An older article but the points remain true - under this government we have become America's lackey.
Manouevred
Back Into ANZUS: Subversion of NZ’s Independence
Warren
Thomson
13
May, 2012
After
nearly 30 years of independent foreign policy, a respected voice in
the international community, New Zealand has sold its soul to the
Devil. Ten years of intrigue and subversion by military and foreign
policy leaders has returned NZ to the status of an American ally.
Compliant media have played their part. Recent announcements have
highlighted that the previous diplomatic impasse is “fully
defrosted” and NZ exercises with US forces are “hugely symbolic”
(Press, 12/5/12). We are to “celebrate” the 70th anniversary of
the arrival of US Marines here in 1942.
The
subliminal messages are blatant. Even more worrying are the signs of
a concerted public relations campaign to undermine public resistance
to a closer relationship with the Pentagon, and potentially, NZ’s
nuclear free policy. There has been a cunning manipulation of Anzac
Day commemorations to infiltrate US troops into this country. The
“Wolfhound” Regiment made a brief appearance at Burnham Army
Camp, near Christchurch and, apparently, at Anzac Day ceremonies.
Everywhere we are suddenly confronted in the media with the idea of
“celebrating” the historical arrival of US Marines in Wellington
in 1942. More deviously, NZ schoolchildren are being conned into
identifying a long past event in a long ago war with military
manipulations of today: a competition, set up by the NZ Defence
Force, Archives NZ, and the American Embassy, is asking kids to
compete to make the best video about the 1942 event.
In
June 2012, a small number of NZ Army engineers is scheduled to take
part in military exercises in California. The Kiwi Navy, and some
soldiers, are to take part in the large scale Rim of the Pacific
(RIMPAC) exercise, which is one of the world's largest international
maritime exercises, hosted by the US, for the first time in almost 30
years. Sadly “military exercises with the US are now back on the
agenda” (Press, ibid.). It is clear that NZ’s military and
foreign policy officials have, against the general public opinion,
and in secretive and probably ethically unacceptable manoeuvres,
managed to reorient this country’s foreign policy. As far back as
2002, schemes to get NZ back in bed with Washington were in train.
According to Nicky Hager in his book “Other People’s Wars”: “A
senior military officer who helped plan the Iraq deployment explained
that it was ‘all pushed by the senior policy leaders at the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT)’….It was seen as a
‘low risk, high reward’ deployment to advance US relations’”
(p174). Furthermore “…the public was being grossly misled”
(ibid, p182) and: “During much of the War on Terror period,
officials were running a private foreign policy, often in defiance of
the Government” (ibid, p320). Unfortunately, the media subservience
described in Hager’s book has not improved. A brief survey of print
and other media by this writer has failed to turn up a single
instance of questioning whether this re-integration of Kiwi forces
into Pentagon operations is in the country’s interests.
US
Covert Action, With NZ Collaborators
The
first real signs of success in the satanic crusade appeared when a
large United States military delegation took part in Exercise Maru,
an international security exercise in New Zealand in September 2008.
Kiwi soldiers had been operating in Afghanistan alongside Americans
for some years (mostly not in the humanitarian role the media
proclaimed) and in 2010 New Zealand and the United States held
military exercises together and shared intelligence on Afghanistan.
These had been announced by US Assistant Secretary of State for East
Asia and the Pacific Kurt Campbell, who was launching a major new
study into New Zealand-US relations. The study, backed by both
countries' governments and agencies including the Pentagon and US
State Department, was sponsored by the New Zealand and US Business
Councils. Standard Washington covert action in full flight.
Cables
released by WikiLeaks have revealed that this subversion of New
Zealand independence had been going on for some time. New Zealand's
collaboration with United States intelligence agencies was "fully
restored" in August 2009 but both governments decided to keep
the decision secret (Sunday Star Times, 12/12/10). The cables also
made it clear that New Zealand had quietly increased its military
cooperation with the US and that the then American Ambassador Charles
Swindells put pressure on New Zealand to change its nuclear free
policy ahead of the 2005 election.
And
what have we been pressed into signing up for? Working with a
military that runs courses that “America’s enemy is Islam in
general, not just terrorists… and the [USA] might ultimately have
to obliterate the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina without
regard for civilian deaths”. These Pentagon courses also taught
that “the Geneva Conventions which set standards for conduct of
warfare were ‘no longer relevant’” (Press, 12/5/12). While
these courses have been suspended by the embarrassed US military, we
have a clear indicator of the military mentality with which Kiwi
soldiers are supposed to integrate. So a proud era of NZ foreign
policy has come to an end. With the insidious machinations (is
treachery too strong a word?) of senior defence and foreign policy
personnel, with the compliant role of an incompetent media, with the
silence of a defunct peace movement, this country has sunk back into
the depths of Pentagon depravity; the way of lies, atrocity, and
brutality, the collateral damage in support of a resource-addicted
failing empire, is now official policy for New Zealand.
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