vast majority was trapped in versions of slavery and its post-abolition variants. Developing anti-abortion policies will not least provide a larger desperate underclass able to provide wage-slave labour at costs competitive with Mexico or China.

These Australian leaders fixed on America’s self-depiction see Biden as a return to the rational America they admire, after the cringe-making chaos of the Trump years. In fact, this is likely to be a brief hiatus.

America will probably descend into a new stochastic civil war, opening salvos perhaps already fired. An aroused minority, funded by authoritarian-leaning plutocrats, is stripping both the freedom and reason from the American civic space. From school board to the Capitol, groups ignited by conspiracy and loathing are plunging America away from enlightenment. Democracy, as flawed as it has always been in America, is being further crippled to prevent the majority having its say. The radicalised Right is trying to legislate for election overthrow, as well as voter suppression. Fire-eyed theocrats and bigots are working to subjugate anyone whose identity, life or thought denies them full humanity. The forces of modernity are depicted not just as woke, but literally demonic. It will take exceptional effort from the majority to prevent this takeover by the fringe. It already controls the Supreme Court, the House in Congress, too many state Houses, money and considerable media sway.

When Australian leaders say we ally ourselves with the American project because of our shared values, the shared values they imagine are now beaten to a pulp as the forces of fundamentalist religion and bigotry destroy freedom and equality across swathes of the country.

When the theocratic bigots retake power in the US, with Donald Trump or a less chaotic authoritarian at the helm, the sovereignty Richard Marles has ceded to them will remain ceded. Their Spiritual Warfare–driven foreign policy will become even more our problem. Israel must be protected so that End Times can begin there: will that drive us to military action against Iran?

Australia was, at the outset of the 20th century, a proud model of strong labor rights, where visitors came from around the globe to see our social democrat experiment at work. We had nationalised services for those resources the community depended upon to function. Our unions protected workers from exploitation by capital. (We see in America and Britain today the chaos that results when unions are crippled or erased.)

The neoliberal era that made Milton Friedman its god has pushed us towards the extinction of our civilisation. His truism that the stock market was the ultimate measure of a good business has made care for the environment, the workforce, the populace barely relevant. Payouts to the families of the dead are a “cost of doing business” and if those harmed are the powerless, that’s profit maximised. The train collision and chemical fire that threatens the lives of East Palestine, Ohio, was largely caused by corporate policy that bowed to stock market pressures: no investment in infrastructure,, workforce or safety. Only profits count. Stock market metrics lead to money spent on lobbying politicians. President Trump repealed the half-hearted measures implemented by President Obama to limit such catastrophes.

Our Reserve Bank is a tawdry affair whose intellectual heft is embarrassingly meagre compared to the central banks of equivalent nations. Philip Lowe leads a board of business minds, not those keeping abreast of intellectual developments. They implement policy based on 1970s conditions to deal with our different world and different understanding of financial policy. Almost all the inflationary price surge we see in Australia is caused by price-gauging by power, supermarkets, banks and business more broadly. The residual rise lies within the Reserve banks allowable band. At the same time, the workers’ buying power is savaged and their wages are declining in real terms.

Neoliberal ideologues do not allow any measures to cap or chasten price-gauging sectors. Windfall tax is anathema. The profits are celebrated by the stock market and by its ambient media spruikers. While the CEOs toast their victorious quarter, the populace is forced into painful decisions between fresh food and medications.

Milton Friedman’s acolytes turned the free market “think” tanks initiated by Brit Anthony Fisher into rampaging lobbyists for the wealthy. As a result of their dominance of political economy, the plutocrats’ share of national wealth has rocketed into the stratosphere since the 70s, while the workers’ wages stagnated.

The result has been a bottomless well of fury and resentment that has been exploited by the media handmaids of the wealthy, misdirected against the alleged “undeserving” poor, against women taking jobs, against refugees, and now against the LGBTQI+ community. The Murdoch empire funnels American “idiot ball” culture war distractions to structure the jealous guarding of privilege by the wealthy and the resentment of the disenfranchised. These wars are in the process of breaking America and might well break Great Britain, but the true targeting of fury against the plutocrats banking our common-wealth offshore is undesirable.

The British NHS has been destroyed by neoliberal ideologues delighted at the chance to sell off its carcass to the largely American private health sector. Labor in Australia needs to shore up Medicare and chase off these predatory corporations that have begun buying up Australian medical businesses. In the American model we see the principal: outstanding care for those who can pay the extortionate prices. Bankruptcy and early deaths for those who can’t.

These American values are not our values. Business, with their politicians and media would love them to be, despite the ravages we see in America and the UK. A dragon’s hoard is in the offing.

Our defence department immersing itself in America’s militarised foreign policy can only bring us harm. We would become the cannon fodder, as colonial subjects always are. Our resources have far more important uses than astronomically-priced weaponry.

Australians must see the culture war distractions for what they are: a protection for a profoundly broken system. It is time we reclaimed our proud social democrat past. Those with the levers of power must look accurately at what neoliberal ideologues have done to the US and Britain, and reject both colonial masters for our own healthier path.

https://johnmenadue.com/we-are-not-america/

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By Gus Leonisky at 1 Mar 2023 - 7:33am
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wong is wrong....

BY Dr Mike Gilligan. He worked for 20 years in defence policy and evaluating military proposals for development, including time in the Pentagon on military balances in Asia.

From our Minister for Foreign Affairs Australians must expect ever more duplicity, more smoothing the path to war orchestrated by America, for America’s ends. It’s a struggle for words to convey the enormity of what we face. It is beyond our politicians. Australia is being dragged into war. No doubt.

The full horror of the Albanese government’s national security policy is now revealed. Australia has been betrayed by its leaders. How? Technically, by embracing an agreement with the United States which destroys our sovereignty – enabling US military forces to operate from our territory against China under U.S. command and control. Thereby Australia becomes a target for China’s missiles. And unimaginably more. Our governments have simply accepted the imposition of this horrendous risk. There is no American quid pro quo. No US guarantee to intervene with armed force in our defence. Nothing. Our sovereignty, and choices on security, have been handed to the United States, gratis.

Many Australians feel doubly betrayed by their Minister for Foreign Affairs, Penny Wong. Her immediate LNP predecessors were complicit also (Bishop and Payne), though who would expect better of them? But few of us could have conceived of a prolonged affront to Australia’s sovereignty and security by Penny Wong.

At the outset, let’s be clear that war with China is not some hypothetical defence planning exercise. American security policy has set itself on the path to attacking China. That is expressed in US Defence Department reports to Congress. America’s own intelligence reports shows that China’s chief priority for its own forces is countering US attack on China’s territory. That is China is struggling to deal with a US pile-onto China. The US political pressure to rapidly rearm Japan, Korea, Australia and Philippines, focussing on Taiwan as a proxy, substantiates the reality.

Could Wong have been certain of this American road to war with China? Surely. Because she is intelligent enough to know what drives American geostrategy. That is simple. The US believes its global superiority requires it to find and eliminate rivals. With no exception. Its many more nuanced strategic thinkers have now fallen away. Albert Wohlstetter’s influence has held sway and been refined for decades now. He had five precepts for the primacy of the United States:

liberal internationalism, with its optimistic expectation that the world will embrace a set of common norms to achieve peace, is an illusion. To indulge it further constitutes sheer folly.
the system which replaces liberal internationalism must address the ever-present (and growing) danger. Remember Pearl Harbour. Imagine something orders of magnitude worse — a nuclear attack from out of the blue.
the key to averting or at least minimising surprise is to act preventively. Action holds possibility of safety, whereas inaction reduces that possibility to near zero. Eliminate the threat before it materialises. In statecraft, that is the standard of excellence.
the ultimate in preventive action is dominion. The best insurance against unpleasant surprises is to achieve unquestioned supremacy.
transforming the nature of war, information technology — an arena in which the United States has historically enjoyed a clear edge — brings outright supremacy within reach.

This mindset prevailed once the USSR invaded Afghanistan. Its premiere act was the invasion of Iraq in 2001. That was in gestation before President GW Bush was elected in December 2000. Dignified only by the lie of weapons of mass destruction, the real objective was never articulated. The attack on the Twin Towers of September 11, 2001, nine months later, was entirely unconnected with Iraq. It could have caused reflection. Instead the paranoia intensified, and has dominated national security in every US administration since.

Penny Wong must be aware that the world’s greatest superpower is driven by this culture. That the US by identifying China as its geostrategic rival is seeking war with it. And Australia is relevant to the US only in how we can be “induced” into that conflict. Ever since the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia”, and the standing ovation for the Presidential address to our Parliament, US pressure has been pushing us in that direction.

What doubly damns Wong is that she has been aware of the US violation of our sovereignty since 2016. As Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs she would have been well aware of the Abbott government’s signing of the Force Posture Agreement which enables US military operations from our territory.

The opportunity has been there for all these years, to raise issues which she knew would impact Australians profoundly. The opportunity to deal with the downward spiral in our security, crafted by the US, was never taken up. Australia’s defence priorities were prostituted for America’s. Our children are being lined up for battles in Asia again, concocted in Arlington and Foggy Bottom. The whole grubby apparatus has been submerged, unnoticed by Australians.

Hence, from our Minister for Foreign Affairs Australians must expect ever more duplicity, more smoothing the path to war orchestrated by America, for America’s ends. It’s a struggle for words to convey the enormity of what we face. Australia is being dragged into war. No doubt. Paul Keating’s term of “Austral American” is apt for a Minister for Foreign Affairs who lubricates our slide to war. But it is too kind. Australia is being f**ked over. Poor fella my country.

https://johnmenadue.com/beyond-words-labors-betrayal-of-australia/

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re-arming japan.....

we disagree....

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