Any reader, constant or otherwise, will
appreciate my deeply held dislike of Tony Abbott. It isn’t due to any one
factor. It’s partly the religious conservatism guiding his politics, but also
the misogyny, the xenophobia and his rejection of scientific enquiry. It’s his
pride in leading the Party of No and his smugness at being a full-time
obstructionist, devoid of an original thought. However, despite this staunchly
consistent track record I have conceived of a situation where I’d do the
previously unthinkable: vote for him.
In a two-party democracy (I like the Greens,
but they are not a 3rd way just yet) if the parties take the same
position – the issue is dead. In the US, such classics as maintaining military
spending, supporting Israel at all costs and pursuing the pointless drug war
are prominent examples. Here, demonising boat people, opposing marriage
equality and hating Christopher Pyne are pretty unanimously held positions. Then
of course there is the war in Afghanistan, off the table since the November
2010 parliamentary debate ended in galvanised agreement that we would stay to
the ‘end’. While our ANZAC allies prepare for an ahead of schedule April 2013
exit – there is currently no political will to move forward our planned 2014
pull-out – an no guarantee that mission creep will not see the deadline
adjusted further.
When we joined the war in 2001, some of the
goals set forth made sense. Remove the Taliban from power, disrupt al-Qaeda’s operations and find Osama Bin Laden.
However, a decade on, these three goals in particular have been achieved and we
are left with the open-ended task of training Afghan security forces to support
the democracy we have transplanted there. Our involvement, aside from the financial
burden (US estimates are $1 million per soldier, per year) – 240 of our
soldiers have been wounded and 38 killed. The list is a depressingly bleak run
down (read
it here): IED, small arms fire, green on blue attack, helicopter crash.
With goals less clear and with the trainees increasingly murdering our trainers
– we should be wondering, how many more Australians are we prepared to lose?
This week, Liberal
backbencher Mal Washer, whom I’ve never heard of, made some of the most
sensible comments I’ve ever heard a Lib utter: "the question is, politically, why are we continuing this? Why are we
risking more lives when if you've been there for 10 years and this is the
result of it - what's the point of staying any longer? Do you think one more
year is going to make a difference?” Amen. His party has immediately
distanced themselves from his ‘rogue’ comments – but I sense opportunity. Now
I’m a patriot. I support our troops. Their bravery and worth to this country
greatly exceed my own. And accordingly, they should come home. Today.
I saw a clip this week
of US Republican (and libertarian) Ron Paul on Bill Maher, talking about a
restrained non-interventionist foreign policy (see here). To distill his
message into a bumper sticker: the peace candidate always wins. The people cry
out for it when they get to see the costs of war. So Tony, though you are
amongst my most hated politicians, and though your climate change denying,
workplace reforming, homophobic agenda pains me greatly – be the peace
candidate, promise to bring the troops home – and you got my vote.
