Free speech folks

In regard to foreign policy, I don't think Romney is the sharpest tool in the bag. Neither is the current U.S. President.

However, absent from this discussion are:

1. The imporantance of free speech above all.
2. And, a bulling Chinese communist leadership which is affecting Pacific rim security.

I did wonder about this:

And of course we should be encouraging the positive forces unleashed by the Arab Spring.

What "positive" forces? Those that make government sponsored religious extremism even more efficient in the finest traditions of fascism?

If an uprising is unwilling to produce a country that can exercise free speech above all else, the effort is not worth backing by the U.S.

At any price.

Even if the current U.S. Secretary of State has little concept of the notion.

Feel-good policy

The chattering class has a new project of self-importance. It is called; 'Australia in the Asian Century'.

Can't say I have ever liked the word "Asian" because it doesn't describe much given there are so many different kinds of peoples with different concerns in the Pacific Rim and beyond.

I agree that "all the way with LBJ" was a bad idea. Just as having Australian troops waste any more time in Afghanistan is a bad idea.

With that, I don't think being a useful tool for Communist China is especially worthwhile.

How would Australia react if they were instead located in the space occupied by the Philippines; facing a bullying Communist China who have over-reached on their definition of territory?

How is the China appreciation club going to react if the only sane response to an increasingly aggressive North Korea is to have a JDAM party once and for all?

Smith made the right response or at least an OK response.

I look forward to the new white paper on Australia in the Asian Century.