National's Unusual Defence And Foreign Policies

New Zealand First has urged Don Brash and Simon Power to stop thinking out loud about defence and foreign policies.

This follows National releasing an “absurd” discussion paper about nuclear ships, Simon Power reading Michael Joseph Savage’s 1939 speech, and Dr Brash doing backflips over the war in Iraq.

Rt Hon Winston Peters said today that most people would be able to see how the inexperience and naivety of Dr Brash and Simon Power had the potential to embarrass New Zealand internationally.

“No other nation could rely on a country that had Messrs Brash and Power in a position to make decisions on defence or foreign issues because they simply do not know what they are talking about.

”Simon Power espoused a blind obedience to the United States and Britain. That policy was rightfully abandoned after World War Two.

“Don Brash cannot keep changing positions over nuclear ships and the war in Iraq. If you adopt a position over foreign policy you should at least have the consistency to stick to it.

“Under its new leader National has turned out to be a ‘blunder machine’. New Zealand cannot afford to have these people in positions of power trying to learn on the job,” said Mr Peters.

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>