You're right Is Mise

What is Paul arguing regarding Australia's legal participation in the
UN sanctioned coalition to force back North Korean and then Chinese aggression against South Korea?

North Korea, after attempting to conquer South Korea, has in the last 30 years, developed long range missiles (with the range to hit Australia) and nuclear bombs.
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This has happened while North Korea allows its people to starve to death. I draw Paul's attention to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine

The 1994 to 1998 famine in North Korea stemmed from a variety of factors. Economic mismanagement [while NK was developing long rang missiles and nuclear weapons] and the loss of Soviet support caused food production and imports to decline rapidly. A series of floods and droughts exacerbated the crisis.

The North Korean government and its centrally planned system proved too inflexible to effectively curtail the disaster.

Out of a total population of approximately 22 million, somewhere between 240,000 and 3,500,000 North Koreans died from starvation or hunger-related illnesses, with the deaths peaking in 1997.
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Vietnam (a subset of the broader Second Indochina War) was different (a French induced US foreign policy disaster in which more than 3 million Indochinese died on all sides). Our part http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War#Australia_and_New_Zealand

Best not to conflate Australia's Just war in Korea with Australia's part in Vietnam.

What Paul would like to see is a united Korean people, happy and prosperous. Not a divided country where one half live under the jackboot of tyranny and the other half are the slaves of industrialised capital. A land where millions didn't die through war and poverty as the pawns in a perverted geopolitical game. Then again Paul is a very unreasonable person.

Hi Issy, welcome back, has the cold weather down south flushed you out of your bush encampment? "Greens’ Communist mates" Mr Kim is nether Green, he pours nuclear waste all over the little woodland creatures, or Communist cause he's not a very nice fella.

Hi Planty, just on Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, Taliban, George W and Afghanistan. When 9/11 took place I was led to believe Bin and his bad guys were hiding out in Pakistan not Afghanistan with a whole lot of dosh they got from the Sardis. The Taliban, not good guys themselves, were at the time driving around America in a minivan as the guests of vice president Uncle Dick Cheney, with the view of doing some oil deals with the Yanks. The Yanks never took any action against the Pakies or the Sardis, why was that? George W said years ago "mission accomplished", why are we still there?

Dear Paul,

Have you been following the Ben Roberts-Smith case.
The Victoria Cross recipient who's been accused of
all sorts of atrocities in Afghanistan?

He's suing the media for defamation. Yet there are
his own soldiers testifying against him, including
his own ex-wife.

The Defence Department has a lot riding on this
case. It will be interesting to see how it all
plays out.

Hi Foxy,

Yes, I have taken an interest in the Ben Roberts-Smith case, and what I think it will expose is more of the unacceptable "culture" of Australians in Afghanistan. I can't help but think Afghans have been looked upon as lesser people by some, because of their situation, their culture and their way of life. Their lives are less valuable than the lives of those of use in the West.

Hi Paul,

It will be interesting to see how all this plays
out. One unfortunate thing would be if our veterans
and their families get tarred with the same brush.
But, this matter does need to be seen through to the
end. It does not bode well for Ben Roberts-Smith
if his own soldiers are willing to testify against
him, as is his ex-wife.

Twenty years on, what are we leaving behind in Afghanistan?

Opium, Oil, Rare Earth minerals.. etc.
A place to rob the former USSR from?
Who knows what else?

- I hope nobody actually believed it was about upholding the values of democracy -

(That's just a cover story, for the people at home)