Tony Abbott has blamed jetlag for passing up Julia Gillard's invitation to visit Australian troops in Afghanistan.

Actually, it wasn't jetlag - but merely, a fear of jetlag.

This is the man of action we were told was indefatigable during the election campaign. Remember the non-stop 36 hour marathon?

I certainly do.

Sleep was the enemy of any serious prime ministerial aspirant, bleary-eyed reporters on his campaign bus were led to believe.

To prove it, Abbott showed his physical and mental stamina with ceaseless activity through the night. He crossed 10 electorates charged on a light beer shandy and a midnight meal in Sydney's Chinatown. Abbott showed no hint of fatigue running around a tennis court at 10pm. He sharpened his focus on a small yellow ball in the night to trade forehands with a former great in the sport, the now Liberal MP, John Alexander. Nor did he lapse when police handed him a taser at the Campbelltown cop shop sometime around 1am. He donned on a police vest and talked gang violence with a roomful of shy police, intimidated by his sharp questioning.

Compare this to Abbott's reasons for not accompanying the prime minister on her surprise trip to Afghanistan this week. Abbott says he declined the offer because he wanted to be sparky for his Tory mates at the British Conservative Party conference.

''I didn't want to get here in a jet lagged condition so I'm in a position to make the most of this opportunity,'' he told the ABC in Birmingham.

It's hard to swallow after the two days and a night he spent effortlessly drilling homes together on the Sunshine Coast and shopping his paid parental leave scheme around to babies in Brisbane with no more than catnaps stolen between venues.

While journalists complained of muscle aches, Abbott played rugby league with the Manly Sea Eagles and used time on the campaign bus weightlifting a television crew's camera equipment.

The message then was clear. Abbott was a man you could trust to work hard for his country and sleep was an indulgence for the meek.

"Why sleep at a time like this,'' he said two days out from polling.

''I would much rather feel exhausted by the end of this election campaign and know that I have given it everything I possibly could than to finish this election campaign like a spring chicken,'' he said the next day.

Back in Opposition, Mr Abbott needs a kip.

It's an understandable human need but hard to sell politically when party colleagues are calling for more troops in Afghanistan and after a campaign spent linking a desire to rest to the unambitious.

Tony Abbott Uses Jetlag As Excuse For Not Visiting Soldiers

Very true John - people like Howard;Downer; Reith; Truss; and in fact all neo-con politicians depend greatly on time faded memories with the forgetful assistance of the corporation's media and then, they pop up accusing Labor of trying to act out issues - which are identical to those of their own making.  Like Howard's disgraceful Referendum on a Republic or his Royal Commission which forbade any public Servant from giving evidence and every conservative politician could not be prosecuted - now that's democracy according to Howard's "New Order".  And they’re back ready to repeat their crimes in our name.

As you know I am a returned serviceman with a few problems and I have been treated very well by the DVA – but my heart goes out to the American and Australian servicemen who were vilified by their own people for losing that Vietnam war.  Didn’t Menzies know that it was NOT our war?

Just another war that was doomed to failure from its dishonest beginning.

And why were we there?  Menzies introduced the US style “Ballot of Death” which was a sop to HIS allies, the American Government of the day.

It appears to me, as I have said, that Australia has given enough of our young to the wars of vanity, choice and criminal invasions and we should consider deeply, the enormous difference between the Japanese intended occupation of Australia and the timely and necessary assistance of the US which had the result of the ANZUS treaty of mutuality.  But, that too is basically a DEFENCE TREATY which suits our normal attitude to pre-emptive wars.

The numbers of the American servicemen who have given their lives and their quality of life to their GOVERNMENT’S wars must be astronomical.  And yet, how many have actually been to directly defend the American mainland?

And now to our arrogant hero Tony Abbott who has been portrayed by the Murdoch media as an all sports advocate and even a boxer? More like a Cocker spaniel to me.

His insult to our serving troops should not be forgotten because it is just another poke in the eye to every Australian.  Murdoch will argue that his excuse is valid in that HE considered HIS meeting with a Conservative British politician is more important to him than a show of support to our troops in Afghanistan.

How can that be?  It can only be that one is very much indeed more important than the other to him personally and he should be made to live with that by all Australians.  After all it was his warmongering mentor who sent us there.

And NE OUBLIE as I assume you know John is the motto of the Graham Clan and simply means NEVER FORGET.

For example, when Kevin Rudd visited the troops in Afghanistan he walked down the rear ramp of the troop carrier plane without any helmet or protective clothing whatso ever.   Recently, Julia Gillard did exactly the same however, the warmongering hero of Iraq, John Howard, was filmed running down the ramp with a helmet too large for him, flack jacket and all necessary protection.  Fair dinkum.

That tells us a lot about Howard.

What will the heroic ABBOTT do for the troops that he hopes to represent?

NE OUBLIE indeed.

An address to the nation from President Barack Obama (as reported by Michael Moore).

My Fellow Americans:

Nine years ago today we invaded the nation of Afghanistan. I'd just turned 40. I had a Discman and an Oldsmobile and had gotten really into Live Journal. That was a long time ago. It was so long ago, does anybody remember why we're even there? I think everyone wanted to capture Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. But he got away sometime in the first month or so. He left. We stayed. Looking back now, that makes no sense.

Needing to find a new reason for the mission, we decided to overthrow the religious extremists who were running Afghanistan. Which we did. Sorta. Unlike Osama, they never left. Why not? Well, they were Afghans, it was their country. And, strangely enough, a lot of other Afghans supported them. To this day, the Taliban only have 25,000 armed fighters. Do you really think an army that tiny could control and suppress a nation of 28 million against their will? What's wrong with this picture? WTF is really going on here?

The truth is, I can't get an answer. My generals can't quite tell me what our mission is. If we went in there to rout out al-Qaeda, well, they're gone too. The CIA tells me there are under 100 of them left in the whole country!

Politicians should never meddle in military tactics and strategy. They stuff it up. Even so accomplished a military historian as Winston Churchill often got it disastrously wrong, as we learned at Gallipoli. In World War II, there were days when his defence chiefs spent more time fending off his crackpot ideas than they did fighting Hitler.

Senator David Johnston, a West Australian Liberal and the opposition defence spokesman, is no Churchill. Yet he has solemnly advised that we must deploy "more substantial assets" to Afghanistan, including the new Tiger helicopters, six tanks and more gunners.

He did not explain how we might transport these tanks to that landlocked wilderness, nor the huge logistical effort required to fuel, arm, and maintain them. Still less did he suggest what they might actually do.

The army's new M1A1 Abrams main battle tank was designed by the Americans to meet a Soviet armoured onslaught across the North German plain. Lord knows why we bought 59 of them: probably because the army brass was envious of all the high-end hardware going to the navy and the air force, but that's another story.

To set these monsters thundering around the boonies after a slippery and well-concealed guerilla enemy like the Taliban would be high folly. Not least because, for all their armour, they are highly vulnerable to concealed roadside bombs, as the Iraq war demonstrated.

As for the Tiger helicopters, the Herald reported on Thursday they won't be operationally ready for another two years.

Johnston had this brain snap after reading a leaked email from some anonymous soldier in Afghanistan. The digger had claimed that our latest fatality, Lance Corporal Jared MacKinney, would not have died if there had been better support.

The Defence Force Chief of Joint Operations, Lieutenant-General Mark Evans, described that allegation as ''wrong, ill-informed'' and ''not helpful''. Fair enough. Generals tend to have a better overall view of what's happening in a battle space than a front-line digger.

But that cut no ice with the opposition's pocket Rommel. Boldly describing Evans's response as unacceptable, he told the ABC he trusts the word from troops on the ground above the advice of the Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston.

That is a crass insult. I know Houston. He is an honourable man. If he thought tanks were needed he would push the government until he got them. He does not.

Perhaps Johnston was jet-lagged, a malaise much feared by the opposition these days.

Mike Carlton