Yanks stuff up - again

Vanguard August 2013 p. 11
Jack D.

(Above: US marines at Australia's Shoalwater Bay)

Two US Harrier AV8b aircraft involved in the Talisman Sabre joint military exercise at Shoalwater Bay, central Queensland, have jettisoned four bombs after a live fire mission was cancelled.

It is the height of stupidity to allow such exercises at all, let alone on a world heritage area. The Australian Defence Force says the weapons were not armed, the US 7^th Fleet has ruled out any risk to the public or the environment.

A lot of cold comfort that is. The ADF PR corps are experts at using the age old unofficial military motto BBB; “Bullshit Baffles Brains”. They will say whatever it is opportune to say at the time as decades of dealing with them and many enquiries show.

The Yanks, on the other hand, treat the Australian government and the Australian people with utter contempt and expect us to believe bombs used in live firing exercises are safe just because they say so. What a load of clap-trap.

Live firing means just what it says. Living in Townsville for years, I can tell you that Rattlesnake Island which has been the target area for such activities by the RAAF has felt the repercussions for decades. House foundations and other damage of homes along the northern beaches is well documented.

Do the Yanks think we will accept their B/S that four jettisoned bombs in 60 metres or so of water in a channel through the Great Barrier Reef off Yeppoon are harmless? They have potential to corrode and do massive environmental damage with the contents (explosives, metals and so on) getting loose.

What is the risk if cyclonic action bangs them about as the sea rages in such conditions? The Yanks should have to remove them and take them home to the USA. They don’t want to do that. Maybe they are too scared to try, after all, many of us say “They couldn‘t pour piss out of a boot – even if the directions were wrote on the sole”.

YANKEE GO HOME.

We need to put a stop to these so-called Joint Exercises. We need to kick out all Yank troops and bases. We demand a genuinely independent Australia with our military used to serve Australian interests, not used as an appendage of these foreign troops and at the service of foreign governments.