Open mike 04/08/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 4th, 2010 - 28 comments
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28 comments on “Open mike 04/08/2010 ”

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  1. DeeDub 1
    4 August 2010 at 8:37 am

    Sad news that the NZDF lost a soldier in Afghanistan. Key was all over it with a phone interview on Breakfast of course…. and he said he’d be talking to the family in due course. Of course talking to the media takes priority?

    • Pascal's bookie 1.1
      4 August 2010 at 8:41 am

      It’s Key’s job to be all over this. The Military will, and should, be talking to the family before any politicians do.

      • Lanthanide 1.1.1
        4 August 2010 at 11:48 am

        After Key’s interview on morning report, I got the impression that the family was told bright and early this morning, before any of his media interviews. Pleasant thing to wake up to.

  2. Pascal's bookie 2
    4 August 2010 at 8:38 am

    What duties do citizens have towards those who serve in volunteer armies that answer to civilian command?

    A minimal, incomplete answer is that we don’t throw their lives away in wars of choice that we cannot win.

    It doesn’t matter why we can’t win it, but if we can’t win it because we are not prepared to look hard at what winning it would take, or if we are not prepared or able to pay the price needed to win it, then ordering people to fight becomes especially callous.

    (The Taliban know what the score is)

    Nations act in their own interests. If we are not prepared to face the fact that Pakistan thinks that it is in Pakistan’s interests to play both sides in Afghanistan, then we are never going to win, (for whatever definition of win we are working under this week). If the consequences of actually confronting Pakistan’s actions are too high to contemplate (civil war in Pakistan anyone?) then the price needed to win in Afghanistan is too high.

    Pakistan is complicated

    In which case, how can we order people to fight there?

    Horrible true stories about what might happen if we pull out, do not change this.

    • Draco T Bastard 2.1
      4 August 2010 at 12:45 pm

      We should never have been in Afghanistan in the first place. Actually, the war should never have happened as there was never any means for it to achieve what it set out to do – whatever that was. And there’s the simple point that invasion and occupation never works.

  3. DeeDub 3
    4 August 2010 at 8:56 am

    This was after the NZDF media briefing so I think we can assume they had already advised the family? I agree that the PM has to front the media on this but I think a call to the family should come before any statement to the media… just IMO.

  4. prism 4
    4 August 2010 at 9:23 am

    I thought I heard that John Key was going to talk about democracy on Radnz this morning. Wrong! It is – 10:05 John Keane – Democracy – the life and death of it

    Professor of politics at the University of Sydney, author of The Life and Death of Democracy and is shortlisted for the Australian Prime Minister’s awards for non fiction.

    Will be more interesting to hear than Clueless being relaxed about democracy, which seems to be something to fight for in Afghanistan, though not much use here to anyone who counts, in the opinion of NACT.

  5. Jenny 5
    4 August 2010 at 11:59 am

    We need to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan before there are any more pointless and needless deaths.

    And while we are at it, we need to scrap the repressive and paranoid war-on-terror Terrorist Suppression Act.

    It’s way over time we opted out of George Bush’s moronic war mindset.

    After all everyone else is doing it.

    From Global Peace and Justice:

    Bring New Zealand troops home

    • Anthony C 5.1
      4 August 2010 at 12:51 pm

      I agree, we signed on to the Bush administration and their minion’s misguided idealogical vision of “regime change” and “nation building”. Whether it was through incompetent planning and execution or whatever, it increasingly looks destined for failure, despite the progress of the PRT in Bamiyan.

  6. lprent 6
    4 August 2010 at 1:22 pm

    An update last night fried the settings for the anti-spam words. I’ve reset most of it. However the word list will be a bit small until I get a few minutes to extract a backup.

  7. joe90 7
    4 August 2010 at 1:28 pm

    On a lighter note, the art of Sebastian Krueger and my favourite, the worlds most elegantly wasted dude, Keith.

  8. Arthur 8
    4 August 2010 at 7:34 pm

    A truckie died in Hawke Bay yesterday. Will the PM be visiting or calling his family? Will the ministers of transport or labour turn up to his funeral?

    • Bill 8.1
      4 August 2010 at 8:36 pm

      No.

      Because the PM and various MPs have no need to fondle and caress their own denial with regards their complicity in his death.

      Don’t know if you noticed, but soldiers and truck drivers die as a result of events that ‘just happen’. The soldier was a soldier and so in a more dangerous environment than the truck driver. Being a soldier in a more dangerous environment makes the dead soldier a hero. We are told that the soldier ‘wanted’ to be there, which means we are being asked to believe that on some level he chose to be there in much the same way as the truck driver chose to drive his truck.

      And then, just as no right thinking person would hold anyone beyond the confines of the immediate event responsible for the death of the truck driver, so it is to be with the soldier. Hence the encouragement we are all receiving via media and sincerely insincere politicians to be ‘right thinking people’; to shake our heads at the sad loss and mourn that a good kiwi soldier’s life was cut short by ungrateful and ultimately murderous politicians…erm, parliamentarians … I mean natives. Goddamnnatives!

      • Descendant Of Smith 8.1.1
        4 August 2010 at 9:17 pm

        Tis a funny thing but this morning at work when all were being sad about the death of a soldier, and it is sad, I made the comment that I thought it was much sadder about those who died suddenly, such as the truck driver yesterday, who was expected home that night whereas the soldier did volunteer to be where he was, was being paid danger money by the day, was trained to do the job he was doing and understood clearly the greater risk involved, including the risk of death was well aware that he may not return home..

        The families of those such as the truck driver have to cope with his loss with much less preparation than the soldier and far less support.

        If anything a reminder that those who suffer loss on a daily basis in our communities would sometimes love to have a shard of the support that this one soldier will have. If there is something you can do locally to help someone else who has suffered hardship then take on opportunity to do it.

        That at least is my thought for the day.

  9. Fot 9
    4 August 2010 at 9:17 pm

    You people really are the lowest of the low, a man died today serving his country and you guys still try and make political capital out of it.

    You are scum.

    • Bill 9.1
      4 August 2010 at 9:47 pm

      What the fuck do you think politicians have been doing all fcking day sunshine?

      I’d have thought the scum would be the people who put his life in jeopardy who then had the gall to strut their sad manufactured humanity in front of us while spouting vapid sentimental tripe about his heroism, their gratitude and our mourning.

      They’re the politically capitalising – ‘Where’s our Brownie points?’ – fucking scum Fot, not a few anonymous commenters on a blog who are in no position to make political capital even if they wanted to.

    • BLiP 9.2
      4 August 2010 at 10:01 pm

      Trouble is, the dead soldier wasn’t serving his country, although we paid his wages. The poor bugger was serving the interests of international corporates backed by the US as part of an illegal occupation designed to remove energy assets from the people of Afghanistan.

    • Descendant Of Smith 9.3
      4 August 2010 at 10:34 pm

      I’m not sure how I was making political capital – I was simply considering that other people died today in more tragic circumstances.

      The notion of community is what my forefathers went to war for – there’s not really a better way to commemorate that remembering that and putting their deeds into some sort of action.

      They also fought for the right to have free speech and express an opinion.

      At the same time war is political and the decisions to go are made by politicians. You can’t bury your head in the sand and ignore that aspect.

      Instead of posting abuse take up my challenge and do something positive.

    • Draco T Bastard 9.4
      4 August 2010 at 10:54 pm

      You’re an idiot.

      The first thing that Jonkey did today was go on radio and make political capital out of it. He even announced that he was going to make more political capital out of it by going round to the family once they’d been informed.

      Everyone else here has just pointed that out and the discrepancy that they don’t do that when anybody else dies doing their job.

      The scum? Jonkey and all the others doing their damnedest to appear humane after sending one of our people to get killed in service of US oppression.

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