In fairness to the Chairman (and I'm normally very unfair to Labor); whaddya do?
The long term trade agreements are important as well.
But this is their way, these pollies.
Why doesn't he just come out and say: "Look, we hate sending our troops over to fight this stupid useless war, but we have the future of our economy to think about, and we need to suck up to the Yanks to keep them as friends."
It wouldn't win many votes I suspect. It'd win mine though; a Pollie who has the guts to say what's real.
Absolutely. Whether we like it or not, we
need the US 100% on-side. It may seem undesirable to risk Australian lives supporting the US' forays into foreign countries, but the fact is that without such strong support from the USA, we'd need a military
magnitudes larger than it is now. And then our military would be so large that the world would expect us to make greater contributions to regional security... and we'd end up with even more people serving in foreign conflicts.
And before somebody says "but look at New Zealand!"... Firstly, if somebody's going to want some land in this region, Australia's a more likely target. I'm guessing NZ feel pretty safe with such a large target right next door. And secondly, if somebody were going to invade NZ, our historical ties - and exchange of residents - mean that we are going to go and try to save their butts, and the fact that we go and help them, means they get the benefit of all the USA's technology anyway. I don't object to any of this, I wish we could afford NZ's "ethics", but the reality is that even if we wanted to, Australia couldn't do what they've done.
Every life lost in conflict - of any nationality or allegiance - is a tragedy. But the fact is that Australia is still proportionately contributing a lot fewer troops, and suffering proportionally fewer casualties amongst those we do send, than the US. So whether you support US policy or not - and I strongly oppose US' (historical) foreign policy - you at least can't accuse the Yanks of not being willing to put their own lives on the line. There's no doubt that they're sincere, even if you think they're misguided.
I was amazed, and somewhat delighted, to observe the attitude of Americans towards their troops on my recent US foray. I saw quite a few soldiers and Marines walking through the airports in uniform. Strangers approached them and shook their hands; people yelled out "Thank you for your service!" or "God bless you!".
I see absolutely no hypocrisy in having a political view about whether troops should be deployed to a certain region, whilst simultaneously being 100% supportive of those individual troops for their willingness to serve. And I totally respect those who serve, regardless of my assessment of the political desirability of their current mission.
On every flight with uniformed military on it, the flight attendants would, immediately after take-off, move uniformed personnel to any spare seats in business class. I believe it was done after take-off rather than from the outset to demonstrate to passengers that the military wasn't paying for business, but that the upgrade was instead being offered as a gesture by the airlines. I observed this on two different airlines, and was told it was pretty much standard policy in the USA.
