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america's bitch surrenders any sovereignty capability.....

Euphemistically, the Prime Minister recently announced that he and President Biden have “inaugurated a new era of US-Australia strategic cooperation”. Presumably he meant to say he’d found new ways to surrender Australia’s sovereignty.

 

Australians need to know what lies beneath the new era of US-Australia strategic cooperation    By Mike Scrafton

 

With the US President in October, the Prime Minister issued the United States-Australia Joint Leaders’ Statement – Building an innovation alliance. Albanese probably hoped to portray the “partnership” as one between equals; an alliance of mutual benefit. But it would be naive to understand the relationship as anything other than a small satellite captured and circling without volition in the gravitational field of a great hegemonic power.

The Joint Statement shows how in substance and language Australia’s policies and priorities are simply those of America.
Without irony Albanese claimed the new commitments “are based on respect for international law, including as it pertains to the protection and promotion of human rights, and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states”. In reality the Americans are sharing technology and intelligence with Australia in accordance with their own plan to turn Australia into a vassal state in which almost every aspect of political and economic life is colonised.

This is evident in the individual announcements as well as the substance of the Joint Statement in its entirety. There isn’t a cigarette paper’s thickness between America’s policy positions on a range of issues and Australia’s. The Joint Statement reads like a bunch of sentences cobbled together from various official American documents. It is difficult to hear a distinctive Australian cadence.

The Australian public deserves greater transparency of the implications of the announced initiatives.

The plan to establish “a Combined Intelligence Centre – Australia” following the last AUSMIN was concerning enough but equally troubling is the move to “create the Microsoft-Australian Signals Directorate Cyber Shield to harden Australia from cyber-threats to individuals, businesses, and governments.” Is this a further encroachment on a sovereign and independent intelligence capability; on a premier element of Australia’s national intelligence community and a vital provider of intelligence product to the government? An explanation of how this will affect ASD’s independence is required.

There will be a Memorandum of Understanding between Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Australian National University that “intends to strengthen cooperation in research and education between the United States and Australia”. This links Australia to a key component of America’s nuclear war-fighting enterprise.

Los Alamos conducts computer simulations related to testing nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship; that is, reliability testing and maintenance of America’s nuclear arsenal. Los Alamos also supports the US Department of Defense (DoD), Intelligence Community (IC), and Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The ANU is the leading educational and experimental institution in the field of nuclear physics in Australia and the nature of its connections with Los Alamos need to be explained. At worst this is a backdoor for American influence on promoting nuclear power generation and pro-nuclear weapons lobbying.

On the surface, these initiatives appear to potentially give American institutions and agencies access to the inside workings of Australian intelligence, research, and business in ways that will not be, and could not be, reciprocated. Inevitably America will selectively choose the technologies and research it wishes to share and will harvest all it needs to shape Australian perspectives.

Australia will become a subsidiary of the American arms industry, a base for American forces, and function as a quarry. The Statement endorsed “the work under way to establish guided weapons co-production, as a first step towards higher volumes of industrial production for the alliance”. Steps will be taken to “streamline technological and industrial base collaboration and build new opportunities for United States investment in the production and purchase of Australian critical minerals, critical technologies, and other strategic sectors”. This will establish a powerful pro-American industry lobby in Australia through increased dependency.

At the AUKUS Defence Ministers meeting the parties agreed “to streamlining defense trade controls and information-sharing while minimising policy and financial barriers across public and private sectors”. Subsequently, the Defence Minister has announced The Australian Deep-space Advanced Radar Capability to be established in Western Australia. It will contribute to a space domain awareness capability across the AUKUS partnership.

The war-fighting aspects of this facility aren’t clear but Australia’s sovereign war decision making could be seriously constrained.

Albanese agreed to Australia “examining its export controls framework to streamline the flow of defence information and technology” and Defence Minister Richard Marles has brought forward controversial amendments to Defence Trade Controls exempting the United States and United Kingdom. This draft legislation would align Australian and American regulatory frameworks. A step which could “surrender any sovereignty capability” in this area according to Bill Greenwalt, the former US Under Secretary for Defense who wrote much of America’s defence procurement laws.

It is increasingly impossible to see how the intelligence picture provided to government will not be filtered and distorted through America’s interests, investments, and influence in government and the economy. It’s becoming difficult to find an area not being infiltrated. As Australian institutions are seduced and infiltrated by American money, technology, and power, an ecosystem of views reflecting American priorities and interests will emerge; an echo chamber amplifying and endorsing the American viewpoint.

In fact at the AUKUS meeting, the loss of sovereignty was celebrated as “the strategic alignment of our national defense strategies, anchored by our shared values”. “Alignment” is yet another euphemism for the abandonment of sovereignty. As the far smaller alliance member Australia has little influence on shaping America’s defence policy and the government has patently ceded its sovereignty and the war decision to Washington.

The take-over already working.

https://johnmenadue.com/australians-need-to-know-what-lies-beneath-the-new-era-of-us-australia-strategic-cooperation/

 

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Join our Team! AUKUS foreign expenditure sinkhole blows out to $12B … already

    by Rex Patrick 

 

The Albanese Government has just announced another $3B into the US submarine industrial base, in addition to the $4.7B already committed. It’s money that should have been spent in Australia instead. Rex Patrick reports on a widening foreign expenditure sinkhole.

Normally, you’d see a gaggle of politicians in front of cameras if there was a multi-billion dollar Defence contract announcement to be made, but not here.

On December 1, the US Defence Security Co-operation Agency posted an announcement on its website that, over the next three years, Australia is going to tip another $3B of Australian taxpayers’ dollars into US shipyards – Huntington Ingalls Industries and General Dynamics Electric Boat and the US Defense company, System Planning and Analysis Inc.

All three companies are advertising “join our team” on their home pages.

It’s like that old Irish joke where a tourist asks one of the locals for directions to Dublin. The Irishman replies, “well, if I were going to Dublin, I wouldn’t start from here”.

And that’s how it is for the Australian submarine building and support industry. As work has dried up in the wake of the $4B French Attack Class program winding up, all Australian industry can see happening is Prime Minister Albanese flooding the United States with Australian taxpayers’ dollars. You wouldn’t start a manufacturing or submarine software house here; you’d move to the US because that’s where the dollars are going.

Up until last week, Australians were seething that Albanese had committed $US4.7b to enhance the US submarine industrial base. It’s cash that’ll be used by the US Defence Department to:

  • Increase the Virginia class production rate (we’re spending money lifting the US submarine build yard’s capacity).
  • Enhance Virginia class submarine deep and intermediate-level maintenance facilities in US (we’re injecting money into their submarine maintenance shipyards).
  • Pre-purchase Virginia submarine components and materials, so they are on hand at the start of the maintenance period – saving time (we’re paying for their submarine spares).
  • Outsource less complex sustainment and expand planning efforts for private sector overhauls to reduce backlog (we’re providing coin to help smaller US companies take some of the load off US shipyards).

This detail was not supposed to be shared with Australians. In a Senate Estimates brief obtained using Freedom of Information laws, it was advised that

this was to be kept quiet and only revealed ‘if pressed on the funding.’

Another $3 billion

The money on the barrel is to be used for “training and training devices”. The announcement states “The sale will advance the AUKUS trilateral agreement by providing the equipment to train Royal Australian Navy crews in areas such as submarine navigation, communications, ship control, and other capabilities.

Additionally, it will also provide the means to train select Australian civilians and contractors at United States Naval Shipyards. This trained workforce will grow Australia’s submarine capability, which is expected to ultimately incorporate technologies from all three AUKUS partner nations.”

Implementation of the sale will involve the assignment of approximately 70 additional U.S. Government and contractor representatives to Australia to support in-person training, equipment familiarisation, and on-site engineering and maintenance of simulation and training devices.

The training program appears to be planned over the next three years.

Expensive training

To give some comparison, it’s worth taking a look at an alternate three billion dollar spend in the education sector.

Adelaide University would seem a good comparison. For a billion dollars in revenue per annum the university pays 3,600 staff and teaches and trains some 23,000 students per annum. For three billion dollars you can get more than 20,000 graduates.

The comparison seems striking.

But we do know that the AUKUS team are spending $633K on travel each month, so they must have things in hand.

Submarines In 2033, training in 2024

It’s hard to work out precisely what’s going on. Why are we spending that amount of money on training right now when the earliest we’re going to see a nuclear submarine with an Australian white ensign is 2033?

The answer would appear to lie in ‘Submarine Rotational Force – West’. That’s the part of the optimal pathway laid out by Mr Albanese in March when he took ownership of the AUKUS program.

Last week in Washington Defence Minister Marles announced that “The first planned maintenance activity of a U.S. SSN is planned to occur at HMAS Stirling in the second half of 2024. This will represent a substantial increase in Australian Defence Force participation in maintenance activities on U.S. SSNs.”

So, we’re paying three billion dollars to ramp up our ability to support US submarines operating out of Australia. We’re paying them for us to help them.

Sure, there can be no question that there will be benefits in terms of experience gained by the Australian Navy and Western Australian industry, but former Prime Minister Paul Keating was right in March when he said,

At the Kabuki show in San Diego … there are three leaders standing there. Only one is paying. Our bloke, Albo.

On that note, a check of the Senate Question on Notice database shows Defence has not answered the question from Senator Lambie, “Has Defence paid for any AUKUS partner officials to travel to and from Australia; if so, how much was spent on overseas official’s travel?”. It’s a question that’s been sitting unanswered on the notice paper since August.

The sinkhole expands

AUKUS has become a great sinkhole for Australian taxpayers’ money.

It doesn’t just stop at the US border. In a newly released House of Commons Library research paper, a further widening of the sinkhole was revealed. In a section of the brief entitled ‘Spending on the UK nuclear enterprise,” the following was stated:

“Further, sustained funding will be provided to the SSN-AUKUS program over the next decade. Australia will also make a “proportionate financial investment in the United Kingdom submarine industrial base” to accelerate production and accommodate the manufacture of the nuclear propulsion plants for the Australian SSN-AUKUS submarines in the UK. No further details on that financial contribution have been provided, although the government has confirmed that plans are underway to expand the Rolls Royce site in Derby, with the expectation of creating 1,170 skilled jobs.”

So, it’s a blank cheque from Australian taxpayers and at least 1,170 jobs for the British.

Assuming the UK commitment at this stage is similar to the $US4.7B commitment, we’re exporting more than $12B Australian dollars for no jobs and no growth.

Shipwreck in the making

To add insult to injury, all this is not being revealed by the Australian government, but by the beneficiary partners, as further news hit the streets on the Navy’s $45B Future Frigates fiasco.

A report into the troubled program by two former senior Defence officials found that the Future Frigates tender did not pay sufficient attention to the project’s risks, nor “fulfil the requirements of the Commonwealth Procurement Rules (CPRs) in relation to achieving value for money.”

Having botched yet another major Defence procurement program our Defence Department bureaucrats are moving ahead with the $368B AUKUS submarine program.

On Tuesday Senator Lambie nailed it at question time, asking Foreign Minister Penny Wong, representing Defence Minister Richard Marles:

AUKUS is a multi-decade program set to cost 10 times what the frigates will cost. Minister, how can the Australian people possibly have any confidence that AUKUS won’t be just another stuff-up?

Apart from the benefit to the foreign industry from our $12B cash injection, AUKUS is a mammoth shipwreck in the making.

 

https://michaelwest.com.au/join-our-team-aukus-foreign-expenditure-sinkhole-blows-out-to-12b-already/

 

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skimming the scam....

In October, MWM revealed that the Australian Submarine Agency had spent $15.2 million taxpayer dollars on travel over two years. But wait, there’s more to that story. Much more.

Turns out, included in the $633K per month, or $21K per day, not only is the Australian taxpayer paying for the excessive jet setting of Australian Defence Force officers and senior Defence officials, but we’re paying for US and UK officers to fly backwards and forwards to Australia as well., 

On Wednesday last week, Jacqui Lambie rose from her seat in the Senate at the end of question time and sought an explanation from Penny Wong as to why an answer to Question on Notice (QON) 2336, asked in August, had not been provided. QON 2336 was an inquiry into AUKUS costs and included the question:

“Has Defence paid for any AUKUS partner officials to travel to and from Australia; if so, how much was spent on overseas official’s travel.”

After Wong failed to provide a decent explanation as to the lack of response from Defence, Lambie launched a scathing attack on the Prime Minster, the Defence Minister and the Defence diarchy.

She started with Anthony Albanese:

“For the whole time you were in opposition, one of the loudest messages we got from the Labor Party was about the lack of transparency from this side—from the coalition government. As opposition leader, the now Prime Minister promised to fix this and provide greater transparency, but here they are, 18 months after they were elected, not practising what they preached. They are hiding behind legal privilege, hiding behind claims of national security, and hiding from scrutiny and accountability.”

She then turned her gun sights to Richard Marles:

“Deputy Prime Minister Marles is letting ADF senior command walk over the top of him. It is an absolute embarrassment. You probably need to sack him and start leading by example. Our national security is suffering for it.”

Finally, she ripped into General Angus Campbell and Secretary Greg Moriarty:

“We’ve got a [Chief of Defence Force] who blames everyone but himself for everything and anything. If he’s wondering who is to blame, it’s about time he really took a good hard look at himself in the mirror. We’ve got a secretary who is just a plain career public servant who has been in there for way too long—way too long. And, worse: we’re paying them over a million bucks each—a million bucks each, to deliver absolutely nothing, let alone to put our national security first and foremost.”

She returned to AUKUS.

“Australia deserves better than the CDF, the secretary and the minister, who avoid scrutiny and have absolutely no future plans except for a paper submarine. That’s all we’re looking at—a paper submarine. There are paper dreams for a submarine that doesn’t exist.”

The Senate agreed to an order that the answer to her question be provided the next day. The answer revealed that we are also paying the airfares for UK and US officers

How’s that for a joint program? All three countries work together and Australia gets to pay.

The US and UK are making a motza from AUKUS as Australia injects billions into their Defence industries, and the taxpayer gets to fork out the travel cost of the foreign officials that are orchestrating the swindle.

So how much are we paying for their travel? Defence’s answer was … wait for it …

It would be an unreasonable diversion of resources to provide a breakdown of costs per AUKUS partner over this period.

You won’t get to know. It’s too embarrassing.

https://michaelwest.com.au/the-scam-within-a-scam-us-uk-officials-are-flying-high-on-the-aukus-teat/

 

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no aussie ship.....

Scott Ritter: US attacks Houthi, Axis of resistance will fire against our forces in Iraq & Syria

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu30CjH31PY

 

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