Bloody Fools & Rabid Dogs

In my 19/5/08 post, Supping With the Devil, on Israel's arms exports, I cited Australia's projected purchase (initiated by the Howard Government) of Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The following updates (3/9/08 & 5/9/08) have appeared in The Australian:

1) "The axe is poised to fall on... the $150 million contract to buy UAVs for the Australian Defence Force... The Israeli-built 1-View 250 UAV system is dogged with technical problems and more than 2 years behind schedule. The relationship between the partners in the project, US aircraft builder Boeing and Israel Aerospace Industries, has deteriorated in recent months... A new regiment... had been raised to operate the Tactical UAVs, which are designed to provide the army with airborne surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaisance capabilities for ground operations." (Defence contract faces axe, Mark Dodd)

2) "The Rudd Government last night confirmed it would axe a troubled $150 million defence contract to buy a UAV capability for the army... The ADF will still get a UAV capability, Defence Procurement Secretary Greg Combet told The Australian last night. 'This Government wants nothing more than to get a UAV capability into theatre (Afghanistan) for the army... This is important to counter emerging threats such as IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and the Government is currently investigating alternatives', Mr Combet said... The federal Government was committed to spending $100 billion over the next 10 to 15 years on defence contracts... " (Defence axes $150m Boeing drone deal, Mark Dodd)

$100 billion!!!? To blow on blowing away those who don't get with the Israeli/American program in the Middle East? What bloody fools we are.

Exactly what we are squandering our billions on emerged earlier in the week: "Suspected Taliban militants arrested by Australian special forces in Afghanistan have been detained in 'dog pens' in actions that have left Australian Muslim groups outraged and prompted a protest from the Afghan ambassador in Canberra." (Fury as diggers admit Taliban held in dog pens*, The Australian, Mark Dodd, 2/9/08) Notice how the word "Taliban" in The Australian's headline gives way in the body of the article to "suspected Taliban"?

Of course, that rag's letter writers were fairly frothing and foaming at the mouth at the very idea that local Muslims might take offence at such goings-on.

Graham Pinn of Buderim, Qld frothed: "Perhaps the solution would be for the Australian special forces to tow an air-conditioned mobile prison into the mountains, complete with a mosque and gourmet halal food." IOW, suspects should be presumed guilty.

Irene Buckler of Glenwood, NSW foamed: "... Australian Muslim groups should be expressing outrage that the Taliban keep Muslim women and girls penned up permanently." Outrageous Islamophobic smears? No problemo for The Australian.

Graeme Manning of West Hobart, Tas frothed: "If an Australian Digger were to be captured by the Taliban, he would be very lucky to reach a dog pen." What are "Australian Diggers" doing there in the first place?

Ralph Clark of Hervey Bay, Qld foamed: "A more important question is why this matter deserves front-page headlines when the continued killings of countless non-combatants by the Taliban** does not." But I thought this was supposed to be a conflict between Civilization & Barbarism?

Peter West of The Vines, WA frothed: "Does it occur to those protesting about the SAS treatment of Taliban prisoners that if the Taliban stopped behaving like mad dogs, then the SAS would have no occasion to treat them as such." So the suspects were bona fide mad-dog Taliban, were they?

Alice Murphy of Unley, SA foamed: "What is the Afghan ambassador... and the Islamic High council going to say or do about my cultural sensitivities being abused by the murder of aid workers in Afghanistan?" Hello? Because aid workers are being murdered, it's OK for Australian troops to degrade Taliban suspects?

K Moncrieff of Stafford Hts, Qld frothed: "It's to be hoped that the IHC expresses the same degree of concern for Australian troops and Afghan civilians killed and injured by the al-Qa'ida-backed Taliban terrorists** in Afghanistan, as it does for the 4 Taliban suspects imprisoned in dog pens for 24 hours..." The question of what the hell Australian troops are doing there in the first place never arises (See my 27/2/08 post Bush's Taxi to the Dark Side).

The only exception to the above instances of froth & foam was this from Ian Semmel of Maleny, Qld: "Whenever allegations of torture and cruel punishment arise in the so-called war on terror, the defence is always that we are dealing with really bad people and they deserve it. Mark Dodd invokes this defence* when he writes that the use of dog pens to detain the Afghan prisoners 'pales into insignificance compared with the atrocities committed by the Taliban...' But the 4 Afghans involved were 'suspected Taliban insurgents', not convicted prisoners. Most of the inmates of Guantanamo Bay are in a similar position and what we have there is innocent people being tortured. If the Australian military believes it has the right to do whatever it likes in Afghanistan, all our troops should be withdrawn immediately."

Precisely!

[*Mark Dodd's 'report' was interesting in another respect. Dodd quoted a defence "spokesman" as saying, "'... this holding area provided the best secure, safe and isolated short-term accomodation until the following day'." This was followed by: "And the use of pens pales in significance compared with the atrocities committed by the Taliban before the regime was ousted in the aftermath of the US terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Then, alleged adulterers were stoned to death. Remnants of the regime are still committing abuses. Earlier this month suspected Taliban extremists abducted and executed a Japanese aid worker. His death was preceeded days earlier by the killing of 3 Western women aid workers just outside the capital Kabul." As these sentences are not attributed to the aforementioned defence "spokesman," one can only assume that either Mr Dodd (or his editor) deliberately threw them in to in some way mitigate the Australian troops' penning of Taliban suspects. If this is the case, Dodd/his editor have turned what should have been a straight news report into a reportorial.]

[** "To the villagers here [in Azizabad], there is no doubt what happened in an American airstrike on Aug. 22: more than 90 civilians, the majority of them women and children, were killed. The Afghan government, human rights and intelligence officials, independent witnesses and a UN investigation back up their account, pointing to dozens of freshly dug graves, lists of the dead, and cellphone videos and other images showing bodies of women and children laid out in the village mosque... For 2 weeks, the United States military has insisted that only 5-7 civilians, and 30-35 militants, were killed in what it says was a successful operation against the Taliban..." Evidence points to civilian toll in Afghan raid, Carlotta Gall, The New York Times, 8/9/08)]