Posts by Tom Semmens
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But as a branding strategy, it ignores what's about to happen in Auckland
I believe Danyl lives in Wellington. I would imagine he is like most non-Auckland based New Zealanders who fail to grasp just how dominant Auckland is in this country, economically and politically. It is not an accident that since Norman Kirk, only one person - Jim Bolger - has won a general election as leader of a major party and not been from Auckland. The local is national in this town.
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Happy.
Don't agree with you though.
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Russell, what exactly is your position? it seems to me you are advocating a TINA approach, that we have a tiger by the tail and we can't leave?
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You know, Tom, I think he felt he was making the world a better place.
What, defending Hamid Karzai? Are your serious?
I'm not doubting for a second his intentions were noble, just like the majority of the thousands of soldiers who have been killed in that place. All that does is make all the angrier he was killed there, in that place and for what? I say again, Harmid Karzai's government? The minute we leave it'll all be swept away.
Or was he really sacrificed so John Key can get some FTA brownie points with the Americans?
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Craig, foreign aid is completely different to being part of an army of occupation, and you know it.
Well, I think we have our rationale for withdrawing from the United Nations, tearing up every international treaty and convention we've ever signed...
I support the U.N. and collective action under the umbrella of broad agreed principles of international law. Lieutenant Tim O'Donnell was killed in a sophisticated and well planned ambush in Bamiyan province, up until now the safest province in Afghanistan (which is why we were stationed there in the first place). If you want a sign "we've" lost this war i can't think of a better one.
I don't see how saying we shouldn't have a bar of a lost cause in defense Karzai's hopelessly corrupt and immoral puppet regime is tantamount to walking away from the concept of the UN and collective agreements.
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collateral feminism (hat tip to the now show) is no reason for the invasion nor staying the course (whatever that is)
This.
We went to Afghanistan to destroy Osama Bin Laden's ability to plan and execute another 9/11. This act of self defense was achieved by the end of 2001.
That was when our involvement in Afghanistan should also have come to an end.
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If that's how you want to see it, Tom, that's up to you. It certainly has the virtue of simplicity, I'll give you that.
I don't expect someone from Fielding to die to make me feel better about women's rights in country we've got no right to be in.
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Human Rights Watch has a new report on the threat to women posed by compromises with the Taliban as part of any exit strategy.
And what, exactly, has this got to do with us, far off in our corner of the South Pacific? Are we part of some grand imperial scheme to enforce Western values everywhere that I am not aware of?
Was Osama Bin Laden right all along, the west DOES wish to impose itself on Islam?
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Meanwhile, a New Zealand soldier is killed. And no one can tell me exactly what he died for.
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the idea that just because you could spread information doesn't mean you need to
And most of what should be secret is already known by everyone on both sides who counts, and everything else is secret merely because it saves someone from embarassment.
Secrecy is 99.999% of the time just a way to stop citizens asking inconvenient questions.