Thursday 10th of October 2024

deputies' pacific chinwag....

 

In recent days, Australia’s ‘”deputy Sheriff” role has been on full display again in our foreign policy. The prime minister’s extraordinary gaff at the Pacific Islands Leaders Forum, when caught out joshing along with US Deputy Secretary of State, Kurt Campbell, would have been noted not just among Pacific Island leaders, who would be entitled to feel belittled by Australia, but also across the region.

 

The deputy sheriff rides again     By Geoff Raby

 

It was not just the prime minister’s gushing in the presences of great and powerful friends, but the extraordinary arrogance of Campbell telling Anthony Albanese that he had “cleared the lane” for Australia so we should now “take it”.

The sheriff had spoken, and Australia’s leader was seeking brownie points, and “halvies”, for having delivered. It was interesting that Campbell said he was acting at the request of Australia’s ambassador to Washington, rather than our foreign minister. This was a rare and telling insight into whom Campbell believes makes foreign policy for Australia’s most important relationship.

As if the Tonga Incident were not enough, Foreign Minister Penny Wong felt it necessary to reassure the US in her keynote speech at the AFR’s Asia Summit last week that alliance maintenance was Australia’s highest priority when approaching the Asian region. As if it were ever in any doubt.

It is well known that DFAT doesn’t like to re-type the page of its talking points as, for example, can be seen from the minister still saying the government is “stabilising” the relationship with China, even though we have had reciprocal head of government visits, and frequent ministerial exchanges and other meetings. It is well past time to move on.

Endlessly reasserting the primacy of the US alliance for Australia’s foreign and security policy seems hardly necessary when this government has so fulsomely embraced the abrogation of Australia’s independence with AUKUS and offering Australia up for forward basing of US strategic weapons.

Who is the audience and what is the purpose of this incantation? Beijing certainly knows Australia is glued to the hip of the US. It is likely regional countries have also worked this out. All our actions speak much louder than the foreign minister’s words in this respect. And our ambassador in Washington would have left no one in any doubt that we relish our role as deputy sherif.

Describing Australia as the US’ “deputy sheriff” in the region was attributed to John Howard during an interview early in his term as prime minister. The then Labor Opposition pounced on this; Howard was ridiculed across the country.

It is disputed whether Howard actually said those words. In any event, some earlier positions he took made them unnecessary. Howard, for example, was the only world leader to back publicly Bill Clinton’s sending two aircraft carrier groups through the Taiwan Straits following an unprovoked firing of live missile salvos by China at Taiwan.

And soon after the “deputy sherif” furore, Howard marched Australian troops off to Iraq and Afghanistan in support of deeply flawed US hegemonic objectives.

Wong’s AFR speech also sought to emphasise the importance of building a network of bilateral and minilateral relations across the region as a bulwark against an inexorably rising China. She recounted at some length the history of Australia’s post-colonial relations with non-aligned Indonesia. But as Greg Earl said of her speech in a recent Lowy report, “ostentatiously praising Indonesian non-alignment while elevating the US alliance above partnering with the region” would raise eyebrows in Jakarta.

Prioritising the US is a reflex in Australian foreign policy which cuts across good intentions and real efforts to build closer relations with the region. When, for example, elevated rotations of US marines were announced in 2011 in Darwin by Prime Minister Julia Gillard and President Barak Obama, Indonesia had clearly not been given a heads up as would be normal diplomatic practice in a relationship of mutual trust, especially with one’s closest neighbour.

When asked by an intrepid ABC journalist what Indonesia thought of the announcement, the ANU-educated Indonesian Foreign Minister, Marty Natalegawa, angrily stared down the barrel of the camera and said “he was not aware Australia saw Indonesia as an imminent military threat”.

Prioritising the US has also constrained Australia’s response to Gaza in ways that sets us apart from Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. Australia had an opportunity to join with five European states recently to recognise the state of Palestine, but declined to do so.

Similar indifference to regional sensitivities on the Middle East saw former Prime Minister Scott Morrison offend Australia’s Islamic neighbours when, during the Wentworth byelection several years ago, he announced without any forewarning that Australia would follow the US and move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

While AUKUS has received a mixed reaction in the region, the symbolism and messaging it conveys are clear: priority for the US alliance over any other relations with the region. With the government’s commitment to AUKUS, it is hardly necessary, therefore, for the foreign minister to keep emphasising US primacy in our foreign policy settings. As James Curran observed in these pages, the Australian Government speaks with a “forked tongue” on regional engagement.

For Australia to have the thick, resilient, sinews of relationships across ASEAN to which the foreign minister seems genuinely to aspire, the government’s mindset will need to move beyond the deputy sheriff role. We have done that in the past on occasions, and Wong’s speech highlighted some important examples from early post-colonial Indonesia.

Disappointingly, she chose to ignore one of the most important occasions when Australia stood with Indonesia to resist US pressure. This was during the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-8. This was led by Treasurer Peter Costello. It is hard to see this happening again today if faced with a similar circumstance.

Wong’s theatrical world-weariness when she delivered her AFR Asia Summit speech portrayed jadedness rather than thoughtfulness. The government’s approach embraces contradictions, as betrayed by words and actions (or lack of them). Acting as the deputy sheriff is instinctive.

https://johnmenadue.com/the-deputy-sherif-rides-again-pic-pacific-islands-leaders-forum/

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

did you pray?.....

Kurt Michael Campbell was born in August 1957 in Fresno, California. He earned an undergraduate degree from the University of California, San Diego. He received a D.Phil from Breasenose College, Oxford. 

He served in the U.S. Navy, on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Special Intelligence Unit of the Chief of Naval Operations. He was an associate professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He was also an assistant director of the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. He has served as an executive on national and international security. 

President Obama appointed Campbell as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs. He later served on an editorial board and founded an advisory company that specialized in Asia. He served on the Council on Foreign Relations. 

President Biden nominated Campbell to Deputy Secretary of State and the Senate confirmed him in February of 2024. He was sworn into office a week later. 

He is married to Lael Brainard.

Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell spoke with Philippine Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Maria Theresa Lazaro after an incident between the Philippine and Chinese navies in the South China Sea. Filipino boats were confronted by Chinese coast guard who disrupted the supply mission.

State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said the two diplomats agreed that China’s “dangerous actions threatened regional peace and stability.”

Spokesperson Miller continued, “Deputy Secretary Campbell and Undersecretary Lazaro discussed shared concerns over the People’s Republic of China’s escalatory and irresponsible actions on June 17, which obstructed the Philippines from executing a lawful maritime operation in the South China Sea, interfering with the Philippines’ freedom of navigation.“

He added, “The Deputy Secretary reaffirmed that Article IV of the 1951 United States-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty extends to armed attacks on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft – including those of its Coast Guard – anywhere in the South China Sea. Deputy Secretary Campbell and Undersecretary Lazaro further reiterated the critical importance of the United States-Philippines alliance to maintaining our shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific region.“

Did you pray for Deputy Secretary Campbell today? You can let him know at:

The Honorable Kurt Campbell, Deputy Secretary
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

 

https://www.presidentialprayerteam.org/2024/06/20/kurt-campbell-deputy-secretary-of-state-2/

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

GUS LEONISKY, POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951, IS A RABID ATHEIST...............

 

de-decorated....

 

BY  ROD MCGUIRK

 

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Several serving and former Australian military commanders have been stripped of medals over allegations of war crimes committed during the Afghanistan war, Defense Minister Richard Marles said Thursday.

Holding commanders to account for alleged misconduct of Australian special forces between 2005 and 2016 was recommended by Maj. Gen. Paul Brereton in his war crime investigation. Brereton found that around 25 Australian Special Air Service Regiment and Commando Regiment troops were involved in the unlawful killings of 39 Afghans

“The allegations which are the subject of the Brereton Report are arguably the most serious allegations of Australian war crimes in our history,” Marles told Parliament.

Marles wrote to commanders of those troops about medals they had received for their service during the periods war crimes allegedly occurred. He did not specify to Parliament how many he had written to or identify their ranks, citing privacy concerns.

The removal of medals was condemned by Australian Special Air Service Association chair Martin Hamilton-Smith as a betrayal of the courage and sacrifice of soldiers in Afghanistan.

“The government’s decision overlooks the courageous leadership of these young officers on the battlefield based on unproven allegations that somewhere in a remote village unseen and unknown to these commanders, an unlawful act might have occurred on their watch,” Hamilton-Smith said in a statement.

 

Marles later explained the medals weren’t stripped because of the officers’ wrongdoing.

“No one is … suggesting they knew what happened, were aware of it or didn’t act — that’s not the issue,” Marles told reporters.

“But the issue is that when you command a unit, you will receive often the benefits and the accolades of what that unit does irrespective of whether you’ve personally been right there in the front line and commensurately, you accept the responsibility of that unit in terms of what failings occur,” Marles said. “Had we known what had occurred, would the medals have been granted?”

Opposition lawmaker Andrew Hastie, who as an SAS captain commanded troops in Afghanistan in 2013, said Australian political leaders and the military hierarchy should also be held accountable for war crimes.

“I believe that our troops were let down by a lack of moral courage that went up the chain of command all the way to Canberra — including in this House,” Hastie said, referring to the House of Representatives.

Hastie was not decorated for his service in Afghanistan and so was not among those officers stripped of medals.

“I want to be clear: Those who are alleged to have shed innocent blood are alone responsible for that. I do not say this to absolve or condemn anyone,” Hastie said. “But those in the chain of command who saw the post-mission slide decks with the kill counts and pictures of dead individuals had an obligation to ask questions.”

No Australian veteran has been convicted of a war crime in Afghanistan. But a whistleblower and former army lawyer, David McBride, was sentenced in May to almost six years in jail for leaking to the media classified information that exposed allegations of Australian war crimes.

In 2023, former SAS trooper Oliver Schulz became the first of these veterans to be charged with a war crime. He is accused of shooting dead a noncombatant in a wheat field in Uruzgan province in 2012.

Also last year, a civil court found Australia’s most decorated living war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith likely unlawfully killed four Afghans when he was an SAS corporal. He has not been criminally charged.

https://apnews.com/article/australia-afghanistan-war-crimes-stripped-medals-4611f87ccd4748fd010c5328f91ddb2f

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

lessons?....

 

Avoiding an ‘exclusion’ disaster in the Pacific – a different lesson from Ukraine    By Geoff Miller

 

The most senior US officials, including President Joe Biden himself, refer to US alliances with individual or groups of countries in the Indo-Pacific as benign and defensive in nature. These references contrast with warnings about the possible “knock-on” effect of a Russian victory in Ukraine which, it is said, could encourage China to seek to incorporate Taiwan by force. However, an examination of the situation in Europe provides a different lesson for our part of the world; that is that building an alliance system which excludes the most important country in a region can have disastrous effects.

I refer, of course, to the war in Ukraine which, inspite of Ukraine having been part of the Soviet Union until its collapse, Russia — and Vladimir Putin in particular — came to see as “the tip of the NATO spear” pointed at it, with the aim of, and giving NATO the ability to, permanently relegate it to second-tier status.

There has been much discussion of whether the West deceived Russia over the possible future eastward expansion of NATO after the end of the Cold War and the re-unification of Germany. However, there is little doubt that at that time Russia was looking to full participation in a new Europe-wide, or Atlantic-wide, security organisation, but was snubbed. And years later, that led to Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine which has already had disastrous consequences for both Ukraine and Russia. We can only hope the disaster does not spread to involve the rest of Europe, or even the wider Western world. In hindsight, it would have been a much more positive course to fully involve Russia — the world’s second strongest nuclear power, resource-rich, technologically advanced, with a history of a major role in European affairs, including a much-admired role in World War II — in post-Cold War developments and arrangements including in the security sphere.

The same description and arguments apply to China in the Pacific. One linkage, commonly made by Western officials and commentators, is that a Russian victory in Ukraine would encourage China to invade Taiwan. But another lesson for the Pacific from the Atlantic is that it isn’t wise to try to construct a security system that excludes the major regional country. There’s no doubt that in the Pacific that is China, and indeed the US is paranoid about its rise. To quote University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer yet again, “the US cannot tolerate a peer competitor”.

Some writers date the United States’ fear of China to 2008, when its economy remained strong while those of others faltered. Certainly, at some point, the US’s attitude to China changed, as has the attitude to the US of the Chinese public. Of course, all is not lost between the two, as shown by the recent visit of US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan to Beijing, where he was reportedly given the highest level reception. But the emphasis often placed on the United States’ relationship with its allies like Japan, South Korea and the Philippines — and increasingly Australia, after the latest AUSMIN — tends in a different direction. Statements of purpose by American officials are full of phrases like “opposing China” and “curbing China’s rise”, and US Pacific diplomacy seems centred on building “mini-lateral” cooperation to confront China. Our government certainly seems to go along with this: for example, recent talks with Japan have foreshadowed exercises with both US and Japanese Marines in Northern Australia.

Yet what do we actually have in China? It can be described in much the same terms as Russia above – the world’s first or second largest economy, technologically advanced, a nuclear power, with a history as the central power of Asia and which, like Russia, played a much-admired role in World War II.

Internationally it is expanding its role and influence, as the just-concluded China-Africa meeting exemplifies – although it harms its international standing by what seem to an outsider to be unnecessary displays of assertive behaviour in the South China Sea. Its international relations are also haunted by the question of the status of Taiwan, which is the main issue left over from the major civil war in China 70 years ago. At least, a very recent Chinese formulation again included “peaceful” in its longstanding goal of reunification with Taiwan.

Multilaterally, China has been an active participant in both regional — the ASEAN Regional Forum, the East Asia Summit, the RECEP — and international — the UN, the WTO — bodies. In fact, it has frequently combined its activities in these bodies with the influence acquired from its active world-wide diplomacy to produce outcomes that were surprising — and sometimes unwelcome — to members of longer standing. But that is a result of competition, one of the principles on which the Western world prides itself, and which we can hardly condemn.

A distinguished recent visitor to Australia, former South Korean Foreign Minister Dr Kyungwha Kang, now president and CEO of the Asia Society, head-quartered in the United States, was interviewed on 7 September on Radio National. She said the US’ aim in relation to China should be “managed competition, plus dialogue”. She did not think China was expansionist, or aggressive. Indeed, it had a defensive mindset, being so dependent on imports from all over the world – an important element in its attitude to the South China Sea.

As we know, China is Australia’s most important customer and trading partner, a country with which we have a “comprehensive strategic partnership”. There is a strong people-to-people element in the relationship – students as well as permanent citizens. Senior Chinese have often made the point that Australia and China have no history of clashes to bedevil their relationship. It is, therefore, puzzling and regrettable to see that at the latest AUSMIN, as at its predecessors, the Australian side agreed to formulations whose only rationale is to better enable the United States to wage a war against China.

And, looking at it from a wider perspective, and with the lesson of NATO, Russia and Ukraine in mind, it is also unrealistic to pin our hopes for a secure, stable and prosperous Pacific on a grouping essentially consisting of the US, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines – as well as Australia, if we don’t disentangle ourselves from it. To do so is to ignore China’s central role in the Asia-Pacific, and the fact that most countries of Asia — India, for example — and of ASEAN — Indonesia and Vietnam, for example — don’t wish to take sides  between the US and China. And see the views of the former Foreign Minister of South Korea, one if what the Americans call the “squad”, reported above.

“Involvement and engagement” should be our key words in relation to China, not “exclusion” or “containment”, as we seek to avoid a repetition of the Ukraine disaster in the Pacific.

https://johnmenadue.com/avoiding-an-exclusion-disaster-in-the-pacific-a-different-lesson-from-ukraine/

 

THE AMERICAN EMPIRE DOES NOT LEARN ANYTHING AND IN GENERAL HAS ZIP INTEREST IN KNOWING WHAT OTHERS THINK, BUT THE EMPIRE WILL GIVE LESSONS TO OTHER COUNTRIES LIKE A DUMB DOG GIVES LESSONS TO A STICK....

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.