Generator said:
My basic and easily deconstructed point is that given the Government's actions it is now incumbent upon the Government to deal with the consequences and to ensure that in dealing with the consequences the Government selects a path that a) is in Australia's best interests and b) does all that it can to address the situation at hand in a manner that is deemed appropriate by the relevant stakeholders.
Ok well if I understand correctly, this is essentially saying: "We should stay there because its our fault and now we have to fix it".
When we make statements like this I really wonder whether our influence is even positive there. Having an overt military presence pushes the resistance underground into their guerilla tactics of just randomly blowing stuff up. I doubt you can bring democracy to a country by pointing guns at people's heads. Oh yeah, and violence begets violence, always has and always will it seems.
As for humanitarian efforts, I really question why it needs to be a military force there in that case. Why not just have aid/charity workers? If its safety thats the concern, then they shouldn't be there anyway! Why does this need a govt solution?
I think the best thing for Iraq would be to just split into different areas, rather than try to create some sort of forced association between the different factions and pretending that "democracy will fix all". If this means splitting Iraq into many different countries, then so be it. The important thing is that nobody lords it over other people.
Generator said:
Though its clear that you're keen to renew the debate about the nature and extent of a government's 'authority', I'd make a poor sparring partner.
It's hard for me to really attack our military occupation of Iraq without going to the 'root of the problem' so to speak.
To put it as simply as I can, if its ok for the govt to go and invade another country, then its equally as ok for individual people to go over to Iraq with their guns and tanks and claim to be "peacekeepers"/whatever. When they start working for the govt what magical transformation does a person undergo that somehow changes their moral nature?