Fascinating story.

Not sure what interest the Israelis have in New Zealand, if any. Perhaps some charities in NZ are acting as fronts/dupes for Hezbollah? Only possible angle of interest for them that I see.

That NZ would make such a public fuss over it rather than just quietly expelling them suggests that NZ is playing this for the world audience.
Perhaps they feel that if they are loudly indignant enough, the Asian franchises/allies of Al-Qaeda will continue to ignore them. NZ has that luxury, I suppose.

Another interesting note -- Israel's ambassador is in Canberra, and NZ's is in Turkey -- sounds like the two countries have very little interaction.

Helen Clarke is a left-winger who eliminated the military and unilaterally pulled out of the ANZUS treaty. That Treaty was the Defense cornerstone for New Zealand for 50 years.

New Zealand is a lovely country with lovely people. However, Helen Clarke and her left-wing ideologists believe she can get a FREE RIDE with the U.S. defending New Zealand regardless of what happens in the future.

She, like France's Chirac and Spain's Zapatoro are sadly mistaken.

Australia's John Howard is more realistic. Let's hope Austraslia's left-wing nut is NOT ELECTED in their upcoming election.

I understand now how Alan E. Brain gets juicy stories.

There is an Australian journalist claiming the Prime Minister of Iraq shot some inmates. That is on ABC Online last week and will supposedly be published in the Sydney morning paper tomorrow.

Don, No Standard and Not Real will most likely claim that George W. Bush shot them (with lasers of all things), if anyone did ???

Kind of like Joe Wilson, you know?

I hate hobbits.

jackhammer Lord... Fine RingBearer you'd make. :o)

Jerusalem Post speculates that Mossad was trying to set up a source of passports that were "better than forgeries" because of the perception that New Zealenders have in the world of being moderate.

Interesting article on how Mossad may be overworked and its standards may be slipping.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1089955403113

Not sure that the New Zealanders reputation is justified -- here is a picture Maariv is running of the graves:

http://www.maarivintl.com/newsimages/nz%20graves.bmp

It's a bit of an exaggeration to say that Helen Clark eliminated the military. She did eliminate the air combat wing which was terrible. However new warships have been purchased and over a hundred brand new Stryker (LAV) units too. Also there are NZ soldiers in Iraq and combat troops (50 SAS)in Afghanistan. An expensive frigate is patrolling in the Gulf on GWOT duty as well.
So if most countries gave as much proportionally as NZ it would be a mighty fine thing.

According to my numbers:

60 troops in Iraq
50 SAS troops in Afghanistan
1 frigate
1 Orion aircraft.

There is also talk of sending, along with Australia, some troops to the Solomons, but I'm not sure if this is part of the GWOT or is a regional issue.

I think this is significant mainly for its political impact -- NZ seems to see itself as a socialist utopia and sending anything was politically risky.

Remember, though, in World War II, New Zealand was able to raise, send, and deploy a division of troops which fought extensively in the Middle East, Greece, and North Africa, as well as maintaining a naval presence in their home waters.

Granted, this is not World War II.

O.K.

My numbers were wrong. Sorry. She did withdraw from the ANZUS treaty though, correct, or NOT?

DWC,

Thanks for the correction. However, it is World War III in spite of what the socialists think.

If New Zealand and other English speaking nations do not wake up, "NO SOCIALIST utopia" will exist anywhere in a generation. They may also NOT be speaking English.

That is REALITY.

Leaddog,

I agree, and I wish NZ and Australia would do more. We also need Canada in the fight.

What would Mossad be doing in NZ? A guilty plea means nothing. They're probably being tortured. WTF?

I believe New Zealands membership of ANZUS is suspended. However quite a bit of military intelligence is still shared and special forces soldiers receive training with US ones.
New Zealand has been heavily involved in peace keeping in East Timor with several hundred soldiers on duty there with a bit of shooting and some combat casualties - at least one soldier killed in action. East Timor has been mentioned by OBL as a place where the muslims have lost territory.
NZ was engaged in an undeclared war with Indonesia forty odd years ago while defending Malaya.

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