Anzac speech was a misreading of history
The assertion by David More (ODT 27.4.26) that US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy mimics the conditions that ignited World War 2 is a profound misreading of history that ignores the realities of modern statecraft.
To frame decisive defensive measures, such as the recent actions taken against hostile entities, as ‘‘warmongering’’ is to fundamentally misunderstand the duty of a commander-in-chief to protect national security.
The criticism fails to grasp the essential principle that drives American foreign policy: the United States, like any sovereign nation, must prioritise its own national interest above the nebulous demands of international globalism.
By rejecting globalist frameworks that often subordinate American interests to foreign mandates, the current administration is not creating chaos; it is restoring a necessary clarity to the international order.
Furthermore, drawing simplistic comparisons to the 1930s ignores that today’s threats are often asymmetric and driven by non-state actors or rogue regimes, rather than the expansionist ideologies of the mid-20th century.
National sovereignty is the cornerstone of a stable world, and when the US acts to neutralise threats against its citizens and allies, it is exercising the very strength required to prevent the global instability that critics like Mr More claim to fear.
The security of the American people is not a negotiation with the international community, and the administration’s commitment to ‘‘America First’’ ensures that the nation is no longer forced to bear the cost of globalist experiments that ignore our strategic priorities.
Dr Timothy G Ferner
Outram
On the other hand
Thank you David More for speaking out against Donald Trump’s decision to attack Iran.
Why are our leaders and those of Europe and Britain not clearly opposing this move by the United States? Their silence is shocking. A lack of opposition implies complicity in this appalling aggression.
Jeanette McQuillan
Opoho
Unfair treatment
Not all returned servicemen received good treatment when returning from overseas service: my father-in-law came out from Ireland to New Zealand. He was conscripted into the British Army and spent five years in the trenches. On his return to New Zealand he could not get a job as a tailor (his profession) because he was an Irish Catholic.
Kathleen Kenrick
Dunedin
Goats are great
The recent case of 18 pet goats being shot (ODT 21.4.26), highlights to me a problem in this country of the demonisation of other species as ‘‘pests’’. Doc and others inflame cases to hammer home their message that these animals must be eradicated at all costs. This is not conservation but bare-faced bloody mindedness.
Tony Robson
Waipawa
Waste of time
I voted in the last local body election thinking we would get change. Apparently no. A council more interested in spending money on new bikes rather than fixing broken toilets.
A councillor more interested in playing with duct tape than doing his job. A council that is not listening or taking heed of previous council mistakes. I for one, and I’m not alone, won’t be wasting a vote or time on this election.
J Duncan
North East Valley
Correcting an oversight from March 19, 1923
In The Star (23.4.26) and the ODT (27.4.26), there are articles about the Otago Peninsula Fallen Soldiers Memorial.
Reference is made to the designer, architect Edward Walden, and Robert Hosie who sculpted the infantrymen which is on top of the bluestone column. There is no mention of the stonemason who built the column.
This was built by Andrew Aitken, born on January 29, 1857 at Airdrie, New Monkland, Scotland. He arrived at Port Chalmers on ship Viola in March, 1868. He came with two brothers. my great-grandfather, Alexander, and Thomas, who lived at Balclutha. He lived on the Otago Peninsula and is buried at Andersons Bay Cemetery.
Andrew built many buildings on the peninsula, the Macandrew Bay Presbyterian Church, the Pukehiki Hall and the rest were mostly farm buildings/cow byres. Andrew was in his 60s when he built the monument, no mean feat given its position.
The article in the ODT on the opening of the monument on March 19, 1923, also does not mention any of the people responsible for the construction. I thought it was time that Andrew Aitken is recognised.
Glenys Clements (nee Aitken)
Dunedin
Reading the articles and then deciding
After collating ODT articles on the proposed Santana Bendigo mine it is clear to me this project should not proceed.
Organisations in the recent past opposing the project included Doc, Natural Capital Central Otago, and Central Otago Winegrowers (16-4-26).
Other significant groups have found Santana Minerals assessments and reporting wanting include Ngai Tahu; Otago Conservation Board; Fish and Game Otago; Environmental Defence Society; parliamentary commissioner for the environment, Simon Upton; Sustainable Tarras, and Mountains Not Mines.
Their arguments focus on the immediate and long-term significant risks of large-scale mining to the detriment of the environment both local and downstream - a tailings dam expected to last forever but undermined by seismic and climate change challenges; landscape desolation; selfishness in the light of threats faced by future generations and many more.
The economic benefits for the Otago district and the nation have also been challenged.
Most supporters of the mine appear to be individuals with vested interests, including land owners and shareholders.
Santana Mine Supporters Group are individuals who praise the mine and are ‘‘tired of watching people pour scorn on the gold mine’’ (ODT 16.4.26).
The common thread to their position are narrow and short term - job opportunities and disputed economic benefits based on a temporary ridiculously high gold price.
And that’s about it. Their environmental reassurances seem desperate.
The argument against Santana is unsurmountable. It is prudent in these turbulent, uncertain times for a strategic mindset that backs our natural environment as the only sustainable, long-term, big-picture approach.
David Kay
Waitati
[Abridged - length.]
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: letters@odt.co.nz
