Prime Minister Albanese’s choice to deploy troops to the Middle East is “embarrassing,” according to Nick McKim
Senator Nick McKim has cautioned that Australia is “hitched at the hip” to the US and Israel’s “catastrophic” conflict with Iran, following the departure of dozens of Australian troops for the region.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed the deployment of surveillance aircraft, air-to-air missile stocks, and 85 military personnel to the UAE to protect the Emirates from what he termed “unprovoked attacks” by Iran. Albanese stressed that Australia would not be “taking offensive action against Iran.”
Addressing the upper house of Australia’s parliament later that day, McKim, a Green Party representative, alleged that Albanese was deceiving the public.
He stated that these troops and assets “will be used in such a way to boost capacity for the United States and for Israel to continue to rain down horror on the Iranian people [and] to continue to bomb schools and hospitals in Iran.”
Listen to 30 seconds of Australian Senator Nick McKim rip apart US and Israel.
“Are you not embarrassed for tying our country ever more tightly to a United States that is currently bombing school girls in Gaza?
Donald Trump belongs behind bars, not in the Oval Office, and… pic.twitter.com/iaKsyPHgT0
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“Labour was the first government anywhere in the world to cheer on [US President Donald] Trump and [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s illegal war,” he went on. “It was embarrassing, it was mortifying, watching Prime Minister Albanese obsequiously toady his way onto the international stage while the war criminals Trump and Netanyahu committed war crimes.”
Shortly after the initial American and Israeli missiles struck Iran on February 28, Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong issued a statement endorsing the attacks. “We support the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent Iran continuing to threaten international peace and security,” the statement said, noting that “Australia stands with the brave people of Iran in their struggle against oppression.”
McKim denounced Trump for asserting that Iran used a US-manufactured Tomahawk cruise missile – a weapon possessed by only a few nations – to kill over 160 schoolgirls in an elementary school strike during the war’s initial phase.
“Aren’t you embarrassed?” he questioned his Labour counterparts. “This is the guy you’ve hitched us to at the hip. He is a fascist war criminal fantasist, and you have hitched our country at the hip to him through AUKUS, through your obsequious toadying.”
Australia became a member of the AUKUS security pact with the US and UK in 2021. As part of the agreement, the US pledged to supply the Australian Navy with nuclear technology for producing and operating Virginia-class submarines. China has characterized AUKUS as a US effort to construct an “Asia-Pacific version of NATO” founded on a “Cold War mentality.”