by frog
theyworkforyou.co.nz has a sobering post following the election results which notes:
Two parties which New Zealand has just elected into power, National and Act, voted in favour of the New Zealand Government joining the USA-led war coalition. This coalition invaded Iraq on 20 March 2003. For those of you that missed my previous post here’s that vote from Parliament’s “Debate on Iraq” held on 18 March 2003, two days before USA led the invasion of Iraq:
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader-ACT NZ): I move, That this Parliament
recognises the threat Iraq’s non-compliance with UN Security Council Resolutions and 4126 Debate on Iraq 18 Mar 2003 proliferation of weapons of mass destruction pose to international peace and,
noting the UN Security Council on 8 November 2002 in resolution 1441 unanimously voted that Iraq has not complied with previous UN resolutions and was in material breach of its obligation and gave Iraq a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations or “face serious consequences”,
further notes the report of the UN arms inspectors that Iraq has not provided an accurate, full and complete disclosure,
this House disassociates itself from the New Zealand Government’s position at the United Nations to oppose a second UN Security Council resolution and deplores the announcement of France to veto any such resolution and this House records its support for the United States of America, Great Britain, and Australia’s preparedness to enforce UN Resolution 1441 and calls on the New Zealand Government to offer all practical support to the “coalition of the willing”.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the motion be agreed to.
Ayes 35
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 8.Noes 84
Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2
It’s a while ago now and National seems to have learnt its lesson since then. Let’s hope Act has too. Otherwise Peacenik Dunne is going to be feeling rather lonely in his new homeland.
Published in Justice & Democracy | Society & Culture by frog on Wed, November 12th, 2008
Tags: act party, frogblog, green party, Iraq, national party, new zealand, peace, richard prebble, Theyworkforyou, war
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
War is always bad. But having Saddam still in power would be worse.
If anyone has failed to learn the lessons of history it is the Greens. After the horrors of Nazi Germany, it is mind-boggling that anyone would oppose war under all circumstances.
The lesson should be that brutal dictators must be dealt with using force as soon as it becomes clear that negotiation will not work.
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^ lol. I guess north korea doesnt count them? (which is far more like nazi germany).
You actually buy that whole war for justice line?
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War is necessary because human nature makes it necessary.
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The question is likely to come up in reality quite soon.
Obama is just as much a warmonger as George W, but has a different target, so expect a lot of US forces action in Afghanistan quite soon. “Our boys” are there all ready, which means what NZ’s position will be is far from an acedemic exercise.
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Obama will be reducing numbers not increasing.
Shunda WTF?? human nature or male nature?
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>>War is necessary because human nature makes it necessary.
‘Human Nature’ is a nebulous term used to justify a myriad of activities. If your comment is true, then it imposes a rather low ceiling on mankind’s future progress. It would be easily the most likely cause of our extinction.
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kjuv
well said, such an “argument” relives the proclaimer of having to make actual detauiled argument with evidence. Better to accept it as inevitable than to turn great minds to anothewr way of behaving.
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When you are wrong you are really quite wrong. We have a defence policy, and it does not involve throwing flowers.
Perhaps you are thinking of some other mob. The Green party does not have any particular desire to turn any sustainable paradise we might manage to create here to the first boatload of rude strangers to come over the horizon.
We just don’t think it is a good idea to let some other nation with its own agendas and priorities determine when and where we should go to war.
I suggest you look up our policy before you embarrass yourselves further.
BJ
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war is not part of human nature, it is one realisation of human nature. Human nature, as with all species, is to proliferate ones genes, war is mearly a means to gain more resources so one can further proliferate. In a world where people are more inteligent than the average republican voter war hardly needs to be neccacary, indeed it is counter-productive.
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“If your comment is true, then it imposes a rather low ceiling on mankind’s future progress.”
My comment is true due to the testimony of world history.
I have studied war and know full well the horrors it involves, I also know that idealism has caused or extended the length of many wars. In that sense idealism is just as responsible for the loss of human life.
There comes a time when war is the only option left, it is sad but true.
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Act & National are a bit late to the Iraq party, but there’s still dozens of dictatorships they could target.
Not many have oil though, with a notable exception in Saudi Arabia. King Abdullah must have WMDs that he’s not showing us…
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shunda,
i beleive that is called the white swan fallacy, or was it black? at any point you are forgetting about australian swans.
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War is not a “Black Swan” – it is part of the way human societies work, and have worked through all of history. Were we to be reliably relieved of the necessity to prepare for such, it would be a very good thing. Most greens accept that this isn’t happening and accept the need for the country to be able to defend itself and to assist our neighbours.
Within the context of international law.
Which the USA broke IMHO, when it entered Iraq to depose Saddam and establish bases.
respectfully
BJ
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>>However idealism is a two-edged sword (Please excuse the pun!). The human world – at least the so-called developed world – would be worse off without those early equal rights advocates and those that pressed for better education and medical assistance et cetera et cetera. And perhaps that is the problem: The tension between the beneficial effects and the harmful effects of the human spirit. Perhaps we are just one huge dichotomy – an existential contradiction!
(Apologies to Bjchip, who feels that this blog is not for this sort of conjecture)
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An apt quotation from Eric Fromm:
“Another nation is made out to be utterly depraved and fiendish, while one’s own nation stands for everything that is good and noble. Every action of the enemy is judged by one standard – every action of oneself by another. Even good deeds by the enemy are considered a sign of particular devilishness, meant to deceive us and the world, while our bad deeds are necessary and justified by our noble goals, which they serve.”
http://nz.mg4.mail.yahoo.com/dc/launch?.rand=7c7rktk63is2v
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BJ,
Accually my point was that war in shundas example is a white swan as he uses an appeal to experiance.
The falasy to which i refer is one which was accepted through out europe until the discovery of australia, that is; that all swans are white. this was based on experiance; every swan i have ever seen was white; therefore all swans are white. its non sequitar.
War is only one possible realisation of human nature, it is not human nature itself and it is not the only thing human nature can lead to, and due to that it cannot be said to be human nature. Just because we see war if we look back into history it does not mean that war is the only result that can be. in an enlightened society or even one that is willing to ask questions, war is not neccacarily always the outcome.
the problem is that the world, like the republicans of america, close their eyes, put in ear plugs, and chant verses from the old testiment.
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Kjuv
Feel free. I am fine with posting whatever we can understand on the blog
respectfully
BJ
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“War is necessary because human nature makes it necessary.”
That’s funny – I’ve never felt the slightest urge to raise an armoured division and invade Poland, nor has anybody felt it necessary to raise an armoured division to deal to me. Logically, therefore, I am not human, nor are my neighbours.
The lessons of history will only be appreciated when somebody writes a book giving equivalent space to wars, as well as to all the times and places in which people have lived peacefully, got on with their sewing, grown a few veges and tended some sheep, built ornamental bridges, raised children, fed ducks on the weekend or dozed at the mosque on Friday afternoons.
It would be a dull book, but accurate (realistic representations of war are pretty dull too, though – watch the film ‘Culloden’ sometime).
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Nigel Kearney said
Nigel do you have anything other than personal opinion to back that up ? How many Iraqis have you asked ?
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Yes, fastbike. Having Saddam in power would be worse. But not necessarily from Saddam, but rather Clinton’s sanctions, which are estimated to have killed more Iraqi’s that GW Bush. The whole American approach to Iraq is flawed, starting long before Dubya. Even in Afghanistan, having successfully ousted the Russians, the Americans withdrew all their support completely, leaving the power, money and infrastructure vacuum that brought us the Taliban. They in turn harboured Al Qaeda. Now the yanks are back cleaning up the mess – or are they?
Certainly our troops are in there doing their bit to clean up the mess, rather than making more mess.
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Good old Frog, you never miss a chance to have a crack at the Yanks do you.
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BB
Iraq, not the us Yanks in general, and I am wondering whether it is going to be “Whatever Obama says” now that Dubya is off to try to flog off his memoirs.
BJ
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BJ
I have wondered about that, if Obama keeps the troops in Iraq for a bit longer I bet that the left say nothing at all.
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He can’t unscramble the egg. Everyone I know recognizes that the troops have to stay until an exit strategy (something Bush and Cheney didn’t have and didn’t want) can be devised.
His election changes policy but it can’t change reality.
BJ
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See what I mean, it has started already.
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Ummmm… BB, he never, ever, not once, said that he would withdraw troops from Iraq immediately.
respectfully
BJ
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“the problem is that the world, like the republicans of america, close their eyes, put in ear plugs, and chant verses from the old testiment.”
Perhaps you could look into the history of the Democrats and see if they were involved in any wars.
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shunda, lol.
Thats not my point.
I just think that republicans perfictly embody all that is wrong with the world, the democrats are not much better, but atleast they ask questions, sometimes, lol. It was mostly a dig at the right-wing bible types that i so despise.
America has all the worst tenents of the free market with all the worst tenents of socialism yet none of the good parts of eaither, lol.
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“That’s funny – I’ve never felt the slightest urge to raise an armoured division and invade Poland, nor has anybody felt it necessary to raise an armoured division to deal to me. Logically, therefore, I am not human, nor are my neighbours.”
Well Sam, you have the first prerequisite for war, a self righteous belief that you are some how more enlightened than those that have gone before you.
There is nothing new under the sun my friend, including your attitude. To date, human history has never been free from warfare, and a naive belief that we are above that sort of thing in our luxuriant western life style is exactly the requirement for history to repeat it self.
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sapient – you starting a war?
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“I just think that republicans perfictly embody all that is wrong with the world, the democrats are not much better, but atleast they ask questions, sometimes, lol. It was mostly a dig at the right-wing bible types that i so despise.
I think you are being a little hard on the Republicans Sapient, their history is not all bad.
As for the right wing bible types, yes there are some nutters in America but the really crazy ones are far fewer than the media would have us believe.
My personal take is that there is a culture among some families in the US that may need to catch up with the times, it may have been appropriate in the past but is becoming outdated as the world changes.
That is not to say serving in the armed forces is wrong, just that as the doctrine of warfare changes, peoples attitudes need to change with it.
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Greenfly,
No mearly venting some of the steam that builds up whenever i see an interview with a american republican.
Though, admitedly, unlike sam i do have the desire to war and to do so on amassive scale, but that is overcome by my recognition of both my inability to win such a war and how counter productive it would be.
shunda,
though you seem to have a basic grasp of the formation of conflict, you would do well to study some of the massive body of research condicted by psychologists and historians into the basis of conflicts; something that i make reference to quite often here as in-group/out-group dynamics.
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shunda,
Dont get me wrong, i know all republicans are not like that, just as all supporters of labour are not unionists or the standard ignorant masses. By no means do i object to, or have any moral objection to, warfare; infact i quite like it as it is one of the foremost sources of technological development due to the immense funding it gains.
The republicans mearly become something that draws my fire because almost everything that they support and the reasons for which they support that are amost exactly contradictory to what I beleive the world needs inorder to progress most efficently.
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“you would do well to study some of the massive body of research condicted by psychologists and historians into the basis of conflicts”
Sapient, do you have any references (internet or books) that you could recommend to me?
I am serious, it is something I am interested in studying further.
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Shunda,
I have plenty of references, unfortunatly most are from academic journals and you need a subscription or to be a student at a university with a subscription to read them.
I will have a look at google books, though i could conceivibly download the pdf’s from the journals and then upload them if you give me somewhere to do so.
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“The republicans mearly become something that draws my fire because almost everything that they support and the reasons for which they support that are amost exactly contradictory to what I beleive the world needs inorder to progress most efficently.”
I would probably almost agree with you there, certainly the republicans have got some rebuilding to do.
While I have my reservations about Obama, one thing I can see is that he could represent a clean break from the past and the beginning of a new era for the USA. Whether or not his leadership will have the wisdom to get very far down this new track remains to be seen, but the fact that he was elected could be enough to ensure a permanent shift in the US.
You get the feeling that we are living in a time of (or soon to be) rapid transition, I think the world will be a very different place in 5 years time.
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“you need a subscription or to be a student at a university with a subscription to read them.”
Sometimes I wish I had gone to uni.
bugga.
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shunda,
im not sure how you access books on google books but this book is writen by robert sternburg, he is one of the leading psychologists on hate and to a lesser extent on love and inteligence. though he does have a certain obsesion with triangles having come up with several “triarchic theories”, lol;
http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=fkWiHgAACAAJ&dq=the+psychology+of+h ate+sternberg
I will download some pdf’s just incase you give me somewhere to upload them to, though i suspect that may break several copryright laws, lol.
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Frog wrote:
“Certainly our troops are in there doing their bit to clean up the mess, rather than making more mess”
I have taken the trouble to listen to your troops, and they have spoken to me with considerable candour. Despite your regime’s attempts to obscure the reality, the truth of the matter is that all your efforts to subjugate Afghanistan – efforts that go back to the nineteenth century – are doomed to fail. While your regime’s rather unoriginal propaganda line is that “Our soldiers are welcomed by the people of Afghanistan” your own soldiers’ admit that “The kids throw stones at us and their parents give us the evil eye”. You are hardly winning hearts and minds out there.
Unless you make the decision to cut and run from Afghanistan, as you did from Iraq, your soldiers will die ingloriously, just as they did in Vietnam. I would not be unhappy to see your regime suffering yet another military defeat, but it would give me no pleasure to see your soldiers maimed and killed in a vain attempt to realize the imperial ambitions of foreign powers. So do the sensible thing, frog, and get your troops out of Afghanistan while there is still time.
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Thanks Sapient I will have a look at that.
You better not break any copyright laws, you never know who’s watching
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Actually, Rodney has sinced recognised that invading Iraq was wrong and a mistake.
Once again, that’s why we need Ron Paul as US President. He’s the only presidential candidate vehemently opposed to the invasion of Iraq and a consistent non-interventionist foreign policy platform.
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“Well Sam, you have the first prerequisite for war, a self righteous belief that you are some how more enlightened than those that have gone before you.”
Nope – 98 percent of my predecessors didn’t instigate wars either. Some of them got dragged along kicking and screaming, many slipped off home first chance they got. Most of the rest kept their heads down and did as little as possible in the way of fighting and yearned for it all to be over. Hardly a sign of war being inherent in human nature.
“To date, human history has never been free from warfare, and a naive belief that we are above that sort of thing in our luxuriant western life style is exactly the requirement for history to repeat it self.”
Twaddle. Miost of human history has been free of warfare, otherwise we would never have got anywhere. For most societies at most times, war has been brief and relatively low key.
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Shawn Tan said: Actually, Rodney has sinced recognised that invading Iraq was wrong and a mistake.
Fine in hindsight Shawn, but it does say something about his judgment on foreign policy issues that he supported it at the time.
If there had been a National-ACT Government at the time the US cobbled together the Coalition of the Killing we would still be mired there and the body bags would still be coming home.
Oh, and the Greens would be polling 15% plus.
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Shawn
Once again, that’s why we need Ron Paul as US President. He’s the only presidential candidate vehemently opposed to the invasion of Iraq and a consistent non-interventionist foreign policy platform.
No… there were several vehemently opposed people running in the hopeless parties. The US rejected them. They rejected them in 2000 and 2004 as well. I had some VERY stupid neighbours but not one of them was going to waste a vote on a minor party.
There’s no point at all to a NZ ACT supporter who doesn’t have a vote in the USA, worrying about whether a minor party candidate there can stage a miraculous revolution and change the course of history retrospectively.
BJ
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Oh, as one does, I just stumbled across the Seville Satement on Violence, something a bunch of brain experts came up with refuting the thesis that war is natural or part of human nature:
http://www.jalt.org/global/newsletter/26stereo.htm
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