From Gallipoli to the Gulf War — it’s silly getting involved in others’ battles

Clearly it’s very silly and quite dangerous getting involved in other people’s wars. Many Australians have made that exact point throughout our history. My generation recalls the noisy advice we gave Harold “All the Way With LBJ” Holt in regard to the Great Vietnam Fiasco — and to John Howard while he was urging George W to shock ’n’ awe Baghdad. And then from the Great Iraq Farce to the Great Exercise In Futility in Afghanistan. Three wars that were a) none of our business, b) not in our interest, and c) doomed to failure.

Nor were all As keen on joining the NZACs at Gallipoli. A few lily-livered, white-feathered commos or Catholic locals were sceptical about signing up for that Greatest of Follies, the Great War, in its awesome entirety. (There was another “stolen generation” — per capita, Australia paid one of the highest prices of any combatant nation in the loss of young lives.)

Tony Abbott has never seen a war he didn’t approve of. Like John Winston, like Winston Churchill, he’s more than willing to put our troops in harm’s way. There are, of course, precedents aplenty. Some Australians volunteered to fight in the Crimean War (1853-56). Breaker Morant reminds us of Australian involvement in the Second Boer War (1899-1902); then there was the Boxer Rebellion (1900-01), the Russian Civil War (1918-21), Korea (1950-53), the Malayan Emergency (1950-60), the Indonesian Confrontation (1963-66), Vietnam (1962-73), and the First Gulf War (1990-91).

Not to mention our wars against indigenous Australians and, more recently, our contributions to the US Cold War via Pine Gap et al, and our red-carpet welcome to Woomera for British nuclear tests. Currently the War on Terror still has us involved in Iraq and Afghanistan — and in the expanding war on ISIS. We’ve been eager participants in the US War on Drugs, arguably the most self-destructive and counterproductive nonsense in the history of public policy. And let’s not talk about our War on Refugees.

This country all but sinks beneath the weight of war museums and marble memorials. Our most solemn day, April 25, simultaneously honours and mourns a shattering military defeat. Our politicians fight for photo-ops with ancient and current warriors. They shroud our military mistakes in the Australian flag (as Tony so sensitively expressed it, “shit happens”) while fighting to claim it as their own.

Some of us predicted that our enthusiastic involvement in Middle Eastern conflicts would detonate problems within our own borders. Far from making us more secure, we’ve made ourselves a target — as did our willingness to aid and abet the US Cold War with Pine Gap and other satellite-tracking and signalling stations we accommodate. (Soviet missiles were certainly aimed at us in retaliation.) No sane Australian could deny the importance of our involvement in World War II — but the rest of the wars? Past, present and potential? The treaties with the US that lock us in to future conflict with China? At a time when the loony Right are planning their takeover of the White House?

I’ve long argued that the most intelligent policy for this country would be one of armed neutrality. Of being prepared but increasingly unaligned. Of being the last, not the first, to sign up for other nations’ wars. Let’s not march to the tune of others’ drums. With the exception of World War II, when what we call civilisation narrowly won (with the immense help of the Soviets, who would almost overnight become the enemy), name a war that anyone won.

Let’s be recruits for a war on war.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/columnists/from-gallipoli-to-the-gulf-war-its-silly-getting-involved-in-others-battles/story-e6frg7fx-1227261613752