Veritas

*Reduce-Reuse-Recycle.* 5.30, A glass of red,settle back & enjoy some jazz,maybe John Coltrane or Charlie Parker,.kindred souls followed back,no DM's please

[Veritas @nigel_54]

Kurt Campbell, 'White House' advisor on Asia, privately assured EU officials - "We have them [Australia] locked in for forty years"....Essential reading from Caitlin Johnstone.#auspol #AUKUS Only idiots believe the US is protecting Australia from China - https://t.co/TmEy2HuyLe

[Veritas @nigel_54]

@future_vision_x Her life

[Veritas @nigel_54]

@Foxy_PeterFox America has proven the utter futility of waging wars.They have not won one since 1945.

[Peter Fox 🦊🇦🇺 @Foxy_PeterFox]

Do we really need the U.S. as a 'defence' partner who goes to war, almost every year? A partner with its own agenda who starts wars in other countries without consulting us, then asks for our help? #ExitAUKUS #Auspol

[Rex Patrick @MrRexPatrick]

The Govt was ordered to disclose politically sensitive #AUKUS nuclear waste site info, but @AlboMP’s has instead launched a nuclear strike on transparency with significant #FOI fallout. @DavidShoebridge has called it an “ugly precedent in secrecy”. #auspol https://t.co/uIzLBhzRbz

[Veritas @nigel_54]

But wait, now we have #AUKUS MK11.Second hand US navy castoffs to enable the poorly equipped RAN to patrol the Australian NO..The Chinese coastline. #ScomoAlboMarles

[Solo Monk @JJKALE2]

Prof Jeffrey Sachs, American economist and public policy analyst. Columbia University:

"AUKUS is designed to bill the Australian taxpayers and enrich the US military industrial complex. You have been had Australia, sorry to tell you. And your politicians should own up it."

[Veritas @nigel_54]

Anyone with a pulse should have smelt a rat when this deal was confirmed by Scomo who was desperately seeking a project large. enough go save his job.#SecretsnLies

[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

[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

[Mike Hudema @MikeHudema]

“This is the new extinction & we are half way through it. We are in terrible, terrible trouble & the longer we wait to do something about it the worse it is going to get.” Sir #DavidAttenborough

No time to wait. #ActOnClimate

#ClimateCrisis #climate #nature #renewables

[GBX @GBX_Press]

Roger Waters, Pink Floyd co-founder:
"I'm ready to admit I break down in tears every morning for Gaza."
"Because I'm 80 years old — and I've never witnessed the genocide of an entire people before my eyes every single day." 🎸🇵🇸💔🔥

[Veritas @nigel_54]

#AUKUSOverkill.. Turnbull's French submarine purchase offered more for less cost less.They would have protected the Australian continent.

[Dr Colin Hughes @drcwhos]

The debate:
Do we need Nuclear submarines?
Not who is the biggest risk to National sovereignty ?
Does allowing access to nuclear subs and B51 bombers make Australia a nuclear target in any Trump or Trumps son war with China?
What is a non aligned non nuclear armed neutrality with our regional neighbours for security economic cooperation cultural exchange and climate action @IPAusNet @DavidShoebridge

[Veritas @nigel_54]

#AUKUS
While Australia just swapped new nuclear submarines for three secondhand American boats due in the 2030s, the same deal quietly funded submarine drones arriving in 2027 to guard more than 500 cables on the seabed https://t.co/MWND19qe9v

[Paul Bongiorno @PaulBongiorno]

My thoughts exactly. The silent complicity of so many democratic world leaders is a dreadful cover for cruel totalitarianism in the US and the Middle East for starters.

https://t.co/85LFI0Rxoy

[Veritas @nigel_54]

Defence Secretary Meghan Quinn may yet need to conjure up a third optimal pathway.Her boss,Richard Marles eagerly seizes on anything proposed by Hegseth .#AUKUS
https://t.co/TFMlOeBMxZ

[Veritas @nigel_54]

Stop dumbing down OUR #ABC and bring back #TheDrum- #Lateline-#QnA.

[💧Witch Janeva @janeva56]

#Insiders isn’t even a shadow of it’s former self. If you must insist on showing this drivel @ABC at least bring back the DRUM 🥁 for balance.

[David Pocock @DavidPocock]

Approximate passports costs:
🇨🇦 Canada = ~$170
🇬🇧 United Kingdom = ~$195
🇺🇸 United States = ~$180
🇳🇿 New Zealand = ~$225

Australian 🇦🇺 passport cost...$422

Passport fees and charges are expected to generate $1.12 billion for the 2029/30 FY. In the same FY, expected revenue for PRRT is projected to be $1.25 billion

[Veritas @nigel_54]

@RonniSalt Inflexible,Mark Dreyfus insisted his NACC model appointing Brereton as Commissioner was the best fit.With both now gone Attorney General Michelle Rowland has a golden opportunity to right all that is flawed in that model, and align closely with the
#NSWICAC format. #ROBODEBT

[Doug Cameron @DougCameron51]

Pat Conroy failing to justify the AUKUS fiasco.
Nothing he asserts justifies spending $368b integrating our military with the US and abandoning our sovereignty to Trump and his minions.
Abandoning diplomacy and common sense for military aggression is a recipe for disaster.

[Veritas @nigel_54]

Peter Garrett doing what the Prime Minister should have done when first elected.Both #AUKUS & #NACC are disasters, that overshadow any good political policies introduced during the two terms.

[Dr Monique Ryan MP @Mon4Kooyong]

It’s a national embarrassment that a former Labor minister is crowdfunding for an independent inquiry into AUKUS, one which the government keeps denying us.

You wonder why people are giving up on the major parties: first they commit us to an extraordinarily expensive deal with unreliable allies and even less reliable deliverables, now they change terms of the deal without real transparency, and tell us we're getting a good deal when we’re paying the same for less. Australians aren't buying it.
https://t.co/hsdlc7r5ql

[💧Mary Kostakidis @MaryKostakidis]

A Must Read. Mike Gilligan on just how much of a scam the AUKUS lemon is cc @AlboMP @RichardMarlesMP and why it is an unprecedented disgrace and betrayal of the people of Australia. The PM should take this opportunity to WITHDRAW. The Public Enquiry will be excoriating. You dont give away public money in this way.
‘The Virginia class submarine is not a general-purpose vessel such as our Collins class. It is designed for supreme acoustic invisibility for a specific purpose – to find, track and attack submarines seen as a nuclear threat to the US mainland. That is the job which the US expects Australia’s submarines to do – effectively embedded into US military command – against China’s growing capacity to annihilate continental US from under the sea, anytime.
Why this role is of utmost priority for the US requires some explanation. Nuclear armed submarines, such as China possesses, present a uniquely difficult threat to the US homeland. Unlike the readily discernible launch locations of hostile land-based missiles, or from aircraft or sea-surface vessels, the submarine’s habitat and mobility make it largely invisible and impregnable across the vast ocean approaches to the US.
The US attempts to deal with this risk using specialised attack submarines (ie the Virginia), which can locate, track and destroy China’s nuclear submarines as they move into and around Pacific waters. This is one critical part of a mosaic of US self-protection measures, the effectiveness of which is eroding as China’s submarine production expands.
So, the hefty sacrifice which Australia’s taxpayers make to acquire new submarines is not for Australia’s benefit, but for defending continental US. Australia’s submarine needs are quite specialised and different, but simply ignored by Minister Marles…
the evidence is incontrovertible this government has forsaken independence in protecting Australia. And deceives its people on how it lets the United States controls our priorities to its own benefit, damaging our own defence capacity. The implications of such betrayal are profound.’
We are just vassals to a fading hegemon who wants to be able to keep goading our biggest trading partner because its economic growth presents a threat to the US lording it over the world. FFS time to grow up and stop supporting a bully.
https://t.co/ao0LLjC9bS

[Veritas @nigel_54]

@DougCameron51 Albo and Marles take note.. moderate #Labor voters have never been happy about Morrison's election saver #AUKUS 'deal'.The latest Hegseth iteration freed the elephant out of the room to trample the remnants of faith we had in this government.