Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Australia- are we just international hypocrites?

As you'll gather from my previous post, I am in a bit of stroppy contrarian mood when it comes to selective invocation of international law. I don't like whaling, ditto Israel boarding those Gaza-bound vessels. Still, do we have an issue with consistency when we suck down on a few VBs and venture to tell the world what to do, worse, lecture them on international law?

Because we would never act like pirates and send blooded, armed commandos onto a humanitarian vessel that was acting in accord with international law, would we?

If a couple of refugees had freaked out and tried to grab the SAS soldiers' weapons, they would have had no alternative but to fire. This may in fact be true of some of the Israeli commandos. It's like the old self-defence adage about not pulling out a knife unless you are prepared to use it. If it's not absolutely necessary, don't pull it out. Don't attack civilian ships with commandos. It's a gutless abuse of the licence society has given you to train those commandos and have them at your fingertips.

(OK, without changing the heading as published because I know that throws feed readers, I concede on immediate reflection that it's a bit tabloidy! We're more than 'just' such, we aren't the worst global players. Obviously I still have an ongoing dose of the Mr Sh!ts...)

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