Posted on 11/30/2016 7:44:22 PM PST by naturalman1975
That's a bit insulting isn't it?
Not really, when you know the context in which it was said and what was actually said - the summary isn't that accurate. At the time, this came up in 2003, Australia was engaged in an election campaign, and the (Labor) Leader of the Opposition, Mark Latham, said something about, if Labor was elected, Australia would stop acting like America's Deputy Sheriff - so the original statement was by an Australian politician trying to disparage the (conservative) Howard government's relationship with the United States.
President George W. Bush was asked in this context whether he saw Australia as Washington's 'Deputy Sheriff' in southeast Asia and what he actually said was:
"No, we don't see it as a deputy sheriff. We see it as a sheriff. There's a difference. Equal partners, friends and allies. There's nothing deputy about this relationship."
There was nothing in the statement about Australia being any sort of deputy or assistant to the United States. In fact, he was quite explicit in not saying that.
I did not know Australia was even part of NATO.
We’re not, but many of the same standards that are applied within the NATO alliance are generally considered to apply within the ANZUS alliance and the AUSCANNZUKUS (Five Eyes) relationships. The 2% of GDP on defence as a minimum is one of those standards.
And in Afghanistan, Australian troops have pretty much operated as part of NATO for convenience.
That isn't a requirement. It's supposed to be a goal that all members should be moving towards.
Thank you for clarifying that. I distrust everything in the press. This is just one more reason for it.
Very impressive. I’ll give him that.
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