Sunday, July 15, 2012

Not Our Thing

Prime Minister Gillard famously said that "Foreign Policy" is not her thing.  Unfortunately, that is painfully obvious.

Australia has often been led by Prime Ministers with no idea of our place in the world.  Mostly because said Prime Ministers have spent their little lives campaigning in Australia - positioning themselves for domestic political leadership instead of engaging with the world.

It's one of the major failures of our polity.  And that failure is no more obvious than now.

Clearly the US has capitalised on our international inexperience.  Which is how in 2012 we have ended up with their military bases, nuclear submarines, spy bases and probably also drone command posts - located in our homeland.  And why we blindly follow along behind them into their many wars.

Also why we are turning a blind eye to their treatment of Julian Assange.

For years our political leadership has been dangerously naive and compliant - to the extent that we are probably now unable to assert our independence - even if we wanted - or needed to.

Just another example of how our political leaders have let the nation down.

There will be a federal election in 2013 - The question of "Our engagement with the United States" should be top of the agenda.  We should insist on a full and frank dialog with anyone who wants to offer themselves up as our Prime Minister.

Or is that "Not Our Thing" either?

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