RaymondPierreL3 on Nostr: Ok. Anti-US then. What about all our other allies? UK, Nato, New Zealand, Canada, ...

Ok. Anti-US then. What about all our other allies? UK, Nato, New Zealand, Canada, Fiji, Solomons, Vanuatu, South Korea, Indonesia, Japan, Philipines, Singapore, Malaysia, India, France, Germany, Papua New Guinea (I might have missed some others), they all train in Australia, with the ADF. We host some of them as well (some on and off).

By your accounting, we ceded our #sovereignty back in the 1914 to the UK (if it was ours to cede at all) and the US in 1941 and we never got it back. I would argue that had we not, Australia would be a very different place now. A lot of water has past the bridge since then and history will tell us that on the whole, when everything has been taken into account, we’re better off for it. Aus is still the best place in the world to live and have a family IMO, no matter all the things that need fixing.

As for the SSN issue, I’ve tooted more about it than I care to repeat. Clearly, none of us can pass judgement on things we know very, very little about and probably will never fully know when we look back on it. Btw, AUKUS isn’t just about the SSN procurement.

I get that there is anger about the $30-35B a year expenditure on #AUKUS, but it’s defence money and it will be spent on defence projects whatever they are — none of us are able to make any informed judgement on any defence acquisition. We can oppose the size of the Defence budget though, but not specific projects without full knowledge of its details.

In any case, your opinion is yours, you don’t need to defend it. Thank you for letting me know what is behind it. As for me, I advocate union membership for all workers just as I advocate military alliances with like-minded partners because in *union* there is strength.

Be well