This is a story about profligate waste, unscrupulous politicking and bureaucratic empire building which involves both America and Australia. The story paints America, under the Bush administration, as a righteous but naive giant treading the thespian boards of the world stage with the grace and style of a three hundred pound truck driver in a tutu. It is a story of Australia's almost paranoid search for a guardian starting with Prime Minister Curtin's frantic trip across the Atlantic in 1942, being rebuffed by Great Britain and finally finding the Lion of Luzon in the nick of time before the Japanese invasion. And from that moment, falling into lock-step with America to traipse through Vietnam and the Middle East in the conga-line of wishful hearts. It is a story about waste of public monies in defense procurement, of arrogant opinionated bureaucrats who have done untold damage to force structure which is the basis of public security in times of war. It is a story of old senior officers who sat on their hands when they should have acted, and young senior officers too eager to change for changes' sake. It is a story that sheds light on elite powerful men who are made less, as a result of failure to help the people who look to them for leadership and succor.