Lessons from history

It seems pretty clear now that Australia will become involved militarily yet again in Iraq. The preemptive rhetoric of Abbott in announcing Australia's willingness to serve before any formal request from Obama indicates that high-level discussions have already taken place. Just as when Howard sent troops to Turkey "just in case they might be needed" prior to the last disastrous invasion of Iraq.

Without wishing here to discuss the rights and wrongs of any such new involvement, we should all be thinking about how such decisions are taken by our politicians. Are we happy that a prime minister (with assumed cabinet consultation) can unilaterally declare our involvement in a non-defensive war? We saw what happened last time this took place. We signed up to  poorly planned war that had no exit strategy and that ended up taking countless thousands of innocent lives and all to end up with a counterproductive result that meant that the world was a more dangerous place than before.

It seems to me that the least we can expect of our rulers is that they respect us enough to put the question to our parliament. The idea that a single person, the PM, can sign us up to such a catastrophic war should be anathema to all who uphold the principles of democracy. For too long Australia has played the sycophantic role for the US, quietly coming along to each and every military adventure for no good reason other than the expectation  that "Big Brother" might come to our aid if ever we are attacked. Well the US might  or might not depending on whether it was in her interest. I think it's time we started to act in our own interest and that means asking all Australians if they wish to take part in wars.

That simply means that if we are acting militarily off Australian shores, there must be full approval of our Parliament.

I wonder what others think.