Further Explaining My Anger And Shame About Australia Abandoning Afghanistan

Howdy dear availees, in yesterday's post I started back toward engaging properly with this 'ere blog, and that's what I was talking about when I said, "How Many Times Can A Dead Cat Bounce?"...it's an old saying about someone or something that appears to be recovering or returning to normal, etc, but it's just actually just the momentum of the fall causing them to momentarily 'bounce'...I've spent years in this space, getting knocked down and/or falling, getting back up, down again, back up, etc, etc, and the last few months have been particularly 'bouncy'...I'll get into this stuff in future posts, but today I'm continuing what I started yesterday...

I stand by what I said about fearing for my safety from my government/police/authorities, and I'm not the only parent involved with the St Martins Lutheran School Child Abuse Cover-up whom has existed in that space...but I cannot imagine what is happening with people in Afghanistan, and particularly for those who supported/helped us and for women and girls...nor would I presume to understand what our veterans and their families feel and/or think about this sudden withdrawal and the thoroughly predictable consequences...call me a cynic, but I view Scummo's (LNP) lackadaisical approach to repatriating Afghans as a deliberate strategy similar to the one he/they applied in Syria...and that is, stall, obfuscate and delay until the security situation deteriorates to the point that he/they can then say, 'oh it's way too dangerous to send our people in there', thusly justifying doing nothing at all...

Just now watching Scummo leeringly poking his finger at journalists, snarling about how 'we' won't be allowing random refugees, but simultaneously congratulating himself for how many Afghans we've allowed into Australia...and even then he's just randomly churning out fake facts, claiming a yearly arrival rate that would add-up to a figure 5-6 times the total he had just stated about overall numbers...praising himself and ramping up the carefully worded Nationalism about what great work he's done today, whilst blithely contradicting himself about how complex and protracted the screening process is...the situation now is so dangerous because he has been so recalcitrant if his responsibilities and actions... 

Yet another classic Scummo press conference, majority of time taken with endless gibberish, deceits, and thinly-veiled Nationalistic challenges/manipulations, followed by a handful of questions only part answered or dismissed, again with verbose word-salad time wasting, and then Scummo bolts for the door like the proverbial rat out of an aqueduct...and now he's spewing yet more self congratulation related to his cynically manipulated and therefore vastly exaggerated COVID19 vaccination rate claims...he's a pathological liar who simply cannot and does not know how else to function...deceive, lie, manipulate, he's a deeply, wholly nasty little man who thinks he's clever but is in reality an insipidly vicious and incompetent dullard...but I digress...here in more detail are some of the issues I mentioned yesterday... 

For many years there's been a strong debate about the genuine nature of this war...from the USofA's genuine motives for getting involved, to who it was they were actually fighting...the official USofA justification, as repeated by President Biden only yesterday, was to deny 'terrorism groups' any potential base for conducting training and launching attacks in the Western world...many people believe that this was the pseudo-justification for trying to get access to Afghanistan's extensive mineral resources, including the increasingly precious 'rare earths' used in modern electronics...others point to the massive increase in opium/opiate production, now 4x what it was 20 years ago, and the argument/theory that Western powers knowingly utilise opiates/heroin to control populaces, drive profits in Big Pharma, or repay Third World debt, etc...this has long been a thread of discussion/theory/accusation regarding Cocaine production in South America and how those countries use this income to surrepticiously repay their debts to the USofA and/or large corporations...   

These more extreme theories aside, recently there has been a very publicly expressed parallel alleged agenda of 'Societal Improvement', particularly regarding the rights and welfare of women and girls, but including general Education, Health, etc...I'm not arguing against this ideal/agenda, but it is effectively irrelevant considering the original official justification was about our Western security, and that that is, to my opinion, itself a false justification masking the desire for the 'rare earths' mineral wealth...even as 'we' withdraw, China is showing a specific interest in Afghanistan for that exact reason...

There's also the issue of Pakistan's influence on the conflict, as supporter, supplier, sanctuary and source of recruitment, eg, the madrasa/schools...again, I'm only re-iterating what I've read about a situation wholly foreign to me, but I've seen it argued that Pakistan's involvement is of such a scale as to warrant them being defined as a direct party in the conflict, acting deliberately against Western forces, not dissimilar to China's part in the American War in Vietnam in the 1960s-70s...there are also issues of potential Russian and/or Chinese influence/support in Afghanistan...

There are many direct parallels between recent USofA involvements/'invasions' of Iraq and Afghanistan...the most immediately obvious is that the people, the 'enemy' the USofA have been fighting in those countries, these exact same people were previously allies supported, funded, armed, and even trained by the USofA...in Iraq, the 'evil dictator' Saddam Hussein was an USofA ally against Iran, a politically expedient buffer against the spread of Iran's influence...the devastating Iran/Iraq War would have long been 'won' by Iran if it weren't for the USofA and others supporting Hussein...I remember reading a report back in the 1990s, about when Hussein gassed his own citizens...putting aside allegations that it was 'faked', etc, it was reportedly done with an agent sourced from the USofA, sprayed from a German supplied dispersal system, attached to a French supplied jet...this circles back directly to the financial benefits for some of armed conflict...

In Afghanistan, the Taliban in their former/parallel guise as the Mujahideen, were supported by the USofA to oppose the then USSR 'invaders' (1979-89)...as I understand it, a key factor in defeating the USSR was the use of USofA supplied 'Stinger' Anti Aircraft shoulder-launched missiles that were extremely efficient against USSR helicopters...it was unpleasantly ironic that earlier this year Russia was accused of offering bounties for the killing of USofA troops in Afghanistan...and not just the USofA, for decades various countries have, directly or otherwise, supplied the armaments the Taliban/Mujahideen have used...    

 As with the USofA led invasion of Iraq, many 'Western' businesses directly profited, and some individuals, including senior political figures, made a fortune...from individual private contractors right through to mainstream suppliers, it is absolutely an issue that must be considered, not least of all because it wouldn't be the first time, but to what degree has the official USofA and/or global Military Industrial Complex influenced this conflict?...maintaining a basic military presence/functioning is a massive logistical exercise with associated costs, and costs is profits to be made...supplying the USofA military with munitions is a particularly profitable business, and the more bullets fired and bombs dropped, etc, the better business is...and with extended involvement/conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, business has been quite literally booming...and yes, that is a very deliberate pun utilised as a cynical critique...

It remains to be seen exactly what will unfold now, but many commentators are predicting 'terrorism attacks' in Europe, although today the Taliban officials directly addressed this issue, saying that it will not allow groups like Al Qaeda to operate in or from Afghanistan...they've also declared that there will be no 'retributions against those who assisted the USofA and it's allies', and that women will have full rights "under Sharia Law", whatever that ultimately means...there is great concern that possibly there will be a return to internal conflict between warlords and collapse similar to what happened in Syria, and that this may lead to the re-emergence of ISIS or a similar entity, further destabilising the region and harbouring/creating 'terrorism' elsewhere...   

There are so many variables and actors involved, there is literally no way to confidently predict whats going to happen...what we as Australians can be sure of is the rank Rascism evident in how we have treated our Afghan allies and their families, etc...I was reading where the average 'partner visa application' from Western countries takes 7-9 months to process and approve, etc, but when it comes the Afghans it's a nearly 4 year time-frame...Scummo's blustering bravado today, the bleatings of a man who knows exactly how hollow and cowardly he really is, was to angrily refuse to allow extended refugee places to Afghans, or even to allow some already here on 'temporary visas' to definitely stay...and he's constantly justifying these delays and denials, ignoring/denying that he/'we' have failed miserably to address these issues appropriately for years, and now he's running the bastard's excuse that it's very dangerous over there and all a bit difficult...we are apparently going to evacuate a miserable 600 people, if they can even get to the airport, and our first flight out took 26...26... 

    

Compared to other countries efforts, that is a ludicrous nonsense, and not least of all, because a plane that could have taken 130 leaves with 26...and to put it in context, in June, Scummo flew two Australian government aircraft filled with his retinue to the UK for what was effectively a family history research junket, at the same time as he was being begged to do something about evacuating people from Afghanistan...we knew we were leaving and that we needed to act and he didn't...and how much did we spend when Scummo chose to fly Mathias Cormann, who wasn't even an MP at the time, all over Europe to manipulate a job interview?...when you're Scummo and his criminal LNP mates, no expense is spared, but vulnerable refugees are irrelevant...it also raises again the issue of Scummo's Fundamentalist/Pentecostal faith and the inherent contempt for the poor and suffering...

Scummo's also running a vastly inflated and confected Nationalistic outrage about how we must respect the sacrifice of our troops...he's cynically manipulating in a transparently politically expedient fashion, the genuine suffering and losses and trauma that our troops and their families have incurred...when quite appropriately asked about the issue of our war crimes in Afghanistan and the related Brereton Report, out comes the confected outrage and Nationalistic jingoism, relentlessly dialling-up the rhetoric whilst carefully not answering the question...

And now I'm watching former Liberal PM John Howard being interviewed about what is his war against terrorism, fought and definably lost...but not surprisingly, the warmonger who took us in there sees it otherwise...I was always of the impression that John Howard was/is an Empire-minded throwback who was/is convinced that one is only a genuine PM once one has a war under one's belt...and now he's parotting the line used by Scummo that 'no Australian who has died (in the uniform) in the service of their country has died in vain'...they are an absolute disgrace, and 'we' gave them the power...what does that say about us?...

I'm going to finish this post here, deeply mired in my own contempt for our elected leaders, deeply ashamed of the country we've become, and struggling with what I think of us as a Nation...I feel defeated and deflated, but bizarrely that only helps me to refocus and recommit to doing what little I can, namely, this blog and associated 'activism'...

Tomorrow: The Corruption Of Magistrate Ian White, Our Deputy State Coroner

I know I've promised this post for many weeks, but always at the back of my mind is that the moment I define White's corruption and post this piece, I'll have the Rozzers (police) on my doorstep again and the Crown Solicitor writing to threaten me again, etc, etc...so be it...

I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog...cheers and laters...