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Tichaona Zindoga Senior Political Writer
The war games are on again.
It is back to Iraq, 11 years after the US, Britain and their allies ganged up to attack the country of Saddam Hussein who was said to be a dangerous man stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.
This time around, there are some bad guys called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or ISIS or ISIL who, from what the world has seen in the Western media, are brutal degenerates who have openly beheaded people, including American journalists.

America led the way to put out this sophisticated organisation and it has since rallied allies numbering up to 40, while at home, at the time of writing, both Houses of Congress had okayed President Barack Obama’s strategy on ISIS.

The coalition comprises the usual hangers-on in Europe, as well as, this time, countries such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
There is one interesting country in the mix – Australia.

Australia is a typical American lapdog ally about which even locals complain, and has lately been used by the US as a “pivot” to Asia and the Pacific – which this article will examine later.

First, the particularly curious behaviour of Australia.
Many people following the news yesterday may have had a sense of déjà vu as Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott made a hysterical and warmongering statement similar to the one made by former US president George W. Bush on September 20, 2001 as he launched the war on terror.

Australia has been claiming that it is under threat of terror, principally from ISIS-linked elements.
In fact, on September 11 (mark the significance of the date) Australia raised its terror alert to the highest possible level.

On September 18, Australian authorities claimed they had foiled ISIS beheading plots in the country claiming that up to 60 of its citizens had gone to fight for ISIS while more at home were planning to do the same.

In pre-dawn raids conducted by heavily militarised security forces, several arrests were made and one was due to stand trial.
Then came in Abbott in the media.

He said there were “networks of people here in this country who, despite living here, despite enjoying our way of life, they will do us harm and it’s important that our police and security forces be one step ahead of them …”

He went on essentially to reincarnate how, in Bush’s words, “enemies of freedom hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other”.

It is the kind of talk that justifies war, the ironic reversal of freedoms of the people by the militarisation of civilian security.
For all there is now, the world is hurtling towards a long and ugly theatre of war, which the likes of Australia happily abet.

Pivot
It is surprising that Abbott seems to act like he is his own man when evidence shows that his country has become a puppet of the US.
The central exercise of this domination comes in the form of what is dubbed the US “pivot to Asia-Pacific” of which Australia is a part meant to counter Chinese influence.

The strategic pivot is explained as America’s attempt to engender influence and military reach across the Asia-Pacific and it involves US movement of military equipment to the region, extension of US defence ties, increase in US defence exports and foreign military training programmes, more frequent US warship visits and the expansion of joint military exercises.

The US Navy’s fleet in the Asia-Pacific is projected to rise from 50 to 60 percent by 2020.
The militarisation is often couched in the blandishments of providing humanitarian assistance, and countering weapons of mass destruction, narco-trafficking and piracy.

Vince Scappatura, writing for the Asia-Pacific Journal on September 10, locates the genesis of the Asian-Pacific pivot and the symbolism and role of Australia.
He says: “Addressing the Australian Parliament in Canberra on 17 November 2011, President Obama officially announced that after a decade of costly war in the Middle East the US was now turning its attention to the Asia-Pacific. A month prior to Obama’s address, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dubbed the new focus a ‘pivot’ in an article for Foreign Policy, the term since persisting despite the best efforts of the Obama administration to replace it with the more innocuous term ‘rebalance’.”

Writing in the same journal a year before, Richard Tanter, said: “As one hinge in the Obama administration’s Pacific pivot, Australia is now more deeply embedded strategically and militarily into US global military planning, especially in Asia, than ever before.

“As in Japan and Korea, this involves Australian governments identifying Australian national interests with those of its American ally, the integration of Australian military forces organisationally and technologically with US forces, and a rapid and extensive expansion of an American military presence in Australia itself.”
This goes to demonstrate just how Tony Abbott is either delusional or plain dishonest to claim Australian-they-hate-us exceptionalism when he is clearly a puppet who may be seeking to risk war adventures as a distraction to waning political fortunes at home as demonstrated by one Reuters report.

Unsurprisingly, CNN reported a few days ago that “the Australian government responded to a request by the United States (to fight ISIS) and said it is preparing to deploy to the United Arab Emirates up to eight Royal Australian Air Force F/A-18 combat aircraft, an E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft and a KC-30A multi-role tanker and transport aircraft. Australia will also help to stem the humanitarian crisis. Obama said on September 17 that Australia will send military advisers to Iraq.”

Evil
The Pacific-Asian pivot is as evil as the American militarisation of other regions of the world, including Africa where it has stationed what it calls the Africa Command or Africom.

Soon enough, every region of the world will be fighting one war or another as America seeks a permanent state of crisis and plunder.
There are too many willing puppets, including in Africa where only Zimbabwe and Somalia have not signed co-operation agreements with the US military, meaning even the two, especially the one Zimbabwe, out of 54 countries, are but insignificant, encircled and damned.

The American strategy is to use force and inducements and extortion and hysteria.
Interestingly, maddeningly, the US has found a way to overrun Syria, which it had hoped to bomb a year ago ostensibly after crossing a mythical red line and using chemical weapons.