On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[Targan]

Originally Posted by chico20854

December 30, 1996

US Navy SEEBEEs arrive at the Cocos (Keeling) Islands Airport in the Indian Ocean to begin upgrading the facility to support the planned deployment of a P-3 patrol squadron.

This bit is of interest to me. The Cocos Keeling Islands are administered by my state jurisdiction (delegated authority from the federal government). The islands have a very contentious internal political history (a single white family ruled there like kings for 150 years, over a population of imported Malay workers).

There was a small military presence on the islands during WWI and a much bigger presence during WWII, including military airfields and bomber squadrons.

But the interesting part in terms of this T2K timeline is that under normal circumstances the stationing of US forces on the islands around that time would probably have been hugely contentious, but for three important factors:

1) The rapidly escalating WWIII.
2) The Liberal-National Coalition had won federal government in March of that year.
3) The Liberal-National Coalition retained government in Western Australia just 16 days before, but with an increased majority.

The new federal government was led by Liberal Party Prime Minister John Howard, who was and is hugely pro-US (the Australian Liberal Party historically has always been so to some degree). With the Liberal Party also now having an absolute majority in the Western Australian Parliament, any political opposition to the decision to station US forces on the Cocos Keeling Islands would have been totally ignored.