Peace in our time

With voters starting to get the measure of Latham and finding him short in a lot of areas the call to bring the troops home now! is starting up again. It’s a good ploy from the ALP’s point of view. The left will love it because it might make the Coalition look weak and hopefully, make Bush look bad, but it wouldn?t serve any other purpose. Chris Shiels thinks it’s the answer;

…..there is only one possible response, and that is for Latham to now get right on the front foot, assume his best John Curtin persona, and demand the troops be brought home from Iraq so that our best defence assets are all focused and available for redeployment on the real front line in the ‘war on terror’, our own region.

Go read the post – there are some interesting comments from readers. A couple of points Our presence in Iraq is miniscule but important politically. We currently have the following ADF assets and personnel in theatre; # HMAS Adelaide with about 240 sailors, #A RAAF C130 det of two aircraft and about 150 airmen, # RAAF AP-3C Orion det of two aircraft and about 160 airmen, #6 RAAF Air traffic controllers, #A security det with about 120 troops and ASLAV vehicle protecting Australian interests, and # about 80 training team type people. That is about 900 troops from a 100,000 troop defence force. It only leaves enough troops in Australia to wipe Indonesia off the face of the earth several times. (No – I’m not suggesting we do that – it’s just an analogy) Not to denigrate these ADF personnel currently in Iraq in any way but I can assure you that the hole they leave in our defence is likewise miniscule. Secondly – who says the front line of terrorism is here? The motivation, money and training for terrorists is sourced much further a field than our back door. It’s in the Middle East. It’s the old Fortress mentality from the eighties. The idea of defending Australia by holding all troops and assets in-country, flies in the face of thousands of years of military experience. It simply doesn’t work. The battle must be taken to the enemy and we must be the ones to choose the battle zone – not them. The Fortress mentality was linked to a ?warning time? of seven years. Sorry, it doesn?t happen that way. Labour couldn?t see it then and won?t see it now. Using the excuse that we had seven years warning before anyone could attack us allowed the ALP to downgrade our Infantry Corps from six to four battalions after Whitlam had already downgraded it from nine to six. They then had the temerity to state, with a straight face, that the reserves would pick up the slack! Not knocking our reservists but that little theory depended on upgrading manpower, equipment and training in the Reserves ? didn?t happen to any great degree. It certainly wasn?t enough for them to pick up the slack left by professional infantrymen. I was in the Operational Deployment Force at Townsville then and the ALP didn?t even understand logistics. We had enough reserve ammo for one good firefight ? we joked about sharpening our machetes for when the ammo run out. Labour and defence?yeah right! The only way to defeat any enemy is to attack their homeland. Cut off the head and the body withers. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan ? take your pick but to sit at home in the trenches and wait for the enemy to come over the horizon is something only an academic would suggest To me, this leaves the bring the troops home now! mantra as just that – a pointless utterance. It appeases the terrorists and will allow them to say – see, we have forced the infidel Australians to withdraw from our land with just three men and a bomb in Indonesia…see how weak they really are. Bringing troops home now is appeasement. The fact that we don’t actually have many there is not the point. Terrorists will see it as a victory. The assume his best John Curtin persona call is weak. It brings up images of a threatened homeland in different times. With Australian Divisions in the Middle East at the time and Japan rolling down South East Asia it was the only call for Curtin to make. It is nothing like that now. We don’t have a major part of our defence force overseas and JI isn’t threatening to invade our homeland with an Army. Given good intelligence, clear orders and free rein, an infantry rifle company could round up JI Tim Dunlop pitches in, agreeing with Chris Shiels and says;

The idea that we would somehow be less safe under a Labor government is unsustainable, and to their credit, at least since the Embassy bombing, no member of government has said this.

You are wrong, Tim. With a Labour government in power, the left wing will more than likely get their wish and the troops will be rushed home. Appeasement…look how weak Australia is…see how the Coalition is falling apart…Spain, Philippines, the US next – giving life support to terrorists. Anyway, it doesn?t matter how many divisions you have sitting in Townsville or Darwin they cannot impact on three suicide bombers in Jakarta. The only way to do that is to take the Middle East apart and deprive the tentacles of the monster any sustenance. Recycling the already proven fallacies of appeasement and Fortress Australia won’t help at all.