G'day Bev and the Group
At 01:58 PM 19/10/03 +0800, Bev Fabb wrote:
Andrew said Hmmm... without wanting to put words into your mouth, you seem to be saying here that a strong Australian military is something we should oppose as a threat to peace.
[Bev Fabb] No I was not saying that. I believe we need to have a defence force- not the word defence!!!. I can support the use of armed forces to protect us from invasion and aggression.
And I am quite happy for, indeed supportive of the involvement of Australian miliatary staff in peace keeping efforts in East Timor, Bouganville, Solomon Islands etc.
I am not happy about Aus troops being used for agression against other nations, such as I believe happened in the recent Iraq war. In that instance, Iraq posed no threat to Australia, were not threatening us in any way, yet we engaged in act of naked aggression against them without the support of hte international community.
I do not support the Hussein regime- I have known too many Iraqis who were victims of his rule to do that. But just because there is an unjust and cruel government that is no reason for another nation to invade and take control of a nation. If we did that we would be invading many other nations in the world also- what about Zimbabwe, North Korea, even dare I say USA. If the argument that he possessed weapons of mass destruction, (which no one can find) then perhaps we should invade all other countries with weapons of mass destruction which threaten world peace- USA would be top of the list.
[Bev Fabb] What I would like to see is a national public debate about the purposes of hte Australian armed forces. That is a debate we have never had.
OK... we seemed to have a lot of this debate leading up to and following the "It's Time" election, after which the National Service Act was of course repealed and draft resisters granted amnesty.
But none of the above seems to answer the question I asked, frankly. What is the peace issue in Brendan Nelson's proposals?
The only point I was making previously was that it is unfortunate that Aus young people were being forced into the military for economic reasons as the only way they could get an education. This seems to be severaly limiting thier freedom of choice.
That's an education issue, not a peace issue. The solution is to make education more easily available. If that forces the military to be even more generous, that's a good thing too. It's all education, and gives people more options.
Have you seen the film "Courage Under Fire"? Recommended. (Caution: spoilers follow.) Is the domestic situation of the helicopter pilot whose posthumous decoration was the main plot realistic in the current US military, I wonder? She was portrayed as a single parent, seeming to combine family and career very well.
(Spoilers end.)
Interestingly, when Neville Watson, the UC minister, was in Iraq during the war, he tried to talk to as many US troops as possible. he asked all of them why they joined the military. The most common answer was- to get an education! Australia seems to be going down the same path.
That is interesting. As one of those personally affected by the National Service Act, I can assure you that there are far worse ways to raise an army. It does mean that the military is vulnerable to political action in this area. If their scholarship scheme can be undermined, then they will have a serious personel shortage.
YiCaa
email: andrewa @ alder . ws
http://www.zeta.org.au/~andrewa
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