Dear NZ Peace Activists, I don’t wish to be mean, b-u-t…
Look, I appreciate everyone is busy burning down 5G cell towers, but the latest complaints by a NZ Peace group against the purchase of 5 new Super Hercules is, and how do I say this politely, missing the fucking point…
Peace group says Government should have bought Air NZ planes instead of $1.5b Hercules
The Government’s decision to buy five new Super Hercules aircraft for $1.5 billion is being criticised by a national peace organisation.
The Government confirmed on Friday they will be replacing the RNZAF’s existing fleet of Hercules, with a new fleet of five Lockheed Martin C-130J-30 Super Hercules transport aircraft.
But World Beyond War says the Government should have bought grounded Air New Zealand planes, rather than new ones.
“Air New Zealand has a fleet of well maintained planes ready to use for the excellent humanitarian and environmental work that we do both here and in the Pacific,” World Beyond War national director Liz Remmerswaal said.
“We understand that the Hercules war planes are technically geared to be a full fighting force closely aligned with the US military under the command of Donald Trump, which quite frankly is terrifying.
…ok, firstly, this is bullshit.
The NZDF needs to replace our ageing Hercules, they are a life line infrastructure throughout the Pacific at times of disaster relief and humanitarian missions. Proposing that the Government use AIR NZ planes instead of buying 5 new planes suggests the activist group can’t differentiate between a shovel and an Excavator. An Air NZ plane can’t do what specially fitted out military planes allows for, this is a dumb idea but more than that, it is totally focusing on the wrong thing!
Look, I agree with the Peace Activists, we must not allow ourselves to become a tool of the American Military Industrial Complex, and this issue is more important than ever, especially as the 5 Eyes suddenly quicken the drum beat for war by cracking down on economic connections with China yesterday.
The first move in the build up to war is you quietly protect your economic interests…
Five Eyes spy-alliance countries to ‘co-ordinate’ Covid-19 economic response
The Five Eyes spy-alliance between New Zealand and its allies appears to be expanding to include economic strategy, in what experts say presents a “significant departure” from its focus on intelligence sharing.
Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has been pushing for the five countries, which includes the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, to have regular meetings to co-ordinate their economic responses to Covid-19 and “ensure global financial stability”.
New Zealand Finance Minister Grant Robertson has confirmed he will attend the phone calls, but he is more muted about the significance of the talks than his Australian counterpart.
Foreign policy watchers say the move is part of a broader effort by Australia and the US to shore up economic security and take a harder line on China, which will make New Zealand uncomfortable.
…this positioning to protect economic interests happens just as China accuses Australia of racism…
Australia accused of ‘chronic racism’ by China’s state media
China’s state media has unleashed an extraordinary attack on Australia, saying its “chronic” problem with racism is worsening.
In a scathing piece overnight, the government-friendly Global Times said that, for its citizens, “hanging out with friends and shopping could be dangerous” in Australia.
…and floods the world with propaganda trying to attack the West’s pandemic response…
EU says China behind ‘huge wave’ of Covid-19 disinformation
China has been accused by Brussels of running disinformation campaigns inside the European Union, as the bloc set out a plan to tackle a “huge wave” of false facts about the coronavirus pandemic.
The European commission said Russia and China were running “targeted influence operations and disinformation campaigns in the EU, its neighbourhood, and globally”. While the charge against Russia has been levelled on many occasions, this is the first time the EU executive has publicly named China as a source of disinformation.
French politicians were furious when a Chinese embassy website claimed in mid-April, at the height of Europe’s pandemic, that care workers had abandoned their jobs leaving residents to die. The unnamed Chinese diplomat also claimed falsely that 80 French lawmakers had used a racist slur against the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
…this all suggests a time of immense friction in the South Pacific so who our military forces are influenced by matters more than ever before.
So yes, Peace Activists SHOULD be concerned by who influences our military with the sudden ratcheting up of possible conflict between China and America, BUT NO, the Hercules aren’t the problem, the secret making NZ a military target and the purchase of Sub hunting planes to protect that secret IS the problem.
Unbeknownst to most NZers, Rocket Lab is a Military Industrial Complex franchise, not some plucky Number 8 Wire Dad Shed schlock that Rocket Lab like to project to the sleepy hobbits of Muddle Nu Zilind…
Rocket Lab’s link with the CIA’s venture capital firm was revealed in 2016 by US investigative journalism site The Intercept, but has not been reported by the New Zealand media.
Although it operates independently, In-Q-Tel invests on behalf of the CIA and the broader US intelligence community in companies whose products may have national security applications.
A document obtained by The Intercept shows that Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck spoke at a summit of In-Q-Tel portfolio companies in February 2016. Other speakers included then-FBI director James Comey. Beck earlier wrote about Rocket Lab for In-Q-Tel’s quarterly publication in 2015.
In contrast, Lockheed Martin’s investment in Rocket Lab is mentioned routinely in press coverage and was the subject of a jibe by departing Vector chairman Michael Stiassny to the Vector AGM last week.
However, the extent of Rocket Lab’s defence industry work has gone essentially unremarked. Details of this work had been removed from Rocket Lab’s website by the time the regulatory regime enabling the company’s activities in New Zealand came into law last year.
Put aside the zero public debate of whether or not we should get this close to the American Military Industrial Complex in the first place and note that no one ever explained to the NZ public how allowing Rocket Labs to launch US military satellites immediately upgrades NZ to being a legitimate military target!
Because of this, Chinese Subs and Russian Subs will legitimately sit off the East Coast of NZ targeting the launch site.
THIS is why we needed to buy 4 P-8s! Because America able to launch military satellites from NZ makes us a target and we need to defend that target with sub hunting planes!
New sub-killer planes may never fire in anger but Govt wants the option
Defence Minister Ron Mark has announced the Government will buy four Boeing P-8A Poseidons to replace the defence force’s ageing fleet of P-3K Orions. The purchase has been a longtime coming.
The P-8s, known as submarine killers, mark a new era in defence procurement, with one expert calling this the most significant defence purchase in a generation.
Brothers & Sisters, we should be up in arms over the increasing influence of the American Military Industrial Complex over our military, but attacking the Hercules planes and not the sub hunting P-8’s which we are having to buy to protect a US Military Space launch site seems to be doing a terrible disservice in providing oversight to this issue.
With the Pandemic barely starting, the economic pressures that make war inevitable will only push China and America closer to the brink of conflict, especially with erratic Trump’s election looming.
We need to understand who is influencing our Military Intelligence at the core of our Government or risk becoming confused by the fog of war. Attacking 5 Hercules planes and ignoring the sub hunting ones and why we are buying those sub hunting planes is one such fog.
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With it’s own unresolved indigenous problems both America and Australia lack the mana to strut around the world stage with there heads held high telling others what to do. It’s a totally ridiculous proposition to be fearful of Chinese expansionism when western imperial expansionism has been so awful. The Washington-consensus acts like the mythical science-fiction institution known as the Jedi Order, being true fundamentalists to the core. But they can not see that their organisation is crumbling from with in.
With the unresolved indigenous problems, all Australia and American forign policy can offer is infinite sorrow.
We are very worried about our being threatened by Chinese as they re showing global aggressiveness today as never seen before.
US has record of only getting into a war after our traditional allies firstly spill their fallen hero’s blood on foreign battlefields.
US is still a more friendly ally than the Chinese are as China is now on a global campaign to expand their territories including our country.
Chinese people are not our problem, as they are largely a good people.
‘But the people are over-ruled and heavily dominated by a regime that is the Communist party hard-liners’; – that is our problem.
Agreed – China is clearly ramping up its belligerency and poses much more of a threat to NZ than the US.
That’s not true. We don’t want nuclear tipped warships in our waters no matter if they’re Chinese, Japanese, American or what ever
Well said Cleangreen, agree totally. The Yanks are our friends no matter what their economics make them do.
China has no qualms about anybody’s civil rights and freedoms. They are being aggressive. The Chinese people are awesome nice but that ruling party is not with them, they are ugly, dominating arseholes. This
aggressiveness is probably linked to Covid19 in some way-my conspiracy theory. Again, fuck China. Lets setup
some new business partners and just ignore them.
The nice friendly USA has over 800 bases around the world and is currently running more than a dozen wars and dozens of states are under illegal US sanctions.
I once, when living in a rural property in the Waikato basin, saw what I can only say was a ufo at 3.15 am. I was messing around on the computer and went outside to have a cigarette. There was a very large bright silver white light just sitting there in the clear summers night sky. Approx at a 45 degree angle from me. Light refraction made it appear diamond shaped. I looked at it several times expecting it to be the oncoming lights of an airplane coming to land at Hamilton airport. No navigation lights showed, no familiar rumbling occurred. It was there for several minutes.
Eerily, as soon as I intuitively thought ‘ufo’ ,- the thing went vertically and silently straight up, you could see the stars in the background and it moving against them. Halfway up , it changed from a bright white colour to scarlet red, finally finishing its ascension behind some wispy dark clouds. Then reappeared as the clouds moved slowly. To my astonishment, the thing divided, with one section moving in a northerly direction over the eaves of the house and the other moving rapidly in a flat trajectory south down the Waikato basin. As I assumed it to be a ufo, I did not know the intentions , numbers or capability’s of whatever it was, so bolted inside and locked the doors. I have never forgotten that incident.
Some years later, I read a reasonably sized article in the NZ Herald that covered the extent of the USA’s military component making throughout NZ and found that it is widespread in this country and even the managers are not aware of just what the components are or for. A little later I read of Rocket lab and the tests they also do.
What I saw in the nights sky in the Waikato was intelligently operated so I then took a new perspective. If in fact there is testing in the small hours of the morning it could have even been man-made… but this then raises other legal and ethical questions regarding flight path safety , air traffic control and the use of our sovereign air space. Notwithstanding the fact that the NZ public has not been made privy to a foreign nation clandestinely having our industry’s produce components for their war machine in this country.
For me this is too close to home and implicates us directly in tandem with the 5 eyes agreement with other peoples wars. Unless we withdraw from that agreement and develop our own truly independent foreign policy’s we will always be tied to any altercations…it does seem, however , that is not going to take place.
As for the Hercules, Martyn is quite right, the Hercules is not just used exclusively form war although its design capacity has been engineered for it. An ironic and hypothetical example would be a peace activist vessel monitoring a pod of whales far out at sea that got into difficulty and started to sink. The Hercules would be dispatched. Other examples would be delivering medical supplies and staff in the South Pacific after a hurricane had hit . It is no use relying on ageing equipment if it is constantly breaking down and in for repair – and as that model ceases production , – spare parts to repair that equipment becoming a very real issue.
And although none of wants war or to be involved in one – esp in a charged crisis that involves us because of the 5 eyes agreement, we still should be prepared at least to defend ourselves. To let our armed services degrade is not only naively trusting in a hostile world but foolhardy and irresponsible to say the very least.
Yes agree that the Hercules can deliver aid and medical supplies. Pretty much too that our soldiers and restore water and power lines and build bridges. But to me those are the nice to havebut secondary. I want our soldiers to be good at killing and those Hercules capable of sub hunting. Its the armed forces ffs, we need to capacity to do what we keyboard warriors cant do and be capable and efficient at their prime function.
/agreed
Why the INSTEAD of buying Hercules, buy Air New Zealand’s cast offs?
And don’t BUY the bloody cast-offs either. Take some of the fucking things when nationalising, and having to provide further bailouts
Both could be put to suitable use while further extending the Defence Force’s capability. There are those bloody old crates – the 757’s that need disposing of.
You could build up Air Force moral, have aircraft capable of ferrying the PM and others around (media contingent) without the embarrassment of breakdowns; keep a few AirNZ staff by seconding them, and even have some pretty classy troop carriers ready to provide aid and supplies to some of our nearby neighbours. Might even attract some former Air Force personnel who decamped offshore – alhtough they might have to be included in the 250 person-per-day supervised quarantine allocation.
We are between a rock and a hard place. We need to wean ourselves off China as a priority, badly and as quick as economically possible.
Until then we are in an invidious
con’t…
no win position.
There is no two ways about it, trading with and having China as our manufacturing base comes at a very steep price, long term.
If the alpine fault goes off or some horrific natural disaster the idea we’d drop supplies off and fly military vehicles in air buses is the most batshit thing I’ve heard in a long time. We should have probably brought more than 5 they are incredibly good value. NZs Military spending has long been an embarrassment, yes we should have an independent foreign policy , I hate war but NZ needs to be able to defend itself and it’s borders instead of just relying on people we constantly crap on and we have peace keeping and aid commitments. With climate change we will need a strong Navy and a strong air force to protect our borders, resources and food sources but at the same time these should defense and peace keeping forces not agressors in regime change wars.
I would go so far to suggest it is likely that Mahia Peninsular is on the target list for a possible nuke attack in the event of a major war.
It will have been ‘ noticed ‘….
Mahia is one of NZ’s best places, just has that special feeling with remote scenery that never fails to inspire.
What a shame it has this wart on it’s tip.
Who is Sinan Altug
Bang on – the P8s change the risk profile for NZ and Ohakea becomes a target which it never was with the P3 Orions. And, are the P8s the best value for money?
Five Eyes – the WASP countries – is an interesting alliance, determined by a shared religious/culture link that all of the members can trace back to Great Britain. Hard to escape The Empire.
I’d say it was a good idea to buy the P-8s because if the crap hits the fan between China and the US, Australia would probably get dragged into it and while hopefully we wouldn’t, we would still need to be able to protect cargo ships crossing the Tasman Sea. Another element of the military-industrial complex that is bad news for NZ is the Australian military-industrial complex, where the Australian government supports outrageously cost-ineffective defence manufacturing in Australia and then pressures us to buy from them. E.g. ANZAC frigates – “the best informed targets afloat” was how they were referred to, due to their good sensor equipment but relative inability to fight back.
Sky Labs Mahia site would be less of a target than the spy bases located here. It’s nothing but a launch location.
The fact remains that there is about 100 submarines in the Pacific Ocean and during wartime if someone was to disband New Zealand’s anti submarine capabilities would be a minimum punishable offence of death.
Wait for the economic and social collapse, you will need militias to keep order.
Nah – any militia would be comprised of the very same people the state would want to suppress. It would be what we’ve already seen during the Christchurch scenario and roving armed police units. Backed by the military if needs be.
Good grief! This peace movement – and a few other people by the looks of it – need to be interned at Whenuapai Airbase for a few weeks and educated about the C130 – what sort of aircraft it is and what it is used for. It is not a war-plane idiots. It is a transport aircraft and is used extensively for moving people and machines from one place to another. It is an essential piece of equipment in times of disaster both in NZ and the Pacific Islands. I saw the C130s in action 24/7 after Cyclone Bola in 1987. They transported a massive amount of equipment including a helicoptor, tractors, loaders and personnel to help in the massive clean up job across the Hawkes Bay and Taranaki regions.
Before you jump into the fray get your facts straight otherwise you just make fools of yourselves.
Anne,
You forgot the old Andover’s which we also had until 93 or 95, which could almost land within a length of a rugby field and was used to good effect during Bola and throughout the Sth Pacific for HADR deployment. Sadly these aircraft and its two SQN’s were disbanded without any replacement since then.
An Andover type Aircraft would’ve been very handy during INTERFET/ UN Peacekeeping Mission to Timor-Leste to do the milk run from Darwin to Suai, the deployment to the Solly’s and HADR tastings throughout the Sth Pacific, including the Kaikoura Earthquake as they would’ve been able to land on the Kaikoura airstrip.
This lack of capability is again going to rare its ugly head again if and when the Alpine Fault ruptures or another Bola type event occurs again due to the on going effects of CC as 8 NH’s and 5 J model Hec’s can’t be in 3 places at the same time due to the Systematic cuts over the yrs/decades to the RNZAF Airlift Group in both fixed and rotary wing Airlift capabilities.
P.S, Not sure if everyone knows, but NZ did actually have an option for 8 J model Hec’s in the late 90’s early 2000’s on the back of the then RAAF order. But this option wasn’t taken up by the Labour/ Alliance Government due to political ideology of the Labour left, New Labour and the Greens (looking at you Keith Locke) with thier hatred of buy anything from the US Military Industrial Complex such as 8 new J model from Lockheed Martin in light of what was happening in Timor-Leste at the with INTERFET/ the UN Peacekeeping deployment. Yep these muppets kicked the cam down rd yet again when the problem could’ve been effectively solved back then with 8 new aircraft instead of 20yrs later.
I won’t start about the Huey replacement either which is an interesting story of politics, ideology, the Dobson and Jerry Show aka the Infantry Officers Coup and the resulting flow on effects to both the RNZAF and the poor suffering RNZN.