Host Candace Owens made the provocative comments in her show. Photo / Youtube@Candace
Host Candace Owens made the provocative comments in her show. Photo / Youtube@Candace
A conservative US commentator has suggested America should "invade" to liberate Australians from "tyrannical" Covid-19 restrictions, likening the country to the early stages of a dictatorship under Hitler or Stalin.
Daily Wire host Candace Owens made the provocative comments in her Tuesday show, saying that her husband has family membersin Australia, one of whom recently shared that "the mental state of everyone around her was in steep decline".
"She shared with him a message that she had received from a friend of hers, a woman who lives in Queensland, and the message is genuinely shocking," Owens said.
"I was shocked reading this message and I decided that for this episode I'm just going to read it for verbatim. It's a list of the Covid rules that Australian citizens are being made to follow. As I read this I want you to close your eyes and imagine that this was your life, and what your mental state would be like if you were being made to abide by these rules."
Owens then read off a long list of Covid-19 restrictions that have been in place at various times during the pandemic, including household visitor limits, funeral caps, QR code check-ins "literally everywhere, including toilets", curfews and travel restrictions.
"There are helicopters patrolling the skies to ensure that everybody is abiding by the curfews," she said, apparently referring to viral footage from Sydney's eastern suburbs earlier this year.
"You're not allowed to sit down at parks, beaches and public spaces. You're not allowed to drink or eat while standing up anywhere. No dancing anywhere. Only one person per household is allowed to go shopping for essentials. Only essential shopping is allowed and at times, the Defence Force and police have checked what people are shopping for. Dog parks, playgrounds, bike parks, beaches are closed and barricaded. Mask wearing is required when outside and even if you are alone."
Owens said the thing that shocked her the most was people being locked out of their own states.
"Thousands of them are not allowed to return unless they get a vaccine, only after they go through a slow and restrictive exemption request process," she said. "This is what is going on right now in Australia."
People filter into the city after more than 100 days of lockdown to help contain the Covid-19 outbreak in Sydney on October 11. Photo / AP
Owens then questioned why America shouldn't invade Australia like Afghanistan.
"For the last 20 years, the United States has spent trillions of dollars overseas in Afghanistan fighting a war, which we lost by the way," she said.
"We were told the war was necessary anyway, the slaughtering of American sons and daughters on foreign soil because we were fighting a noble cause – to spread democracy in a tyrannical land. To free an oppressed people.
"So I'm going to ask those same lecturing politicians and media members a question – when do we deploy troops to Australia? When do we invade Australia and free an oppressed people who are suffering under a totalitarian regime? When do we spend trillions of dollars to spread democracy in Australia?"
Owens claimed Australia was currently "a tyrannical police state" that was stripping away "the most basic of individual freedoms", with citizens "quite literally being imprisoned against their will" and unable to leave the country.
"What is happening in Australia under the guise of this virus is federal overreach," she said.
"Tyranny. Totalitarianism. The kind that gives birth to evil dictatorships and human atrocity. We are watching a replay of the early ambitions of Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez."
The sun rises over the skyline of central business district of Sydney on Tuesday. Photo / AP
Australia was one of the key US partners during the 20-year war in Afghanistan.
More than 39,000 Australian soldiers deployed, 41 were killed and more than 260 wounded.
The US was widely criticised by its allies for an abrupt and botched withdrawal in August that saw the Afghan army collapse to a resurgent Taliban, which quickly retook control of the country.
"Can anybody explain to me why the Australian government is any better or any nobler than the Taliban?" Owens said.
"Both groups believe they have a right to oppress and a right to imprison people for their own good."
Owens is the latest high-profile conservative commentator to criticise Australia's Covid-19 measures.
Fox News host Laura Ingraham in August mocked Sydney's lockdown despite a "case-to-population ratio of .004 per cent", while fellow host Tucker Carlson last month slammed Australia's "draconian" policies.
Earlier this month, Australia became the surprising focal point of a march against vaccine mandates for teachers in New York, with hundreds of demonstrators gathering outside the Australian consulate chanting "Save Australia" and some waving Aussie flags.
