2) Saudi Arabia and Pakistan represent the central control of Al Qaeda.
Saudi Arabia funds madrassas, while in the lawless mountain regions of Pakistan, AQ can operate with impunity.
And yet, the US does nothing - both governments are friendly to them.

Look - if you want to compare moralities, of course, the US come out above dictators such as Saddam.
But that doesn't mean the US are all fluffy bunnies and altruistic - they're looking after themselves.
And this entire war was a cockup. How can you say otherwise? No WMD! Thousands of fatalities! Where once Al Qaeda couldn't operate, now they have a haven where they can shoot at Americans! Plus, Iran, a genuine Sharia theocracy, is growing bold.

You can say they went in there with strong ideals, and the concept of introducing democracy, but history had shown them that was an unrealistic dream, but they did it anyway.

It was stupidity, plain and simple.

It's funny - communists had a flawed system that was based on unrealistic morality. When it was put in place it failed, and they are historically reviled.
Yet when the US causes a major catastrophe, even if they did mean well, the apologetics are out in force.

TRTL – Before you can deal with nasty junta’s you need a trigger to go in. We have not had a good enough one yet with Iran, North Korea, Burma etc.

Triggers are essential due to left branding you a war monger if you make any attempt to make this would a better place. 9/11 was not a very good trigger but it will do.

Remember the criticism Australia got for helping East Timor. I remember some people were saying we were only going there for the oil! That’s the left for you.

The left wing of societies is the reason why blokes like Pol Pot can get away with murdering millions of people and the world will sit there and do nothing. Lets say hypothetically we had done something to try and save the poor people of Cambodia the left would have yelled and screamed like a banshee about the “illegal” invasion of Cambodia.

Then they would wait for an Australian to cause some collateral damage like accidentally bombing a civilian target. As soon as this happens they would jump for joy and quickly brand the Australian military “baby killers” and say things are worse off in Cambodia now then they were under Pol Pot.

It takes a lot of gumption to do what George and John have done in the face of such ignorant hypocrites!

Congratulating failure is not a way of improving the world.

"The left wing of societies is the reason why blokes like Pol Pot can get away with murdering millions of people..." (Quote: Greasyslime)

What an unintelligent little twerp you are!

Dear ET,

Talking about East Timor, I read that many of the Indonesian special forces known as Kopassus, described by Amnesty International as 'truly barbaric' and 'responsible for the worst atrocities in East Timor', were trained in Australia. And moreover, that Australia has resumed its close contacts with Indonesia's unreconstructed genocidal army, which has a history of association with and manipulation of extreme Islamicist groups of the kind found guilty in the Bali bombing of October 2002.

EasyTimes, "Triggers are essential due to left branding you a war monger if you make any attempt to make this would a better place. 9/11 was not a very good trigger but it will do."

Do you even know why 9-11 happened? There was a... "trigger".
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-159.html (this is long-winded and misses some points but you can skip to the conclusion if you want)

> "The left wing of societies is the reason why blokes like Pol Pot can get away with murdering millions of people and the world will sit there and do nothing."

The left are over-represented on the human rights front, so you point is ludicrous.

> "Then they would wait for an Australian to cause some collateral damage like accidentally bombing a civilian target."

Ok this is a subject I want to provide some opinion on. I'm getting sick of the media portraying soldiers and contractors as making accidental killings and civilians not being targeted wilfully. The fact is, that is complete rubbish. I collected some of these articles to remove some of the blind spots created by the media.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/07/10/soldiers.charged/index.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/01/terror/main1676384.shtml
http://www.bzangygroink.co.uk/wordpress/archives/2007/10/12/us-murders-34-civilians-9-children/
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/63780/
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-oped1012contractoroct12,0,4399312.story
http://www.ablogistan.com/archives/2007/09/worse_than_abu.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMe08e2wMZk (Iraq War Vets talk about random civilian killings)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-gans6oct06,0,1155563.story?coll=la-opinion-center

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2005/281105trophyvideo.htm
*this last one comes with a warning, since you are actually witnessing murderers in action (no blood or close-ups that i could see).