Perhaps people need to pull their heads out of the sand, and take a clear stand, and forget their consumerist and other preoccupations, and protest against ALL powers that use bombs and other material to address issues all over the world. At least we can be proud of being nuclear free, and this stand must be defended for eternity, so we do at least have that protection from nuclear powered and nuclear armed vessels and planes not coming here.

But also should we consider protesting against unreasonable, excessive use of weapons at all times when they occur, and stand outside consulates and embassies of for instance the US, Russia and China, and criticise their actions when they occur.

Simply dropping a huge MOAB on tunnel systems used by alleged ISIS fighters in eastern Afghanistan will not solve the danger those extremists and terrorists pose, it will instead only motivate more to join such groups, as they will consider the US handling of such issues as arrogant, ruthless and brutal.

It is “a bit rich” for the US leaders, diplomats and negotiators to go around the world claiming they defend and promote democracy, human rights and the rule of law, when at other times it ignores international laws and human rights and so by simply using unreasonable means.

It seems like the War on Drugs, it will turn out to be ineffective, what they are doing at present, and what they have done so often in the past.

extraordinary statement
Of course Trump is part of the establishment or deep state.Where did you get the idea I needed waking up to that ?!!
What can they do to us?
Nuke us?
We’re not going to get a trade agreement with them so they can’t hang that one on us.Are you suggesting we should just roll over?
We left ANZUS and never went back
Come on ,time to stop being so gutless

So Francesca, do you really think that a womanising warmonger like trump would close down the lynch-pin of the US security apparatus, the Five Eyes? Get a grip. Trump is part of the establishment, you just haven’t woken up to it yet.

Nicely put, AFKTT. Best current affairs piece I have read in many years!

Vote budget15 says we are going to spend about 16 billion on health, 11 billion on education, 1.4 billion on defence so about 30 billion. You’ve got to be one hell of a rip off to be able to spend so much and get so little in return.

I mean maori are well aware of how strong opposition to social reforms is in the last 40 years for reasons other than defence. So activists for example some times stand opposed to NZDF, so if NZDF has less to do, activists have fewer reason to be triggered.

There’s been a lot of amalgamation and funding restrictions since 2005 when the NH90’s where delevered late, the transmissions in the armies light vehicle fleet needed replacing almost immediately so they should be scraped so we can double the armies truck fleet. A number of training incidents, lack of super vision. Lots of mistakes went into our two light infantry battalions and mounted rifle company I agree.

How useful all this is will be, will depend on the future air mobility project and the cantabury replacement, these two projects represent about 3 or 4 billion dollars, that will cover tactical and strategic airlift, maritime patrols/interdictions/search & rescue and sea lift. That will set the tone for NZDF who should be able to put 150 properly motivated personal anywhere with in 10,000ks of auckland with in 5 days, or 1 month beyond 10,000ks and anything they might need for 2 years.

All this falls under a joint forces command so instead of three armed services competing for the same resources, each capability can be looked at in terms of interoperability, so one pallete system for example that can be transported by army vehicals and loaded onto RNZN ships or RNZA future air mobility project.

And this is not hypothetical at all. What people tend to argue most about is whether our palletsystem can be used in conjunction with the US or not. But first I wont one that wirks for us.

Ambiguous? Really? So there hasn’t been a single coup, or civil war break out in the pacific ever?

East Timor was a figment of our imagination? How many other examples are there that we were just fantasising about?

” Any of you stop to think what if the yanks would intitiate regime change?”…

What do you think John Key was doing here?

Of course, NZ is in the perfect position to spend the billions required to give any invading force pause… Certainly!! Especially as we have been gifted record levels of debt in order to pay off those who paid good money to own the national party in the first place..

And what part of the Warner bros subsidiary NZ would the yanks want to change? The bit where our “government” rolls over to have its tummy tickled at their request? Maybe The stooge who replaced Key in order to allow him to skip out on war crimes charges hasn’t shouted “how high” loud enough when they order him to jump?

One really needs to go outside Barry Sopers “news” items to understand reality in the real world….

They have something a LOT bigger than that:
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/725388/Russia-s-Satan-2-nuclear-bomb-new-images-thermonuclear-armed-ballistic-missile

It’s OK occasionally to stay 1 night in a Dystopian hellhole like Frankfurt on the way back to Paradise. Reminds me why I moved to Perth. Never thought I’d struggle to find a Frankfurter in Frankfurt airport. Only available in Business Class lounge. Thats a luxury item in cultural marx land! Amazing!

So you can have neutrality when you sort out a proper labour theory of value.