posted in response to the Middle East situation. No country is sovereign if it does not dictate its own foreign policy

Source: Australian Citizens Party

Cancel the AUKUS Agreement Immediately. Australia Must Adopt an Independent Foreign Policy

For too long, Australia has been subservient to two foreign powers: the United Kingdom and the United States. The late former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser called them our “Dangerous Allies” in his 2014 book by that name. He said Australia has never been an independent nation, and our relationship with our dangerous allies the UK and USA has dragged us into wars that have damaged our nation.

In recent decades the United States has become the dominant ally, and our relationship has become even more subservient. Aside from supporting its forever wars, we have allowed the USA to establish a military presence in Australia that is unprecedented in peacetime: a base for US Marines in Darwin; a base for “nuclear-capable” B52 bombers in Darwin; to station B2 nuclear capable stealth bombers in Brisbane; and to station nuclear submarines in Perth. That’s on top of Pine Gap in the Northern Territory, which provides the technical guidance for US and allied bombing deployments, and therefore implicates Australia in every war and war crime America and its allies commit, including: drone strikes in countries including Pakistan and Yemen that killed hundreds of civilians; the war in Afghanistan and regime-change wars in Libya and Syria; the use of US missiles against Russia; and Israel’s scorched-earth bombing of Gaza.

The United States also dominates our financial system, as the biggest foreign investor in Australia, including as the majority owner of “Australia’s” Big Four banks, which have damaged our economy immensely through predatory lending, inflating house prices to unaffordable levels, and withdrawing branch services.

The Australians who argue in favour of having this kind of relationship with the United States claim we need it for protection, but protection from whom? The assumption that Asian countries somehow want to invade Australia is ludicrous. They are perfectly happy to trade with us for the resources they need, which is much cheaper than mounting a military invasion and occupation of a large country like Australia. America has bankrupted itself by invading and occupying countries in the 21st century; Asian countries aren’t interested in that. AUKUS is therefore a $368 billion extortion payment to the USA and UK for “protection” we don’t need and which those countries will never actually provide. Donald Trump’s decision to slap tariffs on Australia has just demonstrated that when America wants to act in its own perceived interests it doesn’t care about its “allies”, no matter how faithful we have been. This is the wake-up call Australia needed to get out of the toxic AUKUS relationship.