Australia Continues Its Plunge Into
Authoritarianism And Military Brinkmanship
By Caitlin Johnstone
September 16, 2021 -- "Information
Clearing House - Australia has joined the US and UK in an
“enhanced trilateral security partnership” called
AUKUS with the unspoken-yet-obvious goal of
coordinating escalations against China. Antiwar
reports:
President Biden and the leaders of Australia
and the UK announced
a new military agreement on Wednesday aimed
at countering China. The pact, known as AUKUS,
will focus on the sharing of sensitive military
technologies, and the first initiative will
focus on getting Australia nuclear-powered
submarines.
US officials speaking
to CNN described the effort to
share nuclear propulsion with another country as
an “exceedingly rare step” due to the
sensitivity of the technology. “This technology
is extremely sensitive. This is, frankly, an
exception to our policy in many respects,” one
unnamed official said.
This deal will replace a planned $90
billion program to obtain twelve submarines
designed by France, an obnoxious expenditure either
way when
a quarter of Australians are struggling to make
ends meet during a pandemic that is
four times more likely to kill Australians who
are struggling financially. This is just the latest
in Canberra’s
continually expanding policy of feeding vast
fortunes into Washington’s standoff with Beijing at
the expense of its own people.
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If readers are curious why Australia would
simultaneously subvert its own economic interests by
turning against its
primary trading partner and its own security
interests by feeding into dangerous and unnecessary
provocations, I will refer them once again to the
jarringly honest explanation by American
political analyst John Mearsheimer at a debate
hosted by the Australian think tank Center for
Independent Studies in 2019. Mearsheimer told his
audience that the US is going to do everything it
can to halt China’s rise and prevent it from
becoming the regional hegemon in the East, and that
Australia should align with the US in that battle or
else it would face the wrath of Washington.
If you don't understand why Australia would undermine its own economic and security interests to pour a fortune into America's cold war with China, watch this. Australia isn't allied with the US to protect itself from China, it's allied with the US to protect itself from the US. https://t.co/m6CSKlrF4e
“The question that’s on the table is what should
Australia’s foreign policy be in light of the rise
of China,” Mearsheimer said.
“I’ll tell you what I would suggest if I were an
Australian.”
Mearsheimer claimed that China is going to
continue to grow economically and will convert this
economic power into military power to dominate Asia
“the way the US dominates the Western Hemisphere”,
and explained why he thinks the US and its allies
have every ability to prevent that from happening.
“Now the question is what does this all mean for
Australia?” Mearsheimer said. “Well, you’re in a
quandary for sure. Everybody knows what the quandary
is. And by the way you’re not the only country in
East Asia that’s in this quandary. You trade a lot
with China, and that trade is very important for
your prosperity, no question about that.
Security-wise you really want to go with us. It
makes just a lot more sense, right? And you
understand that security is more important than
prosperity, because if you don’t survive, you’re not
gonna prosper.”
“Now some people say there’s an alternative: you
can go with China,” said Mearsheimer. “Right you
have a choice here: you can go with China rather the
United States. There’s two things I’ll say about
that. Number one, if you go with China you want to
understand you are our enemy. You are then deciding
to become an enemy of the United States. Because
again, we’re talking about an intense security
competition.”
“You’re either with us or against us,” he
continued. “And if you’re trading extensively with
China, and you’re friendly with China, you’re
undermining the United States in this security
competition. You’re feeding the beast, from our
perspective. And that is not going to make us happy.
And when we are not happy you do not want to
underestimate how nasty we can be. Just ask Fidel
Castro.”
Nervous laughter from the Australian think tank
audience punctuated Mearsheimer’s more incendiary
observations. The CIA is known to have made
numerous attempts to assassinate Castro.
So there you have it. Australia is not aligned
with the US to protect itself from China. Australia
is aligned with the US to protect itself from the
US.
This new move happens as Northern Territory Chief
Minister Michael Gunner
announces his government’s policy for Covid-19
restrictions once the territory’s population is 80
percent vaccinated which will include “lockouts”
during outbreaks wherein people will only be allowed
to work and move freely in society if they verify
that they are vaccinated using check-in measures
which Gunner literally calls a “freedom pass”.
“I’ll say it again and again. If you want your
life to continue close to normal, get your jab,”
Gunner
said. “For vaccinated people, the check-in app
will basically be your freedom pass. For people who
make the choice to not get vaccinated, no vax means
no freedom pass. We’re working with other
governments now to get this technology ready.”
And we continue to see other authoritarian
escalations in Australia which have nothing to do
with Covid as well. Authorities have been
proposing new legal provisions which will allow
Australian visas to be cancelled and citizenship
revoked in entirely secret proceedings based on
information provided by secretive government
agencies. The horrifying
Identify and Disrupt bill which allows
Australian police to hack people’s devices, collect,
delete and alter their information and log
onto their social media was passed through
Parliament at
jaw-dropping speed last month. Neither of these
escalations are Covid-related.
Australia Has No Bill Of
Rights, And It Shows
"While the pandemic has certainly been a
major factor in exacerbating civil rights
erosion, Australia's Covid response has simply
added to a problem that had already existed and
was already getting worse."https://t.co/LLhPhEpTJG
People who just started paying attention to
Australian authoritarianism during Covid often get
the impression that it’s entirely about the virus,
but as we
discussed previously the actual fundamental
problem is that Australia is the only so-called
democracy without any kind of statute or bill of
rights to protect the citizenry from these kinds of
abuses. This is why Australia is looked upon as so
freakish by the rest of the western world right now:
because, in this sense, it is. People call it a
“free country”, but there has never been any reason
to do so.
This slide into military brinkmanship and
authoritarian dystopia shows no signs of stopping.
The abuses of the powerful will continue to grow
more egregious until the people open their eyes to
what’s going on and begin taking action to steer us
away from the existential dangers we are hurtling
toward on multiple fronts. If there is any good news
to be had here, it’s that if such a miracle ever
occurs it will then be possible to immediately
course correct and start building a healthy society
together.
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