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DOWNER’S DAMNATION
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer damns the Left over its wartime stances on everybody from Hitler to Saddam:
“In a time when bipartisanship was imperative in the national interest, Curtin had chosen from 1935 on to placate the international socialists, pacificists and anti-conscripts within his own party,” Mr Downer said in a major speech last night.
“Even as late as the Munich crisis of September 1938, Curtin persisted with a policy of isolationism and failed to acknowledge the threat posed by Nazism.” The Foreign Minister accused current Labor leader Kim Beazley of adopting “a little Australia” policy consistent with a “pattern of weak Labor leadership nationally, particularly on the issues of appeasement, isolationism and shirking international treaty obligations”.
In a scathing critique of Curtin—Labor’s wartime prime minister—and a damning judgment on Mr Whitlam over the Baltic states and Mr Latham over Iraq, Mr Downer said: “Only the Coalition is unequivocally committed to supporting the global struggle for freedom.”
Read the whole piece. And tilt your heads, overseas readers—compassionately, of course—towards Australia, so that you may hear outrageous screeches of outrage from outraged leftoids. Expect these to continue for some time.
UPDATE. Evil Pundit in comments points to this ridiculous speech from Democrats leader Lyn Allison:
Robert Menzies said of the Queen that he “did but see her passing by but that he would love her til he died”, even if that meant the death of 60,000 young Australians in WWII.
Reader Jorge notes: “The death toll is wrong ... Menzies’ “I did but see her passing by” comment wasn’t until 1963. Hell, she wasn’t even Queen until 1953 ... What the fuck? I mean, seriously, what the hell is this woman talking about anyway?”
All the way with LBJ. Saw almost a thousand young Australians killed in the Korean war, Malaya and Vietnam.
LBJ didn’t become President until a decade after the Korean War. Australia’s involvement in the Malayan Emergency followed British, rather than American, requests.
Most Australians think we should have a more independent foreign policy, but this government has gone too far.
We’re too independent? OK, senator. At your insistence, I urge that we form some type of alliance—a coalition, if you will—with the US and Britain.
An illegal attack on Iraq, broken promises on more troops there, a bilateral trade agreement that isnt in our interests, and dopey threats to our SE Asian neighbours about being President Bushs sheriff in the region and taking pre-emptive action in the name of the fight against terrorism - all as embarrassing as they are dangerous.
She believes the deputy sherrif myth. How embarrassing.
UPDATE II. Also from Evil Pundit: “In a reversal of earlier traditions, the troops are sending entertainment back home.”
UPDATE III. Self-described sensible conservative Planet Irf in comments: “Get a life. or better still, go attack some iraqi dissidents and get yourself blown to pieces.”
He’s replying to a US serviceman currently based in the Middle East. Nice.
In Newsfront, Bill Hunter told the English newcomer that you don’t get witty about Curtin. (Remember the Menzies mock sieg heil/two step in the cutting room that would now probably see airtime?) You’re terrible, Bill!
Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2005 05 17 at 03:18 PM • permalinkI had almost forgotten about the compassionate head tilt. Thanks for the laughs all over again.
TV (Harry)
Posted by Inspector Callahan on 2005 05 17 at 03:29 PM • permalinkIn the Munich era Menzies and Lyons were at least trying to re-arm Australia. Labor was opposing every re-armanent initiative, including even complinig a war-book listing Austraslia’s potential defence assets in industry etc.
According to the commonwealth Year Books 1939-45, Australia lost nearly 6,000,000 working days directly through strikes - indirectly a multiple of that. The left of the ALP was the chief instigator.
Posted by Susan Norton on 2005 05 17 at 03:44 PM • permalinkAhhh, the good old days - 1 week before Xmas and the postal workers would walk out.
Solidarity comrades!
Painters & Dockers Union were exempt from conscription, and became the hidey hole of every crim.
Solidarity comrades!
Importers’ goods locked up on wharfs for weeks whilst wharfies negotiated huge wages for little to no work.
Solidarity comrades!
Concrete pours would be interrupted and sites shut down whilst unions negotiated 6 figure wage deals with 2 crane drivers per shift.Solidarity comrades!
In a Quadrant article about Justice Owen Dixon’s service as Australian representative in Washington during the War, it was revealed that the US Governemnt thought very little of Curtin and his monkey, Evatt. The problem was that they were ignorant of war and leaked like a sieve.
So much for the ALP’s heroic wartime leader.
Curtin also tolerated Blamey, who was on the take, a drunk, and who turned up in New Guinea to rip into the Kokoda diggers for being beaten by “an inferior enemy”, all but calling those heroes cowards.
Also, if MacArthur had wanted to root the family cat, Curtin would have applied the lubricant and urged him to have a good time. As it was, MacArthur was just as happy putting down the Diggers and making himself look good. Curtin went along with MacArhur’s hare-brained sideshows, and he heeded Blamey when the latter insisted that Australian troops didn’t need jungle camo. Meanwhile, the commando units were dying their khaki uniforms with coffee grounds to avoid being shot.
Sydney Papers (Hendo’s comic) had a story on war correspondents Damian Parer, Chester Wilmot and Osmar White, and their clashes with the Blamey, MacArthur and the weak-kneed Curtin. Good introduction to the topic if you can find it.
Full text of the speech is here:
http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/speeches/2005/050517_earle_page_college.html
I especially like this bit:
“For no better reason than that he could do it, Whitlam decided that Australia would be among the first nations of the free world formally to acknowledge the USSR’s annexation of the Captive Nations, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
If ever there was a shameless sell-out of oppressed and helpless people this was it, yet to this day he remains unrepentant about it.”This article of Theodore Dalrymple is an absolute must-read on this topic.
Posted by Blithering Bunny on 2005 05 17 at 07:15 PM • permalink#10 Scott,
The article to which you were trying to point - http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_2_oh_to_be.html - seems to be something that Noel Pearson would be interested in and that his critics should read. Is there another one?
Much head tilting (or bowing) in the direction of Tim in today’s blog phenomenon Australian from Janet.
Leftist media missed a turn to the right
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15320854%5E32522,00.html
as Charles says read it all “koz” it’s all true!Janet made mention of the “Family First ” party winning a seat at the last election.
This has left lefties speechless - an Aboriginal woman, a practicing lawyer, who espouses Christian values and is fundamentally conservative had been elected.
All the ALP had in the feel good dept was Latham and Garrett (one down and one to go)
The only adverse comment from the secular left that I’ve heard re Family First was “christian fundamentalist”
Actually rog2,
if the Aboriginal, Professional woman had come from the Labour Party, imagine the self congratulatory whinnying and back slapping that would have gone on. Oh? she did’nt come from ‘Emily’s list’, hmmmmm, she is a self made person, a conservative and worse, a christian. We’ll say no more about it then eh?
Dalrymple’s article stated:
“...If they behave irresponsibly—for example, by abandoning their own children wherever they father them—it is because both the rewards for behaving responsibly and the penalties for behaving irresponsibly have vanished.”I have paraphrased this many time thus:
Personal responsibility is now an option to be avoided rather than a virtue to be pursued. When the costs of the mistakes of the irresponsible fall upon the shoulders of the responsible people in society acceptance of responsibility will inevitably vanish and civilised society with it.
Ah, Blamey the Bastard. He turned up at the Heidelberg Repat Hospital where Kokoda veterans were recovering from wounds, typhoid, malaria and other jungle nasties. This was after he’d described their strategic withdrawal and ultimate defeat of the Japanese as “running like rabbits”. As he walked through the wards, some Diggers munched like rabbits on lettuce and carrots while others hummed a hit song of the era, “Run Rabbit, Run”. Ultimate Aussie put-down.
Slatts - my uncle was at Kokoda but would never talk about it. I recall that he walked out the room if Blamey’s name was mentioned. Now I know why. Thanks.
Re Dalrymple - I have lived long enough to arrive at the depressing conclusion that people will do whatever they can get away with. Example - the expanding number of children born outside marriage in Australia. As the money and benefits increased, and the social shame lessened, more females took this option.
Good for Downer. I’m getting to like him. Is it too soon to hope that the leftie stranglehold on Australian culture is coming to an end?
Let’s not forget the Australian Democrats. Here’s a sample from the latest speech by their leader, Senator Lyn Allison:
Robert Menzies said of the Queen that he “did but see her passing by but that he would love her til he died”, even if that meant the death of 60,000 young Australians in WWII.
Fighting Hitler was bad, mmmmmmkay?
Posted by Evil Pundit on 2005 05 18 at 12:19 AM • permalinkYeah, jpaulg, that sounds about right. What an arsehole. These blokes were outnumbered 10 to 1 yet they kept gnawing at the Japs, busting up their supply lines so effectively that when they were within sight of Port Moresby, they were forced to retreat. The Diggers then hounded the Japs back across the ranges to the north coast, marking the beginning of the end for the Jap Pacific campaign. I’ve never seen hatred for a man like the Kokoda Diggers had for Blamey.
He’s not just poking the hornet’s nest is he, he’s beating it with a giant stick.
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 05 18 at 12:33 AM • permalink“...even if that meant the death of 60,000 young Australians in WWII”
Surely she means WWI!!!!!!
Posted by Consuela Potez on 2005 05 18 at 12:41 AM • permalinkThe Australian death-toll in World War II was about 28,000.
Posted by Susan Norton on 2005 05 18 at 12:51 AM • permalinkWell no one else has bitten, so I’ll cheerfully attempt to do so.
Caveat: My knowledge on this subject is restricted to high school and almost all I can read on Australian Politics and WW2.
I do not even claim to be able to spell Cavaet correctly.
I think Downer is wrong on some points:
For politicians of his generation, the challenge of leadership was above all the task of patient explanation of why it was necessary that our troops should be engaged, yet again, in battles for liberty and democracy half a world away.
Well on that basis, I think that FDR fails that test (i.e. on what he said to placate the isolationists in the US pre WW2).
Since World War II there has been a fairly consistent pattern of weak Labor leadership in Australia, particularly on the issues of appeasement, isolationism and shirking international treaty obligations.
What about Bob Hawke leading Australia as part of the coalition in 1991?
In the Vietnam era, the war was lost - not on the battlefields but in the media and in the university campuses.
After reading Colin Powell’s bio I think the Vietnam war fails some crucial tests of the Powell doctrine (sub where necessary - from Wikipedia):
* Is a vital US interest at stake?
* Will we commit sufficient resources to win?
* Are the objectives clearly defined?
* Will we sustain the commitment?
* Is there reasonable expectation that the public and Congress will support the operation?
* Have we exhausted our other options?Happy to be corrected where I am factually (or otherwise) wrong!
Here’s what I have had to say on the matter.
What more could you expect from the ALP, with their need to cater to the soft-left vote.
rog2:
I am pretty sure that the Aboriginal woman you are refering to is the party’s leader and was not electd to Parliament. If memory serves, the person they elected is white, a man and (shudder….) a Victorian. :-)
Posted by Villeurbanne on 2005 05 18 at 01:32 AM • permalinkThat Lyn Allison quote is idiotic on so many levels at once!
1) The death toll is wrong. Actually it’s not quite as far wrong as some others are suggesting… according to the War Memorial there were 19,235 battle deaths, 20,194 non-battle deaths, and 8,031 POW deaths - not sure whether they’re counted in non-battle deaths though. So the actual number is more like 40,000 or 48,000, not 60,000.
2) Is she seriously suggesting that we _shouldn’t_ have fought World War 2?
3) Menzies’ “I did but see her passing by” comment wasn’t until 1963. Hell, she wasn’t even Queen until 1953. Where’s the causal connection between this and World War 2, again?
4) What the fuck? I mean, seriously, what the hell is this woman talking about anyway?
Not only were the initial forces deployed against the Japanese at Kokoda outnumbered by 10:1 but they were untrained militia against front-line highly trained experienced troops.
Blamey sacked the officers who had led the gallant strategic retreat and took all the credit for the well-supplied counter-attack although the closest he ever got to the front lines was near Port Moresby where he reviled the heroic troops. High on the list of great arseholes of all time.
He had close competition from Douglas MacArthur who also remained well away from the front lines for the whole campaign but constantly belittled Australian Troops for being poor soldiers. That was until American troops were deployed and they just refused to fightfor weeks on end. Mind you the conditions were unbelievably tough. Allied Ccasualty rate was about 80%. Really tough capmpaigns typically sustain casualties of 30%. Japanese casualties were 95% !!!
Macarthur did however pioneer the modern political practice of creating a Media Department of spin-doctors who would inevitably claim any Australian success as “Allied forces” and any losses as “Australians”. No Australians including politicians from Curtin down were allowed any access to the press at all. It all came out in Press Releases that became risibly known as “Doug’s Communique’s”.
As some of you might have guessed I have just cfinished reading Paul Ham’s “Kokoda” which is absolutely first rate.
She is talking about the over-arching theme in Australia’s foreign policy for the first part of the 20th century - whatever Great Britain does, Australia supports it. I suppose that this was mostly due to Australia’s foreign policy technically being set by Britain for some period following federation - I can’t actually remember how long - but also loyalty and the Great Friends concept. Reasons why aside, it is a point of view that may or may not have some validity - that Australia had no dog in that fight (The Great War, not WWII) but Britain did, so Australia fought with the rest of the Colonial (or was it Commonwealth?) forces. Menzies’s anglophilia is just a convenient hook to express that; it is a dog whistle, if you like.
Truman did two things that were good for America in his career. He fired the Bomb into Japan and he fired the Bum out of the Army…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 05 18 at 02:19 AM • permalinkavocadia, Australians at the time would have laughed heartily at your distinction between Britain “having a dog in the fight”, but Australia not.
As far as most Aussies of the time were concerned, Britain’s interests WERE Australia’s interests.
Besides? What grounds does the ALP have for complaint? They were the government that lead us in to the First World War!
Posted by Quentin George on 2005 05 18 at 02:30 AM • permalinkQuentin: Well yeah, that was Lyn Allison’s point, that Australians, at the time, considered themselves British rather than Australian. That Australia did not have a identoity of their own. This naturally informed Australia’s foreign policy. It is only in hindsight, with a vastly different perspective on national identity, that you can call into question the existance of an Australian dog in the fight. As to the ALPs complaint, Lyn Allison is a Democrat senator, not Labor.
Phranger - re Japanese cannibalism. According to ‘Knights of Bushido (the record of the Japanese war crimes tribunal), cannibalism, mutilation of dead and living POWs and vivisection were all practised by the Japanese.
ORDER REGARDING EATING FLESH OF AMERICAN FLYERS
i. The battalion wants to eat the flesh of the American aviator Lieutenant Hall.
ii. First Lieutenant Kanamuri will see to the rationing of this flesh
iii. Cadet Sakabe will attend the execution and have the liver and gall bladder removed.This was not considered to be a crime - but Japanese soldiers were ordered not to eat the flesh of their own. However, they disobeyed this order and were often seen cutting flesh from their own dead and saving it.
This was not widely publicised to spare the feeling of the families of US, Australian and allied prisoners who were victims of Japanese barbarity.
The Knights of Bushido, huh.
rog2 you forgot a few of things. Courtesy of my late grandfather.
1. The unionists that wouldn’t load the ships with supplies for our troops fighting with low supply levels in New Guinea until wage demands could be met.
Solidarity Comrades!
2. The unionists that asked for money from soldiers going to war to post letters to the soldiers mothers, girlfriends and wives. Many letters never got posted and many of those men never came back.
Solidarity Comrades!
3. My favourite that I’ve taken an academic transcript of: The unionists that vandalised and poured dirt into the engines of trucks and other equipment being brought back from the war when it ended. When caught in the act the unionists excused this based on the fact that the equipment was going to be used for capitalist endeavours by the returned soldiers.
Solidarity Comrades!!
Posted by Hank Reardon on 2005 05 18 at 03:09 AM • permalinkDowner says his government wage a “war of liberation” in Iraq. Talk about re-writing history.
At the time, the Oz government swore we were going in to remove the threat of WMDs.
Oh well, they all lie I suppose.
Anyway he’s convinced me to have no more to do with the left. From now on I’m only driving on the right side of the road.
The entire WMD thing was just to keep the UN from bitching. Saying you’re going in purely to get rid of a murderous tyrant, well, that puts half the UN in the firing line.
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 05 18 at 06:31 AM • permalink#47.
the same murderous tyrant that you spent billions on so he could fight a war against his neighbour, thereby allowing him to invade his other neighbour. you know, the nice sweet moderate neighbour thet (until a few days ago) didn’t allow women to vote.
yep, only neo-Cons could come up with such rubbish.
“rumsfeld neo-McConism”?
Whatever.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 05 18 at 07:19 AM • permalinkYou’ve got to be kidding me…you really don’t know that the French and the Russians were responsible for the great majority of arms shipments to Iraq since the early 1980s? Poor child…sanctimonious and uninformed.
Incidentally, now that you’ve brought up the Israelis…congrats, you’re the first winner of my Spot The Lefty Who Can’t Compose A Coherent Thought Without Referencing Dubya, Jews or Fox News Contest. And it took you all of three tiny posts in this thread. Quite impressive.
PlanetIrf
Russia/Soviet Union, China, France…
If you seriously suggest that the US armed Saddam, then you might want to name the military hardware which was supplied.
actually, i mentioned israelis because i knew all you pseudo-conservatives (i.e. national action members) love searching for conspiracies. i knew your hated for jewish people would sustain a long thread.
yes, the french and russians did many of the shipments during the early 1980’s. and who financed it?
be careful about who you call a lefty. you might have been campaigning at one of my polling booths. but then, you probably weren’t. after all, it takes a few weeks before the medication kicks in.
Well, I doubt I ever was at one of “your” polling booths. Did nobody tell you that people from outside Australia read this blog? As I said, sanctimonious and uninformed.
As for “our” “hated” of Jewish people, you’re the one who felt the need to snark about Israelis, not me. Nice bit of projection there, mate.
BTW, I guess calling people here “pseudo-conservatives” is supposed to indicate that you consider yourself a “real conservative”. Well, maybe you’re a Buchananite then…no big difference, ol’ Pat is reading mostly from the same demented choir book as the Left these days.
PlanetIrf
and who financed it?
OMFG! You are an idiot. Oil revenue from the state run Iraqi oil wells! What else?!
actually, i mentioned israelis because i knew all you pseudo-conservatives (i.e. national action members) love searching for conspiracies. i knew your hated for jewish people would sustain a long thread.
So we’re Jew hating neo-cons, even though many neo-cons ARE Jews and despite the fact that nobody mentioned Jews/Israel until you opened your auxillary arsehole.
Question: Are you one of these know-nothing fuckheads who believes that if they say neo-con in every second sentence they are somehow intelligent?
#13:
>The article to which you were trying to point - city-journal.org/html/15_2_oh_to_be.html - seems to be something that Noel Pearson would be interested in and that his critics should read. Is there another one?Sorry, I posted the wrong URL. It should be:
city-journal.org/html/12_3_oh_to_be.html
This one’s directly relevant to Tim’s post.
Posted by Blithering Bunny on 2005 05 18 at 07:56 AM • permalinkOil revenue from the state run Iraqi oil wells!
Ah ha! But who bought that oil?
Seriously though, come on. The Germans and the Soviets did the bulk of the weapons supplying. Britain and the US (amongst) others just supplied moral and economic support, intelligence , dual-use technology (dual-use tech…what a weasel term) and bio- and chemical-weapon pre-cursors.
Actually, avocadia, your claim that “dual-use technology” is a “weasel term” pretty clearly indicates you have very little understanding of any the issues you think you are discussing.
Posted by John Nowak on 2005 05 18 at 08:53 AM • permalinkthe day people here will adopt REAL conservatism instead of the rumsfeld neo-McConism
Look dipshit, I’m going to explain this to you once, and in a simplistic way, so that even you can understand.
Neo = new.
Got that?
Neo-Conservative = New wave of conservatives, mostly former Scoop-Democrats.
Now if you actually knew something outside of Chomsky pamphlets, you would realise that Rumsfeld has been a conservative all his fucking life. He was Defence Secretary under Ford in 1970s for fucks sake.
There’s no “neo” about it.
Idiots like you seem to think that anyone supportive of the war in Iraq was a neo-con.
Posted by Quentin George on 2005 05 18 at 08:53 AM • permalinkactually, i mentioned israelis because i knew all you pseudo-conservatives (i.e. national action members) love searching for conspiracies. i knew your hated for jewish people would sustain a long thread.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!! Looks more like you are backtracking, Irfie. You shouldn’t type and salivate at the same time—it obscures the keyboard, so that you can’t proofread properly.
On the backing of Saddam….y’know, what does it take to kill a stupid meme? No rational person denies that the USA allied with Hussein for a while. What idiots like you fail to grasp is that we realized our mistake, and cleaned the shit up. Yes, it costs us dearly, no one denies that either.
But you think that (a) we backed Saddam, so we were wrong, and (b) we took out Saddam, so we were wrong. By a process of elimination, that means we should have Saddam alone, and let him deploy his Rape Brigades and support terrorism in peace.
Call me a “rumsfeld neo-McConism” (what ever the heck that is), but I think your mindset is the fastest way to defeat, let alone stupid.
I’ve seen this discussion here dozens of times. Some silly troll pops up with your argument (based on wishful thinking and selective memory), we list the facts, point to reality, and hope that the troll sees the light.
Generally, they end up in Andrea’s Kingdom Of The Banned, where the residents are not blind, but merely can’t see.
Will this be your fate? <snickers>
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 05 18 at 08:57 AM • permalinkI’m confused, I thought neocons were supposed to support the Zionist shadow govenments of the world, that’s why we’re all evil or something. It’s why the left hate America, it’s the centre of supposed jewish power and so on.
At any rate, I think we’ll find Planet Irf somewhere in Andromeda. Certainly nowhere near Planet Earth.
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 05 18 at 09:01 AM • permalinkI see PlanetIrf, no response to what I actually said, mere ad-hominems?
Buh-bye, troll!
Posted by Quentin George on 2005 05 18 at 09:02 AM • permalink#62: The US Senate Banking Committee actually. And the US Centres for Disease Control. A bit of Simon Wiesenthal Center as well.
#63: Actually I find “dual-use technology” a weasel word because it is. There isn’t much in the way of manufactured goods that don’t have military as well as civilian uses. When the Left say “dual-use” to refer to an ambulance, that’s weasel.
And we just went beyond Andromeda. Pity, Kevin Sorbo is cool.
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 05 18 at 09:06 AM • permalinkSpeaking of the ‘deputy sheriff’ myth we have it again in ‘the economist’ in last weeks article on Australia – see http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3908294
“The reluctant deputy sheriff May 5th 2005 From The Economist print edition“Although several Asian countries, including Japan, South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines, later sent troops too, Australia’s two Muslim neighbours, Indonesia and Malaysia, were strongly opposed. Mr Howard did not help matters by agreeing with an interviewer that he was America’s “deputy sheriff” in the region.”
Shows how hard it is to kill these furphies; especially bad from “the economist” but they usually use old ex Fairfax lefties as their stringers. (eg Hence the glowing review to the Wilkinson - Marr piece of tosh
(see http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1748473)on the refugees which in spite of the glowing review from ‘the economist’ went on to become an international worst seller.
Posted by arnienelly on 2005 05 18 at 09:09 AM • permalink>63: Actually I find “dual-use technology” a weasel word because it is.
Oh. Well, I’m convinced.
Welcome to the world outside your little bubble, where you have to work a bit harder.
Posted by John Nowak on 2005 05 18 at 09:20 AM • permalink#75: Who described an ambulance as dual-use, and where?
Originally, you claimed that “dual-use” was not meaningful—and now, suddenly, you’re talking about ambulances.
Are you trying to claim that “dual-use” is a meaningless term?
Posted by John Nowak on 2005 05 18 at 09:28 AM • permalinkI suspect the avocado is just another sock-puppet of PlanetIrf.
Any bets?
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2005 05 18 at 10:15 AM • permalink#79—Honestly, I don’t think so, at least not yet. PlanetIrf dissolved quickly into pinhead vileness; avocadia disagrees and isn’t quite as clever as he thinks but he simply hasn’t shown Planetirf’s idiocy.
Posted by John Nowak on 2005 05 18 at 10:29 AM • permalinkWell, my suspicion is largely based on the use of the same old, tired, disproven crap. I can believe one person being so thick-headed as to never learn anything, but so many?
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2005 05 18 at 10:33 AM • permalink#82—Sorry; hit Post too quickly. Would that it were true that there was only one person too thick-headed to learn anything.
I wouldn’t quite banish avocadia to the cornfield yet. He’s bought into the silly lie that the US supplied Iraq with chemical weapons—yes, I’ll buy that; we wouldn’t sell him F-16s but we sold him Sarin; makes perfect sense—but that’s more a matter of being wrong than being a moron.
Posted by John Nowak on 2005 05 18 at 10:43 AM • permalink“hey real jeff, couldn’t you find a real job in the land of the free? or are you the token non-nigger and non-hispanic in the US army?? lol”
OK, asshat, I’ll bite. You seem to be an expert on the subject, so tell me…
1) What percentage of the US armed forces is white, compared to the US population as a whole?
2) What percentage of the combat troops (i.e., front-line soldiers, not REMFs) are white, compared to the US population as a whole?
Back up that vile post with some facts. I dare you.
Irfie! Right on cue. Nicely done, in fact! Indeed, you’ve gone from semi-goofy poster to a feces fling, insulting troll in what, 6 posts? Boy, you must have had professional coaching! Who, pray tell? Bryla? David “I Grok Islam” Heidelberg? Or one of the older trolls who needed a few bucks, and took you on as a pupil?
I see that my post (#66) was spot on in, else you would not respond in such a fashion. Does the truth hurts that much?
No matter. But I will give you a hint for post #86 (thanks, Dave! Nice response): The ethnic breakdown of the US military is not a new question. It was even brought forth in the debate concerning the war in Iraq, with surprising answers. Googling it would be simple…if you were as open minded and “...one of a dying breed of centre-right liberal types” as you pretend to be.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 05 18 at 12:55 PM • permalinkHe’s bought into the silly lie that the US supplied Iraq with chemical weapons—yes, I’ll buy that; we wouldn’t sell him F-16s but we sold him Sarin; makes perfect sense—but that’s more a matter of being wrong than being a moron.
That lie’s been trashed for so long and so severely that belief in it is a priori evidence of being a moron.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2005 05 18 at 01:08 PM • permalinkYeah; could be. Personally, I like to make people work a little harder before I accept they’re jerks.
Posted by John Nowak on 2005 05 18 at 01:30 PM • permalinkDavid Barnett (Howard’s biographer) certainly agrees with Downer :
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15332420%5E7583,00.html
I like to make people work a little harder before I accept they’re jerks
John, I see that more as giving them suffcient rope to hang themselves with, before firmly snubbing it.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 05 18 at 01:43 PM • permalink#62: The US Senate Banking Committee actually. And the US Centres for Disease Control. A bit of Simon Wiesenthal Center as well.
Avocado,
Have you even read the report from the Senate committee?
It states that no chemical agenst were provided to Iraq by either US govt or US NGOs.
It clearly states that the biological agents provided to Iraq, specifically anthrax, were by NGOs involved in veterinary medicine exchanges with Iraqi counterparts. If you knew a single fucking thing about raising livestock, you’d know that anthrax is a required ingredient for the production of its vaccines. YOU ARE AN IDIOT!
PlanetIrf has been… removed. As usual, he took advantage of our kindness.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 05 18 at 08:15 PM • permalinkAre we supposed to be anti-semites now. I obviously didn’t get the memo from Rove.
As global conspirators we are a f*** up.
Posted by Dean McAskil on 2005 05 18 at 09:12 PM • permalinkIrfan Yusuf ‘planetirf’ is a lawyer? lol!
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 05 18 at 10:23 PM • permalinkDowner has some cheek to take the part of the LIB kettle calling the ALP pot black. There are a more than a few pro-tyrant skeletons rattling in the LIBs closet.
Menzies is a case in point. I think Bob Menzies was, by and large, a decent and capable political leader. But the record shows that he, and the UAP, were more sympathetic to fascists than his ALP opponents were sympathetic to communists. Moreover, the ALP was better by far than the UAP in the fight against fascism.
Menzies openly praised the governing styles of the Fascist and Nazi military dictatorships. Stan Moran, admittedly a partisan source, remembers Menzies returning from a tour of Europe full of sympathy towards European fascists:
In 1937 Menzies went to Germany to see Hitler but Hitler was too busy to see minor politicians, and all he saw was Himmler. When he returned he said “If you and I lived in Berlin we would say that Hitler had done a great job for the German people.”
Menzies even, on the eve of WWII, traded with the Nip. regime - hence the nick-name “Pig Iron Bob”.
In early 1939, the Japanese Government publicly thanked Menzies for his
help in keeping them supplied with pig iron for their war effort. If Japan
did go to war with Australia, their good friend Menzies would be in no
danger.Menzies also had a record of appeasement towards fascist aggression. Menzie wrote to the British government, after the war had begun, begging them to strike a deal with Hitler:
He wrote: “I feel quite confident that Hitler has no desire for a first class war…Nobody really cares a damn about Poland as such”.
And Menzies told Australia’s High Commissioner in London that a peace deal with Hitler should be considered.
MENZIES’ LETTER: “Some very quick thinking will have to be done when the German offer arrives to provide for a resettlement of the whole map of Europe”.
The letter shows Menzies was still a firm believer in the pre-war policy of appeasement.
Heh. This is what you can expect to happen if you incur my wrath!
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 05 18 at 11:31 PM • permalinkPlanetIrf has been… removed.
Andrea, you sound like Darth Vader in Star Wars IV, just after the destruction of Alderaan. You sure you aren’t channeling or something?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 05 19 at 01:42 AM • permalink[munches popcorn] It’s fun watching a troll get pounded.
Posted by Ken Summers on 2005 05 19 at 10:19 AM • permalinkDang it, just my luck the Troll comes out to play when I actually have work to do. :(
whaaaaa! I miss out on all the fun!
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2005 05 19 at 11:29 AM • permalink
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What Downer says about Curtin is quite right although it was probably wise of him to not make reference to the Munich era views of Menizes and Lyons which were not that much different from Curtins.