Dear stevenlmeyer,

The relevance to this thread of my post is to ask what Australia does if the human rights abuser is the US.

the legitimate reason to take in refugees is because of displacement due to war or opression. This costs nations receiving refugees so it is better to have them safely restored to their native homes in a secure lifestyle, otherwise we are allowing or worse supporting poverty.

StevenM

Quid pro quo

You have yet to provide even one reason why Australia should shun the rest of the world.

Okay, joke's over guys. What's going on here?

I quit this site a while back, sick to death of the predictable from the predictable. Today I swing by and everyone's being civilised and actually discussing stuff.

On topic, it's unrealistic to isolate what's happening in Pakistan from our involvement in it, and the consequences for us. We supported the Iraq thing, which took resources from the Afghanistan thing, which has allowed the Taliban to regain strength in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Pakistan was no human rights picnic before, but now it's much worse.

As a result there will be large numbers of displaced people. Eventually India will consider responding if nobody else does.

What should we do? Not war. That's failed in Afghanistan. Sanctions punish the population more than the bad guys. The Pakistani government is weak. Some kind of support there could help, maybe more if it came from India. Or the ICC.

Fractelle,

OK quid pro quo.

I do not believe and have not said Australia should "shun" the rest of the world.

I have said we should not engage in uninvited interventions in countries where there is no threat to us. That is a far more limited statement than the one you attribute to me.

Note that so far nobody here has provided me with the list I requested.

NB: I am NOT saying we should IGNORE human rights abuses in other countries. There are things we can do which do not require intervention. Let me give just one example.

Some of the worst human rights violators are oil exporting nations. The ability of the thugs that rule those nations to hang onto power and make mischief across the globe depends on their access to huge oil revenues.

For example we see trouble in Pakistan; but the madrassahs that indoctrinate the Taliban types are often financed with Saudi money.

Now what would be more effective in combating the malign influence of Saudi backed Islamists?

--Military intervention in Pakistan?

--Or getting serious about reducing crude oil consumption and developing alternative transport energy system? We do have the technology to do this. If the price of oil sinks below $20 / barrel the ability of Saudi Arabia and Iran to make mischief is greatly reduced.

David f

What do we do if America is the human rights violator?

We start with a sense of proportion. No country is perfect. There are human rights violations in every country on Earth including Australia. We start by asking whether, taking America's record as a whole, we should do anything.

Now in the case you describe – the criminalizing of certain narcotics – I happen to agree with you. The side effects of the so called "war on drugs" are so horrendous that we should be taking the lead in de-criminalising drugs. That would cut off the financial balls of the illegal drug trade which, incidentally, is also a source of finance for terrorism.

Thanks StevenM

In the case of the oil producing nations, one way to deal with bullies is take away their power. Why western nations have failed to even start reducing dependency on oil, staggers me - we had the technology years ago. Goes to show how influential the oil conglomerates really are. So who is really to blame to maintaining the status quo of the Middle East? - I posit both: Western greed and refusal to change and the Middle Eastern countries themselves - they have no reason to change until we do something about our dependency on fossil fuels. Added to the entire mess is the worst of the Abrahamic religions. BTW I do not claim that there is an easy solution.

As for capital punishment, invasion won't change anything (the image of Australia invading the USA is hilarious). However, to remain silent is hypocritical. We should always make clear that Australia remains anti-death penalty AND back up our words with actions like repatriation of Australians on death row in other countries for interment here.

And leading by example; applying our values to our least advantaged people right here at home.