Posted on 09/19/2001 9:16:32 AM PDT by Doug Loss
A few days ago I posted an article from the New Zealand Press in which the NZ Prime Minister Helen Clark was quoted as saying NZ was withdrawing from the ANZUS pact and wouldn't support the US in its time of need. This engendered quite a response, mainly from outraged Americans.
However, I've also heard from Kiwis who said that the newspaper report wasn't accurate, the PM doesn't speak for them, and that the NZ people heartily support the US. Most of the Kiwis were polite in their messages :-), too.
Now that things have cooled down a bit I'd like to thank everyone from NZ who replied for their thoughts. We welcome your support, both moral and material. However, I hope you can soon put your house in order. Your PM is an international embarrassment to you.
1. Agree entirely with your take on Helen Cluck. Makes you long for Bolger, doesn't it? Porbably almost any other PM, come to that.
2. Laughed out loud at your line about Kiwis not having anything to look forward to if they couldn't go to Oz.
3. I've been fuming about the row over lamb exports for some time now. It's not only wrong, it's obtuse of us.
4. The Reagan Administration may have been a little high handed in 1986. But you can hardly say Lange handled the affair with silk gloves. I know more than a few Kiwis who felt he was playing for the crowd more than anything else. Perhaps it kept the Helen Clarks off his back while Douglas dismantled the welfare state.
5. I well understand antipodean sensitivities to nukes given Mururoa et al. But they seem rather misdirected when pointed at the U.S. rather than France. I think a deal could have been worked out if Lange's objection was just to warheads. But he didn't want nuclear powered ships, either, and that's pretty much most of our Navy, save some auxilliary ships.
France - now *there* is a country that's been high handed in the South Pacific.
Good to hear from you.
Well, almost 9 days later and not a shot fired, that anyone knows about. I hope this doesn't count as "gung-ho before taking a minute to find out" who is responsible. The Bush administration is showing remarkable patience and poise, making the Left's tantrums that the US just loves to shoot first and ask questions later, completely laughable. The peaceniks to this minute, act like the US has already flattened several Afghan cities.
Not saying that you're a leftist, just pointing out a rather obvious factual error.
Don't know where you got this from, but the timing is wrong. This actually happened a few months back.A good sign that our country is run by greenies and narrow minded pacifists.
Crazy isn't it!
Personally I myself didn't think it did!
But judging by the number and content of posts on this subject, one could be excused for thinking otherwise.
New Zealand lost half her fighting force, that's 50% casualties, during the war. Getting angry at an idiot politician and trendy irritating lefties is one thing, but you are well out of order here.
When you expand on it, the reasons behind Sir David Lange's stance on the nuclear issue get pretty interesting, but if he was playing to the people, or to factions of his caucus – that’s politics.
There are many reasons New Zealand became anti-nuclear, and given the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, French nuclear testing, and changing world opinion there are more reasons we have stayed so. Obviously many of these reasons are essentially cultural, rather than strictly logical. Despite this I think it is fair to use the logical reason to describe why American ship visits were not for us.
To suggest that American disclosure of which ships were armed and which were not is a solution to the problem is not practical. I think the Russians would have be quite comfortable with the idea of sending a few warheads in our direction on the off-chance that any US ships in our ports were capable of returning fire. Certainly after such a war, few would have asked the Russians why they had done such a thing.
I’m aware that other countries faced the same shattering risks that we did, but you have to expect they had their own unique reasons for their decisions. They may not have had the chance to opt out of the destruction – certainly European countries would have suffered deeply no matter what their stance – simply by proxy. Other nations, as you note, had more strategic value – which means any possible incentives offered them would have been higher, and for others it would not have been as easy as ‘will you accept this ship?’. The issue of nuclear powered ships is less clear, although it again would have proven our unwillingness to be a target – but publicly it reflects little the (slightly silly) scare factor of nuclear leaks, or that maybe we did get a little carried away. In the end though, it all hasn’t turned out that badly – ANZUS is a shame, but then the world no longer lives next to nuclear midnight, nuclear testing is all but gone, and although it could all have turned out quite differently, New Zealand has tried to be a standard bearer to the anti-nuclear cause.
Forgive me, I know I don’t personally need to tell you this Iguana, but for the sake of others, in the end it’s been said time and time again in this forum, ANZUS is an aberration in the issue of New Zealand’s current support for the US.
What we are told about this time in our history is that the Americans stationed here caused a lot of resentment because petty crime, racial attacks, rapes and philandering with the wives of servicemen who were fighting overseas. IF what you say is true, this resentment could be the reason port workers might have been a little resistant to the idea of loading ships - although I can't say that would have been a good reason to let US servicemen die.
What's also possible that with so many men overseas, the ports were full of the kind of people you find in any country – the small number who don’t give a shit about anything – if that is truly the case, then it might have been alright if the lot of them did get machine-gunned. I say again, if it really is true, I can’t think of any real New Zealanders who would in any way condone that kind of attitude from another one of their countrymen.
What’s screwed about your post is that your so keen to dismiss all New Zealanders based upon a gaggle of waterside non-combatants – and I almost get the impression that comes out of some coffee-table history book you’ve read. Your comment flies in the face of other mentions in this very forum, about Rommel’s respect for the New Zealand soldier, and the losses New Zealand suffered in the Second World War – it’s also against Montgomery’s assessment.
If the watersiders were jack wankers or not, all your spouting about commies tells me odds-on, your just a crackpot. And lucky for us all, one of the few we’ve seen in this forum.
Someone else mentioned Timor, so maybe it should be pointed out to our American friends that Australians and New Zealanders wouldn't have their hands full there if the U.S. hadn't given Djakarta's kleptocrats the go-ahead to invade and kill 250,000 people. Now our two countries get to mop up the mess (at great expense) while the US expresses bland but unpenitent gratitude for our help.
As I've said, I lived here in New York for more than half my life. My wife's an An American, and even after all these years the unthinking arogance I get from her still ticks me off. We were in Oz once in late November, and she was genuinely appalled that we didn't celebrate Thanksgiving!
Still love her, and the arrogance is a small thing to put up with in comparison with her mother and brothers (you'd rather roll in dog doo than deal ith my mother-in-law, who isn't arrogant so much as simply toxic), but if Americans could imagine what they sound like to others, more people around the world might hold them in higher esteem. And this comes from somebody who loves this place, whose kid is a American, and who lost friends in the WTC. I want blood as much as the next guy on the subway.
Fights between friends are always the most bitter. Must cut it short, gotta earn some money. Please note, too, how I didn't utter a word of blame about the ansett debacle -- even though Ms. Cluck should be fed feet first into a jet engine. -- bunyip
Take whatever offense you want. She's still an international embarrassment. As for my WWII remarks, I didn't make any. Pay attention.
The Kiwi's were one of the few to help us in Nam. I take my hat off for that. Regardless if it is just moral support, intelligence support or military support, the support is appreciated. It's times like this where we find out who our friends are.
And with regards to the comment about the US having China be a better neighbor, we've been trying to correct the China policy our government has had for years.
New Zealand has had the shit been given to it since Gallipoli by the English and because of our history we are still very nervous about military commitment.
I do not support the terrorist attacks that happened recently any way and I feel sorry for the massive loss of life that has occured because of it, also with to remind the US people that we are offering the US "OUR SPECIAL FORCES" the SIS is our version of the rangers or SEALS (I think thats the one), our ground troops are currently tied up in East Timor and its not a cool thing to pull just to help someone else.
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