Mad Monk's Minions Mither* Military

The two major parties may be in furious agreement about the need for Australia to go the distance in Afghanistan but the Liberal Party is still at odds with the government over those military prosecutions. On Tuesday (October 19)  this week, Liberal members of the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee (PDF) got stuck into Chief of the Defence Forces, Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston in support of Tony Abbott's mission to speak out on behalf of the commandos who might not be getting a fair go without criticising the system (he hastens to add).

Mark Davis covered the story for the Fairfax papers but perhaps because he was in a hurry to file he missed some interesting exchanges between Houston and Senator Julian McGorran (page 23 of the PDF):

Mad Monk's Mealy Mouthed Apologia on Afghanistan

Tony Abbott has two big problems right now - he doesn't know when to shut up and he doesn't the gumption to speak up when he ought to either. Both problems are vividly illustrated by this short report from The Sydney Morning Herald.

Abbott & Afghanistan - Quick Links

The Australian  has made it official - it's OK to criticise Tony Abbott's remarks on the prosecution of three soldiers over the killing of civilians in Afghanistan, as long as you make it quite clear that it wasn't really Tony's fault - it was Alan Jones what sucked him into it.

And Peter Hartcher at The National Times reveals why it might have been better for Abbott's ego if he'd accepted Julia Gillard's invitation to join him on her visit:

Despite appearances, Abbott was not on the firing range to show off. Nor was he there to give anyone a lesson. It was Abbott who was being taught a lesson.

Sod the Rule of Law - This Is War

Ken Parish, of Charles Darwin University and Club Troppo has written an impassioned post on Tony Abbott’s recent appearance on 2GB, where the Leader of her Majesty’s Increasingly Seditious Opposition decried the way soldiers in Afghanistan were “being stabbed in the back by their own government and … a lot of people think that’s what’s happening.”

Just to keep things clear - Tony Abbott wasn’t decrying the fact that a lot of people (25,963 the last time I checked out the on-line petition) think “that ‘s what’s happening.” What he’s decrying is the prosecution of Australian soldiers for killing six civilian non-combatants, five of whom were children. Despite the fact that this is happening under a system of military justice that was introduced by the Howard government, Tony Abbott has decided that if Alan Jones isn’t happy with it and Alan Jones’s audience isn’t happy with it then there’s political mileage in it. Political principle is nowhere within cooee of the position that Abbott has taken.