It's all very well to spruik about the desire to bring democracy and freedom to the "chosen" countries of the Middle-East in the name of altruism.
However, if we go back a bit and look at the history of the region, we find that democracy was not quite so highly prized as we are led to believe it is today.
Check out the detail of the CIA engineered coup in Iran in 1953 - it's an interesting read, detailing as it does U.S. and British collusion to dismantle democracy. The knock-on effects are still with us...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état

Yabby we can both learn from this thread, I try every day to learn something.
While you and I are from opposite sides of politics it is true that from both sides a view is shared by most.
John Howard knew that, it made him a very successful leader,until workchoices he was unbeatable.
I came from the hungry left.
No shame in that,but am not unhappy to have grown out of it.
I was once guilty of the very sins I charge a few conservatives here with.
An inability to see the wrongs in my side.
We youthful working left wanted CIA to pay for its murders in Chile, still think it would be a good idea.
Understood but ignored the big fella took them on by asking what was in that installation in your state, and the he paid for it when the dirty tricks got him out.
The Australian Labor Party had problems it could not govern while the true left was infecting it with marginal policy's no one wanted.
That remains true.
Todays lost left has power only here on the web, much noise from small numbers, and in the Senate.
An inability exists, to see the other side,you and I will never ever convince them, war is not nice.
I still like some in the left still share their views sometimes.
But I remember this wild young man and the death of my blindness to the crimes against humanity I once ignored.
Dream on folks but middle Australia is concerned only with our troops deaths, not those of murderers.
I csteele without reserve support America using any weapon to fight these monsters.
And Poirot I have high regard for you but what next?
Are you too going to remind me about the crusades?

Belly,

Would you deny that those events are not still pertinent to the the West's relationship with Iran? My point in venturing back to the fifties was to demonstrate that although the activities undertaken by the CIA in the current conflict are sanctioned and justified in many eyes because it is an agency supposedly working to bring about freedom and democracy - that wasn't the case in Iran where it sought to destroy democracy because it got in the way of American interests.
The reality is that the CIA is an instrument that forges the economic interests of America - and those interests are bound up in unfettered access and influence to the oil-rich regions of the Middle-East.

Dear Belly,

Let me get this straight, when the Mujahideen were using all the car bomb skills taught and financed by the CIA and ISI to attack the Russian invaders of their country and other targets you called them freedom fighters, now that many of the same have joined the Taliban and using the same techniques to attack the latest invaders of their country they are suddenly terrorists deserving of indiscriminate bombings from the air?

You will need to tell me why that isn't a morally bankrupt position to hold.

As to your statement “I csteele without reserve support America using any weapon to fight these monsters.” would this include the type of gas attack employed Saddam Hussein?

You are exhibiting a form of tribalism (although I would venture it identifies more with the US than Australia), nothing wrong with that as many do as well, especially the less informed, but you should at least recognise it as such.

I would only hope that in your quieter moments you might reflect on how terribly we have treated this blighted country and perhaps, as I do, believe we should raise our standard of behaviour there above the base level it is at at the moment.

Dear Yabby,

You wrote; “As far as the CIA drone attack goes, you and I don't know all the details, so we can't really judge. Were the CIA misled for instance? Were they told that some important Al Queda leader would be there, when this was not the case? We just don't know, so can't really judge.”

Of course we should judge, it was a bloody funeral for God's sake! If they were so sure of their target and that this was the only chance they had of murdering him then he should be dead. He isn't. All the evidence shows this as a little more than a pot shot. The Geneva convention prohibits this type of action, it should not have happened.

As an Australian I was very proud of one young RAAF pilot who refused to attack a target because in the words of Brigader Hannan "In this case the pilot ... decided that the information didn't support the justification for the use of the weapon and aborted the mission."..."The crew's decision reflects the ADF's strong commitment to the laws of armed conflict and its support of the Government's targeting policy, right down to the lowest levels."

In that war we also refused to attack civilian targets including key bridges, dams and other vital infrastructure. We also refused to have anything to do with and mines or cluster bombs, both weapons used extensively by the US.

These are Australian and international values I want to see upheld, you and Belly seem to want to sneer at them and call them unrealistic.

*Of course we should judge, it was a bloody funeral for God's sake! If they were so sure of their target and that this was the only chance they had of murdering him then he should be dead.*

So what if it was a bloody funeral? When you are hunting somebody,
you don't worry about such trivia. Yes, he should be dead, unless
they were duped by informants who had another agenda, in the game
of intrigue which goes on there. Clearly the CIA are not as skilled
as we often think, or a whole group of their agents would not have
been duped and blown up, for trusting the wrong guy, as recently
happened.

*As an Australian I was very proud of one young RAAF pilot who refused to attack a target*

Well that is wonderful Csteele. But history is full of examples of
people not being perfect and making bad judgement calls. I assume
that the CIA are no different. That is the sad story of warfare,
I am afraid. That is why I prefer democractic solutions.

On the other hand, I seem to recall that some Australians are being
charged with shooting the wrong people. That is going to make
it awfully difficult for our troops to operate over there.