Hypocrisy by Hypocrites
A wise man once said that all it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.
Much later another wise man, when arguing with his partner that Catholics are either stupid or evil as they allow and pay their church to act wrongly and do nothing, said that those who knowingly support evil but turn a blind eye are evil by proxy.
That was me.
It is an unfortunate thing that we can't pick and choose our morals. What is considered right must be considered right no matter the circumstance. If it is wrong to sexually abuse a child, then it must be wrong to allow the sexual abuse of a child tooccur and it would be wrong to not prevent it from happening.
Australians quite liked the unofficial "peacekeepers" tag that was placed on our military efforts. We appeared to be quite proud that we were helping - never instigating conflicts. It is nosurprise that we had lost the title (if the title was valid to begin with) when we supported the invasion of Iraq. It is without question that intelligenceagencies in the US, UK and Australia tried to set the record straight on the presence of nuclear weapons in Iraq but were ignored by the "leaders". We invaded that nation not for our security, not because we thought they funded terrorists (that would be Iran) OR because an evil dictator was abusing his power, we went their because of oil and to be honest, when you take a step back from it all, it's disgusting.
The whole "we did a good thing by getting rid of Saddam" doesn't hold up when there are millions of people being killed on the African continent via civil wars and horrendous corruption.
Can't pick and choose our morals, if one honestly believes that the whole "evil dictator" was a valid and actual reason for the invasion then one must admit that Australia should have sent more troops to a worse humanitarian crisis unfolding in Africa, or Tibet or any other atrocity that is taking place around the world where far more lives are needlessly taken.
The tragedy of fighting a war over oil, the resource, is that as a resource - it's kind of bullshit. We have placed an artificial value on this substance that has been superseded by renewable energies and synthetic materials and built our economy around it.
Oh and a little secret about the economy and money in general - it's also artificial and completely bullshit.
I once heard that the next world war will be fought over clean drinking water. The idea, probably a mere fantasy when published doesn't seem so stupid now as we face massive water shortages. Another major thing about water is that water is not a made up resource - we, as a species, need it to live.
At least with oil as a fuel we can rest assured that the day that it runs out, Shell will bring out an all electric car the very next day, for a price. Whatpray-tell what will happen when we run out of water?
Desalination sounds good, but because of pompous assholes who don't want their beach polluted with noise and an eyesore of a factory our plants have been delayed and because of our Governments lack of foresight and general intelligence there is so much policy and red tapesurrounding it that they seem like a fantasy at the moment.
So what will happen when the tap runs dry?
An outrage will occur and we will beg - no, DEMAND - international assistance with our plight - THE SAME international assistance that was been denied to people on a black continent (oh yeah I went there) when we were too busy fighting and dying for a pseudo-resource that in the end was and is useless old tech.
And all of this has happened because we chose wrong. Instead of examining what we want to stand for versus our greed and stupidity we have made a mistake that was doomed to backfire. We liked to think we were the moral superior but we didn't act in unison with the morality we prided ourselves on.
I'd also like to point out that Australia doesn't have capital punishment, presumably as it is barbaric and I would agree - but where were we when Saddam was handed over to the Iraq "courts" where he was facing a death penalty and where were we when the noose was put around his neck?
I feel as if, and I'd hope, that I am preaching to the choir on this one. It isn't only Australia that is to blame for what we have coming but as an Australian I am ashamed and embarrassed at this countries inability to even choose the side it built for itself.
-db
