Posted on 02/02/2017 9:21:19 PM PST by Bratch
Too funny. Australia Herald Andrew Bolt outlines “the leaker” of the phone call between Australian Prime Minster Malcolm Turnbull and U.S. President Trump came from down under – Turnbull leaked it. Malcolm Turnbull tried to play a game of dirty politics with terrible results.
Australia has their own version of the “Calais jungle” filled with economic migrants unwanted by the majority of the Australian people.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull won’t accept any asylum seekers, migrants or refugees who arrive by boat. Instead, [Australia] intercepts such vessels and sends them to remote Manus Island, in Papua New Guinea – link –
Prime-Minister Turnbull is stuck betwix a big rock and a political hard place. He can’t accept the economic migrants, and he’s too weak to repatriate them, so he thought he could turn to a fellow traveler in a lame-duck President Obama to bail him out.
On November 13th, 2016 Turnbull announced he entered an agreement with exiting Obama to take 1,250 of the pesky migrants despite the U.S. election a week earlier delivering an election victory by a U.S. presidential candidate who would be antithetical to such an agreement.
When questioned about the prudence of such a decision Malcolm Turnbull stated: “We deal with one administration at the time. There is only one president of the United States at a time.”
Dirty deed Mr. Turnbull. Bad, bad mojo.
That sets the backdrop for the now public phone call and President Trump’s admonishment therein… Having just had the atomic sledgehammer of Trump rightly delivered upon his grand scheme, Turnbull nervously turned his political objectives toward the media. Prime Minister Turnbull figuring he would be able to back-up his position by leaking the tone of the conversation to the media and subsequently undermine President Trump.
However, what Turnbull didn’t anticipate is a new type of U.S. President willing to call out the scheming of the traditional political class regardless of their location:
Oh snap, an American president actually looking out for the best interests of America? Rut roo, this is a new and unexpected dynamic. President Trump doesn’t fear transparency, he welcomes it.
Now Turnbull has put himself, and more consequentially the relationship between the leadership in Australia and the United States, into a position of adversity.
Prime Minister Turnbull, too weak to effectively repatriate the migrants on his own, has allowed his own weakness to embarrassingly damage a relationship with a key ally.
[…] Turnbull has a very nervous wait now to see if his boat people “solution” will survive. He’s also learned a very hard lesson: don’t try messing with Trump. (link)
Typically, they travel to Indonesia and then take a boat from there. Why do they choose Australia? At the time they made that decision, because of stupidity by the Labor government of 2007 until 2013 to relax our border controls, they thought they'd get in.
Why would obama be importing Christians from an island off Australia when his admin has been hostile to admitting Mideast Christians ? And turned away Cubans with a sudden policy change ?
We know Australia agreed to take an even larger number of refugees off American hands. We don't know if the Obama administration asked for any other concessions from Australia. It's possible they did.
Australia has also paid large amounts to some countries in the past to get them to take some of these people. I doubt the US was so amenable to money as other countries, but certainly there could be other parts of that deal.
Of course I do. But there’s a difference between being dubious and accepting misinformation as fact. I’m seeing a lot of the latter here.
I don’t think America should take these people as it happens. They’re not your problem and I think at the moment it would be a serious issue if America made it look like it was making exceptions to its strong policies. Australia doesn’t for important reasons - and I don’t think the US should either. But I do think it’s important that decision is based on facts and accurate information, and that’s all I’ve sought to provide.
It doesn’t do anybody any good if these decisions look like they are based on inaccurate information.
I have confidence that whatever decision President Trump makes it will be based on facts. I also think that makes it important that the facts are understood.
Lol...that’s just the way Koreans roll. First time I ever went to a movie in Seoul, I bought my ticket at the ticket booth and discovered there was an assigned seat # on it. You sit where tbey tell you to sit lol.
My thought is that this was to be a small test run. Had Hillary won she would have accepted all of them.
L
The deal was made one week after the election (November 13). It was a stink-bomb intentionally set off for Trump.
I’ve heard that Turnbull has a very thin skin and, without fail, blames others for screw-ups/bad news. And that he has a very nasty temper. If any/all true, could thus be payback from folks who’ve had it with him?
They are. Turnbull is an ass.
My guess is that he thought he could embarrass Trump, especially with all the backlash Trump's been getting on his immigration stance.
Just like everyone else, he didn't expect a public rebuttal.......
“Please - don’t judge all Australians by Turnbull, most of us can’t stand him. The sooner he’s replaced the better.”
I don’t, having been to your country several times. But your national government has not been all that good for a number of years, and this act by Turnbull is, in effect, crapping on us. Hope you are right and Turnbull is on his way out.
“Australia did what all nations should do - negotiated a deal in its own best interests.”
NO, they $hit on America!
“Australia conspired with obumber to F**k America, at least that is my conclusion.”
EXACTLY! They want to send us their garbage. Going forward, our immigration policy should prevent this kind of disgraceful behavior on the part of our ‘friends!”
“Australia has also paid large amounts to some countries in the past to get them to take some of these people. I doubt the US was so amenable to money as other countries, but certainly there could be other parts of that deal. “
That, if true, makes your government a bigger bunch of “$hita$$es” that I first thought! My feelings for Australia are changing with every word you write.
Trump fans are doing him no favors by continuing the LameStreamMedia’s line of march, to emphasis splits between Trump and other world leaders. Trump himself has Tweeted that the media has the tone of their conversation all wrong. Yet “Trumpsters” who have their own websites keep blasting “news” of the “split”. They are not helping Trump.
Wikipedia says the population of North Sentinel Island in 2011 was 39 (thirtynine). I doubt they’d make much of an impression on 1000+ raging muzzies.
Dane undah.
Aw, boo hoo hoo!
No, that doesn't make any sense at all. He had no reason to want to embarrass President Trump. He wants this deal. He needs this deal. Desperately.
I'm increasingly leaning towards one of his staffers doing it though. Probably the one who has been suspended for posting anti-Trump material since this all broke. But if he thought he was doing Turnbull a favour, he's a moron.
If you think the United States doesn't constantly engage in this type of checkbook diplomacy, you haven't been paying attention. You're the world's masters at it - buying off other countries constantly.
I don't see any reason for Australia to apologise to the United States for doing what the United States has done to us repeatedly over the years and will do again. Nor do I condemn the United States for it. It's how international diplomacy works at times. Nations must act in their own best interests and that sometimes means a friend loses out. It happens all the time - and when it comes to Australia and America, America wins much more often than we do.
This is a bad deal for America. But the blame for that belongs to the American who made it. Barack Obama. He decided there was something in it for him. Do you want Australian governments assuming American Presidents are so stupid, we can't rely on them to make their own decisions, but we have to treat them gently? If he couldn't negotiate a good deal for America, that's the problem. Blaming us for his incompetence or malfeasance doesn't make much sense.
President Trump should back out of this deal. It's a bad deal for America and he is now the one with the power to make the decision. Whatever that decision is, he owns it. I hope for America's sake, he makes the right decision and pulls out. But if he doesn't, I can't see any reason to blame the Australian government for that. We're just not that powerful, besides anything else.
Yes, I consider that one of two quite likely scenarios. If there was a real leak - and this isn't just a made up story - and it came from Australia, which is just as possible as it coming from the US, I would guess it was either leaked by one of Turnbull's opponents who want him removed from office, and replaced with a more conservative leader (probably not going back to Tony Abbott, but there are other choices in the Liberal Party), or it was leaked by one of Turnbull's staffers without his knowledge - the idiot thinking he was doing his boss a favour when he wasn't. One of Turnbull's staffers has now been suspended for posting anti-Trump material online. They would be a prime suspect in my opinion.
I'm not saying either of things happened - just they are plausible scenarios and if there was an Australian leak, much, much, more likely than idea Turnbull did it. The key to me not believing Turnbull did it is the timing. It wrecked his chance of getting positive publicity from his National Press Club speech which he'd only made twelve hours earlier. And he would have got some. If this happened a week ago, or next week, I'd be much more likely to think Turnbull might have done it, but I can't see him risking the bump from that speech. It's the only bump he was likely to get in the near future.
Send them all to Saudia Arabia.
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