Spare Room Be our guest…

By Kirk MacGibbon

So the Americans want, what, exactly? Thirty or 40 more of our world-renowned SAS soldiers to add to their ‘surge’ in Afghanistan? We haven’t actually got a lot of them, but they are the best trained killers we have and there’s not a lot of work for them here, so unleashing them on some half-trained, fanatical Taleban would surely be a no-brainer…

But no, suddenly John Key is aware of reports that Afghanistan is becoming riskier and he wants a full briefing from the Yanks on their overall strategy and goals before sending these guys in to do what they’re paid to do. I’m sure all operations have been put on hold while that’s arranged.

It wasn’t all that long ago that the public weren’t even allowed to know where or what our SAS boys were up to. A little more recently Key and McCully were telling us that a key plank of their ‘independent’ foreign policy would be ‘rebuilding’ the relationship with the US and were keen to work more closely with them. So why think about it? Just send them. Oh, that’s right, we’re pursuing an independent foreign policy now…

Apparently, they’re hoping that a closer relationship with other countries will allow us to borrow the odd Light Armoured Vehicle (LAV) or 50, should we ever need the ones that Defence Minister Wayne Mapp reckons we can probably afford to flog off. We’re going to get a White Paper on it ‘because the world has changed a lot in the last decade.’ My first thought was ‘yeah, but we haven’t.’ I mean we’re still a little piece of nothing at the bottom of the Pacific surrounded by a whole lot of water with fish in it that a whole lot of others want to catch. Getting rid of some dodgy LAVs that are apparently stashed all around the country doesn’t need a White Paper – you could probably steal 50 and sell them on Trade Me. It would be at least 10 years before the Army worked out any were missing.

Its great that apparently there will be an opportunity for the public to make submissions on what our Armed Forces should look like, though. Personally, I’m going to write in and suggest we get about 1000 of those jet pack things that someone’s building down south. I was all for getting lots of helicopters (I’ve been permanently scarred through multiple exposure at an impressionable age to Apocalypse Now), and maybe some of those Predator drones since a paranoid few seem to think we’ve already got them. But surely jet packs are where it’s at now?

Just imagine: A company of our SAS boys dropping out of an Afghan dawn to the strains of Devo’s ‘Whip it Good’. Truly terrifying. But brilliant for those of us who like to form our foreign policy positions through the subjective evaluation of camera footage taken from a 19 year old grunt’s helmet and posted on YouTube.

The Navy could use them to board suspected poaching vessels without having to risk sailor’s lives in a rubber boat, or just risking sailors lives. How long before the Somalis get them, or Tuhoe? We need to stay one step ahead…

Jet packs would be far more useful in Fiji than LAVs. It’s got to be harder to sneak up and surprise people in a LAV. What is going on in Fiji by the way? And, um, at the risk of being labelled, something, why is it so important for us to give it a moment’s thought? It’s boring. The hotels are still open. No-one’s getting killed. No-one’s likely to be killed.

That part of the world definitely doesn’t seem to have changed much in the last decade or two. It’s the same old stuff: Land, property rights, east vs west, Suva vs the rest, immigrant vs indigenous, traditional vs reformist blah, blah. So a few journalists lose an easy wicket and some others get told what to say. How many Fijians have a TV or read a paper? Or surf the internet? Or really care what the ‘guys with guns’ (from an RNZ interview where some Fijian/Indian was asked whether there would ever be a revolt against the Army by the citizens. His answer was to observe: “The Army have all the guns in Fiji. They have all the guns.”)

Bainanarama or whatever his name is isn’t going to be rushed. So let him take his time. Autocratic government clearly isn’t all bad, otherwise why is Tonga given a relatively free ride on the democracy train (despite the new King’s penchant for London taxicabs, he’s still not driving them himself). The best thing we can do is let them sort it out themselves. If you give them attention it just encourages them. It’s a universal principle.

That’s the real reason we didn’t go to UN Conference on Racism. Well, it could have been. It’s funny, somehow I had formed the impression that the main reason we didn’t send a delegation to the conference was that it was a cost cutting measure and we didn’t see the value in it. I didn’t hear mention of Iran, or boycotts, at the time. Then we find out America, Israel, Australia and some others wagged it in support of something that Israel found offensive. Then the Iranian President, Pinocchio Ahmgonnabebad delivers on cue and that turns out to be the reason that we didn’t attend the conference.

Our non attendance didn’t look like a protest. It looked like we couldn’t afford to go. Walking out on the idiot, like a number of countries did, throwing a shoe even, that’s a protest. And it demonstrates the independence platform far more effectively than a no-show. No-one seems to want to do anything these days if there’s not a chance to meet Obama, particularly if you’re from New Zealand.

And good on old Joris for giving the Government a nudge. He’s independent. Funny how that seems to have got right up the noses of certain people in the National party. And the attitude has come so soon, too. Usually only third term governments get to exhibit such sensitivity to criticism.

Er, New Zealand already has an independent foreign policy. It has been built up over many years through active participation at every level of the UN and other multilateral institutions. We have friends everywhere. National’s interpretation of an independent foreign policy may well threaten the very independence it seeks to promote. Why aren’t questions being asked?

I’m with Brian Edwards, National’s ‘honeymoon’ has to end. It’s almost lasted longer than my second marriage, which is not a particularly helpful comparison, perhaps even depressing, but might mean more when you think that I only had to fool one person for some of the time. Key appears to be doing the impossible and fooling all of the people all of the time. It’s worthy of a special mention. Muldoon must be spinning in his grave.

Read more posts by The Outlaw:
Of CEO Styles and Pedalling Wealth
Being Rankin’d and other tales from the Gulag Archipelago
Of History and Relevance
Humpty Dumpty and putting things back together again
Where’s Our Government?
Of Honeymoons and Little Men