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The Australian Alert Service is the weekly publication of the Australian Citizens Party.
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Lead Editorial
2 August 2023
Vol. 25 No. 12
The AUSMIN (Australia-US Ministerial) discussions on foreign and defence policy that took place over the weekend have tied Australia “more tightly into both American grand strategy and war planning in Asia”, wrote historian and strategic policy analyst James Curran in the Australian Financial Review on 30 July.
“The permanent American military presence on Australian soil is now at a scale unprecedented since the Second World War. And it is accelerating”, he warned.
New agreements will embed US intelligence analysts in Australia’s spy agencies and expand our northern military bases to accommodate a greater US military presence, to respond to “China’s growing threat to regional stability”, according to one of the alliance’s reliable stenographers, the AFR’s Andrew Tillett.
Australia will also play a role in production of guided missiles under the agreement; provide storage in Victoria and Queensland for US weapons; and host an expanded rotation of US army watercraft, and Navy spy planes on surveillance flights. Blithely foreshadowing actual war, US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin talked about how these actions would “build combat readiness”.
But no mention of the great big bullseye we are painting over our continent.
Following the meetings, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken flouted any remnant thought of a genuine Australia-US alliance when he kiboshed any move to free imprisoned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. “Mr Assange was charged with very serious criminal conduct in the United States in connection with his alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of our country”, Blinken said. “The actions that he is alleged to have committed risked very serious harm to our national security, to the benefit of our adversaries, and put named human sources at grave risk, grave risk of physical harm, grave risk of detention.”
Our great partners would not even throw us a bone. Julian Assange is the Achilles Heel of the Australia-US alliance. He and other Aussies, including David McBride, who exposed corruption inside the Australian military, and Dean Yates, the Reuters bureau chief at the time of the “Collateral Murder” US helicopter gunship attack on Iraqi civilians WikiLeaks exposed in 2010 (p. 12), have the support of the Australian population, who will not stand for such mistreatment. True leadership, provided by these brave souls, is showing the clear, hopeful alternative to the current crop in Canberra.
Meanwhile, the fight over the AUKUS (Australia-UK-US) defence agreement is brewing ahead of the federal Labor Party conference in Brisbane on 17-19 August, given the blunt attacks of former Prime Minister Paul Keating and the numerous local ALP branches vocally opposing the AUKUS deal. The party is desperate to keep the backlash under wraps.
It is now clear that the agenda of proposed new social media censorship legislation goes beyond suppressing such domestic dissidence. It is aimed at containing so-called “foreign interference”. This was indicated in the attacks on the ACP and our collaborators’ campaign against the Big Four banks and their regional bank closures, in features published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (AAS, 26 July) claiming that social media bots, deployed by China, are amplifying our anti-bank campaign and anti-AUKUS voices. (Note that submissions on the Exposure Draft Bill have been extended to 20 August, see p. 11.)
The aim is to prevent Australia tiring of our current allegiances and orienting to the “Global Majority” of nations opposing war and rebuilding the real economies of the planet. The military industrial complex-funded ASPI campaign against ACP policy fits entirely into the efforts to sabotage the upcoming 22-24 August BRICS summit in South Africa (p. 7). Internationally, as well as domestically with the leadership of brave Australians, something better is on offer, and the more visible it becomes the more Australians will clamour for it. We will assist in this by ripping the mask off ASPI and Co. and bringing into the scorching light of day the risk of war and economic devastation they represent.
In this issue:
- NAB confesses to lying about declining branch visits—why is the government still allowing it to close branches?
- Why the RBA can’t defeat inflation
- Case study in central bank incompetence: the housing market
- Behavioural ‘experts’ quietly shaped robodebt’s most devilish details and their work in government continues
- Frantic moves to disrupt BRICS summit
- Glazyev weighs in on BRICS ‘common currency’ discussion, Russian monetary policy
- Aussie analyst Jaq James nails shut the coffin on ‘Uyghur forced labour’ lie
- Fight for truth: make your submission!
- Man on the ground during ‘Collateral Murder’ speaks
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Page last updated on 06 August 2023