It was the very thought that came into my own head the moment I heard this: ‘Reality of our time’: Dutton warns Australians to prepare for war. Of course, my Latin is a bit rusty so the thought occurred to me only in English. However, the more up-to-date and erudite chaps and chapesses at The Spectator were able to go straight to the original.
- Yesterday, classically-literate defence minister Peter Dutton raised the campaign temperature by saying, ‘Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.’ Actually, that’s what a Roman chap called Publius Flavius Vegetius wrote the best part of 2,000 years ago. Dutton translated it on the Today show as ‘if you want peace, prepare for war’, with reference to Red China knocking on our door through its deal with the prime minister of the Solomon Islands. Meanwhile, our PM talked of ‘red lines’ being crossed if China militarises the Solomons: how the Reds would be thrown back behind that red line, if they crossed it, wasn’t spelled out by the government (nor did Labor spell out what they would do). But you can take it as given that those choices of words were workshopped in Liberal focus groups, and yesterday they set the media agenda.
Whatever and however Scott Morrison may be remembered, it won’t be as “Pig Iron Bob”. Labor will undoubtedly invent some other means to traduce [more Latin] our Prime Minister. This is a more complete version of what Dutton said: Peter Dutton warns of a potential chemical weapon attack and says China ‘would play Penny Wong like a fool’ if she becomes the new foreign minister. If you don’t think this is a very real issue, than think about this.
She [ie Penny Wong] told the Guardian’s Australian Politics Podcast that recent tactics by Scott Morrison to paint Labor as soft on China will only make the situation worse.
The Prime Minister in February branded Labor deputy leader Richard Marles a ‘Manchurian candidate’ after he called for closer defence ties with China on a trip to Beijing in 2019.
Ms Wong said the extraordinary attack to portray the Opposition as weak on national security and a puppet of an enemy power, was an act of ‘desperation by the government’.
‘It is also a trashing of Australia’s national interests because one of the things that makes us strongest is our unity,’ she said.
‘What we won’t do is play domestic politics with the China relationship.’
And what she definitely will not do is indicate that the CCP is a potential threat to Australia. And just what is the CCP?
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
We were sold out by traitors dressed as clowns, jokers and court jesters in the most grotesque way possible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwvTgZ2ne-M
$$$$$$$$\
\____$$ |
$$ /
$$ /
$$ /
$$ /
$$$$$$$$\
\________|
Keep sending the brown paper bags, wink wink, and we can be more vague. Ri ccp hard Marles will check if this is ok.
Is there a link to that Spectator piece?
I can’t see it on their main page.
We need a rifle behind every blade of grass, like the Swiss.
I am serious. Our coastline is so enormous that no possible Navy nor Airforce could prevent an invasion, say, of Broome or Darwin. And once an enemy had two or three divisions in those places we couldn’t ever evict them.
So the only alternative is for every Australian to be a guerilla. That works in two ways. If it is known that a “rifle is behind every blade of grass” no enemy would invade. And if they did they’d be eaten. Either way Australia would succeed in our defense.
Ukraine is more or less attempting the latter option, with some success. If they’d had the Swiss model in operation I suspect the Russians wouldn’t’ve attempted this invasion.
panem et circenses
Thesem invenire equidem nequeo.
the image that comes to mind is like a knife through butter….
“Pig Iron Bob”
It’s ironic that Broken Hill Proprietary, who was selling that iron, was using the profits to re – tool their factories for war production.
Am I wrong to think that chap Wong has chinese ethnicity?
Siltstone
MBC (Malaysian Born Chinese) IIRC.
Bruce @ 8:11
My brother and I were chatting last year and said similar things regarding America.
The right to bear arms means that there are a lot of civilians who have the potential to cause grief to anybody silly enough to invade.
Australia?
PFFT!
Born in Sabah, Eastern Malaysia.
The easiest thing if someone was silly enough to invade us there would be to let them in and then cut off their supply train with our nuclear attack subs. Oh, wait.
Anyway, the problem for the invader is the USN would do just that.
So invading Broome or Darwin is not what they would do. They could for example, put a regiment in a car carrier destined for Melbourne, and another in one destined for Botany Bay. Roll the whole set off and get into the burbs before the ADF woke up, a la the Germans in The Longest Day.
Target Carlton and Ultimo as a priority and the demands to surrender from the quislings would be immediate and never ending.
I believe the Wong chap has a white Australian mother and a Malaysian Chinese father.
No Australian would bother to defend Canberra. It’s already full of communists .
So Scummo will block the sale of our iron ore to China? If not then he is Pig Iron Bob 2.0.
Let’s be honest, successive governments have let millions of Chinese into Australia.
Who do you think they are going to fight for in a war of Australia against China – they will fight for the Chinese.
Blood is thicker than water.
There is not much the Australia’s small and now somewhat-woke military can do about Chinese expansion. We can only pray to God they are more benign than the current ruling class of Satan worshippers we have across the West.
Per ardua ad nauseum?
Then:
Nil illegitemii carborundum!
Or, perhaps more bluntly, as per Arnaud Amalric:
Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.
I have a lady who works for me of Malaysian origin. She and her fellow country folk detest the Chinese. A couple of years back she had a bit of a rant about them. I was taken aback as I said but ..aren’t you Chinese? No! Was the response and she set me straight. A weird funny but eye opening moment.
I suspect that Wong chap must come from another part of Malaysia.
Were we exporting pig iron in the 30’s instead of iron ore? If so, why did we lose that part of the process, the “value-add” component?
‘It is also a trashing of Australia’s national interests because one of the things that makes us strongest is our unity,’ she said.
And because we are continually having diversity shoved down our throats, I was under the impression that ‘diversity is our strength.’
Silly me.
I’m sure Mr. Marles will clear a lot up when he becomes defence minister. Cough.
While Peter Dutton is undoubtedly correct, he would do well to remember Teddy Roosevelt’s comment “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”
At least until the far off day when Australia acquires something more than a broken toothpick with which to defend itself.