Further to my post at 7:20pm {God’dOwnCountry Time} yesterday evening.

Of course I was talking about a two-tier armed forces.

That was quite common throughout military history: samurai and peasant-soldiers, the French armed forces and the illustrious though rather underpaid Foreign Legion, etc,. The Ottoman Turkish Empire in its heyday, for example, was chock-a-block full of forces each serving under different conditions. Until the 20th century, the British Army belonged to the Crown and the Guards belong to the King [apologies to any ex-Guardsmen for oversimplifying the actual situation for the purposes of this discussion here] and then there were the private forces from the East India Company to those which operated well into the 20th century …. all absolutely loyal to Britain.

Now, I wonder what the market for Scutage will be like? ….. and how profitable will it be to invest in Substitutes futures? [ No, no, “futures” as in market; not the future of the actual conscript concerned …… betting on that might be handled by one of the gaming and gambling corporations].

These are monkey countries John and time to get out.

The right wing surrender monkey talking points?

Obs, you’re weird, dude.

My guess is that Howard will introduce widespread and very cheap military conscription fairly quickly ….. before his own party rolls him ….. and as soon as the first Australian combat deaths occur [and in brutal political terms: the more the merrier].

It would make him more popular than a winning Ashes team for a khaki election. He would be seen as getting all those bludgers off the dole and giving all those young hoons in jail a bit of military discipline. I said military conscription, nothing so thorough, expensive and troublesome as National Service. Just the minimum of basic training by private training contractors, straight into purpose-raised units [so as not to upset the regular ADF], a couple of quick field exercises then straight into Iraq, Afghanistan and who-knows-where with the least equipment possible. What Howard needs is large numbers of disposable cannon-fodder that will go into the thick of the fighting as quickly as possible - if some or even all of them become casualties then too bad. He doesn’t need to have more expensively-trained and equipped regular ADF personnel put at risk; in fact, he could actually pull a lot of the troops out while having a massive increase in the numbers of armed Australians in military-style units in Iraq. Naturally, the conscripts will have to sign contracts that exclude them from the services of the Dept. of Veterans’ Affairs; the survivors will get a couple of medals and a one-off cash payment …. and then back onto the street. The last major obstacle to this sort of military conscription, employer concerns about a labour shortage, was eliminated by the widespread introduction of 457 visas.

And, of course, it would make his American buddies happy too.

One more term as Prime Minister ……. or Prime Minister For Life? HHmmmmm….

I think Howard’s agenda is short term. There are going to be no changes in US policy before the 2008 election, so you might as well wedge the hell out of Labor, try and make them look shaky on what is traditionally good territory for the Conservatives.

On Robert’s point, I think Howard might be trying to stave off a further request by Cheney by going early. “Oh shit no, we couldn’t possibly make any more commitments. We’ve just upped our commitment, and we’re already close to our capacity. We are only a small country…”

Again, wedge away. Good article Mark.

amused:

Rudd should continue to hammer his point that Howard got us into this mess, and he (Rudd) is going to get us out. This position is both simple, easily understood and has the political virtue of being popular.

Agree, if the politicking gets too complicated we tend to glaze over as it all becomes too much of a tangled web to read with any certainty. I think Howard simply wants the public endorsement of Cheney because it will provide a good photo op. He has specifically denied that committing these extra troops has anything to do with the VP’s visit. Which as we now know after ten years of being on the receiving end of the lying rodent means only one thing, stinky, whiff of rat.

IF Howard loses the election it won’t be because of Iraq or David Hicks or Workchoices or their lack of response on Climate Change for the last ten years, or the ever widening gap between the haves and the have nots, or our immigration policies, it will be foremostly because we are thoroughly sick of him, his rat cunning, his divisive tactics, his government’s mean trickiness, and he so clearly being in politics simply to play politics.

I don’t see that Rudd needs to make any decisive statements about Iraq given that the US Congress seem at present to be all at sea about whether they’re coming or going. The only reality is that it is globallly an unpopular and (always was) an unwinnable war. We should take the lead from the US, about withdrawing, something which thankfully is now on the horizon, and in the meantime, not commit more troops. We are there in a supporting role, not a leading role. Howard has no right to take any kind of lead by volunteering more troops when he has not been requested to do so.

“If we send additional trainers to Iraq we are only presenting a high risk profile and when we offset that against the potential gain, and we compare it to what we could do in existing programs outside Iraq where it’s safer, then it’s not worth it,” Mr Tinley said.

“Sending more troops to Iraq is just making more targets.”

Mr Tinley believes the Prime Minister is creating an exit strategy for himself by choosing to send extra military trainers to Iraq.

“He will eventually withdraw these combat troops, he has no capacity to actually be honest with the people of Australia and say when that’s going to occur and he still wants to maintain some sort of presence there and trainers is his idea of doing it.”

Mr Howard is looming as an increasing risk for Australia’s long-term national security,” Mr Rudd said.
“He is presiding over the single greatest security disaster that Australia has seen since Vietnam.”

Methinks that ratty would have choked when he heard that ; rattled even as to what his wedge of the day was. Expect feigned shock and mock indignation from his trained galahs. The horror! the horror!

Time for our all-conquering World-Spirits to chow down on a king-sized helping of humble pie.

Oh, and contemplate how an intelligent dose of soft power might have given them much more bang for their buck.

Mr Howard also dismissed Mr Rudd’s proposal to send the Australians to Amman, Jordan, to train the Iraqis. “Yes, that’s in another country,” he said. “Everybody knows as an exercise in commonsense that you provide far better training in the country, in the conditions in which the people you are training are familiar.”

So, if this is “comonsense”, let’s now test that with a Newspoll: “Should Australia help with training in Jordan or Iraq?” Howard, sub-wedged.

With US military so tainted by Iraq, perhaps the French could take charge of the UN victory in Afghanistan? No wait a bit, they’ve only just pulled out and history tells us what usually follows the Frogs chucking in the towel. Gulp!

You’re wrong about the electorate’s view of Iraq Katz. They’ve basically come to the same view of Iraq as the left naysayers did from the start. ie it’s a pathetic fantasy to think these tribal, mediaeval Muslims can be led to any reasonable form of decent civil society like our own and what’s the point of refereeing their theocratic butchery?

That’s not the left I adhere to, nor do I recognise your embittered, defeated caricature of it.

The mainstream, non-doctrinaire, libertarian left rejoices in the destruction of tyranny everywhere.

But we’re smarter than the average RWDB in at least two ways:

1. We recognised that Bush was simply incapable of achieving his proclaimed ambitions and that he’d make matters worse.

And we were right.

2. We suspected that Bush’s proclaimed ambitions weren’t his actual ambitions. We recognised that those suspicions would be evermore widely held. We recognised that ill-concealed glimpses of Bush’s hidden agenda would contribute to his defeat in Iraq.

And we were right.

So Obby, stop being a weird dude and start engaging with real people rather than frenziedly whacking your much-battered straw man versions of very nice persons (such as my good self) who are such a credit to decent civil society.

HAYDEN COOPER: John Howard says you’re contradicting yourself, that you can’t say that we need to let the Iraqi’s stand on their own two feet and then deny them the military trainers they need to get there.

KEVIN RUDD: You know Mr Howard’s political tactics on this Iraq debate sounds increasingly desperate. Desperate because Mr Howard is trying to dig himself out of his gross error of judgement on Iraq in general, and in particular, why are we having this debate now?

Because he’s trying to dig himself out of a debate he began 10 days ago when he accused the Democratic Party of being the terrorists’ party of choice.

Howard is simply trying to tease out how far he can go before Rudd is forced to acquiesce in something, and then he can call him on ‘ticker’ like he did to Beazley. This is his version of ‘messing’ with Rudd’s mind. This is the source of the ‘chameleon’ jibe.

Rudd should continue to hammer his point that Howard got us into this mess, and he (Rudd) is going to get us out. This position is both simple, easily understood and has the political virtue of being popular.