There is nothing positive that any country can learn from Israel. Committing war crimes and human rights abuses are not to be aspired to. Israel has set it's own path of destruction by ignoring human rights groups and international law. The world saw first hand just what kind of a country Israel is this time. The Zionist propaganda machine was in overdrive to try and justify the atrocities committed by this rogue nation.

Each generation of this artificially created state for one relgious sect only becomes more souless and cruel. The very idea that any country could learn anything worthwhile from the young thugs of the IOF is absurd.

Ted

Its quite appropriate you point to increasing dangers (such as antitank missiles) for Australians operating in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Increased deployments in dangerous areas of Iraq and Afghanistan are going to mean Australian combat DEATHS. We have had contractor, training and self-inflicted deaths. Combat deaths will tragically highlight the cost of the war for Australia.

I understand that body bags are being acquired by Australia for these deployments in numbers above standard levels.

Its notable that Canada, which made the right decision not to go to Iraq, is seeing its soldiers regularly killed in Afghanistan.

While the armour upgrade sounds relatively low cost you also point to antitank missiles being used against infantry. Thats a problem not as easily fixed for Australia infantry or civil aid troops.

Higher Australian casualties will make Australia's commitment to Iraq and Afghanistan a bigger issue. This may well in turn increase the likelihood of homegrown terrorism in Australia. Commissioner Mick Keelty accurately made the deployment-homegrown terror connection some time ago.

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com

The lesson we should have learned was from Vietnam: don't get sucked into these wars in the first place.

Not to worry, Mr Howard is presently re-writing the history of vietnam and in the future another like him will be sending our kids into yet another war, while re-writing the Iraq war.

Ted,

The argument that says Jihadists were already targeting us before Iraq simply doesn't hold up. Just because they hate us doesn't mean we need to exacerbate the problem by supporting US/Israeli lunacy in Mid East policy.

We're not too popular with Iran either, so should we attack them and have another Mid East state descend into anarchy and civil war? Could we justify 100 deaths a day in Iran just because they were already targeting us?

We're not as hysterical as Israelis are - we don't believe in putting fuel on the fire in the hope that it will burn out quicker. We have boundries. We won't do whatever it takes. And, thank God, we value all human life.

We have nothing positive to learn from Israel.

Keith,
Hezbullah won, only in their minds & those of their airhead fellow-travellors in the west(assuming they have "minds" ).

If you are really turned on (or off ) by "land stealing or unjustified oppression".I am sure you wont just stop, or start with Israel .What are your views on the Arabs stealing land from the Kurds,Turkmen or Assyrians(started before Israel was founded & is still going on today)
Or oppressing the Christian, Bahai or Zoroastrian minorities (ditto ).

Or is you high principaled stance just a cover for a baser anti-Israeli malady?

My posting that immediately preceded this one was, of course, directed towards TONY KEVIN.

TONY - you dismiss my contention that al-Qaeda declared war on Australia well before the invasion of Iraq. But on a video that surfaced in November 2001, bin Laden cited the following rationale for his hostility: "The crusader Australian forces were on Indonesian shores ... and they landed on East Timor which is part of the Islamic world." (AFP 26 Oct 2002)

Former CIA terrorism analyst Michael Scheur (no friend of the Bush administration) made the same point on Lateline: “In the Muslim mind in the Islamic mind, the Americans and the Australians in the UN ripped a part of an Islamic country away from its owner, if you will. East Timor was part, in Islamic view, of the Islamic nation of Indonesia and certainly it's viewed as an aggression against Islam”.

And TONY, as to your suggestion that I leave the country, thanks but no thanks. I rather like Australia, and I am looking forward to the Ashes where we can kick some Pommy butt and put that trophy back where it belongs, in Aussie hands. So you’ll just have to get used to me.

EET – In re your refusal to accept that Australia was a jihadist target prior to the Iraq war, see above. And you should also recall that the first Bali bombing took place in October 2002, 6 months before the conflict. Your chronology is a bit out of whack.

KEITH - you assert that you will dismiss, out of hand, any response I might make (“I just no longer accept or even listen to them”). So why should I bother even trying to engage you in discourse?

SUNISLE – I assume your statement about the world seeing Israel’s character first hand is a reference to the recent conflict in Lebanon. It seems you forget that the fighting was triggered by a Hezbollah raid into Israeli territory across a clearly delineated, internationally recognised, border. But then I guess you think that Jews don’t have the right to self-defence, huh?