Abbott goes full retard in breathtakingly stupid article re his PM-ship - Quadrant

A beach protest against Abbott's climate change denial

I think this is the most anti-history history I've ever had the misfortune to come across from any Australian prime minister. It's like some demented Monty Python script gone horribly wrong. The thing is, Abbott actually believes this deranged shit he's writing. In reality it merely confirms to Australians why he was turfed and why we'd never want him back; he just doesn't have the faintest idea of reality.

I must admit I've only skimmed through the article, as to read the thing in detail would be just too much mental torture. But take this paragraph for example:

I suspect that the Malaysian prime minister was pleasantly surprised with my apology for the way his country had become collateral damage in an Australian domestic argument over people-smuggling. Likewise, I’m sure that the Sri Lankan president was pleased that Australia didn’t join the human rights lobby against the tough but probably unavoidable actions taken to end one of the world’s most vicious civil wars. Certainly, both countries became even stronger partners in the Abbott government’s most urgent initial task: to end the people-smuggling trade that had resulted in more than 1200 deaths at sea, more than 50,000 illegal arrivals by boat and more than $10 billion in border protection budget blow-outs. Quadrant

Yes folks, according to Abbott the end justifies the means, and he was right not to moralise to Sri Lanka about it's gross human rights violations. According to Abbott those violations were "unavoidable". 

So what are these "unavoidable" human rights violations that Abbott didn't see fit to mention? A very quick Google search and here we have it:

Torture, Rape, Arbitrary Detention, and Enforced Disappearances

"Unavoidable actions" - Abbott

Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Terrorism Act is an extremely broad and unclear law that essentially allows police to justify prolonged detention without trial. This act was especially abused during the civil war, for many Tamil citizens were detained under suspicion of “terrorism.” Sri Lankan authorities have acknowledged holding almost 500 alleged former LTTE members without charge for what they termed “rehabilitation”. In addition, hundreds of other Tamil prisoners remained in administrative detention pending investigation into their suspected links with the LTTE; many had been detained for years. It has also been reported that torture and other ill-treatment were used in order to obtain confessions of LTTE involvement. More recently, new evidence was published by Human Rights Watch that rape and sexual violence was used as a broader torture during the conflict. To make matters worse, over 20 alleged enforced disappearances have been reported, including the abduction of Tamil businessman Ramasamy Prabaharan, who was taken just two days before the Supreme Court was scheduled to hear his complaints against arbitrary arrest, detention and torture by police in May 2009. Human Rights Report Card: Sri Lanka

How in the hell could Abbott just ignore this? Remember, he calls himself a christian.... 

And there's this doozy:

I was determined not to let our response to Russia dominate the G20 in Brisbane, held immediately afterwards, which turned out to be a diplomatic triumph for Australia. It was quite a breakthrough to obtain from the world’s biggest economies even a rhetorical commitment to boosting economic growth by getting debt and deficit under control. Quadrant

A "diplomatic triumph"? Good grief, call the men in the white coats! It was anything but. Abbott did all he could to keep climate change off the agenda, but the US and China chose to announce their joint climate deal during the Brisbane G20. No doubt Obama meant this to seriously embarrass Abbott and his climate denialism. Fuck knows what Obama said to Abbott behind the scenes.....

Associate Professor Peter Christoff, a climate policy analyst from the University of Melbourne, said the US-China deal had "embarrassed" the Abbott Government.

"Look, I think the Abbott Government has been severely embarrassed by this announcement and no more so than at a time when it's quite clear that the Government has been trying to keep climate change off the agenda at the G20," he told The World Today.

"It immediately leaves the Abbott Government with a problem, because the Direct Action plan that it's proposing is incapable of meeting targets like the ones that we should be aiming for." ABC

Obama even went on to make a big speech about climate change when he was here. Both mainstream and online media was full of mockery for Abbott over it. It was I guess a "diplomatic triumph" for Obama and China, but in every sense for Abbott it was an unmitigated diplomatic disaster. 

How about this one, following straight on from the above G20 "diplomatic triumph": 

AS INTERNATIONAL tensions mount and as flashpoints multiply, Australia’s most important geo-political role is supporting and encouraging the United States. As the current situation in Syria demonstrates, US absence from any major trouble spot creates a vacuum that less high-minded countries will eventually fill. Of course, the most effective form of encouragement is an offer to assist. Quadrant

As this paragraph suggests, yes we all remember how Abbott wanted to jump the gun even from the US, and offered to bomb Syria even before Obama asked. What's more he tried to cover that up and lied to the Australian people, pretending that the gov was considering it. 

But senior government sources have told Fairfax Media that the driving force for the formal request received last week from the United States for the RAAF to join the air campaign in Syria came more from Canberra – and in particular the Prime Minister's office – than from Washington. 

Visiting remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory, Mr Abbott said the government was still considering the request but expected to make a decision within the next week. "I had a request from President Obama some weeks ago to consider strikes into Syria," Mr Abbott said. 

"After that, I asked our military officials to talk to the Pentagon and in the wake of those conversations, a formal request for Australian involvement in air strikes in Syria has come. We'll consider this and we'll make a decision in the next week or so." Sydney Morning Herald

Abbott thought Australians wouldn't have agreed to him pushing Obama to join in Syrian bombing. He'd have been right in at least that. Indeed it was big news when it broke in the papers that Abbott had done so. 

However that's where the truth ends. It's the US itself that created this whole knee jerk mess in the Middle East. For Australia to join another stupid war of US making would be controversial here to say the least. For an Australian PM to push the US for us to get involved is unthinkable and a betrayal of our trust as Australians.

Once again, we have Abbott trying desperately to rewrite the history of his gov (his Quadrant article is 3,700 words long). In doing so he's just making himself look ever more stupid and ever more out of touch with reality.

What's more he's doing this during a long election campaign. Will Australia then vote for a party with Abbott trying to make an impossible come back?