Australian opposition calls for troops to withdraw

[cal04]

The Australian government is under pressure to pull troops out of Iraq and focus on its own turbulent backyard, after warnings that the emergency deployment of 2,000 troops to East Timor has stretched its armed forces to breaking point. In addition to the 1,400 personnel it has deployed in southern Iraq, supporting the British-led mission, Australia has troops serving in Afghanistan, the Solomon Islands, Sudan and Sinai. John Howard, the prime minister, has insisted that the Australian Defence Force is not over-stretched, a claim echoed by the top brass.

Opposition MPs and military experts have said that the defence force could be unable to respond to another flare-up in the "arc of instability" to Australia's north - such as a breakdown of law and order in Papua New Guinea, or insurrections in Vanuatu or Fiji. Robert McClelland, the shadow defence minister, demanded a rethink of priorities last week, saying that events in East Timor had underlined the need to withdraw from the Middle East and concentrate omore pressing concerns closer to home.

The Australia Defence Association said the defence force was operating at its greatest intensity since it went to Vietnam in the mid-1960s. Neil James, the lobby group's executive director, said one more serious crisis in the region "would probably be the straw that broke the force's back". But Mr Howard, who last month announced that a further 240 Australian troops would be sent to Afghanistan, has rejected the idea of withdrawing from the Middle East. He claims that Canberra's active participation in the war on terror does not conflict with his push to position Australia as the leading regional power in the South Pacific.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/06/04/waus04.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/06/04/ixnews.html

[rodeodance]

1. Hope the Aussie people have better luck than we did.

[oioioi]

2. When I was a young man I carried a pack

and I lived the free life of a rover

From the Murray's green banks to the dusty outback
I waltzed my Matilda all over
Then in nineteen fifteen the country said "Son"
"There's no time for roving, there's work to be done"
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they sent me away to the war.

And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As our ship pulled away from the quay
And amidst all the tears, the flag-waving and tears
We sailed off for Gallipoli

How well I remember that terrible day
When our blood stained the sand and the water
And how in that hell that they called Suvla bay
We were butchered like lambs to the slaughter.

Johnny Turk he was waiting, he primed himself well
He showered us with bullets and he rained us with shell
And in ten minutes flat he'd blown us straight to hell
Nearly blew us right back to Australia

And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As we stopped to bury the slain
We buried ours and the Turks buried theirs
And then we started all over again.