He's been a busy busy boy, has our China
Does anyone remember the Solomon Islands?
Remember how it fell apart into something that would be called warlordism if that weren't too glorified a term for it?
It was a bit of a scandal. The Solomon Islands begs Australia to take it over (how many countries beg another to take it over?); Australia says you're on your own. Solomon Islands collapses into chaos.
The Daily Telegraph (a NSW paper generally considered to be a low-brow right-wing plebeian tabloid) as I recall, on page 1 lamented "Where were our intelligence services? Why didn't we see this coming?"
On page 4 of the same edition there was an article lamenting that the Government hadn't listened to ASIS's reports from several months ago that a shipment of arms was about to arrive in the Solomons from China. Yes, you read right, from good old friendly benevolent China.
Oops. Looks like the Tele done a fubar there. Presumably they received a D Notice (government request for voluntary self-censorship) but some wires got crossed and the article made it into the paper and onto the shelves.
(Incidentally, the Daily Telegraph was the newspaper that first outed the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) in 1972.)
So. The Sinofascists are destabilising our neighbours, eh?
I wonder what the Solomons' relationship with Taiwan at that time was like? Was it hot, or was it just getting warmer?
Or was Australia not sucking hard enough when the US Sugar Daddy A wasn't looking?
Or were we just not keeping a close enough eye on things?
What I want to know is, why wasn't the shipment intercepted and the crew fed to the sharks? The only acceptable excuse is that some 30 year old hot-shot (correctly) judged that the ensuing chaso, which only Australia could fix, would allow Australia to strengthen its position in the Solomons.
Whatever it was, the question is, what are we going to do about it? China, I mean. Are we just going to bend over and take this? I hope not. I hope some very dirty deal went on in the background that cost China some big concessions. Maybe they let us off the hook when they caught us bugging their embassy.
I just pray that we didn't do nothing.
Maybe we didn't - look at the Chen affair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Yonglin). We have 1000 Chinese spies in Australia...
It's a deadly, nasty, dangerous, brutal world out there.
Yours truly
Patrick Henry
Remember how it fell apart into something that would be called warlordism if that weren't too glorified a term for it?
It was a bit of a scandal. The Solomon Islands begs Australia to take it over (how many countries beg another to take it over?); Australia says you're on your own. Solomon Islands collapses into chaos.
The Daily Telegraph (a NSW paper generally considered to be a low-brow right-wing plebeian tabloid) as I recall, on page 1 lamented "Where were our intelligence services? Why didn't we see this coming?"
On page 4 of the same edition there was an article lamenting that the Government hadn't listened to ASIS's reports from several months ago that a shipment of arms was about to arrive in the Solomons from China. Yes, you read right, from good old friendly benevolent China.
Oops. Looks like the Tele done a fubar there. Presumably they received a D Notice (government request for voluntary self-censorship) but some wires got crossed and the article made it into the paper and onto the shelves.
(Incidentally, the Daily Telegraph was the newspaper that first outed the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) in 1972.)
So. The Sinofascists are destabilising our neighbours, eh?
I wonder what the Solomons' relationship with Taiwan at that time was like? Was it hot, or was it just getting warmer?
Or was Australia not sucking hard enough when the US Sugar Daddy A wasn't looking?
Or were we just not keeping a close enough eye on things?
What I want to know is, why wasn't the shipment intercepted and the crew fed to the sharks? The only acceptable excuse is that some 30 year old hot-shot (correctly) judged that the ensuing chaso, which only Australia could fix, would allow Australia to strengthen its position in the Solomons.
Whatever it was, the question is, what are we going to do about it? China, I mean. Are we just going to bend over and take this? I hope not. I hope some very dirty deal went on in the background that cost China some big concessions. Maybe they let us off the hook when they caught us bugging their embassy.
I just pray that we didn't do nothing.
Maybe we didn't - look at the Chen affair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Yonglin). We have 1000 Chinese spies in Australia...
It's a deadly, nasty, dangerous, brutal world out there.
Yours truly
Patrick Henry
posted by Patrick Henry at 00:06
1 Comments:
I think Taiwan and China were having a bidding war over the Solomons somehow. Both offering a certain amount of aid for recognition / non-recognition of Taiwan.
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