Brian Rudman: Terrorism no justification to fight others' wars

Armed police are seen outside the Lindt Cafe, Martin Place. Photo / AP

Government MP Mark Mitchell argues that the Sydney hostage drama is 100 per cent justification for the anti-terrorist legislation he helped bulldoze through Parliament last week. Yet the Australians have even more draconian laws in place, and that didn't stop Middle Eastern terrorism erupting at Sydney's front door.

"Unbelievably, overnight we have lost some of our own in an attack we would never thought we would see here in our city," said New South Wales Premier Mike Baird. Odd how he forgot that governments on both sides of the Tasman painted lurid pictures of just such a terrorist attack to justify giving the state expanded powers to search and pry into the rest of us with impunity.

The worry is that the Key and Abbott governments will use the fear and grief now swirling about to take another nibble at our civil liberties. For New Zealand at least, we should consider a much simpler alternative. Refuse to create the circumstances in which such an outrage can fester. Don't send our troops to Iraq.

Prime Minister John Key says no decision has yet been made. The Martin Place siege is a clear signal to desist. Australian Prime Minister Mr Abbott couldn't resist the urge to go to war and the mayhem in Sydney's Lindt Chocolat Cafe was a direct consequence. It pushed a mentally unstable man over the edge.

Mr Key wants 100 New Zealand soldiers to join the Australians in Iraq in a reborn "Anzac" brigade to commemorate our joint defeat at Gallipoli. If he's looking for a Middle Eastern myth to learn from, the Martin Place lesson is to forget that 100-year-old disaster and concentrate on the message of peace and goodwill associated with a baby born in that part of the world around this time of the year, 2000 years or so ago.

Refusing to report for duty alongside the United States, Australia and Britain in the Iraqi hellhole is not surrendering to the terrorists. It's common sense. Our leaders have been justifying the Iraqi adventure by arguing terrorism is global and to be safe we have to root it out in its Middle Eastern birthplace. But it's only global in the sense that if outsiders fly in and poke sticks in the hornets' nest, the terrorists can sting back as far away as Sydney and, perhaps, Auckland or Wellington.

The time is long gone when we can make up the numbers in other people's wars from Gallipoli to Vietnam, then scurry home knowing no one would be following us to this remote little sanctuary in the Pacific Ocean. In these days of instant communications and cheap transport, if you pick a fight with someone, there's a good chance they, or one of their followers, may hit back.

In the present holy war between "Great Satan" America and its fundamentalist Muslim adversaries, it's hard to fall back on the justification that at least we're fighting on the side of the angels. The recent report on the CIA's widespread use of torture begs the question, are there any "goodies" in this fight. On Sunday the British Government announced plans to send hundreds of troops to Iraq in the new year to help train Kurdish and Iraqi forces. That is the same role Mr Key is contemplating for our soldiers. They'd be operating out of US safe centres. In the same edition, the Independent newspaper reported that the International Criminal Court was to consider hundreds of new cases accusing British soldiers of abusing and torturing Iraqi men, women and children, aged between 13 and 101. This is on top of earlier war crimes claims.

Then there are the drone attacks, unmanned flying bombs. Last month the Financial Times, not a left-wing journal, reported that President Barack Obama had authorised at least 99 drone strikes in the Arabian Peninsula, 330 in Pakistan and more than 370 in Iraq and Syria. Last December one drone strike blew up a Yemeni wedding party, killing 12 civilians. Was that any less horrendous than what happened in Martin Place?

Mr Key yesterday claimed "one or two" New Zealanders were capable of a similar attack, a further 30 to 40 posed some risk. A quick way of testing this claim would be to declare our troops are off to Iraq. Hopefully, it's a gamble Mr Key won't take.

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