In a hard hitting maiden speech as the independant MP for Denison in Tasmania, Andrew Wilkie has hit out at both the Iraq and Afghanistan War. He accused the architects of the Iraq war of not caring about those the war killed and labelled our involvement in Afghanistan as being based on a "great lie".:
In a blunt statement he stated on the Iraq War
"If only the architects of the Iraq war, especially those who mourned United Nations Special Envoy Sergio de Mello who died when the UN's Bagdad compound was bombed, had cared as much for every other casualty. Perhaps there would have been fewer body bags and coffins. But they didn't. The bloodstained pages of history are filled with such people: men and women with no understanding of the real risks and costs of aggression, or care for the consequences. There's no chance of them or any of their loved ones lying in the chill desert night air paralysed with fear, or being gutted alive by razor-sharp shrapnel, or losing a foot or worse from a mine or cluster bomblet, or having the flesh burned from their bones as they sit trapped in their blazing vehicle."
He labelled our invovlement in Afghanistan to be based on great lie.
"The one bright spot – that Afghanistan is no longer an exporter of Islamic extremism – is dulled by the fact that extremists have migrated across the border to nuclear-armed and unstable Pakistan. And in any case the global Islamic terrorist threat morphed years ago into a global network independent of any one leader or safe haven. That we must stay in Afghanistan to protect Australia from terrorism is a great lie peddled by both the Government and the Opposition."
He then called for foreign troops to be removed
"The only way to turn Afghanistan around now is to immediately stabilise the security situation and hastily rebuild the governance, infrastructure, services and jobs which give people hope and underpin long-term peace. But this appears increasingly unachievable because the foreign troops which anchor such a solution are now seen by many Afghans as the problem. Moreover the resultant nationalism is fuelling the rapid Taliban resurgence. In short, there can be no hope of enduring peace until foreign troops are withdrawn."
Read the full transcript at
http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2010/09/30/176021_todays-news.html