Phil Goff speaking on the SAS deployment

Written By: - Date published: 8:02 pm, August 19th, 2009 - 9 comments
Categories: afghanistan, Parliament, phil goff - Tags:

9 comments on “Phil Goff speaking on the SAS deployment ”

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  1. Ron 1
    19 August 2009 at 8:24 pm

    He should just keep doing this. He should relax a bit but he should just keep doing this.
    Instead of getting stuck into specifics of the NACT he should make this sort of speech every week about the results of their plan to gut the welfare state.
    Use the same passion, same logical argument and get reported. It’ll work.

  2. poptart 2
    19 August 2009 at 8:53 pm

    Wow. Just wow. That was awesome.

  3. mike 3
    19 August 2009 at 10:06 pm

    Shame Hodson ruined it for him though..

  4. NX 4
    19 August 2009 at 10:57 pm

    I’ve listened to all of Goff’s speech. Classic Goff really… kinda angry – like all his speeches.

    But I seriously don’t believe that Goff wants to cut’n run in Afghanistan after he was Minister of Defence in a government which committed the SAS to Afghanistan three times.
    And I seriously don’t believe that Goff would be prepared to snub the Obama administration.

    I think it’s more likely Goff is taking this stance to revitalise the left… and because he can as leader of the Opposition.

  5. lprent 5
    19 August 2009 at 11:23 pm

    It was interesting. The speech changed my mind.

    If I can summarize my view on the speech. He was arguing that the PRT (?) support program was working in the areas that we’d deployed it. That the straight military program was increasingly falling into the Vietnam trap of supporting an increasingly corrupt regime. And that we shouldn’t be involved in it (sub-text) for trade reasons.

    This from a ex-minister who was involved in sending troops there the first time, and who has been noted inside Labour as being a ‘hawk’.

    The (umm) government view from McCully who is a smarmy weasel at the best of times was unconvincing and essentially came down to “we did it because the yanks asked”.

    As an ex-soldier that was insufficient. I cannot think of any reason why a soldier would comfortably consider it sufficient to undertake a wasted mission for the convenience of a politician…… But civilian arsehole armchair generals (like NX?) with authoritarian tendencies probably wouldn’t understand that..

  6. Eddie 6
    20 August 2009 at 12:13 am

    Yeah, you might remember that I was a bit in two minds about the SAS thing too, although I was against the deployment in the end. Goff’s speech convinced me that we absolutely shouldn’t be sending them back in.

  7. Galeandra 7
    20 August 2009 at 10:23 pm

    Appalling to see the absence of the Government front bench in the debate!!. What an insult to the men they are so lightly sending.

  8. rave 8
    21 August 2009 at 7:56 pm

    Unfortunately Goff’s logic is shot through with fallacies.
    He says its a civil war. I’ts more than that, its a proxy war in which the Karzai regime acts for the US and its NATO allies to control Afghanistan as a launching pad to the rest of Central Asia.
    The pretext that the UN went to war against Al Qaeda was always a myth, The character of the war as a US imperialist proxy war remains unchanged.
    That means that the Taliban are fighting the US proxies and should be supported militarily in the legitimate fight for independence. This doesnt mean any support for the Taliban’s social and and economic program to create a reactionary Islamic regime.
    But supporting Karzai militarily is to support US global domination. Key has an interest in that. His first allegiance is Wall St.
    How is Labour’s interest different?
    Supporting Karzai’s puppet regime with so-called non-combatant troops is still siding with US imperialism.
    Hands off Afghanistan. NZ troops out.
    Defeat the imperialist invaders!
    http://redrave.blogspot.com/2009/08/afghanistan-defeat-imperialist-invaders.html