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Peter Wheeler: Defence stupidity
Defence stupidity
The latest Defence Force Review carries on down the same old path that governments have followed since Roger Douglas snatched financial power from the people of this country.
It recognises the costs of everything but fails to understand the value of anything. It’s a stereotypical cost accountants view of the world around us. It ignores the human element and the family nature and particularly the Maori input into the success of our defence forces.
It is stupid and short sighted and lastly endangers our independence and sovereignty.
Our military have more to offer than simply killing civilians [and playing the sport of shooting up civilians and torturing “suspects” in hidden camps.] Other armies may do just that but this behaviour should never at the bequest of the Americans be allowed.
The simplistic suggestion that many jobs presently carried out by military personnel can be done by civilians ignores the fundamental truth that those support functions and the people who carry them out are vital to the overall health of the military in a national, community and social sense. It is these structures that ensure the effectiveness of those serving where ever the action is, here or abroad.
The report is simply a step toward selling off our military services to corrupt organisations like Halliburton Inc and contracting them to do the job presently being carried out by our military forces. This will prove to be massively more costly than our present system.
A uniformed clerk or support person is firstly a soldier, Airman or Naval rating and trains for this prime role as such. Secondly he or she is an active member of a family grouping and that grouping is the military itself. Instead of Aunts and Uncles Moms and Dads it has Sections, Units and Companies. It is a living structure that denotes a clear social path. The people who partake in this have key roles and functions, they are if you like a family support mechanism that both guides and mentors in an all encompassing climate of mutual support. Put simply they understand the importance of each other in both working and living environment.
This dynamic family has values and standards, so much so that many citizens believe if we put our wayward youth through military training our whole society would be improved. Be that as it may, the reality is that the government wants to save money and that is its top priority.
The review writes off over a thousand positions presently held by uniform staff. This shows a complete lack of understanding of the overall value of these duel trained people Also; the community housing nature of the forces is an integral part of this set of values and sense of community / Whanau, and changing this deals a serious blow to the social equality that develops around both the connective-ness between the various positions that individuals hold. Selling off housing wrecks that social balance where participants recognise and understand the various positions people hold, and value that, rather than how rich or wealthy they are.
Before
accepting the task of producing a Defence Force Review you
need to know where you wish to position the military within
the nation for the future.
You don’t base this
consideration on what others want, if you move down that
track you are giving up a huge hunk of your national
sovereignty. And that is just what this review is
recommending with its suggested closer ties with Australia
and the US.
Would anyone in their right mind want closer military ties with the US? The world doesn’t want closer ties with the US, the latest mid-term elections in the US proves that even Americans don’t want closer ties with America.
Look at the countries where the American military are active; name one that is a peace keeping role. They have supported dictators for decades and when the dictators no longer obey their wishes they [The US] invades and calls it a war against terrorism. The nations of South America that have democratic governments have bit by bit broken the American chain. Yet we here wish to chain ourselves to American military and political power. It is a step in the wrong direction. We must avoid it at all costs.
The days of saying where America [or for that matter England] goes we go I thought were well and truly over.
The big difference between our military and that of the United States is that our Military is family and still has a sense of justice and fairness. It a dynamic grouping that can and does offer a model for our nation. We can be proud of our military in the peace keeping roles they have played over the past decades. There are other countries that operate as we do. The Dutch are one such nation.
We should not turn our nation into gun fodder for nuclear powered mobsters like the US, Britain or Israel, we should remove our troops from Afghanistan and Iraq so as to maintain our liberty and independence.
Accepting the Defence Review in its present form is doing the exact opposite.
Peter Wheeler served with the New Zealand Army in Malaysia, and is a former Palmerston North City Councilor (2007 – 2010).
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