SR,

Thanks for conceding that your pretext for this thread was bollocks. Wanting to contribute troops (possibly armed) to an international peace enforcing effort is hardly warmongering as you seem to imply.

Would you consider the insertion of a large number of armed peace keeping troops into the dangerous East Timor area peace keeping or war mongering?

Without the prodding of Abbott and Bishop, it looked very likely that the enfeebled Obama presidency and the vacillating EU was going to do nothing. That the passengers are not still rotting in Ukraine is largely due to their efforts.

Abbott has clearly vastly outperformed any Labor PM on foreign affairs and especially considering the bleating by Rudd and Labor that Abbott was not suited for diplomatic work.

Paul,

Once again the greens are advocating that Australia sits back and does nothing, just as they sat back and happily accepted that thousands drowning at sea was just "s^*% happens" as long as we were nice to the survivors. The greens' philosophy is that if you do nothing, you can do nothing wrong. If thousands of others die, it is someone elses' fault, and warrants a lot of hand wringing and tut tutting.

The reality is that no one in Iraq has completely clean hands, the crimes against humanity committed by ISIS dwarf everything done by others combined. Helping the Kurds and others by disrupting ISIS's movements from the air, and arming the Kurds is saving the maximum number of lives with little no risk to Australian troops.

Brown eyed Bob got it wrong again.

Dear Shadow Minister or rather Yes Minister,

Lol, do you even lie in bed straight?

Except for a question over exact numbers every thing I related about Carr is backed up by Kelly yet somehow you see a victory for yourself? The proof was laid in front of you and you slapped your hands over your ears and rocked back and forth chanting, 'You were wrong and I was right!'. Sorry mate but facts just don't disappear like that but you were good for a laugh at least.

Clown.

And what is this piece of tosh?

“Without the prodding of Abbott and Bishop, it looked very likely that the enfeebled Obama presidency and the vacillating EU was going to do nothing. That the passengers are not still rotting in Ukraine is largely due to their efforts.”

While those two were doing pissing contests in the Security Council, the one that if Abbott had his way we would not have sought membership of, the Malaysian Prime Minister directly contacted the rebels and secured the movement of the bodies and the black boxes.

Go do your homework mate.

SM,

"Thanks for conceding that your pretext for this thread was bollocks. Wanting to contribute troops (possibly armed) to an international peace enforcing effort is hardly warmongering as you seem to imply."

"Would you consider the insertion of a large number of armed peace keeping troops into the dangerous East Timor area peace keeping or war mongering?"

Lol!...are you suggesting little ol' Oz just waltzes in and sets up its own little peace keeping operation in the middle of what's going on in the Eastern Ukraine?

Here's what Kelly wrote:

"In the early days of the crisis several weeks ago Abbott wanted to put 1000 Australian troops onto the crash site...This option remained on the table for a few days."

"It was never going to be viable. Yet debate around this idea continued before the Prime Minister was talked around and decided it was too dangerous and inappropriate an option. Putting Australian troops into that highly charged situation would have been far too risky."

"Yet it offers insights into Abbott’s approach to military issues: he is impatient with limitations relating to logistics and deployment...."

Stupid mongering, more like it.

Abbott really should keep out of international politics, the mans an embarrassment. All the sycophant has to do is site by the phone and wait for the call from Washington, which will give him his riding instructions, it would save us a whole lot of apologising to the rest of the world for his behavior.

How quick the conservatives are to rush us into war. History shows their eagerness for peace through war is a mirage. Time and time again they have ordered Australians into other peoples conflicts, always claiming their motives are pure of heart, and of the noblest order. The reality is some what different, the wars are often of their own making, and for their own self serving reasons, Iraq being a prime example, along with other past wars, too numerous to mention. Bloody conflicts which result in the deaths of so many innocent victims. Why should we believe the conservatives now, that they are reformed charterers acting only through altruistic motives, and this time it will be some how different. The scenario is always the same, start off with a few "advisers" or special forces, but in quick time the whole thing is escalated into an all out war, involving thousands of our own people. The outcome is more than often, death and destruction for the local non combatants along with a relative few casualties of our own. In the end we walk away leaving a sorry state of affairs, all to be repeated sometime in the future, there or somewhere else in the (third) world.

Poirot,

Cherry picking again.

Paul Kelly actually said: "In the early days of the crisis several weeks ago Abbott wanted to put 1000 Australian troops onto the crash site in conjunction with 1000 Dutch troops." In other words, Abbott proposed contributing troops to an international effort to secure the majority of the crash site which covers covers 50 square km, for which a delegation of 10 or even 100 people would have been useless. Part of the negotiations at that point were also trying to achieve a cease fire in the area.

Considering the urgency of the situation, a large number of trained people able to leave at a moment's notice could only come from the army.

SR,

Paul Kelly's opinion does not in any way support your post. You were essentially saying that TA was intending to unilaterally send 3000 armed troops into a war zone.

Where you deviated from the facts were:
1 It was to be part of a multinational effort,
2 It was not going to happen without a cease fire in the area, (which was eventually achieved.)
3 There was no mention of the troops being armed.

So SR and Parrot, I guess that both of you are against the peace keeping efforts of Australia in East Timor?

Paul,

Have you tried Prozac? It would prevent continually having to wipe the spittle off your monitor.

SM,

"Considering the urgency of the situation, a large number of trained people able to leave at a moment's notice could only come from the army."

So you appear to be saying that even though Tones envisaged his troop deployment as part of an international effort - that you can't see what sort of nutty idea that would have been in that particular arena in eastern Ukraine?

You can't glean that Tones was a little itchy to deploy "one thousand" of our personnel - seemingly at the drop of a hat?

You can't work out that the situation on the ground militarily in that area was a tad unstable?

Peace keeping missions usually require much time and effort to organise - and only occur when there is considerable co-operation and trust available.

The fact that Tony barrelled out into the public arena the first chance he got, beating his chest and accusing Russia and its ally of any number of atrocities without first checking his facts wasn't conducive to a whole lot of co-operation.

He's a dill...who's hootin' and hollerin' to add a bit of lustre to his Tin Pot credentials.