Waatea News Column: As NZ inches towards conflict, Māori Party neutrality demands attention

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
34
887

Last week the New Zealand Minister of Defence Andrew Little released a new Defence posture that critics have claimed amounts to preparing for war with China.

It will see us align strongly with our traditional allies while highlighting geopolitical threats from China, climate change and the erosion of the rule of law.

While we must defend ourselves from undue influence from China, let’s not get dragged into another pointless American War!

Let us not pretend that our traditional allies haven’t been very prolific when it comes to using violence against people in deplorable ways:

Laos
Cambodia
Guatemala
Chile
Argentina
Vietnam
Nicaragua
El Salvador
Honduras
Grenada
Panama
Yugoslavia
Somalia
Pakistan
Sudan
Mali
Afghanistan
Iraq
Libya
Syria
Ukraine
Yemen

These are countries America has bombed in the last 75 years, so let’s not tie ourselves to the violence of our traditional allies no matter how traditional or ally they are.

I don’t believe it is in our best interests to side with anyone who is pushing for conflict.

We should be friend to all, enemy to none and we should use our independent voice to call for diplomacy first and foremost rather than conflict and war.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

The only Party pushing a different view on foreign affairs is the Māori Party with their call for neutrality.

This is a fascinating idea and deserves far more investigation and debate.

We can not pretend that there aren’t global forces and geopolitical tensions at play in our region, but the focus should be on diplomacy and protecting New Zealand.

Neutrality doesn’t mean no military, and indeed would require more money invested in hardware that could be used to defend our waters while providing climate crisis disaster help.

Signing up for a fight we don’t want isn’t the kind of future we fought for.

New Zealand needs to fight for peace using words while protecting our lands and our home fires.

The Māori Party is the only one arguing for a different thinking.

 

First published on Waatea News.

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34 COMMENTS

  5. Ukraine is more and more resembling the Somme.

    I assume we are blindly following the US because of some vague promise of some never-to-be-received trade deal. The only people that appear to be making money out of it is Putin and the Western Billionaire class. Quite clearly Vlad more some incriminating stuff on Joe and Hunter…..

  7. There is no argument about that. TPM thinks very differently.

    Reality is we will only ever be a support act… At least we have the All Blacks.

    Helen was right but then we decided to pick the team that promised to build 100,000 houses in ten years ….. and then Covid happened.

    • Only Pat can quote Wikipedia with “This article does not cite any sources” as proof of Russian evil which lists Russian “battles”
      That old sleight of hand where Pat equates naked aggression against country’s VS battles involving the Russian federation. See how evil the Ruskies are?
      Martyn listed country’s of US imperial aggression whereas Pat uses a biased source which as little as a week ago was outed as being edited and controlled by the CIA as evidence.
      Is it any wonder people pile on Pat?

    • Oh Pat! You are shameless.Your list has had to include several battles within the same war to get any where near a fraction of the bombs the US has dropped, and wars they have started There really is no comparison .

        • No you don’t Pat ..In supporting the US position in Ukraine, you’re donkey deep in supporting US imperialism .You take all the talking points of the Pentagon and swallow.Your Wikpedia link was pathetic crap that showed you had nothing, because you simply could not find a convincing list of the countries Russia has bombed in the 20th century.You had to go to battles to get any kind of list.Says it all

          • ..In supporting the US position in Ukraine, you’re donkey deep in supporting US imperialism. FRANCESCA

            It is not the US position in Ukraine it is the Ukraine position in Ukraine.
            The Yanks expected the invasion would be a Russian walk over and closed their embassy and evacuated their embassy staff. On their way out of the country, the Americans invited Zelensky to join their chicken run.
            Zelensky told the Americans I don’t need a lift out we need weapons.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrFV9clP6IY&ab_channel=IndiaToday

            The US imperialists were preparing to leave Ukraine to its fate.

            Following the fierce Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion, which no one, not the Americans not the Russians, had expected
            In an embarrassing about turn for the Biden administration, after the Ukrainians turned back the Russians at the outskirts of Kiev
            Biden had to send Nancy Pelosi back to Kiev for the official reopening of the US embassy.

            https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/01/pelosi-kyiv-democrats-lawmakers-ukraine-war/

            The truth is this, if the Ukrainians weren’t prepared to fight for their country the Americans would have nowhere to send their weapons.

            It’s a Ukraine position, Not an American position that I support.

            Unlike Francesca who fully supports the Russian aggression and invasion and mocks the Ukrainian resistance and lies and covers up for Russian atrocities. Including spreading Russian propaganda that the dying pregnant Ukrainian woman wounded by Russian shelling of Mariupol Maternity Hospital was a crisis actor. A vile piece of propaganda defaming a dying woman that would make Goebbels blush.

            • “ It is not the US position in Ukraine it is the Ukraine position in Ukraine.”

              A point that seems to go over the heads of so many people here.

            • You are failing to acknowledge that Russia has its own security interests to protect, and that it saw, probably correctly, the possibility of Ukraine becoming at the very least. a NATO client, and saw that as representing an existential threat. I think the USA hoped to be able to make a NATO client of Ukraine but were surprised by the invasion, which would explain why they vacated their embassy.

          • “I’m still waiting to hear condemnation from you of the Ukrainian attempt to overcome ethnic minorities by force” FRANCESCA

            Umm.

            You could at least give me some sort of clue about what you are talking about.
            Why so vague?
            What ethnic minorities are you talking about?
            Maybe it would help Francesca if once in a while, you could tell us exactly which absurd pro-war conspiracy theory you are referring to.

            Is it this one?

            https://www.npr.org/2022/03/11/1085979641/putin-claims-russia-speakers-were-being-killed-in-ukraine-is-that-true

            The Russian leader said his forces invaded Ukraine because a genocide was underway against Russian-speakers. People in Ukraine say that claim is a hoax.

            …..That’s a big hoax. There’s nothing of that going on. Kyiv is – by far and large is a Russian-speaking place….

            ….Ukraine’s Parliament has made Ukrainian the country’s official language, but the law does not prohibit the use of Russian, which the vast majority of the country speaks fluently. Russian is President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s mother tongue….

            “We thought Russians were our brothers and sisters,” she adds, “but I want to tell the world they’re our enemies.” This Ukrainian patriot, like millions of others, expresses her sorrow and anger in her native language – Russian.

            Ukrainian Russian Speakers in Eastern Ukraine tell invading Russian troops to, “Fuck Off”.
            “Go back to your Russia”

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgmKygmkqSA&ab_channel=RadioFreeEurope%2FRadioLiberty

  9. Firstly you can only ‘bomb’ another country if you have the capability to do so and no country in the world comes close to the US in being able to achieve this – North Korea not having a ‘history of air strikes’ over the last few decades really speaks more to what they can achieve and what they can ‘get away with’ rather than some kind of moral high ground.

    Secondly how accurate is this list? When exactly did the US bomb Chile or Argentina for instance?

    • Good point about capability James.

      Also a good point about Chile and Argentina – maybe the writer is interpreting CIA support for military coups in those countries as “bombing”.

      • Thanks Pope and yes I suspected that in regards to Chile and Argentina they may have featured on the list re US support in the ‘Dirty War’ etc which while questionable at best it is still pretty disingenuous to try and masquerade this as some kind of ‘bombing campaign’ . . I guess there just weren’t enough countries to add the list so the author had to pad it out a bit however inaccurately?

    • The bombing of the Presidential palace in Chile 1973 was weaponized by the US state department helped by apartheid Israel. CIA is an america agency so that makes the US complicit Even Argentina same same!!

  10. Mine’s bigger than yours. Give up now before I annihilate you – you have infiltrated our 200 km notional safety sphere.

  11. And many of those victims of the insane aggression of the American beasts were also attacked by New Zealand- whether directly, as in Vietnam or Korea, or through the support by the filthy traitors of the GCSB for the spying of the American dogs.

  12. Ah yes Martyn, I’m sure the Maaori Party’s position on neutrality will loom large in voters’ minds on October 14th.

  14. FFS! Which of these countries have invaded, or pulled coup de tat and or went in for regime change 83+ times since 1945?

    1. USA
    2. The US
    3. America

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