http://theaimn.com/dont-mention-war-tony-abbott-thinks-may-just-gotten-away/



Basil Was Right – Don’t Mention The War! But Tony Thinks He May Have Just Gotten Away With It!

Rossleigh Brisbane
Now I’ve read a bit this week about the “special friendship” of Tony Abbott and Shinzo Abe. And I was a bit surprised by the first part of Greg Sheridan’s analysis: “TONY Abbott and Japan’s Shinzo Abe have become close friends, and more than that…close political, regional and personal allies. When they speak in private they mostly speak in English. An interpreter is always present but Abe understands everything that Abbott says and often responds in English.”

Mm, sounds positively romantic.

So, when talking about the bravery of two Japanese submariners killed in a raid on Sydney Harbour during the Second World War, Mr Abbott had this to say:

“We admired the skill and the sense of honour that they brought to their task although we disagreed with what they did. Perhaps we grasped, even then, that with a change of heart the fiercest of opponents could be the best of friends.”

Now I know that the war was a long time ago, but I suspect that not everyone who lost relatives admired the Japanese “sense of honour” at the time. However, I suspect that the passing of the years has enabled the survivors of the Burma Railway and Changi Prison, to better appreciate the skill with which the Japanese managed to extract the maximum productivity from the POWs. Perhaps also, those used by the Japanese as “comfort women” grasped that with a “change of heart” they could become the best of friends.

Yes, there’s no point in holding a grudge, because, after all, they did apologise to few of our diggers. (All right, it did take them till a couple of years ago to do it, but that’s a lot quicker than our response to the stolen generation.)

Moving on – It’s a great principle. Rather than concentrate on what was done – or perhaps, tactfully not mentioning it – admire the skill and sense of honour.

For example, instead of vilifying Jack the Ripper, I can admire his skill in not being caught. Instead of condemning Charlie Manson, I can admire his persuasive skills. Instead of growing angry at Christopher Pyne, I can admire the way he has become Education Minister with virtually no skills at all.

But there have to be limits. We have to ensure that if Tony goes to Germany, he doesn’t say that while we disagree with the Holocaust, we have to admire the efficiency with which…

No, even Tony wouldn’t go that far.

But then a week ago, I wouldn’t have expected to hear him praising Japan’s war effort to a Japanese Prime Minister who has turned his back on their tradition of pacifism since World War Two, announcing his intention to expand the military to better enable Japan to defend itself.

And thanks to this new policy, Australia may now be buying submarines from Japan.

“Australia may ask Japan for help in designing a new class of submarine or may consider buying complete submarines from Japan. Australia’s previous government had promised to build 12 submarines in Adelaide for a total cost of around $40 billion, the country’s most expensive defense project. However, the Abbott government elected in September last year may downsize that and is said to be considering other options.”

http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/Australia-Inches-Closer-to-Japanese-Submarine-Deal-2014-07-09

 

Like I said, things change. Once we were threatened by a submarine invading Sydney. Now, it appears that thanks to Japanese subs, even more workers may “liberated” from their jobs in Adelaide!



31 comments


LeeJuly 11, 2014 at 11:18 am
“But there have to be limits. We have to ensure that if Tony goes to Germany, he doesn’t say that while we disagree with the Holocaust, we have to admire the efficiency with which…

No, even Tony wouldn’t go that far.”

Don’t bet on it. Tony’s stupidity knows no bounds.


steven jamesJuly 11, 2014 at 11:27 am
yes tony the idiot of oz, but what about. the idiots who put him in charge and the idiots who voted for him?


RossleighbrisbameJuly 11, 2014 at 11:35 am
My one regret from the last election is that I didn’t vote for Abbott. Why?
Well, it’d be one vote that I’m sure he’d lose, and secondly, I’d like to able to around saying, “Well, I voted for him, and I really feel let down” so that Liberal supporters couldn’t keep changing the subject and trying to talk about Labor whenever I bring up any of Abbott’s shortcomings.


MariaJuly 11, 2014 at 12:05 pm
I don’t know how many P O Ws or comfort women are still alive but their war experiences have now been disappeared from history in Abbott’s mind. This is all for some kind of deal in his own mind which he has not told the Aus population about. He promised Adelaide he would continue building subs which has now been downgraded as well. He is through and through a frustrated military man with a obsession that is scary and will take Aus to places it does not want to go. I only hope thesensubs will not be used in operation border BS. The shame will not go away for many years.

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CMMCJuly 11, 2014 at 12:49 pm
Watching Abbott welcome Abe in parliament was a great ‘facepalm’ moment.

He completely alienated the RSL voters.


dcr1959July 11, 2014 at 1:28 pm
hmm – Abe understands fluent Bullshit? Even Aussies have a hard time understanding him. That’s why he always uses the defence that people only THINK he said X, when he really said Y.


David LinehanJuly 11, 2014 at 1:32 pm
I guess it doesn’t take a Uni education to understand um, ah, err, stop the boats, we will stop the boats, the boats are stopped, no more boats, illegal arrivals illegal arrivals, stop the boats. detention, Even the worshipper at the shrine of his countrymens, war mongering atrocities, Abbott’s dear friend Abe, could handle that conversation.


Helen JenningsJuly 11, 2014 at 2:42 pm
He just keeps making these cringe worthy comments and Australia keeps losing respect internationally and I keep hoping the protests will get louder and stronger and he’ll be gone. He’ll go down in history as the most narcissistic, racist, misogynistic moron to have ever sat as head of our country.


cherylebeattieJuly 11, 2014 at 3:24 pm
For our Prime Minister to sprout such absolute rubbish makes me want to scream and shake my fist to the sky. What an gigantic insult to the men and women affected at the time by the Japanese war machine . For him even to bring that up in a speech just leaves me wondering what bloody planet does he live on. Do the people who voted for him not take offence at this insulting speech . Do they not have relations who fought in WW2 and know the story of our own countries history. People move on of course and we have good relations with Japan now but the history is still there.


atkenosJuly 11, 2014 at 3:32 pm
Listen here you scum sucking miserable excuse for a so called national leader. Your gross insensitivity is NOT appreciated and you should apologise to the entire nation. WHAT A TOTAL DISGRACE


TechinBrisJuly 11, 2014 at 4:44 pm
RossleighbrisbameJuly 11, 2014 at 11:35 am “I’d like to able to around saying, “Well, I voted for him, and I really feel let down” so that Liberal supporters couldn’t keep changing the subject and trying to talk about Labor whenever I bring up any of Abbott’s shortcomings.”

Just say it anyway, just to make them squirm. Considering the sort of people of the calibre that are the Fiberals, and the lies of the calibre they promote continuously, you should get away with it, without feeling pangs of guilt.
After all, you are talking to a Political Party Members that are making a legend of themselves to the World in their compulsive habitual lying to anyone, anywhere, in order to gain advantage for themselves and their Financial Investors, over anyone they consider less than themselves, in the manner that only Sociopaths and Psychopaths can.
No one will judge you harshly for deceiving those who deceive us. Don’t get angry, get even. They should enjoy some of what they give to us. Contempt!


Möbius EckoJuly 11, 2014 at 4:49 pm
I notice yet another new slogan behind Abbott in his presser today where he said the negotiations with the Senate were situation normal. Strange he didn’t say that when in opposition nor when he said he will never deal with minorities in the Senate.

Anyway the new slogan was; “Let’s get Australia Working.”

Huh? What happened to “Open for Business.” Oh, that’s right, Australia is closing businesses one after another, as yet more coal mines closed in NSW, unprecedented says the unions with no positive outlook in the future, and a major iron ore producer going into receivership, all with job prospects of unemployment higher than the US.

So now it’s get Australia working. A government that has been in power for 10 months, the “Adults”, and have achieved nothing but cuts, destruction and shutting down things. I don’t think we need to get Australia working, as productivity figures show, the workers are labouring and producing, we need to get businesses working without the tax payers generous handouts, but most of all we need to get the government working and the only way that’s going to be achieved is by changing it for another.


TechinBrisJuly 11, 2014 at 4:59 pm
@	atkenosJuly 11, 2014 at 3:32 pm
First of all, Our Prime Miniature, the one and only Lonely Abbott, would first have to accept that his behaviour has been grossly insensitive. That sort of empathy or consideration to other’s abhorrence to such behaviour, is not even worth considering to him, except beyond having some sort of lame excuse that absolves himself of everything terrible at the ready, so he thinks you cannot blame him for his deleterious actions against others, as any Psychopath or Sociopath usually does.


Carol TaylorJuly 11, 2014 at 5:25 pm
On this issue (not to mention the numerous others), I find Tony Abbott absolutely appalling. Surely his only excuse can be an abysmal ignorance of Australian history. At every single turn Abbott manages via his ignorance, and complete lack of any skills in diplomacy whatsoever, to offend almost everyone.


Carol TaylorJuly 11, 2014 at 5:32 pm
With due respect to anyone who might have family/a friend with this disorder, the description in the link below seems appropriate when applied to a certain current serving politician (or perhaps more than one of them).

http://outofthefog.net/Disorders/NPD.html


LeeJuly 11, 2014 at 5:55 pm
@ M.E.

We should hold Abbott to ‘Let’s get Australia Working’. Let him create the jobs that he promised. We need more jobs. Of course, I won’t be holding my breath waiting for him to actually do it but it needs to be done.


Möbius EckoJuly 11, 2014 at 6:14 pm
Lee the latest economic prediction on the back of unemployment going up is that it will go beyond 6% and be worse than the US, yet this government outside of slogans has not a single answer or policy to address it, that is unless you believe the bullshit they are selling that getting rid of the carbon tax will be the panacea to an Australian utopia for all.


LeeJuly 11, 2014 at 6:18 pm
M.E. I know that. Capitalism needs high unemployment to be successful so I knew before the election that Abbott was lying his arse off about creating jobs. That doesn’t mean I won’t criticise the LNP for failing to create jobs at every opportunity I get. I’ll continue to point out his failed promise to LNP members and supporters.


mars08July 11, 2014 at 6:25 pm
Möbius Ecko:

I notice yet another new slogan behind Abbott in his presser today…

Phrasing, M.E. Phrasing!!!!

I read that line, and to my eternal shame, my mind conjured up an image which was quite disturbing….


corvus boreusJuly 11, 2014 at 6:36 pm
Perhaps our Prime Minister thought a little banter about what delightfully dutiful chaps the Japs are when they wage war would divert attention away from him not mentioning the slaughtered whales,overfishing or leaky reactors in the ocean we share.
China, the Koreas, and other nations that felt the Japanese boots take a slightly dimmer view on the honor of the Nipponese soldiery.


rossleighbrisbaneJuly 11, 2014 at 6:37 pm
“Let’s Australia Working – let’s get a government that works!”
:)


Michael TaylorJuly 11, 2014 at 6:46 pm
For that to happen, Rossleigh, we need to get some adults back in charge.


diongilesJuly 11, 2014 at 7:05 pm
The Jap submariners were seeking to subject the world to a hell of fascist mass murder.

Our soldiers, in that war, fought AGAINST war criminals – virtually a last time for Australian soldiers.

“To save mankind themselves they scorned to save” (engraved on many Allied war memorials)

For the Japs (and all other Axis troops) One could write:

“To enslave the world themselves they too enslaved”

As for Abbott, he has revived the spirit of the collaborationists and the authors of the strenuously denied Brisbane Line and the pre-war pro-Jap elements who spawned the fascist New Guard and efforts of Pig Iron Bob Menzies to get war supplies through to the Japs while they were raping Mongolia and China preparatory to jumping Pearl Harbor and South East Asia – and Australia.


Matters NotJuly 11, 2014 at 10:43 pm
an abysmal ignorance of Australian history.

Yes! But his ignorance goes way beyond that. Take the Rape of Nanking (Nanjing) as an historical example. Anyone who mentions ‘honour’ in that regard is simply ‘ignorant’, in all its dimensions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre


Florence nee FedupJuly 12, 2014 at 1:35 am
Well they say Mussolini did get the trains to run on time.


RossleighbrisbameJuly 12, 2014 at 8:37 am
Actually, Florence: http://europeanhistory.about.com/od/historicalmyths/a/Did-Mussolini-Get-The-Trains-Running-On-Time.htm


David LinehanJuly 12, 2014 at 10:09 am
As has been pointed out many times here and on other like minded blogs, this Tory rabble of incompetents has one major goal and one only. To keep their commitment to the big end of town to get rid of Labor’s carbon price. everything else is secondary, although the mining tax is a close second.

When it is done and shelved, the corks will belatedly pop, Abbott and that little lying nobody Hunt will front the media smirking their way through more of the same lies we have been hearing for 5 yrs, then look, shrug the shoulders and commence to establish more lies and cover ups for when the prices do not come down, as they surely will not, unemployment continues to increase, poverty among the needy, the sick, the homeless, the elderly becomes a calamity.

There are bad days ahead regardless of the Senate blocking the bad disproportionate budget cuts. Many folk are on the verge now as this rampaging Govt. of conservative religious fools slash and burn the economy and environment.
Hockey, Cormann, Ciobo and the economic illiterate Abbott (Rhodes scholar my backside) do the bidding of their masters Murdoch, Rinehart, the Business Round Table etc.

There will be no double dissolution, that we can be sure of. The refugee from the Seminary has neither the spine or intestines to call it, he knows it would be the end of his reign, something the bully boy will hang on to with every fibre of his worthless being.
Playing being PM is just that to him, a game. Abbott I believe is fixated on the notion he was born to be the leader of his party and the nation, dare I say ordained for it from the moment of his conception. Arrant nonsense of course, but the mind of a psychopath has many dark corners.
Blocking supply is probably the only immediate solution and Labor has no stomach for such a course

Dwelling on the last 10 months of this non-Government I often wonder, when we will ever see the end of them because one thing is certain, we will be rid of them. I fear the damage wrought getting to that end will be a painful experience for the majority.

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.”
― Mahatma Gandhi


Florence nee FedupJuly 12, 2014 at 1:03 pm
Rossleighbrisbame, sadly another myth from the right.


Matthew OborneJuly 12, 2014 at 3:35 pm
all over the internet you could see examples of people explaining this situation with Abe using analogies, when it dawned on me, we all thought we could get others to understand, and in particular the right if only we could find a popularly understood historical event. It failed on the whole because we could not find a suitable analogy using the die hard franchise or two and a half men. I wont say give up, but what is next? will we feel a finger puppet video post might work or will we realise that this is the number one reason the Liberal Party dont invest in education.


corvus boreusJuly 12, 2014 at 4:04 pm
Matthew O,
Simple explanations of complex issues for the attentively challenged?
The puppet show idea might work as a visual of how Tony is made to work.
He is a hollow puppet-doll made of plastic.
There are marionette strings attatched to his shoulders and arms so his political handlers can micromanage the movements of his upper half.
Corporate hands control his main movements by means of sock-puppetry via a large hole in his bottom half.
Vocalisation is through a string-pull squawkbox with a limited menu of simple phrases, and suffering tourette’s malfunctions.
Now, how to explain complex regional geo-political relationships within the context of ‘reality’ shows and talent quests?
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