SPQR,

He'd have to go an awful long way to achieve the scale of death and destruction wrought at Georgie's instigation.....remember, as president, this vacuous neo-con marionette once blurted that the hardest part of his job was to connect Iraq to the war on terror.

Poirot

It is a sad irony that we get statistics on every Australian soldier killed in the Middle East, but no accurate or regularly reported statistics on the lives lost by civilians (men, women, children) in those nations.

And none given to the long term effects of people unlucky enough to live there:

http://tinyurl.com/3ca5yd2

Poirot- that STILL doesn't change this situation I am quoting from my last post:
"It STILL doesn't change the fact that Australia would still be faced with the same decision of whether they should rescue a brainwashed jihadi and consequently, let him lose in the Australian community- or weigh up the security risk against the decision and NOT do so.
Doesn't matter if we were a neutral country, passive country, uninvolved in the conflict or an active member in the war- we would STILL be faced with that same decision."

THIS is what Hicks story is about- as far as Australia is concerned.