Lest we forget
The war against our armed forces

The World of Woke is waging war on Australia’s armed forces, with the Labor premiers of Victoria and Western Australia in the frontline trenches. Victoria has had more than 50 days with no locally acquired Covid-19 cases and WA has only had 100 locally acquired cases during the entire pandemic yet both have dramatically restricted the commemoration of Anzac Day.

How ironic. We ask soldiers to fight in the most perilous theatres of war in the world and then pretend it is too dangerous to honour them because of a virus confined to a couple of hotels in our capital cities.

Andrews has a problem with the military. He wouldn’t use them to enforce quarantine, and now he wants to restrict Australians from paying their respects to the armed services for defending our freedom. He initially cancelled the Anzac service altogether but has now confined himself to limiting the march to just 5,500 people, on the same day as 75,000 AFL fans will cram into the Melbourne Cricket Ground. There are also nonsensical Covid restrictions forcing diggers to march in age groups rather than their serving battalions and requiring them to register online beforehand. It’s the same in WA where there will be a full house at the Optus Stadium for the football but a limit of only 10,000 people at King’s Park for the Anzac Day service.

New federal Defence Minister Peter Dutton however is valiantly fighting back by questioning the numbers. The claim that the rules are different because football fans are seated is absurd. First, there is no Covid anywhere in Australia. Second, the crowds are hardly levitating into the stadiums cross-legged, like fakirs on flying carpets – they have to stand to walk in and out. Third, both activities are outside where the risk of transmission is minimal, even supposing there was any Covid to transmit and fourth, Anzac ceremonies are quiet and reflective and far less likely to spread germs than raucous crowds of cheering fans.

Dutton has also pulled rank on the chief of the Australian Defence Force, Angus Campbell, overriding Campbell’s appalling decision to revoke a meritorious unit citation awarded to 3,000 special forces soldiers who served in Afghanistan. As Dutton pointed out, it was disgraceful to punish the whole unit when most of the soldiers had shown extraordinary valour and some had given the ultimate sacrifice defending Australia’s values and interests and preventing terrorist attacks.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2021/04/lest-we-forget-3/

Dutton is proving good and effective once again.

This past weekend, Australian Defence Minister Peter Dutton suggested that a conflict with China over Taiwan could not be discounted.  However, as Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz wrote some 200 years ago, “War is the continuation of politics by other means”.   

Were there to be conflict between China and America over Taiwan, Australia would have no choice but to follow America, including by ceasing food, energy and iron ore exports to China.  Were Australia to not follow and to try to maintain strategic neutrality, we would most likely lose the protection of America’s Pacific defence umbrella exposing Australia to even great threats and risks.

America’s and Australia’s defence preparedness and resolve is essential for preventing armed conflict, but it does not necessarily indicate the eventuality of conflict.  Yet paraphrasing Leon Trotsky, Australia may not be interested in a war for Taiwan, but if there was a war for Taiwan, it would be interested in Australia.


https://spectator.com.au/2021/04/if-you-want-peace-prepare-for-war/

Belgarion wrote on May 5^th, 2021 at 8:16pm:


Behind a paywall, Belgarion.  I cannot read the point you are making.  Care to quote what they are saying, please?

Brian Ross wrote on May 5^th, 2021 at 9:49pm:



“He comes to Townsville, we meet with a bunch of soldiers and senior officers. The first thing Peter did was to tell the cameraman to get lost. And then he said to all the senior officers: ‘You can leave as well’,” says Phil Thompson, the member for Herbert in north Queensland and a former soldier.

“He wanted to talk to the soldiers about what they needed from the government to do their job – how’s the kit, how’s the morale? That’s the first time any minister for defence has ever done that.”


Excellent.