Being the vast scorched land that Australia is, the most effective way for our defence force to protect the nation is through superior air control. And our Government is very puffed up with their 12 billion dollar purchase of 58 state of the art F-35 Jets. Add to that the extra 12 billion to weaponise and maintain the jets and the fact that our intention is to double our order in the next decade. Is this a fair price to pay for air control in a time when even the Australian Defence Force is saying that the biggest threat looming on the horizon is a completely different type of air control - Climate Change?
We are told that we are in a budget emergency and so have had to cut funding to programs and services like foreign aid (4.5b), indigenous legal services (13m), cuts to Gonski, to the NDIS, dismantling of Climate Commissions, cutting back on the CSIRO, letting the auto industry die etc. all resulting in thousands of job losses. independent australia - tracking tony abbotts wreckage
And while they didn't take from these services to pay for these jets, I don't see why we can't have less jets to balance everything else and provide Australians with better services, I'm sure those on the pension even would appreciate just a portion of the ADF's budget. the guardian zero public demand for fighter planes
The ammount of money spent worldwide on military hardware is obscene. On the rise towards 2 trillion dollars annually. That doesn't mean much to me but when it is calculated as each person in the world contributing $249 annually towards it, it carries more weight. Especially when you think of the billions who live on the meagrest of wages. The most obscene of all is the U.S. who spend almost as much as the rest of the world put together. It is not like they don't have internal problems that need attention either. Dare we keep heading down a path towards being more like the U.S?
Did the rest of the world fail to see the progress and infrastructure that was possible in places that were freed from the yolk of military spending like Germany and Japan? They were forced to demilitarise but in an ideal world we could fix near everything if we could all forego finding more and more effective ways to remove each others heads. It is not an ideal world but it us up to us to strive towards demilitarising the world instead of initiating arms races. Hard because it requires logic and trust and selflessness but if we do not try then we are lost.
Facing criticism for the record spending purchase of top line jets our PM Tony Abbott said in defence of it that "you never know what's around the corner." He seems full of this 'shit happens' verbatim doesn't he?. Well the ADF is actually charged with figuring out what is around the corner, they call it 'intelligence.'
This intelligence gathering of late has seen ADF personnel attending briefings on climate change. And
earlier this year in an address to the Lowy Institute Lieutenant General
David Morrison said that there were no regional military threats to
Australia even despite the sometimes frosty relationship between us
and Indonesia. He did however say that the impacts of climate change
need to be factored into future military plans and importantly that
“I think the most likely role for the military, however, will be
providing immediate assistance for humanitarian and disaster relief.”
And we
have already witnessed this in action with some of the largest
deployments of Defence personnel within Australia being in response
to floods and cyclones. I'm not entirely sure what an F-35 fighter
jet provides in a humanitarian and disaster relief effort. At least
those on the ground getting their hands dirty can do so safe in the
knowledge that they wont be bombed from the air as they rescue people
from the roofs of their homes.
So if
Climate Change is the biggest threat to our national security,
through climatic events and through dwindling resources putting
pressure on people to migrate then what should the ADF and the
Australian Government do about it? What will F-35's produce other
than more carbon in the atmosphere. Well I guess they could help us
feel more secure driving us towards a more insular approach to the
world where we protect what we have and blow little rickety boats of
desperate people out of the water.
The
cynical side of me wonders whether the ADF is just trying to deflect criticism of
this purchase back onto the government. And that Tony is just trying to garner more support from the military by upping
their budget and giving them new toys to play with. If the ADF really
believes that climate change is our biggest threat how about they say
'NO' to the jets and ask for more hardware to be able to offer
humanitarian assistance. Why don't they demand that the Government
faces its responsiblities in protecting our security and our future
by actually implementing policies that reduce the risk of climate
change and our reliance on fossil fuels? No need to fight over oil if we've moved to renewable energy right?
So Tony is all thumbs up with his ear to ear smile in the cockpit of a new F-35 having just spent 24 billion on not knowing what's around the corner. Yet he wants to repeal the carbon tax and spend next to nothing on addressing issues that we know are around the corner and are a bigger threat to us all. I can see it now 'this is air control to major tony, our squadron has the cyclone in our targets, do you want us to hit it with everything we've got?'
