What a shallow election discussion from Labor! What stupid four slogans from the Liberals!

Honest - even being a member of the ALP - I love the result and I like the aspect that the Greens had much gains. Maybe their influence will move Australia forward.

Hopefully this is a wake-up call to move away from shallow arguments, away from stupid slogans towards concrete policy with vision to maximise future outcomes for Australia and not just to try to win the next election.

History:

1950 Robert Menzies (founder of the Liberal Party) sent Australian troops to Korea on request of the UN Safety Council.

1962 Robert Menzies (Liberals) sent Australians for no good reasons to Vietnam.

2001 John Howard (Coalition) sent troops to Afghanistan to fight Al-Qaeda and Bin-Laden. Now suddenly the goals have changed. Now we fight the Taliban while Osama nearly is forgotten.

2003 John Howard (Coalition) repeated the axes of evil slogans of his mate Bush like a parrot and followed him to the Iraq war without a UN mandate and based on lies.

Questions never asked:

Q1. How much did the Iraq and Afghanistan involvement cost the Australians in comparison to normal army duties?

Q2. What daily additional costs currently apply to support our troops in Afghanistan in comparison to keep our borders safe?

Q3. Why should Australian soldiers defend our country in Iraq and Afghanistan to make Australia a safer place, instead of protecting our real borders?

Q4. Why is this topic taboo to talk about in general and in an election campaign?

Who has the answers?

The Liberals are responsible to have initiated the cause for all life's lost in these wars.

These wars have probably cost Australians financially more than ALP ever has wasted with alleged economic miss-management.

Unfortunately the ALP has not the guts to end our involvement in the middle east.

The only party which would support this idea and would oppose involvement in wars are the Greens.

Based on these historical records I never will vote for the Liberals or for the Nationals.

Chris

Strong comments Chris, but don't you feel that despite the lib's starting this we still have a responsibility to exit in a way that will do the least amount of harm for the real victims of these conflicts, that being the innocent peoples of Afganistan and Iraq.
I don't disagree with you over the wrongs nor the gravity of those actions taken by the former government. The electorate have been so lost in their own greed for so long that what we have done in the way of foreign policy for many years has been meaningless to them.

Our current situation in our relationship with the US is with out doubt unhealthy. We have become scared and dependant on the might of the US and the ANZUS treaty. A true friend would have stood up to them and pointed out the folly of the actions and been a good mate. I have said before our actions over the current wars have been more like a friend that let's their best mate drive drunk.
Has anyone else noticed that these conflicts have gone on longer than either the first or second world wars.

Just reflecting on Anzus, the US originally had no interest in a formal treaty alliance with Australia and New Zealand, what bulldozed Anzus through to fruition was the victory of Mao Tzu Tung in China and Communist North Korea’s invasion of South Korea. Those two events heralded the beginnings of the Cold War and it was only then that the US decided that it needed a NATO equivalent alliance in the Asia/Pacific Region to contain the spread of Communism in Asia.

The US decided on an alliance with Japan, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand as the combination that could best mirror NATO in the Asia/Pacific. However Phl, Au and Nz were fearful of a rearmed Japan and so the US compromised and offered a multiple of bilateral treaties with those nations and in the case of Au/Nz a trilateral treaty was formalised in 1951 with Anzus.

Australia expected that the treaty engendered equality in that Australia would be an equal partner thus granting free Australian access to the Pentagon and CIA planning and Intel. For the US however it was inconceivable that a foreign much smaller power be granted such open access and that remains so to this day.

So from conception there existed feelings of political polarity, of opposing attributes and tendencies felt by Australia to the treaty. I assume the same for Nz because they weren’t shy about enacting their own policies knowing full well that they would be at odds with Anzus, vis a vie the expulsion of Nz from the treaty by the US for enacting its policies of a Nuclear Free Zone in the South Pacific and Nz in 1984.

The wording of Anzus is somewhat obtuse and there are no bullet proof guarantee’s that the US would commit to the defence of Au or Nz should they come under direct threat or even attack. It only states that “Any response to a threat would be in accordance with the constitutional processes of each side”. What does that mean? I dunno but it sure doesn’t look like a guarantee of help to me.

Greens represent no more than 15% of Australians.
Single issues in single seats,states in the case of NSW may lift them some times.
But always they will fall back, maybe if left alone to talk as that foolish woman has much lower.
I am content not to have greens control our defense policy's.
In fact lets get back in to Parliament, put the hard bills up, and hold the DD election, except the winner and save us becoming an international joke.

If you want to know what and why, It's in earlier news papers and on the internet.
In the late 1970's, A map of the middle East appeared in our newspapers, showing oil wells in Iraq put there by the US and oil wells in Afghanistan, put there by Russia. A note with this map read “US Congress has provisional plans to take over the middle east oil fields if there is any further reduction of supply”

When the attack on the twin towers was being shown, or possibly the next day at the site, a man who seemed to be a reporter, could be heard saying something like “they supplied them with weapons”. I must admit that what I heard then was probably not anything like those words, but they made me take a bit of notice at the time.

Jan 11th 2004. O'Neill tells '60 Minutes' Iraq was ' Topic A' 8 Months Before 9-11.
According to documents provided by former US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, George W. Bush, 10 days after taking office in 2001, instructed his aides to look for a way to overthrow the Iraqi regime. A secret memo entitled “Plan for post-Saddam Iraq” was discussed in January and February 2001, and a Pentagon document dated March 5, 2001, and entitled “Foreign Suitors for Iraq Oilfield contracts”, included a map of potential areas for petroleum exploration.[84]The US congress supplied weapons to Afghan forces to take over the Middle East Oilfields, and this was the precedence to the attack on the Twin Trade Towers and the White house. Lookup “Bush sought way to invade Iraq”, Look up "60 Minutes" on the internet.

Belly,
The Greens represent the 13.9% of the vote they got. As a result they only have is it 8 seats in the senate? Not many really.
The powerful position they now have in the balance of power role is only existing because of the childish immaturity of the major parties. If they would vote together on well structured legislation instead of being negative for no other reason than to be negative then the who debate may well become more balanced.
A good example was the ETS, we had agreement then the opposition had to do the dirty and fail to be good to their word. This left the whole ETS open to the greens to demand unsustainable outcomes. They now have an even better position with which to pressure for those outcomes thanks to pig headedness.