Last week, I highlighted the leading role of the U.S.S. Abe Lincoln in the tsunami relief efforts. (Here’s a new article detailing the work done by the U.S. Marines and sailors on the U.S.S. Bonhomme Richard.) Today, let’s also give bravo zulus to the Australian sailors and other military personnel helping out in the region. Australia’s HMAS Kanimbla just arrived off the ravaged coast of Banda Aceh. The Australian News reports:

Lying in the serene green waters off Banda Aceh, the vessel’s tank deck was crammed with trucks, bulldozers and graders. Also on board were 400 army engineers who aim to rebuild the ruined infrastructure of the city.

HMAS Kanimbla’s two heavy-lift Sea King helicopters from 817 Squadron in Nowra, New South Wales, will also be on call to aid three smaller Australian army helicopters already flying relief missions to refugees…

The Australian focus would be on restoration of water and power as well as wreckage clearance from Banda Aceh’s ruined coastal zone, Brig. Chalmers said. Two LCM-8 landing craft were immediately offloaded on arrival while navy divers and surveyors scouted the seabed for hazards before they began ferrying vehicles and personnel the short distance to shore.

The engineers would move into an abandoned technical college near the main Banda Aceh hospital where Australian military doctors were working and would fan out from there to begin repairs, Brig. Chalmers said.

Even before the arrival of the Kanimbla, Australian troops had delivered more than 300 tons of crucial emergency supplies and in excess of 500,000 liters of clean water to the Aceh province. In addition, the Australia Courier-Mail notes, medical staff working among the 560 Australian Defence Force personnel on the ground have treated more than 700 patients and conducted more than 60 medical evacuations by air in just 10 days.

The Indonesian government and the Euro-ingrates may not appreciate the efforts of our troops and those of our Australian counterparts, but no good deed goes completely unnoticed. As The London Daily Telegraph’s Christopher Booker observed in his deliciously scathing op-ed on the BBC’s failure to acknowledge the indispensable role of the U.S. and Australian troops:

One real lesson of this disaster is that all the international aid in the world is worthless unless one has the hardware and organisational know-how to deliver it. That is what the US and Australia have been showing, as the UN and the EU are powerless to do…

Exactly right. Thanks to our mates down under.

Update: Western aid is winning hearts, according to Australian News…

THE spiritual head of Jemaah Islamiah says he is losing the battle for the hearts and minds of Aceh’s tsunami survivors because of the humanitarian assistance from Australian and US military forces.

A spokesman for Abu Bakar Bashir said the Indonesian cleric, who is on trial for terrorism, regarded the relief operations by Australian and US military personnel as a dangerous development, overshadowing the role of the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI).

“We are suspicious of the presence of foreign soldiers and their show of force and the minimum publicity given to assistance from Arab states,” said Fauzan Al Anshari, a spokesman for Bashir’s militant Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia group.

“It’s dangerous, this idea by Acehnese that US and Australian forces are their guardian angels – more popular than the TNI.”

Yes, it is.

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