Incredible that this calibre of writing and thinking gets you a Commonwealth scholarship to Cambridge. Apparently 10 year olds holding up severed heads is ok but the PM using a phrase like 'Team Australia'isn't.

It's as if IS don't know that 'we are us'. If only we could have Kev and Jooles back. Hey, why don't we send Jooles over to tell them herself? If that fails we'll send Kev over with some programmitic specificity. That'll learn them.

I'd have to differ, dane; it's nice to see this calibre of writing on OLO. A very nice sophisticated piece, worthy of "Punch"!
Abbott's Team Australia propaganda is an insult to anyone with half a brain.

...Well, "team horse-trailer", is more white noise from the political sound generator of Canberra. Sleep inducing ambient sound waves, looped through the ABC news 24 and the Murdock FTA's. Don't worry, it'll pass! Zzz.

...And I'm proud I can't spell Murdock, very proud!

It's "so" obvious what the Abbott govt is attempting with this.

Anyone who has watched Question Time lately will note that, while the Opposition is concentrating on budgetary questions, etc, the first bunch of questions from govt members each sitting are all on terrorism, border protection, overseas theatres of conflict...etc.

Apart from Tony attempting to paint himself as some sort of ACME statesman - there's nothing like a good dose of whipped up hysteria to get the public onside when your budget stinks and your polls are lower than a duck's backside.

This cartoon by Broelman sums it up perfectly.

http://broelman.wordpress.com/2014/08/28/what-to-do-in-a-budget-emergency/

I'm sorry Dane, did you have a comment to make about the article. If so I would like to read it. Thus far all you have done is attack the author, another favoured trick of the far right.

Ann Summers is wrong. Most teams around the country accept all and any comers and every member gets a turn to play. Ask any parent of a child's sport team or the coach of a country football team.
Then comes the question of the term Team Australia, and it's implication of patriotism, now apparently an obscene word.
It is love of this country and it's value systems that holds us together as a cohesive group, and ironically, that is the very quality of life that attracts so many migrants and refugees from their own fractured societies.
To expect minority groups to support the system they came here to enjoy and benefit from is such a basic requirement that it beggars belief they should need to be reminded of it.

Well, this is a real storm in a teacup isn't it!?
The Muslim community can be a little bit precious at times, and indeed, their sympathies seem at times to be with the terrorists?
Rather than those who confront this extraordinary unprecedented, violence as a way of life; Satan personified, extreme evil.
So evil in fact, I'd have no qualms about nuking them and preferably before they can create/welcome in a civilian population to cower behind!
These patent callous cowards seem to have mastered that art, haven't they?
Or is it just more of the same acceptable behavior in that part of the world!?
I rarely agree with the PM, who from my perspective, often just opens his mouth to change socks.
Those Muslims who are third/forth generation Australian, just wouldn't be offended by this typical Australiana!
If they are, perhaps they should consider, where their own personal loyalties lie!?
Here and with us; or over there and with that extreme evil!? Well?
It simply can't be a hard question for inherently decent civilized people!
I take exception to people who come here; accept our protection and our money, then quite form isolated virtual ghettos, that seems to try and recreate part of the still extremely troubled middle east!
And then set about trying to change/assimilate the host culture?
Or find themselves extremely offended or outraged by a completely harmless chance remark.
I just don't buy it!
Personally, if our culture and social mores are not to their liking, then please feel free to migrate back to where they are!
I'll even pass the hat around and wish them a happy bon voyage!
You'll have a nice day now, y'hear.
Rhrosty.

with such Abbottphobia only being matched by the ABC you can easily see why the uni sector needs not only a shakeup but a complete over haul.No concern showed by the masses being murdered, raped and pillaged by the religion of peace. Just the favourite Abbott bashing from mainly those who said he was unelectable. How predictable. No doubt this trash should give Binoy a run on the drum or Q&A.

A clever, perceptive article. I hope Phoney will forgive me but I don't want to join Team Australia.

Team Australia should be immediately renamed "Spineless American Apologists".

Phoney is no leader. Perhaps you've noticed?

Runner all religions are murdering crackpots,, whacky Abbott can't wait to join the US in any war, no matter where, go to church, pray to the Lord, then kill all to your hearts content, such is religion.

Big Nana,
patriotism has always been a dirty word for me because in practice it's synonymous with smugness and xenophobia.

"It is love of this country and it's value systems that holds us together as a cohesive group".

What value systems? What cohesion?

I think it is safe to assume that Binoy Kampmark is not part of Team Australia, he is more likely to be part of Team Islam or Team Something Else.

It troubles this foreign import that Australians are patriotic and he does not think it is necessary for imported people like himself to be patriotic at all. Then he wonders why Australians are leery of foreigners like himself with funny foreign names. People like Binoy want to live with us but not be part of us. They are more interested in maintaining their national and cultural uniqueness than integrating into Australian society. I am sure that Binoy is patriotic, but to who's flag I do not know. The term "Australian" to people like Binoy merely denotes a geographic address, not a commitment to a people that he in any way identifies with as being his people.

You do not want to be part of Team Australia, Binoy, and Team Australia wants no part of you.

A hundred or so "Australians" are now fighting for ISIS because they think just like Binoy Kampmark. Like Binoy, they have no sense of identity as Australians and they needed to go overseas to find people who they could identify with, people who are so screwed up that they fitted in nicely.

Countries like Iraq and Syria are coming apart at the seams because most of the population thinks like Binoy Kampmark. Tribal, religious and cultural identities were far more important than any sense of belonging as a united state, and Binoy must be applauding their lack of patriotism. The terms "Syrian" and "Iraqi" mean little to the warring multicultural tribes now happily killing themselves off in these countries, and I am sure Binoy looks forward to the same thing happening in Australia

Carz,

I think you missed my point. My point was that the author only attacked Liberal leaders. There was absolutely no attempt at impartiality. If the author was to write as a private citizen that wouldn't be a problem. Anyone is allowed an opinion. But now we have come to the point where academics are comfortable using their work titles to push a purely partisan line. It shows that intelligence has nothing to do with today's academia. You just have to push the Leftist line and you win scholarships to Cambridge and get jobs at university.
Take a look at the author's list of prizes:
http://www.rmit.edu.au/staff/kampmark_binoy

One doesn't mind becoming part of Team Australia" as long as one doesn't have to become part of "Team Abbott" one must remember "Team Adolph" of a few years back, and look where that team ended up.

Ojnab,
Adolf was a socialist. Yes, the same type as communist socialists. There are some differences but they had a lot in common: one party rule, use of force to suppress dissent, restricted freedom of the press, redistribution of wealth.

Last I heard Abbott was rolled trying the re-introduce freedom of the press after the former socialist/communist Gillard introduced it.

How has our public discourse sunk so low? How can so many people have such a complete lack of understanding about political theory?

Maybe the quality of our political scientists has something to do with it.

Maybe the fact that political scientists with an obviously migrant background can come to Australia, succeed, be sponsored to go to one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the world but when finished has learned only to criticize those same institutions and the society that gave him the opportunity in the first place.

Even if gratitude is too much to ask, could we at least have an absence of hostility to the civilization that provided these opportunities?

Trendy lefties like Binoy Kampmark lean whichever way the fashionable winds blow.

Trendy lefties were once the super patriots of nationalism and militarism. Remember the Prussian students and the sabre scarred faces? But WW1 was a real shock for them so they suddenly changed positions and went to the opposite extreme. Now patriotism and militarism in any form are complete anathema to them. There are no shades of grey to these characters, something is either absolutely right or absolutely wrong.

As Dane pointed out, Hitler was a socialist. The primary diference between Hitler's brand of socialism and "International" socialism was that Hitler's brand was "nationalistic." Nationalism versus Internationalism is the primary schism in the socialist world, but other than that, they are pretty much alike. As one German soldier (Guy Sajer, The Forgotten Soldier") who fought in Russia put it "We were fighting and dying to destroy a system of government that was identical to our own."

Opposition to nationalism and patriotism therefore defines the trendy lefty and Binoy Kampmark fits the stereotype. Trendies suck up to each other in the Arts and will always give immigrants like Binoy preference in academia because it is a way of displaying true International socialist credentials and their fashionable contempt for their own people. Remember the Helen Demidenko/Darvil affair, where an Aussie female author had to pretend that she was a immigrant to win an award as a new author? Any book showing contempt for Australians is also feted as a true work of art. So sneering at the concept of "Team Australia" conforms to the stereotype and marks them indelibly as true anti patriot, cosmopolitan Internationalists.

The Australian movie industry got on the anti Australian bandwagon with titles such as "Wake in Fright" and "The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith" and then they wondered why Australians stopped watching Australian movies. Now they can't exist without taxpayer subsidies from Labor governments. Fairfax press does not get ABC type subsidies so their circulation is plummeting as Aussies figure out that Fairfax newspapers despise Australians also.

What value systems? What cohesion?
Squeers,
Ever since the Left has been able to get hold of the reigns, these value systems & cohesion have been legislated out the window. I'm old enough to still remember, perhaps you're much younger hence your being denied that privilege.
There was a great big academic/lawyer moron in the early 7o's who became popular with the hangers-on morons, after all they were waiting for their messiah & when he did show up they gave him their full support to fleece us for them. It's been like this ever since & now this Govt is copping flak & ridicule because the hangers-on can see the bandwagon slowing. Natural reaction really.

Binoy Kampmak's list of achievements sounds like he could be my boss. Loaded with certificates but the Tare weight is almost zero because of the lack of sense & pragmatism.

Excellent, individual...we can always depend on you to fill at least one sophisticated post a day referring to anyone you don't approve of as "morons".

(Binoy escaped fairly unscathed - merely being chided for his "lack of sense & pragmatism")

Poirot,
You're making yourself feel targetted, don't blame me !

What value systems Squeers? The one that allows freedom of religion and equality before the law. The one that doesn't allow mutilation of little girls. The one that makes underage marriage illegal. The one that provides universal health care for all citizens, also welfare for the same. The one that provides free education for all and doesn't discriminate in favour of males. I could go on, but you are being deliberately obtuse and my time is too precious to waste any more on you.

Big nana. These are all fine ideals and in some cases protections, though often observed in the breach or corrupted by harsher realities to do with the almighty $. But even these aren't 'values' which hold us together. Clearly you're setting up us against them. The problem is in demonising the other we whitewash our own failings. That's also the trouble with patriotism/nationalism, its a unilateral mindset incapable of critical reflection. It's not left against right but thinking against reaction. The joke is on the xenophobes as abbott is exploiting fear for political purposes. He's making fear tangible.

In answer to the nazi innuendos trotted out above. It was just this same fear and hatred Hitler whipped, very much a conservative political tactic with a bipartisan following.

Squeers,
Even some really dumb creatures will learn that if putting a paw in the fire is detrimental to it's wellbeing & will thus refrain from continuing putting a paw in the fire. Some Lefties it seems can not learn.

Hang in there, Squeers....

indi hasn't labelled you a "moron" yet.

Ojnab

'Runner all religions are murdering crackpots '

one day you might learn to think just a little.

The first dog on the moon seems also able to see through Tony's electioneering: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/firstdogonthemoon/

Binoy’s rticle, incoherent as it is, conveys his disapproval of Abbott’s offer to the relevant parties of an opportunity to show goodwill and support to the country which they have purported to adopt. As we know, they treated the offer with graceless arrogance.

Binoy ignores the rejection of the offer and launches into an incoherent and baseless criticism of Abbott. In his twisted view, we should understand why being pro-Australia is wrong. It is patriotism.

We understand why Binoy is wrong.We should treat his senseless approach with the contempt it deserves, and support Team Australia.

Leo lane,

"...We should treat his senseless approach with the contempt it deserves, and support Team Australia."

Translation - We should all remove our sense of discrimination and jump on board Abbott's confected bandwagon.

The one with the wheels falling off and the Snake Oil advert peeling off the sides.

The appeal to patriotic fervour is always the last card in the pack of a govt that's used up its credibility.

Sadly though, Poirot, such is the extent of popular paranoia, Abbott can only benefit politically going to war. That's why Shorten supports him; leaders and serious oppositions have to be seen to be decisive and macho above all else when there's a campaign in the offing (political or military). There's always a political backlash once campaigns drag on, deaths on all sides mount up, atrocities are exposed, incisive criticism gradually erodes popular support etc. But there's nothing like beating-up a perceived threat and going to war for short-term political gain--not to mention economic growth!
Patriotism is the first refuge of a scoundrel--especially politicians. They never tire lionising the military, such that it's hallowed and effectively above criticism, and even the atrocities committed by our own (not to mention domestic scandals), in every war, are sanitised and covered up by 'in-house' investigations whose findings are vetted, rationalised or kept secret till the pong dissipates.
This is not to say Australia shouldn't intervene for good reasons, just that it should 'untie' (canine metaphor) itself from the US, whose ethical credentials are in tatters, take off the imperial lenses it's been fitted with, and 'actually examine the whole situation'.
Fat chance.

I sort of get the impression that Poirot does not like Tony Abbot or his government. Congratulations, Poirot, I don't like Tony Abbot either because of what he did to Pauline Hanson. And the last thing I want is for Australian troops to go back into the Middle East and for our blokes to get killed trying to sort out their endless problems, which they do not appreciate anyway.

But for you to claim that Tony Abbot's reference to "Team Australia" is some sort of rallying cry for Australian nationalism is simply moronic. Just like you, Abbot wrongfully believes that "Australian" Muslims are nearly all moderates and it is only a few bad apples which give the majority a bad name. His reference to "Team Australia" was simply a metaphor which everybody except trendy lefties can understand is a way for the majority of "moderate" "Australian" Muslims to demonstrate their commitment to the collective safety of all Australians.

But naturally, as a card carrying left winger, any reference to nationalism is like a red rag to a bull. You charged before you even thought about is because it is a reflexive instinct. Your brain has been wired to always register "Nationalism-bad", "Internationalism-good", and you are incapable of thinking any deeper.

The world is on the verge of another serious war and the fact hat Australia has been given access to NATO planning indicates that Europe is now taking the situation in the Middle East very seriously. Nobody wants a war except these stupid Muslims but you will never see that. All you can see with your one track mind and it's conditioned responses is that the European nations including Australia are always wrong and "oppressed" minorities are always right. All you need to think that way is the amazing ability to disconnect your brain from unpleasant facts and realities.

LEGO,

"......But for you to claim that Tony Abbot's reference to "Team Australia" is some sort of rallying cry for Australian nationalism is simply moronic. Just like you,..."

(Lol!...is individual giving debating classes these days? - You obviously passed with flying colours:)

You have got to be joking.

Tones finally comes to the conclusion that the Oz electorate realises that almost his entire election spiel was a scam. Hockey delivers a budget that leaves no doubt in their minds at all. The polls go south at a rate of knots.....and suddenly Abbott is blustering left right and centre about "Team Australia". Getting his Ministers to ask question after question during Question Time on national security.

And this bunch in govt aren't even sophisticated about it. "Border Force" and "Team Australia" are straight out of a 60's/70's kiddy entertainment package. (One wonders if their will be figurines available in the shops)

I would've had a similar argument with you in 2003, as I did with a few friends, when Howard was strutting around like an obsequious toady behind Bush ready to assist in setting up the conditions that have now created the power vacuum that has resulted in the mess in Iraq....and you, no doubt, would have labelled me a "moron" for opposing the invasion.

.......

(Agree, Squeers:)

And LEGO, interesting that you've got a snout on Tony because he established the fund to bring down Pauline Hanson.

Under the ironic title of "Australians for Honest Politics" (Hahaha!)

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2003/s933489.htm

"KERRY O'BRIEN:

Tony Abbott, when you established the slush fund to get Pauline Hanson politically, you called it Australians for Honest Politics.

Was that some kind of a joke, a bad joke?"

"TONY ABBOTT, EMPLOYMENT & WORKPLACE RELATIONS MINISTER: Of course it wasn't and it wasn't a slush fund."

"TONY ABBOTT: If you go back, Kerry, to the parliamentary debate on 1 July, I think it was, of 1989 -- 1998 -- Labor speaker after Labor speaker were demanding, screaming, that the Government in general, but I in particular, do something to stop this terrible Hanson woman."

"KERRY O'BRIEN: There are a lot of people out there right now who would believe that you're anything but honest in the way you've explained all this.

TONY ABBOTT: Well, I think that I can live with my conscience.

I think it was very important to challenge the Hanson juggernaut back then in 1998.

The difference is, Kerry, that a lot of people who were angry with her then feel sorry for her now, and I suppose I do myself, because I think that there's a sense in which the punishment meted out to her doesn't really fit the crime, but certainly, at the time, the reality of her so-called party needed to be exposed and I was happy to try to do it."

....

Read that lengthy transcript - you'll note a shifty pollie there trying desperately to two-step his way out of culpability.

It goes to the character of Abbott, who appears to be programmed to do "whatever it takes" whenever the need arises.

And it's further ironic that the LNP not only pinched Hanson's policies after pushing her off the cliff, but they pumped them further full of nationalist laughing gas and hung bells on them.

Poirot: “We should all remove our sense of discrimination and jump on board Abbott's confected bandwagon.

The one with the wheels falling off and the Snake Oil advert peeling off the sides.”

You want to be called a moron,I know, but I will not oblige. Being a leftie, you are based in dishonesty, and attempt by your baseless and untrue comment to detract from Abbott’s success.

Your predictions of his failure on the Carbon tax and the Mining tax have been proved incorrect, and he has dropped 18C. He is in a comfortable situation.

It is disappointing that he is only about a thousand times better than Shorten, but nobody is perfect, and Abbott continually improves.

Why doesn't Tony Abbott mention there have been twenty three be headings in Saudi Arabia this month for insignificant crimes?, I just had a seniors moment, I forgot Saudi Arabia is an ally of the US, so those be headings are ok, no wonder the world is in such a mess, sit on the right side of the fence and all is forgiven, sit on the wrong and all hell breaks loose.

Gee, that's funny, Poirot. I am one of the electorate, and even though I don't like Abbott, I don't think his budget is a "scam." I realise that somebody had to take the unpopular step and try and save this country from insolvency, and that is very hard to do with the very people who ruined our economy still in power in the Senate and doing everything they can to sabotage Abbott's efforts. They are doing it because they would rather see this country broke and Abbott discredited than do anything positive to help repair the mess that they know they created.

Abbot agrees with your opinion that there are lots of good Muslims and just a few bad ones, so he asked the "moderate" Muslim organisations to meet him so that he could explain that the new laws were not targeting moderate Muslims. The term "Team Australia" is therefore being used by Abbott as a sign of Muslim INCLUSION into Australian society, something I would have thought you would have grudgingly given him a Guernsey for.

But no, your irrational hatred of Abbott prevents you from even giving him any credit for anything. Everything he does can be presented as something insidious when looked at through the distorting lens of you peculiar ideology. But I have to thank people like you, in a way. I was once a trendy lefty myself, but it was the incredible mindsets of people like yourself who saw conspiracies everywhere and who could only see their political opponents as something entirely evil, that convinced me that there was something fundamentally wrong with the whole trendy lefty mindset.

For your information, I opposed the US liberation of Iraq, but not because of the reflexive anti Americanism of people like yourself. And I could understand why the Americans had to go in, even though I thought it was a mistake to do so. i would have thought it self evident that there was only one person responsible for the mess in Iraq, and that was not George Bush, but Saddam Hussein.

"Gee, that's funny, Poirot. I am one of the electorate, and even though I don't like Abbott, I don't think his budget is a "scam." I realise that somebody had to take the unpopular step and try and save this country from insolvency, and that is very hard to do with the very people who ruined our economy still in power in the Senate and doing everything they can to sabotage Abbott's efforts. They are doing it because they would rather see this country broke and Abbott discredited than do anything positive to help repair the mess that they know they created"

Yes, thanks for that LEGO.

If you can't detect a Govt cooking up a fiscal crisis to aid their agenda, there's nothing I can say to help you.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/australian-economy-is-not-in-trouble-joe-hockey-tells-nz-20140726-zx6ie.html

"Joe Hockey has told New Zealand that there is no crisis in the Australian economy, nor is it in trouble.

The treasurer also made no mention of the "budget emergency" he and his government referred to when justifying their unpopular budget to Australians.

Instead, Mr Hockey reassured Kiwis that their second biggest trading partner is benefiting from 23 years of consecutive economic growth.

"The Australian economy is not in trouble," he told New Zealand political current affairs show The Nation on Saturday."

(Mr Hockey appears to drop his guard here - somehow imagining that the truth he utters in New Zealand won't make its way across the Tasman before the next election.)

His "crisis" bilge is apparently strictly for domestic consumption

"For your information, I opposed the US liberation of Iraq, but not because of the reflexive anti Americanism of people like yourself. And I could understand why the Americans had to go in, even though I thought it was a mistake to do so....."

The Americans went in ostensibly because they insisted Saddam had WMD's - that was the line they ran to launch the invasion - despite assurances from inspectors that none had been detected.

We all knew what would happen - and that is exactly what has happened.

POIROT, you know the drill. Never stand between a member of the Liberal Party and a:

- a bucket of money

- an American claim that war is necessary to get rid of a dictator

- a brownpaper bag full of 100 dollar notes.

- a developer with greed in his eyes

- a newspaper written by News Corp

- a video camera

- a chair belonging to a female

- an open door to the American Embassy

- a plan to rip off pensioners and the working classes

- a cocktail party with the rich and famous

- a chance to meet the Queen

- an offer to fund an overseas trip, all expenses paid

- a chance to mock or bring down a member of the LABOR Party

- a bottle of Grange

- a free evening at an upmarket brothel

This list is not complete but you get the idea!

Poirot, a billion dollars every month, just for interest, on our debt, should be taken seriously. Someone with a sense of responsibility, could label it a crisis. Someone like you, would be better occupied listening to someone with a sense of responsibility, rather than contributing your baseless inanities here.
Our economy is no longer in the control of economic vandals, despite the peripheral damage they inflict through the Senate, so Hockey’s assertions are justified, to anyone who gives them proper consideration.

But...but...Leo,

According to Joe, there is "no crisis".

"Joe Hockey has told New Zealand that there is no crisis in the Australian economy, nor is it in trouble."

"The treasurer also made no mention of the "budget emergency" he and his government referred to when justifying their unpopular budget to Australians.

Instead, Mr Hockey reassured Kiwis that their second biggest trading partner is benefiting from 23 years of consecutive economic growth.

"The Australian economy is not in trouble," he told New Zealand political current affairs show The Nation on Saturday."

Sloppy Joe is welcome to look at structural reform...but he's not welcome to string different stories (depending on whom he's addressing)....and telling whoppers about the fiscal state of an economy, which in the wake of the GFC, is one of envies of the OECD

Poirot, thanks for demonstrating how a lefty goes about dishonest distortion. You take a statement made for one purpose, presentation of the state of our economy with regard to its current functioning, and pretend that it applies to a consideration for its internal and future functioning. Like any practised lefty, you have dishonesty and misrepresentation down to a fine art.

My comment was:” Hockey’s assertions are justified, to anyone who gives them proper consideration.”
I know, of course, that you do not have the capacity to give them proper, honest consideration

Leo,

Well, it's either "in crisis" or not "in crisis".

Hockey repeatedly tells Australians there is a budget emergency and we have a crisis.

Then he toodles over to New Zealand and says there is "not" a budget emergency and no crisis....the economy is "not" in trouble.

He (and you) can't have it both ways.

As I stated, it's perfectly reasonable for the Treasurer to look at structural reform...it's not reasonable to tell the domestic audience one thing - and overseas audiences another.

One of Hockey's two scenario's is obviously a lie.

I wonder which?....

Of course the elephant in the room is taxation. There is no cause to cut funding anywhere, only to increase it. Progressive taxation is the answer but neither party has the courage to moot it.
This country is a political joke.

Pourot well said and David G you are on the ball as usual, how easy it for a Prime Minister like Abbott and others to send troops to a war zone, if they had to appear in the front ranks there would be no war I am sure, we must remember these leaders create war and then lay wreaths and attend services for the troops they helped to kill, what hypocrisy. The sooner Abbott gets sent to the rubbish bin the better, and takes Andrew Bolt with him
The beheading of two journalists is not good news but as stated earlier neither is the beheading of twenty three personnel in Saudi Arabia in August but no mention of that by Abbott or the Murdoch press, left to an obscure site to report.
Abbott is actually creating conflict with all Muslim people and the ordinary people of Australia, " Team Australia" has a very long way to go while we have a Prime Minister who thinks he is another Churchiill on the world stage, most people I know think he is a complete idiot, they being Liberal and Labor voters.
Lets all practise talking with our hands going up and down and walking as if we have big balls.

Poirot, even a dishonest lefty is capable of understanding that different questions have different answers andit is not permissible to use the answer to one question as the answer to another. You cannot be as stupid as you pretend to be. Wasting a billion dollars a month on interest can constitute a crisis in economic management without constituting a crisis in the operation of our economy.

Hockey also said the:”government's reforms were about continuing growth and stimulating other parts of the economy.
"There's no crisis at all in the Australian economy," the treasurer said.
"The fact is you need to move on the budget to fix it now, and you need to undertake structural reform to structure the economy in the years ahead”

: http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/australian-economy-is-not-in-trouble-joe-hockey-tells-nz-20140726-zx6ie.html#ixzz3CLkf6Czx

Your assertions are puerile, Poirot

To Poirot.

Most people who's brains have not been wired backwards by the extraordinary socialist economic theory that money grows on trees and that you can spend forever, would consider Australia's $400 Billion dept a case of complete economic mismanagement. But Hockey is right, if we tighten our belts we do have the capacity to pay back the international lenders. These lenders have not rescinded our AAA credit rating because they know how the cycle works. Labor gets in and cleans out the bank account. Then it borrows and spends, borrows and spends to buy votes, but eventually even the socialist pampered unproductive class of the Australian population gets alarmed and they vote in the Liberals to fix the mess.

The USA went in because the southern Shiites and the Kurds were being wiped out by Saddam's remaining forces. The USA felt a moral obligation to aid the Shiites and the Kurds because after Gulf war 1 they had urged the Iraqi people to do the world a favour and get rid of Saddam. For eight years the USA protected the Kurds and southern Shiites with "no fly zones" to stop Saddam's air force from dropping poison gas on them. But the yanks wanted to go home. But they could not do that when Saddam told everybody he was working on building atom bombs. Then, when the UN imposed sanctions, he then claimed they did not really exist. He then played shell games with the UN inspectors allowing them to wander around Iraq looking for WMD's to get sanctions eased, then sticking guns in their faces occasionally to keep everybody guessing about the real extent of his WMD program.

You don't have to be a Mensa to figure out who was responsible for the invasion of Iraq, even a socialist Densa like you should have the wit to figure out that the whole thing could have been avoided except for the stupidity of Saddam Hussein. But no, good little socialist that you are, your brain works like this.

Bzzzt, USA always wrong. Bzzzt, "oppressed" third world minorities always right.

LEGO,

Thanks for the script.

I suppose you reckon Oz would have been better to introduce austerity and slide into recession post GFC like many European economies?

I don't s'pose you've ever thought of inking our debt to a percentage of our GDP.

(now there's a thought)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/linkableblob/3727694/data/possum-graph-8-government-debt-as-gdp-data.jpg

How many years of "continuous economic growth" was Hockey bragging about to the New Zealanders?...

23 wasn't it?

........

And thanks for the spiel on USA's altruistic intervention in Iraq.

Nice to know it wasn't merely for continued access to oil and continued influence in the region.

Strange how they didn't do the same for Zimbabweans in the grip of a nasty dictator, don't you reckon?

You know why?

Because Zimbabwe only fulfilled one out of the three requirements for US preemptive invasion.

1. It must be virtually defenceless

2. It must be important enough to be worth the trouble.

3. There must be a way to portray it as the ultimate evil and an imminent threat to our survival.

When the Bush Administration began trumpeting a nuclear threat, Saddam's neighbours (including Israel) dismissed the allegations - and they were further undermined when UN inspectors came up with nothing.

But that didn't stop the propaganda push that Saddam was an imminent threat to the US.- even linking Iraq to 9/11. Imagine, US citizens aren't renowned for the geographical prowess. How easy it was to get public sentiment to fall in line with Bush Admin propaganda.

They' backed Saddam until they decided not to back him.

And so bombed one of the Middle-East's most advanced countries back to the middle-ages, and opened the floodgates to every kind of instability and splinter group.

How was that helpful to Iraqis?

Poirot, if any person is stupid enough to spend his entire bank account and then max out his credit card, he or she can maintain a lavish lifestyle until the bill comes in. But when the bill does come in, then you have to pay all that money back before you can build up your bank balance again. You have a personnel budget and you know you can't spend forever. Yet you seem to think that governments can. One reason why I stopped being a trendy lefty was because of Margaret Thatcher. Because of Labour Party socialist mismanagement Britain was called "the poor man of Europe" and the Labour PM (Callahan) resigned because he was hamstrung in everything he did by people who think like you.

Along came Margaret. Here is a woman worthy of your admiration. A greengrocers daughter who first attained a science degree and then a law degree. Her most famous quote (other than "on yer bike") was that "Socialism always fails because sooner or later, the socialists run out of other people's money to spend." Truer words have rarely been spoken. Much to the amazement of the world, Margaret Thatcher got Britain working again. But I am sure that the bankrupt Greeks, Spanish and Cypriots think just like you do.

Now we get down to the liberation of Iraq. Saddam Hussein started a war with Iran in which a milion people died. He then invaded Kuwait, who is not just a UN member but a founding member of the League of Nations. Of course the Americans saw advantage to themselves from liberating Kuwait, why do you think that this is insidious? That left the USA with a moral problem when Saddam began mass murdering people who looked towards the USA for protection. His claim that he was working on a bomb was the final straw. The bloke was just too dangerous and the yanks finally got rid of him. How that sits with the Iraqis depends on which tribe, religion or ethnicity they are.

LEGO,

The US backed Saddam until they didn't back him.

Full stop.

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

"The U.S., having decided that an Iranian victory would not serve its interests, began supporting Iraq: measures already underway to upgrade U.S.-Iraq relations were accelerated, high-level officials exchanged visits, and in February 1982 the State Department removed Iraq from its list of states supporting international terrorism. (It had been included several years earlier because of ties with several Palestinian nationalist groups, not Islamicists sharing the worldview of al-Qaeda. Activism by Iraq's main Shiite Islamicist opposition group, al-Dawa, was a major factor precipitating the war -- stirred by Iran's Islamic revolution, its endeavors included the attempted assassination of Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz.)

Prolonging the war was phenomenally expensive. Iraq received massive external financial support from the Gulf states, and assistance through loan programs from the U.S. The White House and State Department pressured the Export-Import Bank to provide Iraq with financing, to enhance its credit standing and enable it to obtain loans from other international financial institutions. The U.S. Agriculture Department provided taxpayer-guaranteed loans for purchases of American commodities, to the satisfaction of U.S. grain exporters.

The U.S. restored formal relations with Iraq in November 1984, but the U.S. had begun, several years earlier, to provide it with intelligence and military support (in secret and contrary to this country's official neutrality) in accordance with policy directives from President Ronald Reagan...."

"The U.S., which followed developments in the Iran-Iraq war with extraordinary intensity, had intelligence confirming Iran's accusations, and describing Iraq's "almost daily" use of chemical weapons, concurrent with its policy review and decision to support Iraq in the war [Document 24]. The intelligence indicated that Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces, and, according to a November 1983 memo, against "Kurdish insurgents" as well.

What was the Reagan administration's response? A State Department account indicates that the administration had decided to limit its "efforts against the Iraqi CW program to close monitoring..."

"....The directive reflects the administration's priorities: it calls for heightened regional military cooperation to defend oil facilities..."

(Nice pic of Rumsfeld and Saddam in link)

LEGO,

Instead of raining Thatcher platitudes upon me, perhaps you'd care to inform yourself of Australia's position in regard to the GFC.

http://www.treasury.gov.au/About-Treasury/OurDepartment/News/response-to-prof-makin

(There's a nifty graph at the bottom - and one of the lines appears to climb above the others...and it's missing a great big drop around 2009)

How could that be?

To Poirot.

Re your cut and paste post on Saddam and the USA. It was all pretty much true. And your point is.....?

Re your post on the Australian economy. If you think that being $400 million dollars in debt with an interest payment of $1 billion a month displays responsible economic leadership, then I am dealing with the Flat Earth Society.

Lego please inform the OLO writers whether the four hundred million dollars has increased or decreased under the Abbott Government, I am interested with your reply. We are all born to spend rather than save, even Abbott.

To Onjab, it must have increased.

Prior to the last election, the Liberal party warned the worried Australian electorate that even when they Liberals got into power, the $400 billion debt would blow out to somewhere between $500 and $600 billion before the Libs could turn the corner. This was because of forward estimates by treasury on unfunded Labor schemes such as the catastrophic "National Disability Scheme" and the self importation of economic migrants who knew how to milk Australia's horrendously expensive social security system.

Faced with a government which had lost control of our borders, and who's financial policy it was to spend money faster than it could think up new taxes to fund it's spending, and with the examples of Greece, Spain and Cyprus showing the way to socialist insolvency, the Gillard/Rudd Labor government was hurled from office.

LEGO,

Stephen Koukoulas just tweeted:

"MYEFO will likely confirm budget deficits will be more than double those left to it by Labor and outlined in PEFO."

So you are saying that the Abbott Govt is attempting to tackle the deficit?

Why then are they going hell for leather "increasing" it over and above maturities of debt (bonds and T-Notes).

(Eg, bestowing $9 billion on the RBA which didn't need, want or ask for it.....The PPL...to name only two)

"..... and who's financial policy it was to spend money faster than it could think up new taxes to fund it's spending, and with the examples of Greece, Spain and Cyprus showing the way to socialist insolvency...."

Check out where Greece and Spain are on the graph:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/linkableblob/3727694/data/possum-graph-8-government-debt-as-gdp-data.jpg

You're talking out of your hat.

Sorry Poirot, I don't click on links. I did it once before and got the worst virus in my computer that I had ever had, so bad that I ended up buying a new computer.

The electorate does not agree with you that Labor is fiscally responsible and the Libs are not. That is one reason why they chucked Labor out. Older people have seen the cycle before. Liberals balance the budget and Labor gets in an spends us into dept. Add infinitum. One pro ALP journo submitted articles on OLO claiming that the economy was doing great under Labor and Spindoc, SPQR and Shockie ate him for breakfast.

Now to Saddam. You did not clarify what point you were trying to make but I figure you are implying that the yanks are reprehensible for sometimes helping Saddam.

The entire world has an interest in the continuing flow of the oil trade out of the Persian Gulf. You do too, unless you are dreaming of becoming an Amish. That these oil rich countries are populated by religious fanatics and psychopathic despots who hate our guts does not detract from that. These people were only a few generations ago sheep stealers, camel thieves and pirates who admired Hitler and tried to aid him in beating us in WW2. About he only good thing you can say about them is their custom of hating each other more than they hate us. We need their oil and they want our money.

Trying to understand their Byzantine tribal politics and stop them fighting each other requires a delicate balancing act on the part of the great powers like the USA. It means that sometimes you support one side until it gets too dangerous and then you support the other. I know that such a concept is difficult for a trendy lefty like yourself to understand, since people like yourself can only think in absolutes

LEGO,

"....Trying to understand their Byzantine tribal politics and stop them fighting each other requires a delicate balancing act on the part of the great powers like the USA. It means that sometimes you support one side until it gets too dangerous and then you support the other...."

In modern times it's always been oil...nothing's changed.

"The electorate does not agree with you that Labor is fiscally responsible and the Libs are not. That is one reason why they chucked Labor out. Older people have seen the cycle before..."

Well...Lol!...they believed Abbott and his band of mendacious scammers.

That's what got them elected.

Swinging voters - and even many stunned dyed-in-wool LNP supporters won't make the same mistake next time.

We've got twelve months more of Hockey/Abbott Govt whoppers until they "attempt" to pork barrel their way to re-election.

Fat Chance!

There are expenses by the Abbott Government which cause people to say "what is wrong with this Government" they are supposed to be bringing the budget down not up.
200 Dollars for marriage counselling for newly weds, outrageous, marriage is your decision so be responsible for it, not the Government.
School chaplains a complete waste of money, this once again is your own decision, if you want some guidance in your life there are many churches to attend to that, so go there. Should not be the taxpayers expense.
The obscene maternity payment up to 50,000 dollars for wealthy women to get back into the workforce, suggest not having children if you cannot afford them.
These are the types of waste of money that ordinary wage earners feel this Government is out of touch with them.
Most people do not realise the seven dollars Dr's visit may not be just that, if you have say seven tests within the one blood test you will be charged for each test, being forty nine dollars, likewise X-rays, obscene
Because also the secrecy surrounding asylum seekers we really do not know how many boats have been turned back there could be many and not the two or three stated
These are just a few of what the ordinary person in the street bring up against the Abbott Government, of course there are many others.
Perhaps the next three years will see a surplus presented by this Government, ,but I think not, 300 delegates to India later on for some obscure reason, one questions is this really necessary to waste more taxpayer money, plus the millions of dollars Abbott is wasting on visits overseas, to prove what.
Australia is insignificant on the world stage, I am sure we all know that when we are overseas as visitors, understand Clive Palmer did hit the headlines recently, not Abbott.

Poirot, in the real world nations compete for resources and there is nothing more important than oil. Oil is blood for advanced societies and a very good reason to go to war to get it.

Japan began the Pacific War to get oil. Germany wanted lebensraum and oil. China is now threatening all of the small nations in the South China Sea to claim all of the oil. Saddam Hussein invaded Iran and Kuwait to steal their oil. It would be a good thing for our economies and the advancement of our enlightened civilisation for the entire western world to invade every oil rich Arab nation and steal their oil. But we consider such an act to be morally wrong.

Unfortunately, much of the world's oil is the property of nations ruled by despots, genocidal maniacs, and religious nutters. But we do business with them because of common interests, we want their oil and they want our money. They can keep on killing each other, stoning women to death, and marrying little girls to old men, and we will consider it none of our business even though we do not approve of their behaviour. But a moral problem arises when these nations turn terrorists as what happened in Libya under Ghaddafi, or want to become conquerors and steal their neighbouring despots oil because they do not have the moral qualms that we do. In such cases it is entirely appropriate for the civilised nations of the world to combine humanitarian ideals with self interest and sort the buggers out. We would not do it for Rhodesia because however much we would like to save the world from itself, some nations are not worth the trouble.

Even a trendy lefty like yourself should have the wit to understand that it is in the world's interests that vital oil resources should not fall into the hands of terrorists or people who want to invade their neighbours to become super rich and a real threat to world peace.

A war in time saves nine.

LEGO:
"It would be a good thing for our economies and the advancement of our enlightened civilisation for the entire western world to invade every oil rich Arab nation and steal their oil. But we consider such an act to be morally wrong".

Apart from the fact that the 'enlightened' West is raping and destroying the only planet available to it, we're a collective basket case in any category you care to name!
And since when has 'morality' prevented the "Enlightened" west stealing?
Ever heard of colonialism, imperialism, hegemony?

The fact that Islamic State stands for a mob of murderous brutes does not set the west off as Enlightened by contrast. There's no contrast; neither side is healthy or accountable. However barbaric their own actions and ideologies, reactionary movements like IS are legitimately pitted against Western imperialism, global cultural hegemony and economic pyramidism.

You and your unthinking ilk are stuck in an old-time WESTern, with cowboys and Indians, good guys and bad guys, us and them.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but there are no good guys!

LEGO,

"....however much we would like to save the world from itself, some nations are not worth the trouble."

Which is code for "they don't possess anything we want/need" - or - "they're too well defended for us to invade".

There you have it....so "altruism" is the banner headline, but rarely the reason for invasion.

"A war in time saves nine."

Can you tell me how that applies to the debacle that now constitutes Iraq?

I have been concerned for some time about LEGO! He or she seems to have been put together out of lego parts. I really don't care about that! It's his brain that worries me.

His comments are stilted, devoid of real understanding and balance common to most humans (look at the two above and you'll see what I mean). It's like his brain was created by a mad scientist out of obsolete computers and bits of video material plus snippets of Rupert's ramblings.

Where is his humanity?

P.S. LEGOMAN doesn't respond to appeals to his better nature. Then what could you expect from a LEGO-ROBOT?

Hullo Mr Squeers.

I see that you are another whining lefty who thinks he is intellectually and morally superior to the Great Unwashed, and who hates the western world he chooses to live in. You got a "progressive" education and watched AVATAR and now you how the world works?

If you had ever picked up a history book, you would have discovered that every single advanced nation since the year dot has engaged in Imperial expansion. That is the way that nations were built. If it had not happened, every nation on planet earth would still be at the tribal stage. Whether you like it or not, civilisation has spread on the point of a sword. Many advanced civilisations were entirely rapacious while others were benign. The British Empire was the greatest civilising force that the world had ever seen and many of it's former colonies are reverting back to barbarism. Iraq appears to be a case in point.

I love how you hate your own civilisation. I can only assume that many of the "western" Jihadis now fighting for the caliphate went to the same school that you did and listened to the same western hating nonsense. No wonder they think that the west is evil.

I used to be a trendy lefty myself when I was young and stupid. But gradually I began to realise that people with your self loathing views simply despise their own people. So I began to think objectively instead of simply parroting the left wing party line. I hope that you can manage that feat also, but I have my doubts

LEGO,

"..... The British Empire was the greatest civilising force that the world had ever seen and many of it's former colonies are reverting back to barbarism. Iraq appears to be a case in point."

Hohoho!...and when did the great unravelling begin?

Perhaps around the time that the Coalition of the Willing bombed the infrastructure and stability out of it, sometime in 2003...

"I love how you hate your own civilisation. I can only assume that many of the "western" Jihadis now fighting for the caliphate went to the same school that you did and listened to the same western hating nonsense."

What a load of tosh....

"You got a "progressive" education and watched AVATAR and now you how the world works?"

Lol!, LEGO thinks Squeers is a naive young whippersnapper...should be fun to watch the continuing conversation.

Not much to ensue I'm afraid, Poirot; there's very little incentive to go on arguing with a fool who twists and turns in such contortionate and contradictory coils of logic, all the while spitting venom.
It was you, LEGO, who protested the West's moral hesitancy against stealing, which in the next breath you defend as the rationale of history. I don't demur, though one might hope that given our blessedly 'enlightened' state we might now look to proceed by more civilised means.
But beyond mass delusion we are only civilised in terms of appearances and public and international relations, diplomacy greasing the wheels of the unrelenting 'progress' of Western civilization, whose sole cause and purpose, no more and no less, is to turn a profit.
You accuse me both of being a 'lefty' and of despising 'the great unwashed'; are not the leftists the populists? The truth is it is and has always been the conservatives and the libertarians who despise the masses (supposing the designation has any validity) in favour of a deluded ideal of unbridled ambition and power.
It's testament to Abbott's iron stomach that he can invoke 'team Australia' without discharging its contents over the necessity of cultivating the rude support of the bulk of wastrels and good for nothings he surveys. Hockey at least reveals his true loathing for the masses with his spontaneous songs of joy and unguarded asides.
And just as Abbott don's his ghastly grin for the faithful he despises, he sidles at the flank of the US in the hope of enjoying its favour and protection, with never a thought for right and wrong, or the moral cost and degradation of spirit endured by us all.

Squeers, your last paragraph on Abbott is so true, that is exactly as I see him. In other words a pain in the ( for a better word ) rectum.

Sorry Poirot, I will have to give you are time out while I focus on Squeers who seems to be an arch lefty. I will deprogram you later. This should be fun.

The "rationale of history" my dear Squeers, is

The History of the world
Reveals a simple plan
He takes who has the power
He holds, who can.

We in the west no longer think that this is still valid and that is why we will eventually be brought undone by the Asians who do not share our altruistic ideals. Your sneery attitudes to making a profit seems to mark you as yet another socialist dinosaur still crying over the collapse of your beloved socialism everywhere. But you can still go and live in North Korea or Cuba if you want to. But no, you are another one who prefers to live in the comfort of the west while sneering at it as a form of class identification.

No wonder you see moral equivalence between ISIS and the West, you think just like they do.

As to the question of leftists being populists, it depends upon which demographic you are talking about. Certainly you stick up for the generally parasitic welfare class as a way of gaining an electorate. You gain their support by constantly thinking up ways to tax the productive to support the non productive. And you expand the parasitic class by constantly demanding that third world immigrants and boat people should swan into western societies and be supported by the productive, as a way of absolving this guilt you feel we owe the world for our past rapacious behaviour.

My take of Abbot's defence policies are different to your own. With Australia now spending less as a proportion of GDP than we did during the Great Depression, Australia's defence policy is still the one we have had for sixty years. We intend to fight to the last American. We will only put in token forces anywhere while the USA as usual, does all the heavy lifting.

Sorry LEGO but I don't have time to play. Please consider however that some of us are able to think (unable not to to think) outside your black and white, left and right spectrum; an often painful exercise which demands sincere self-examination, both individually and socially. Montaigne rather than Marx is my hero in hero.

LEGO,

"We in the west no longer think that this is still valid and that is why we will eventually be brought undone by the Asians who do not share our altruistic ideals. Your sneery attitudes to making a profit seems to mark you as yet another socialist dinosaur..."

Lol!..."altruistic ideals" no less!

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/11/us-public-defrauded-hidden-cost-iraq-war

"An occupation conducted through under-scrutinized emergency appropriations enabled dozens, if not hundreds, of private companies to act like pigs at the trough – wasting taxpayer dollars on frivolous expenses while the insurgency raged around them. These private companies were able to behave so rapaciously because they were so desperately needed by the US government to run the Iraq war without revealing its true cost to the American public.

....To control costs and avoid imposing a draft, the US resorted to a parallel army of private contractors, numbering 100,000 people or more at the height of the war."

"The extent to which the US hid the costs of the war by relying on private contractors has left a disastrous legacy within Iraq itself. Many of these contractors behaved recklessly; sometimes, they even shot at crowds when they felt trapped or threatened. Thus private military contracting help to turn the population even more against the US and the occupation."

".....The Bush administration sold the American people a bill of goods with Iraq, offering them a short and glorious war while secretly running up a tab that future generations will be left with. Along with Afghanistan, the war in Iraq added $1.4tn to the national debt."

The Bush Administration funnelled taxpayer's money to private corporations to conduct the war, continue the occupation and towards rebuilding,etc....how "altruistic" is that!

Well Poirot, it looks like your hero has left the arena. Back to deprogramming you.

I see that you are still having trouble formulating an argument. All you can do is concentrate on something I wrote and make sneery references to it. That's OK. It means that you are uncomfortable sticking your neck out to say something you are prepared to stand by. Our readers can pick that up straight away.

Now, you seem to take exception to my premise that the west is altruistic while the Asians are not. According to Transparency International, those nations settled by white, North European people are the least corrupt in the world. Aren't you sad about that? Those wretched whites that you despise so much have demonstrably higher principles than anyone else. Asian, African and Muslim nations are very corrupt. But why would you say anything about them when you can give your own people a kicking?

For you and specimens like Squeers, anything bad happening in the world can always be blamed on white people with a considerable effort to push and shove around the facts. Iran holds US diplomats hostage and subjects them to mock executions, blame the yanks. Saddam Hussein invades Iran, blame the yanks. Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait, blame the yanks. The Yanks kick the Iraqis out of Kuwait and watch as Hussein massacres the Shiites and Kurds, blame the yanks. Hussein claims he is building nuclear weapons so the yanks go in and find out he was lying, blame the yanks. Iraq becomes a democracy and the new Shiite government ignores US advice oppresses the Sunnis who rebel, blame the yanks.

For people like you, the Americans will be damned if they do and damned if they don't. The only thing consistent to your ideology is that the USA is always wrong.

I am not sure why you submitted that the Iraq/Afghanistan war cost the USA 1.4 trillion dollars, it sort of shoots down your own argument that the yanks only go to war for self interest. But thank you for that one. Have you joined my side?

LEGO,

"I am not sure why you submitted that the Iraq/Afghanistan war cost the USA 1.4 trillion dollars, it sort of shoots down your own argument that the yanks only go to war for self interest...."

Lol!....I see that you failed to pick up the fact that the Bush Admin "funnelled" taxpayer's dollars straight into the deep pockets of private corporations...like Haliburton and Blackwater, etc.

Nice little earner that one.

Greedy corporations - and a willing govt providing the feeding trough.

That's where most of the 1.4tn went.

Altruistic....in a pig's eye.

To Poirot.

The USA has a private enterprise economy which includes weapons production. I suppose you would prefer America's weapons production to be through government corporations, but if the yanks did that their weapons would be lousy, and they would be just as inefficient and ruinously costly as NSW's Electricity Commission and Water Board, which both Labor and Liberals intend to privatise.

US foreign policy since WW2 was originally directed at stopping the spread of socialism as it correctly considered socialism as inferior to free enterprise, and a system conducive to creating totalitarian regimes. The USA tolerated totalitarian regimes which were anti socialistand free market because they were better than the socialist alternative.

That policy was enforced through military force and it was a policy which put self interest and altruism on equal footings. It was certainly in the USA's financial interests to prevent socialism from spreading, and it was in the interests of the people in foreign lands who the US used military force to prevent socialist takeover as well. Self interest combined with altruism is a powerful reason to go to war. But people like yourself can only see self interest by the USA and oppose the USA even when it is clearly doing the right think by using military force.

The US was once so blinded by hatred of socialism that it made mistakes like Vietnam, which was primarily an anti colonial war. The Vietnamese socialists were not the pawns of the Kremlin doing Moscow's bidding to help take over the world for socialism. You are so blinded by your hatred of the USA that you are making mistakes too. The primary reason why your ideology fails to impress anybody except he uninformed is that you always accuse the USA of perfidy and most informed white people know that is pure malarkey.

The USA is a democratic, free enterprise society much like our own. To condemn the yanks in every instance is to condemn every democratic, free enterprise society including your own. And democratic, free enterprise societies just happen to be the best ones to live in.

LEGO,

I don't condemn the US in every instance...I am condemning them in the instance of the Iraqi invasion of 2003 - so you can get off your "socialism" bandwagon now.

You claimed the US invaded Iraq in an act of altruism to rid them of a dictator and to gift them democracy.

In doing so, they massively destroyed infrastructure and created a power vacuum which has plagued that beleaguered nation ever since.

I'm saying that the US went in to assure themselves control and assured future access to resources.

The Bush Govt financed that exercise by funnelling money to the 1% by taking it from the taxpayer dollars of the 99%. The "massive" cost of that invasion was blown out because the funding bottom line was hidden from the public.

My point being that it wasn't "altruism".

Poirot

I did not directly state that the USA invaded Iraq as an act of altruism, but I can see how your prejudices could make you think that I did so.

I said that the USA decided to invade Iraq because it wanted it's army to go home but it could not do so because it had a moral problem to consider. That moral problem was that Saddam had begun extermination the southern Shiites right in front of the US forces and many Shiites had fled to the US zone protected by US troops to escape being exterminated. The same was happening to the Kurds in the North who also wanted US protection.

Therefore, the invasion of Iraq was justified on altruistic humanitarian grounds and practical self interest. The humanitarian part was to stop Saddam's Baathist forces carrying out genocide by ridding the world of a mad dictator. You could also say it was humanitarian to stop Saddam from building an atom bomb which he had claimed he was doing. A crazy nutter with an atom bomb and a reputation for invading his neighbours is the last thing the world wanted in a critical area where the continued flow of oil is absolutely essential to the economies of all the nations of the world.

The practical side was the US could finally send it army home and hopefully set up a stable democratic government which would rule responsibly for he benefit of all Iraqis.

The USA had as much right to invade Iraq as it did Nazi Germany and Imperialist japan. In both of these nations the outcome was a good one, both of them are now democracies with strong economies. The only mistake the US made was thinking that Arabs were as smart as Germans and Japs. Whatever virtues the Islamic culture bestows upon its adherents, honesty, tolerance and social responsibility are not the most prominent.

It is hardly surprising that when the Shiite majority finally got into power it was more interested in conducting revenge on the Sunnis than acting like a united country that represented everyone.

LEGO,

"I said that the USA decided to invade Iraq because it wanted it's army to go home but it could not do so because it had a moral problem to consider. That moral problem was that Saddam had begun extermination the southern Shiites right in front of the US forces and many Shiites had fled to the US zone protected by US troops to escape being exterminated. The same was happening to the Kurds in the North who also wanted US protection.

Therefore, the invasion of Iraq was justified on altruistic humanitarian grounds and practical self interest. The humanitarian part was to stop Saddam's Baathist forces carrying out genocide by ridding the world of a mad dictator."

Nup....apparently it was to stop Saddam's WMD program - that was the "official line" - and the reason the US public went with the program.

As I've pointed out, nasty dictators abound doing horrendous things, but if there ain't some oil access in the offing - well....

"The practical side was the US could finally send it army home and hopefully set up a stable democratic government which would rule responsibly for he benefit of all Iraqis.'

The problem is that the "dumb" and "myopic" Bush Administration didn't take into account the enmities existing in this region. Any dumbass could have told them they were opening Pandora's Box. How many commentators warned of the power vacuum.

Why are we now "not surprised" at what has unfolded - it was predicted.

"The USA had as much right to invade Iraq as it did Nazi Germany and Imperialist japan..."

Lol!

Nasty dictators abound doing horrendous things like Abbott resurrecting Dame & Sir, all by his little old self and no one else.
Poirot you are correct, that magic word "oil" is the problem, no oil no problem, whatever will the USA do when water takes over from oil, perhaps those countries that get too much rain will be in the firing line then.
Love your ongoing battle, but agree with what you say

To Poirot

I can't say if your claim that the "official line" that the USA invaded Iraq was to destroy Saddam's WMD's or not, but I will check it out. But I know that one reason why the USA invaded Iraq as because the US forces wanted to go home and they were presented with a moral problem if they did. I know that such a scenario does not sit well with your prejudices that the USA only goes to war for self interest, so you can never believe the truth when it stares you in the face. And since when did people like yourself ever believe the "official line" from Washington anyway?

The fact what what the USA did benefitted the entire world by keeping the Gulf region safe from a crazy dictator who had managed to start two wars of imperial conquest with his neighbours is lost on you also. That too is an act of altruism. One reason why the USA is leery of going back to Iraq to sort out those crazies is because it is sick and tired of always being criticised for doing the right thing. It would like to see it's allies do a lot more instead of the USA always doing the hard work and taking the casualties, while it's allies do as little as possible or renounce their responsibilities altogether.

Now we get to your little spiel about how the "dumbass" US could not understand the realities of "enmities" existing in the region. "Dumbasses" like yourself can not understand how fragmenting Australia by importing hostile cultures into Australia will eventually balkanise our own country, so I find your analysis breathtaking. Perhaps there were too many multicultural advisers in the Pentagon who think like you do and who think that countries divided by race, culture and religion should be islands of peace?

Finally we get to your "Lol!". What that means I have no idea, but it must be some sort of sneery response that does you no credit as it uis hardly a reasoned argument.

LEGO,

"..... But I know that one reason why the USA invaded Iraq as because the US forces wanted to go home and they were presented with a moral problem if they did..."

Go home?

Ground forces?

From where?

You don't know anything of the sort. The US went out of it's way to construct an international "threat" from Saddam's WMD's - in the face of little evidence that there was one. The years of sanctions had degraded any ability of his regime to continue on that tack - and those capabilities were significantly weaker in 2003 than they had been in 1991.

Later in the piece when the WMD pretext was abandoned, a new narrative was brought forth involving Georgie Bush's "vision" that the real motive for the war was bringing democracy to the Middle East.

It was gift wrapped for people like you, LEGO.

So two things happened in the immediate wake of the invasion. A despot was toppled - and it brought an end the crippling sanctions which, according to Chomsky "....killed hundreds of thousands of people, devastated Iraq's civilian society, strengthened the tyrant and compelled the population to rely on him for survival....."

Two top international diplomats who administered the sanctions program, Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck resigned in protest at the way it was administered, dictated by the US and Britain. If sanctions had instead been directed solely at weapons programs, Saddam might have been ousted by his own people, as had other tyrants before him.

Instead the general population was weakened and more dependent on him - and then endured murderous invasion.

Altruism?

It seems to me that LEGO's comments are probably written by some psycho from the american Embassy!

Either that or LEGO is a paid troll who seeks to deflect any serious discussion on OLO about american Imperialism and its takeover of Australia and the world!

LEGO gift-wraps american propaganda so it is easily absorbed by mindless Australians of which there are many.

LEGO, like Abbott, thinks in slogans!

I do know what went on. I am an avid reader of the news and military publications, and I followed the situation in southern Iraq after Gulf war 1. For three years, Saddam Hussein did everything he could to goad the yanks, including shooting SAMS at US reconnaissance aircraft, having his air force violate "no fly zones", and bragging about his WMD program. I myself saw Saddam Hussein on TV holding up a triggering device for a nuclear weapon while his generals sat around a table sniggering. That Saddam had WMD was obvious because he already dropped mustard gas on the Kurds.

When confronted by the US and told to destroy them, he claimed that they no longer existed. He then played shell games with the UN investigators who's task it was to ascertain if Saddam's claim was true. In one incident, Australia's own UN official, Richard Butler, had a gun pointed at his face when he and his team tried to investigate a site believed to have WMD's. If Saddam Hussein had destroyed his WMD's, he did a very good job of pretending otherwise. It was only when the US and it's allies finally lost patience and invasion was imminent, did Saddam come up with his "my dog ate my homework" excuse.

Any person capable of reasoned thought would therefore have blamed Saddam Hussein for the invasion of Iraq. But people like yourself will never lose any opportunity to shift the blame onto America.

Saddam Hussein had started two wars of imperial conquest in which at least a million people had died. I would have thought that pseudo "progressives" like yourself would therefore support the USA in it's efforts to rid the world of a warmonger. One reason why Saddam invaded Kuwait was because unlike yourself, he considered the USA to be too pacifist to do anything about it. He noted how the USA had agonised over the loss of 64,500 soldiers in Vietnam, while Iraq had lost 50,000 soldiers in just one of it's offensives to retake the Fao peninsular, and it did not worry him one bit

LEGO,

".....I myself saw Saddam Hussein on TV holding up a triggering device for a nuclear weapon while his generals sat around a table sniggering. That Saddam had WMD was obvious because he already dropped mustard gas on the Kurds."

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2005/jun/09/the-secret-way-to-war/

"Iraq, the President said, still had the power to prevent war by “declaring and destroying all its weapons of mass destruction”—but if Iraq did not declare and destroy those weapons, the President warned, the United States would “go into battle, as a last resort.”

It is safe to say that, at the time, it surprised almost no one when the Iraqis answered the President’s demand by repeating their claim that in fact there were no weapons of mass destruction. As we now know, the Iraqis had in fact destroyed these weapons, probably years before George W. Bush’s ultimatum: “the Iraqis”—in the words of chief US weapons inspector David Kay—“were telling the truth.”

"Seen from today’s perspective this short paragraph is a strikingly clear template for the future, establishing these points:

By mid-July 2002, eight months before the war began, President Bush had decided to invade and occupy Iraq.

Bush had decided to “justify” the war “by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.”

Already “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

Many at the top of the administration did not want to seek approval from the United Nations (going “the UN route”).

Few in Washington seemed much interested in the aftermath of the war.

........

Iraq, at the time of invasion had no WMD's. That was the formal reason for the invasion. The Bush Administration decided to "fix the intelligence and the facts 'around' the invasion policy" - in other words they had already decided to invade and were not interested in the real facts and intelligence - such as what was forthcoming from weapon's inspectors.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2005/jun/09/the-secret-way-to-war/?page=2

"Thus, the idea of UN inspectors was introduced not as a means to avoid war, as President Bush repeatedly assured Americans, but as a means to make war possible. War had been decided on; the problem under discussion here was how to make, in the prime minister’s words, “the political context …right.” The “political strategy”—at the center of which, as with the Americans, was weapons of mass destruction, for “it was the regime that was producing the WMD”—must be strong enough to give “the military plan the space to work.” Which is to say, once the allies were victorious the war would justify itself. The demand that Iraq accept UN inspectors, especially if refused, could form the political bridge by which the allies could reach their goal: “regime change” through “military action.”

"Cheney, like other administration “hard-liners,” feared “the UN route” not because it might fail but because it might succeed and thereby prevent a war that they were convinced had to be fought."

"....Worse, Saddam frustrated British and American hopes, as articulated by Blair in the July 23 meeting, that he would simply refuse to admit the inspectors and thereby offer the allies an immediate "casus belli". Instead, hundreds of inspectors entered Iraq, began to search, and found…nothing."

"Indeed, the inspectors’ failure to find any evidence of weapons came in the wake of a very large effort launched by the administration to put before the world evidence of Saddam’s arsenal..."

"The inspectors’ failure to find weapons in Iraq was taken to discredit the worth of the inspections, rather than to cast doubt on the administration’s contention that Saddam possessed large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction."

"Oddly enough, Saddam’s only effective strategy to prevent war at this point might have been to reveal and yield up some weapons, thus demonstrating to the world that the inspections were working. As we now know, however, he had no weapons to yield up. As Blix remarks, “It occurred to me [on March 7] that the Iraqis would be in greater difficulty if…there truly were no weapons of which they could ‘yield possession.’” The fact that, in Blix’s words, “the UN and the world had succeeded in disarming Iraq without knowing it”—that the UN process had been successful—meant, in effect, that the inspectors would be discredited and the United States would go to war."

I have cut and pasted because that is the best way to summarise the contents of this article. WMD threat was indeed the Bush Admin's main thrust in formulating an invasion - an invasion which had already been decided upon even as Bush was delivering ultimatums to avert invasion.

"...Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy..."

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2005/jun/09/the-secret-way-to-war/?page=3

Gee Poirot, where did you get that little bit of socialist propaganda, the Green/Left Weekly? I presume that the correspondent was in the white house and privy to all the of President Bush's decisions?

No?

Then it is just an opinion from some hate America drop kick (probably Michael Moore).

So let's see if your scenario makes sense. The USA decided to invade Iraq and steal all of Iraq's oil? And they dreamed up an excuse that Saddam had WMD's to justify it. Their motive was entirely self interest.

What happened. The USA invaded Iraq and deposed a war mongering tytrant who did have WMD's and although he may have destroyed them, he pretended that he did not, until right before the invasion began. The USA did not steal Iraq's oil. They set up a democracy and then left. The war cost them $1 trillion dollars and 3000 men dead so where was the self interest?

The only benefit the US got out of it was that they removed a threat to the world's oil supplies and the only thanks they got for that was endless criticism from specimens like yourself.