Howard and the ADF: respect or betrayal?

Paul Sheehan today in the Sydney Morning Herald writes that the Prime Minister’s “respect for the military is substantial.”

Read the piece and tell me whether, after everything Sheehan had already said in that piece, he can really be serious with that statement.

I’d have thought that anyone with genuine respect for the military would not cynically deploy it under false pretexts in order to gain token leverage in the Australia-US alliance.

And for what? That pissweak Free Trade Agreement he ‘triumphantly’ extracted from the US?

The PM seems to genuinely believe he has respect for the ADF, but his cavalier recklessness in the Iraq case indicates rather an utterly base and opportunistic regard for the military.

I’m familiar with Mr Howard’s and his family’s connections with the military, which he will always milk to score political points, but some of his actions strike me as a betrayal of the ADF.

Shudder: The ADF as an instrument of trade policy! But is anyone surprised? Does anything this Government does surprise anyone after ten years of this crap?

What was the latest I heard today? Oh yeah, DIMIA continues to grant access by Chinese consular officials to Chinese nationals in immigration detention here seeking protection. After that disgraceful episode last year regarding the asylum bid by the defecting Chinese diplomat, Chen Yonglin, this is bloody shameful!