In which "Ned" natters about diplomacy, and Dame Slap is ... Dame Slap, and manages to be her usual offensive self ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good old "Ned" - and even better there's no sign of the ponderous old fart reading out his pontificating thoughts in some wretched podcast, which is just as well because his thoughts seem to amount to "well we've totally screwed and alienated the French, so fuck them, time to move on with the war on China" ... 

But it should go without saying that "Ned" is more cunning than that. He's not the bromancer, announcing that this is the 1930s and we need the subs right now for the war on China, due to start no later than 2030. 

 

"Ned" knows he can bore the Chinese into submission ... after all, it's been his great game at the lizard Oz for decades, and the Chinese are mere amateurs up against his diplomatic wiles ...

 

 

 

As the pond waded through this preposterous pile of "Neddy" cow dung, celebrating the intrepid deeds of Scotty from marketing, the pond wondered why it had begun to howl at the moon, and then it came with some force - it's delusional "Ned's" notion that there's an actual plan, when it's really just a revival of the old saw, all the way with LBJ, except this time it's a more general all the way with the USA, and bugger the unknown tab because it's doing to be a great chowdown ...

There's been no detailing of the plan, there's no costing of the alleged plan, there's ultimately no explanation of how the plan will work, though Crikey's Rundle (paywall) trundled out an elaborately paranoid piece which included this note:

...Submarines are intended as an auxiliary force to protect a navy proper and civilian shipping. Trouble is we have no navy proper. We have three destroyers and eight frigates, and after that it’s coastal craft. This is not a force that can defend a coastline such as ours. Thus the AUKUS boosters billed and cooed about the silent, deadly power of the nuclear-attack subs, these sleek beasts of the undersea, acknowledging, indeed celebrating, that their role would be well beyond our local waters as part of what is laughably being constructed as a defence against China, and is actually the encirclement of it. Our valiant subs would be an indispensable part of multinational defence, etc, etc…
Trouble is, this confrontation with China has also been constructed as occurring now. In the inevitable comparisons with World War II, we are being told we’re in the 1930s. And our first subs weren’t and aren’t going to arrive for 15 to 20 years — rather late for the rematch with Hitler/China.  
Furthermore, the US has more than 50 attack-class subs and 18 nuclear-missile subs, and is committing 60% of its forces to the Indo-Pacific region. This notion of being a vital component by those plucky little fellas Down Under is all obvious spin...

And so on ...

As previously noted by the pond noting Michelle Grattan, this is the plan ...

Morrison’s planned nuclear-powered subs come without any estimated cost (except they’ll be more expensive than the French ones); or precise timetable (except they won’t be available for a couple of decades); or decision about which boat will be chosen (except it will be American or British), or firm indication of how much building will be done in Australia (except that it won’t be all of it and possibly only a modest amount).

And this, per Grattan, was the diplomacy ...

To add insult to injury, on Sunday Defence Minister Peter Dutton suggested the Australian government had been “upfront, open and honest” – the French could have read the signals of our discontent with their $90 billion submarines contract, including in Senate estimates hearings. This latter reference brought to mind then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull suggesting to Barack Obama that if he’d kept up with the Northern Territory News he’d have known about Australia’s lease of the Port of Darwin to the Chinese.

Never mind, the pond was vastly relieved to learn, via the secessionist paywalled west, that important and significant diplomacy had taken place on Scotty from marketing's current trip ...

 

 

No doubt much will flow from that strategic alliance, with important strategic initiatives and announcements to follow ... but now back to "Ned", and his bore the socks off everyone plan ... 

 

Call the pond paranoid, but that mention of "first" sounded like the beginning of one of those "Ned" listicles that can go on forever. 

The cunning old fogey once again confounded the pond ... there was only a "second" ...

And what's more, that "second" saw the war on China magically dissolving, a new trade treaty done, and all well in the Indo Pacific, and if you can swallow that from "Ned", the pond has some French subs going cheap, stashed out the back, in the outdoor dunny ...

 

 

Sublime really, the test not being France, it being China, and yet what will the Chinese see when they look at France?

By "Ned's" very own account, a necessary act of duplicitous, double dealing, secretive, furtive bastardry ... ruthless, yet also misjudged ... perhaps even conducted by a dumb country in diplomatic terms ... one where the mutton Dutton can be gratuitously offensive, and SloMo doesn't even bother to attempt a phone call because of the response he knows he'll get, yet still whines about the Chinese not taking or making phone calls ...

Per Grattan again ...

It’s telling that the unveiling of the new AUKUS agreement last week was surrounded by more showmanship than diplomacy. The leaders of Australia, the US and Britain were successfully linked for a synchronised performance. But Morrison apparently did not manage to speak personally to French President Macron when a massive contract was being torn up.
AUKUS carries Morrison’s individual branding. It may be the most significant legacy of his prime ministership; however long he is in office, it will certainly be one of them.
It has all the Morrison hallmarks: his own work, conceived and executed in secrecy, kept to the smallest possible round of colleagues, details to be worked out much later, and little concern for the incidental fallout.

Or as the immortal Rowe put it in his usual anal way ... with more crapular Rowe fun here ...

 

 

 

And so to other reptile business, and truth to tell, the pond wondered how the reptiles might go this day, torn between their contempt for unions and their contempt for comrade Dan ...

Luckily the demonic Damon was on hand to soothe the pond's shattered nerves. Comrade Dan had been offensively everywhere, now he was nowhere ...

 

 

Indeed, indeed, what a pity that the rioters had been inspired by too much reading of the reptiles ...

 

Oh they get you coming and they get you going, at least if you're comrade Dan, it's the reptile way ... and the pond noted that the lizard Oz editorialist was also in on the sport ...

 

 Luckily the pond could join in the reptile game by tossing in an infallible Pope...

 

 

As for the rest of the reptiles below the fold, much as the pond would have liked to spend time with Tezza brooding about China, or Georgina blathering about Ming the merciless and freedom of thought - the spawn of Lord Downer aspiring to thought, now there's a thought - the pond knew its duty. 

Today was IPA chairman day, come on down Dame Slap ...

 

 

 

Smart debate on the issues of the day? Yep, Dame Slap knows all about that ...

 

 

 

The pond's excuse? Well if Dame Slap can invoke Buckley v. Vidal, the pond can surely fondly recall the donning of the cap ... you know, in the interests of smart, IPA sponsored debate ...

 

 

The pond could barely control a fit of the giggles as this kissing cousin to Faux Noise's best carried on in her "Lord" Monckton worshipping way ...

 

 

 

Suffice to say that the pond has been around the block any number of times with the reptiles and Dame Slap briefly sucking up to Leigh Sales has as much credibility as Dame Slap righteously talking about large swaths of the media offering an ideologically narrow product.

Oh just shut the fuck up or at least revert to form and don your climate denialist MAGA cap ... 

Oh wait, here it comes, it turns out - why is the pond not surprised? - it's really all the fault of the ABC, and Dame Slap came to praise Sales ... so that the entire ABC might be buried ...

 

 

How does Dame Slap live with her nauseating dissembling? You know, of the "commercial media groups are entitled to make their own judgements about what viewers want" kind ...

That's because when it comes to the crunch, Dame Slap is just another reptile, as interested in spirited debates about as much as Faux Noise or Sky News after dark is ...

What she really wants is the ABC to turn into another IPA propaganda arm, another outlet that will heel as commanded ... and when she talks of reflecting the full diversity of the country, she actually means the full diversity of Gina's mob, which isn't that diverse when you think about it for a Slappian nanosecond...

 

Dame Slap wants to find things out? So she goes to "Lord" Monckton for her climate science?

Go sing that nonsense on a mountain, or tell the Chairman, or better still, don the polarising MAGA cap while chanting climate denialist nonsense to pander to Gina ...

And now the pond should offer a PS, because the reptiles are yet again infatuated by an EXCLUSIVE poll ...

 

 

An ACL poll? And this time it's by PureProfile? And is it just the pond, or does that Martyn look a little odd? And what's with the "y"? And yet more talk of "freedumb"?

So many questions, and all the pond could think was that it had a spare New Yorker cartoon handy ...

 

Oh and the pond was also ready to cheer on Xian freedumb ...

 

And now a thanks and shout out to correspondents and their assorted fun links. As Dame Slap has been speaking of Twitter, this series particularly captivated the pond ...

 

 

 

Well it was more fun than a Dame Slap column, and given a choice between a Slap and a tweet, there the matter rests ...