BigOl64 wrote on Mar 9
th, 2018 at 6:37pm:
My point exactly, we only do what benefits us, fkk everyone else, fkk the weak and vulnerable, if they are being killed in their hundreds of thousands, not our fkken problem. Our actions were made even more vile and despicable by the fact that, what was being done to the Timorese, our fellow Australians found it funny.
We had the capacity to knock the fkken sh1t out of those jungle monkeys and we did nothing.
We better hope we never find ourselves in need, I doubt we would be worthy of any real effort by anyone to come help us, no-one likes a jack piece of sh1t, no matter how nice their beaches are.
All nations, at their most basic, act out of self-interest, BigOl64. That self-interest can be modified by the needs of neighbours, allies, friends, etc. if necessary and it suits our needs. It is why we went to war in 1914 and 1939 and 1950 and 1965. It was why we became involved in the Malayan Emergency, Somalia and finally in East Timor, Solomon Islands and Iraq (twice). It was to our benefit it seemed and within our abilities to intervene.
In 1960 and 1975, it was outside our abilities and it did not seem to directly benefit us. In both cases, the Government of the day acted on advice from the Public Service and the Military Chiefs. They advised us not to, because in both cases we lacked support from the US. Without, it was determined that we had little chance of success on our own. Now, you can blame the Government for being over-cautious but it was cautious.
We had survived WWII and Vietnam. After both conflicts, the Government of the day had run down the ADF. The civilian economy had benefited in both cases. In both cases we were not prepared to fight in either West New Guinea or East Timor, on our own. We barely were when we did intervene in 1999, after we had rebuilt the ADF. Without significant leasing of Russian heavy transport aircraft it wouldn't have worked.
As much as you moan and whinge, the Australian Government acted for the best interest of Australia. We did intervene in 1999, we did undo our failure to intervene earlier. We helped the East Timorese achieve independence. West New Guinea? Not going to happen. The Indonesian claim is on firmer ground. It is essentially a part of Indonesia.