Q+A Review: Wayne Mapp’s Afghanistan regret a pitiful response to a war we exacerbated

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Former Defence Minister Wayne Mapp (who oversaw the disaster of our Afghanistan deployment) is on being grilled by Jack over whether our 10 dead troops died honorably or not.

Mapp isn’t an ideologue on this, I doubt he was a true believer in bombing freedom into Afghanistan, he acknowledges I’m sure that we went along with it because we were frightened by America’s reaction if we didn’t join their coalition of the killing.

Our 10 dead soldiers were as much collateral damage as the Afghan wedding parties we dropped bombs on.

Someone had to pay for America’s vengeance post 9/11 and we didn’t want that to be us.

Watching Wayne explain away his regret with hopes we could do in 2009 what every other occupying force in history had failed to do in Afghanistan was a tad glib.

He failed to mention the disinformation campaigns run by the NZDF against the media, Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson, he failed to mention the killing of civilians in SAS revenge attacks and he avoided independent reviews of our supposed infrastructure investments.

His regret seemed pitiful for the needless nothings we have left Afghanistan with. No lessons learned is a sad tribute to everyone who died.

The indomitable Louisa Wall is on next. She’s great, an actual independent voice inside Labour calling it like it is on China. The despicable manner in which Labour didn’t grant her speaking rights in Parliament to speak on the suicide report as punishment for speaking out on China reminds you what a petty party Labour can be.

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She should join Efeso Collins in a run for the Auckland Mayoralty if Labour are going to disrespect her this badly!

Next Jack points out the looming inflation black hole that will devour the economy.

Covid is unique in that it’s causing supply side inflationary pressures from supply chains being shut down by lockdowns.

Cameron Bagrie is on, he’s pretty smart and his view that interest rates are going up means it probably is. How the Reserve Bank dials back stimulus without causing an implosion is challenging in a future that will be defined by external shocks.

Why no panel?

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2 COMMENTS

  1. Probably forgot to mention exactly how many people were killed by those working for the NZ Government theoretically acting in our name. Guns don’t kill people, Governments do.

  2. Wayne Mapp – a good lesson for National in regards to not selecting academics. Amongst the poorest performers amongst National MPs in living memory

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