King Dondee

[StarBoySAR 🇭🇰 🇨🇳 🥭 @StarboySAR]

Brilliant piece from Pearls and Irritations. Finally, someone in Australia is saying out loud what the rest of us have been watching for the past five years

Let's be clear about what AUKUS actually is: the greatest military protection racket in modern history. Washington looked at its own crippled submarine industrial base—17 boats short, yards choking, Congress screaming—and found the perfect mark. A wealthy, eager, insecure middle power with a bipartisan fetish for great-power relevance and a defense minister who treats strategic questions like a classified state secret

The deal? Australia pays half a trillion dollars. In return, it gets used Virginia-class hand-me-downs—Block IV boats with a decade of wear already on the hulls, probably smelling faintly of its previous crew

Even more intriguing, the article confirms for what this overpriced second-hand Australian "sovereign" nuclear submarine fleet is actually for:

Hunting Chinese Jin-class and Type 096 SSBNs. Not to protect Sydney Harbour. Not to secure Australia's trade routes. To find, track, and if ordered, destroy the Chinese nuclear submarines that threaten continental America!

That's the job. That's the whole job. Australia just committed A$368 billion to be the US Navy's underwater security guard!

The comedy of "sovereign capability" is almost too rich. Sovereign? The reactors are American. The combat system is American. The weapons are American. The fuel is American. The intelligence feed is American. The maintenance schedule is American. Permanently tethering Australia to U.S. software, maintenance, and logistics, effectively ending any "sovereign" capability. The only thing Australian is the taxpayer—and the Prime Minister standing in front of a camera calling this independence

Australia is not buying a submarine; it is buying a node in a U.S. sensor network. The acquisition deeply integrates Australia into the U.S. military command structure, making Australia a tool for U.S. strategic objectives in the Indo-Pacific — while a massive amount of Australian wealth is transferred into the U.S. military-industrial complex

And the timing is exquisite. Washington just added another half-trillion to its own defense budget while Australia is told to hit 3.5% of GDP. America gets the money, the boats, the basing rights at HMAS Stirling, and a Pacific ASW auxiliary. Australia gets the bill, the dependency, and the warm fuzzy feeling of being taken seriously by the adults.

The U.S. 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) emphasizes "burden-sharing among allies" and "realist diplomacy." This submarine deal is the perfect execution of that strategy: the U.S. maintains its military overmatch against China by essentially "outsourcing" the financial cost of undersea surveillance to Australia 🤡

Paul Keating called this three years ago. He was mocked, of course. The press club gasped. The security establishment rolled its eyes. But he was right then, and this article proves he's right now. It is worse than he thought. It's not that AUKUS is of little military benefit to Australia. It's that AUKUS is of negative military benefit to Australia—actively diverting resources from actual defense needs toward a capability designed for someone else's homeland

https://t.co/f7lYAMf3JY

[Doug Cameron @DougCameron51]

In 2018 Richard Marles gave a speech on the US alliance.He referenced god, the special relationship, rules based order, shared values. He condoned Australian military personnel embedded with US forces keeping information from the Australian govt. How naive, how dangerously dumb!

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

If there is precisely one thing you watch today, make it this. French Senator Claude Malhuret. A microphone. And the most magnificently savage dismantling of the Trump administration ever delivered in a language they almost certainly don’t speak.

He covers Iran. He covers corruption. He covers the kind of staggering, industrial-scale incompetence that would get you fired from managing a car park. And he does it with the calm, unhurried certainty of a man who has read every page of the indictment and found it, if anything, worse than expected.

France has never pretended to like these people. But this is contempt elevated to an art form. The kind of refined, aristocratic disdain that takes centuries of civilization to produce and approximately ninety seconds to deploy.

Malhuret sounds like he is four seconds from the button. Not out of panic. Out of sheer, exhausted disgust.
Honestly? Understandable.
Watch it. Share it. The adults are speaking.

Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

[Peter Cronau @PeterCronau]

America and Israel must pay the price — or we all will.

[AWPR @WarPowersReform]

All our representatives – MPs and Senators – must be given a say before we join overseas wars.

War Powers Reform would ensure that basic transparency and accountability is applied to these crucial decisions.

#auspol
https://t.co/OB7htEN6wN

[💧Michael West @MichaelWestBiz]

At least we know where the AUKUS alliance billions from the Australian public are going

[Rupert's Conscience @RupertsConscie1]

For all we know...one of these criminals was involved in the murder of Aussie aid worker Zomi Frankcom.

How in hell can we accept them being allowed to come to Australia?! Disgusting @AlboMP @SenatorWong @Tony_Burke

[Peter Cronau @PeterCronau]

🚨LEAK🚨 Israel’s foreign minister lets slip that Australia’s crackdown on free speech is not about ‘antisemitism’, but is about preventing criticism of Israel.

“I want to praise the change in legislation in Queensland designating some anti-Israeli slogans as criminal.”

Sa’ar urged on the Zionists Federation of Australia:

“I think it is crucially important and to the extent that you can influence other districts or states in Australia to do the same, that would be blessed.”

https://t.co/T7BTgpHSJs

[Phillip Adams @PhillipAdams_1]

A lifelong hero

[King Dondee @kingdondee]

@Baumann_Mac Welcome to geriatric land. I am starting to think the entire pharma industry and A&E Depts' business models largely rely on our demographic's ever-expanding health issues.

[Labor Against War @LabAgainstWar]

ABC and SMH both declare Australia is at war. No vote in parliament. Weasel words from PM and Foreign Minister as they back Trump’s crazy militarism. Appalling.

What would Tom Uren say @AlboMP?

[John Lyons @TheLyonsDen]

Extraordinary moment in Australian politics. The brilliant Robert Haupt asks an intriguing question of Gough Whitlam, a public figure with great intellect & skill with words. All the more interesting in light of today’s escalating conflict in Middle East #auspol #Israel #Lebanon

[Abier @abierkhatib]

Queen Grace is at it again,
upping her game against Zionists with every word

[Doug Cameron @DougCameron51]

Calling it as it is!
Bob Carr, Gareth Evans and thousands of Labor party members understand how dangerous, expensive and all consuming the dumb AUKUS rip off is.
Australia can play a massively more constructive role pursuing peace not funding the US and UK war machines.

[Labor Friends of Palestine NSW @labor_palestine]

🚨 LFOP national statement on visit of Israeli president Herzog:

▶️ We call on the federal government to withdraw the invitation

▶️ If Herzog enters Australia, @AusFedPolice should launch urgent war crimes investigation

[AWPR @WarPowersReform]

"Labor “must speak out clearly against Donald Trump’s act of piracy, brazen military aggression and adventurism” and “immediately distance itself from the Trump administration, whose conduct is marked by lawlessness"

#auspol
https://t.co/qEo4lBcBc8

[King Dondee @kingdondee]

@moatza35154 .

[AWPR @WarPowersReform]

Australia quietly sent another $1.5 billion to the United States in a non-refundable down payment for AUKUS in December.

The payment was the third installment of a total of $4.5 billion.

#auspol
https://t.co/5gBJBXLNd5

[SydneyCriminalLawyer @sydcrimlawyers]

Australian father-of-six Dan Duggan spent his fourth Christmas and New Year in prison at the behest of the US, despite not being charged with any criminal offence. #sydneycriminallawyers #danduggan #Christmas #newyears #prison
https://t.co/GncXtINsCF