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Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!

Just how stupid and niggardly can Canberra be? A secret army report has just been leaked and in it is the appalling news that our army - doesn't have enough ammo!

Now even in this less-than-militaristic society any cafe latte drinker will tell you that an army without ammo is more useless than tits on a bull.

Here we are with troops all around the globe - Afghanistan and East Timor to name two - with more on 28-days notice for active service, and they don't have enough grenades, mortar, tank and artillery shells.

The firing of live ammo is not regularly done in training and there seems to be a bit of doubt about which bullets are real and which are dummies. I can tell you people that the dummies are the ones who mixed them up!

Now I don't know about other Australians, but this worries me. Not so much the feral Indons to the north, but what if we get mixed up in a suddenly flaring little war elsewhere and our guys and gals in camouflage get shipped off to whip some other dastardly foe.

The body count could get a bit too high.

The secret report seems to have been a bit of a bombshell in Canberra and senior army officers have been gagged by the Defence Minister from speaking on the issue. Not very democratic is it?

Anyway, we'll have to spend $80million to put things right but - and let's hope the idiot pollies understand this - it has to be spent. We need a well-equipped defence force that can actually shoot its weapons at the enemy.

And, Senator Robert (the Gagger) Hill, don't be tempted to cut funds from health, or aged care, or unemployment, or education to give the military the necessary money.

Why not take it out of the squillions of dollars you Canberra Cretins sock away each year in that No.1 scam called politicians' supperannuation.

And while you're at it - cut down on the fine restaurants and good wines you eat and drink in at our expense. I won't even go in to the use of Commonwealth cars.

Bullets and shells may not be big-ticket items that get wonderful media coverage, but they'll save our nuts if we get caught in a wartime squeezer.

If there is something that has really got up your nose, let Grumpy Old Coot know at grumpy@webwombat.com