This 3-week world tour looks like becoming a life-changing experience for Kevin Rudd. I'm starting to wonder what our nerdish little Kevin07 might be like when he gets back home. His buddy-buddy conversations with Hillary and McCain made me nervous. Then he said this to a European audience:
Afghanistan under the Taliban became a haven for terrorists. These are the terrorists that planned and executed the attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001 – which was in every respect an attack on the collective civilisation of the West.That kind of talk makes me nervous. For starters, he's conflating Al Quaeda with the Taliban of 2001 while asking for more NATO troops in Kabul today.
And now he's in Bucharest giving Bush a salute! You can just imagine how that will look on Iraqi or Indonesian television. Oh well, at least it wasn't a Nazi salute!
UPDATE: Brendan Nelson is like a dog waiting for sticks to chase, isn't he? And here he goes again:
"I think it's conduct unbecoming of an Australian prime minister," Dr Nelson said.Seriously, how can Nelson POSSIBLY criticize Rudd for sucking up to Bush? The hypocrisy just beggars belief, doesn't it?
UPDATE 2: Here's the video. Actually, it looks worse than I thought. Rudd's wandering around the room looking lost and lonely until he makes eye contact with Bush across the room. The salute is clearly meant as a joke, but it is nevertheless demeaning.
Of course, even if 0.07 is right, he's still a hypocritical little dickhead.
