WILL conservatives ever re-evolve to climb for the high fruit rather than greedily snavel the apples and oranges bonking them on the head as they loiter in the undergrowth? I ask because contrary to the accolades and schadenfreude of some, referring senior Australian military commanders to the International Criminal Court in The Hague for investigation over ‘war crimes’ allegedly committed in Afghanistan on their watch is not only foolish but treacherous. The stunt is olfactory evidence of a catty pong now rising from Parliament House like a heat haze; it is not evidence Jacqui Lambie’s “heart is in the right place” (Sheridan). The Tasmanian senator likes to see herself as more than a match for men – clearly she wasn’t when it mattered – and last week denounced the ADF brass as a “boys’ club.” She used the same scorned woman’s cliché against the Liberal Party when she didn’t fit in as a member. The truth is she has more in common with non-combatant pretenders than she does with the warriors of the SAS. “It’s one in, all in,” said the lumbago-stymied non-veteran of any deployment, justifying her latest slaphappy démarche.
The contempt that patriots have for a politico-military establishment eager to rat on the men it did its level best to rotate to near certain death is understandable. So is the disgust about the sword of Damocles held over the heads of as many as 50 returned servicemen by Knox Grammar Cadet Unit old boy Paul Brereton – who has the same combat experience as Senator Lambie. Equally deserved is the revulsion caused by General Angus Campbell’s attempt to strip medals and citations awarded by the people of Australia to men who earned them. There are numerous justifications for outrage over the postscripts to Afghanistan. In 2021-22, the Morrison government rewarded the terrorists who killed 46 Australian soldiers with $140 million. Then Foreign Minister Marise Payne boasted about it. The problem with Senator Lambie’s performative dobbing, however, is that it presupposes – if it doesn’t concede outright – that war crimes were indeed committed. She only asks that final responsibility rest with the men decked in aiguillettes. Her star turn as the people’s equaliser isn’t merely pointless; it could undermine procedural fairness for any so-called ‘war criminals’ brought to trial. Having heart and being a smart-arse are two different things.
CL. Correct, and all too obvious that this is the wrong approach.
However, what if Lambie, and others, said something like “there were no war crimes, but anyone claiming there were should be going for the head of the snake they mistakenly reckons exists. That they don’t, indicates they already KNOW it’s all BS” …then fleshing it out?
After all, with every other alleged criminal organization it’s not the underlings who get primarily targetted but the head honchos is it not?
Mantaray,
Meet the folk who supposedly lead ‘our’ defence.
and I’m talking about air, sea and land types.
I didn’t agree with Sheridan’s comment – heart/right place; one of those annoying, patronising judgments, like a pat on the head.
Who knows where her heart is
Dribbler Sheridan’s line about Lambie’s heart being in the right place is on a par with a line he wrote last year about the Sniffer in Chief, where he described the rotting corpse as a “good man”. After reading that, I nearly fell over backwards reading, such was my shock.
The thing, for all his faults, it’s Donald Trump whose heart is in the right place, but Dribbler Sheridan would never ever write that truth.
It’s time Dribbler Sheridan was put out to pasture.
C.L.
clever title by the way.
C.L. nails it. Six years of ‘investigations’, not one conviction.
The other problem with Lambie’s stunt is that it gives legitimacy to the ICC. She agrees that foreigners should prosecute Australian soldiers. Bad enough that we have ‘joined’ (give taxpayer dollars to) the ICC, but now she wants to refer Australians, no matter how heinous, to the pompous arseholes.
what jupes says…
From the Marise Payne article:
She’s giving our money to the Taliban! As if it’s going to address such fantasies as “gender based violence”. It still shocks me how cavalier with our money these utterly moronic, sanctimonious twits are. You stupid, stupid woman. Giving millions to the Taliban is a far worse war crime than anything BRS is alleged to have done. FMD!
again, what jupes says…
Well, we have given mobile tombs to Ukraine so we may as well send our mobile ‘fleet’ there as well.
Testing in real time!
As never before, we need leaders today who think primarily with their heads, not their hearts.
There are approximately twice as many men as there are women with IQs of 130 required for managerial competence. At IQs 150 and above, the ratio is more than 15:1.
The less well-endowed will in vain shriek their heart-driven disapproval of Divine dispensations.
When selection was merit-driven, cattiness was scarcely, if at all, detected by olfactory nerves. Not so in the heart-driven age of diversity, equity and inclusion.
Will the West draw lessons from DEI selection of leadership of the Titan submarine and subsequent implosion of the vessel? I doubt it.
“The other problem with Lambie’s stunt is that it gives legitimacy to the ICC. She agrees that foreigners should prosecute Australian soldiers. Bad enough that we have ‘joined’ (give taxpayer dollars to) the ICC, but now she wants to refer Australians, no matter how heinous, to the pompous arseholes.”
Yep…the same ICC which delights in targeting Israel.
Fortunately, Israel isn’t so stupid as to submit themselves to it.
It’s the thing to do.
Morrison pronounced Lehrmann guilty – as did that revolting crow Gallagher last week. Dutton pronounced David Vann guilty.
Lambie is happy to pronounce the commandos guilty just for the shrew-clout of taking down the generals.
No nation can thrive – or even survive – with vainglorious, deranged bottom-feeders like this in power. It is the same everywhere in the West.
Israel is more resolute than the West – thank God for that – but it too has a class of liberalisers who are always just a bee’s dick away from imploding the place like Titan.
what C.L. says…
Mind you, Morrison had Marise Payne to confront the world on Australia’s behalf.
Lambie has a point.
Who is responsible?
The ADF Generals response to SAS whistleblowers was predictable:
Blow the whistle?
We’ll strip everyone of their medals, that’ll teach you to blow the whistle on us.
Dutton put a stop to that stupidity when he was Defence Minister, but the bottom line is:
You can’t fix stupid
Consider for a moment, that we live in a country where we fought an enemy who every day broke the ‘rules of war’ that we ensured our own soldiers strictly adhered to. We refused to take any enemy we captured as prisoners and released them within days, then our leaders appeared shocked that our soldiers might prefer to kill rather than capture the enemy.
Then, after our surrender, not only do we spend years and tens of millions of dollars in an effort to jail the soldiers who fought the hardest, but we reward the enemy with over $100 million dollars so that they will carry out what passes as ‘human rights’ in the west – the very thing they fought against.
I really can’t get my head around how we as a nation got to this point, nor have I the words to truly describe just what I think of the people who run this country.
again… what jupes says…
Australian troops were in Oruzgan for nearly 20 years.
Pretty early on, they let the locals know they meant business and the unofficial rules were established.
What a few Psychos in the SAS achieved by killing farmers and kids for no reason is to make the area dangerous for other soldiers unaware of what they’d been up to.
Terd Case
Evidence (to a criminal standard) to support your assertions. Or is that too much to ask.
CL, you’re still assuming that the LNP are conservative.
They’re not.
They’re socialist.
what Rohan says…
sure sad case, that’s why they employed local diversity hires who proceeded to shoot them in the back, inside the Australian compound.
FOAD.
I have just come up with a new four letter acronym so beloved by the military types. It sounds like FIFTH but the second F is removed.
Bugger, as with most things, someone has already thought of it.