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Journalist: Mr. President, how worried are you about the situation in Taiwan?
Joe Biden: I’m not worried, but I’m concerned that they [the Chinese] are moving as much as they are. (August 8th)
Do they speak English in the US?
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Jess Scully, Deputy Lord (sic) Mayor of Sydney: The other point is that Sanna Marin is a bad-arse, a hugely courageous leader. Finland has a 1300km land border with Russia and she is getting Finland into NATO which is overstepping decades of neutrality: one of the conditions of the armistice at the end of World War II was Finland’s neutrality. (August 20th, my underlined)
Down Under, Finland rarely makes the news. The last month or two, however, that country has made headlines here. The first time for their push — surprising, to me — to become NATO member and now for the video of Sanna Marin (Finland's young PM) partying.
You see, the usual suspects — you know, mean-spirited Right-wingers — troll her for her dancing. That behaviour, they say, is unbecoming of a PM. They are VSP, Marin ain't.
Her local fans — of which Scully seems emblematic — quickly jump to her defence.
For Scully, by blithely ignoring Finland’s international commitments Marin shows huge courage. Funny. I would have argued that shows huge irresponsibility. Jess, international commitments are serious matters. Apparently, Australians have a hard time wrapping their heads around that idea.
It’s hard to say what’s worse: the mediocrity of Right-wingers or the silliness of their “progressive” opponents.
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Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz, head of the Luftwaffe, about the presence of a German contingent in the Pitch Black Exercises: I don’t think we are sending any threatening message towards China by flying to an exercise in Australia, (August 16th)
It is true that the Pitch Black Exercises are a regular, biennial event. This year’s edition was scheduled after Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan and the consequent Chinese reaction.
But that does not mean the Kraut presence in this particular edition, for the first time ever and after the NATO Madrid summit, is mere coincidence. Gerhartz sounds suspiciously disingenuous. But I have to admit it, he may not be thinking at all.
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Will we have, thanks to Marin’s “huge courage”, Finnish “tourists” for the 2024 Pitch Black? After all nothing will contribute to Finland’s national security more than fighting a war on the other side of the planet against the Chinese. Ask the Krauts.
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ABC’s Beverley O’Connor, presenter of The World show: The Ukrainians are hoping for a prisoner swap [after their neo-Nazi troops surrendered in Mariupol], but some from Russia say that they should be charged with war crimes. Now, that seems quite absurd, given they were defending their own land. (May 19th)
Major General (ret.) Mick Ryan: Oh, you’re dead right, Beverley it’s absolutely absurd that soldiers just doing their duty, defending their land, be charged with war crimes.
So, there you have it: defenders cannot commit war crimes.
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Doctor Who: Do you know, Jo, I sometimes think that military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
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At least there was something risible, if not ludicrous, in the previous quotes. But there is nothing risible in this one:
John Lyons, ABC News’ Global Affairs Editor:
Will Anthony Albanese’s government change Australia’s position on joining the US in any war with China, or will it remain as it was under the Coalition government?
Clinton Fernandes (professor of the UNSW/Australian Defence Force Academy):
Peter Dutton [former Minister for Defence, currently Liberal Party/federal Opposition Leader] was more up-front and candid with the Australian public than Richard Marles [current Minister for Defence and Deputy Prime Minister, Labor Party], who is running the same program as Dutton but without the rhetoric.
Specifically, the program involves dropping sonobuoys (floating microphones with radio transmitters) to identify the acoustic signatures of Chinese submarines and allow US hunter-killer submarines to attack them at the outbreak of hostilities.
The fiction is that this is about “freedom of navigation”. It is not. It is about supporting the US’s wish to conduct reconnaissance, intelligence, surveillance, targeting and other military activities in any exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the world. International law is silent on whether this is legal. Australia and the US say it is. China says it isn’t.
Many countries that oppose China on other issues happen to agree with it on this issue. For example, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brazil, Argentina and others take the view that warships have no automatic right of innocent passage in their territorial seas. (August 15th)
No wonder that the media, including the ABC, shows so little interest in what Fernandes has to say.
He also knows what the piece of shit nuclear submarines are for (a hint, it’s not for Australia’s national defence).