Kech, having seen the expensive results of huge and fatal support in distant wars, I don't see great merit in NZ joining in unless it clearly serves our interests to do so.
England was not very far at all from Germany, if you check a map and the English Channel can be crossed in a dinghy on a good day. People swim it.
The moat around NZ is a bit more challenging.
If you look on a globe, you'll see NZ is further away from Afghanistan than is the USA. But that's not the point.
The USA has Exxon, Halliburton and a lot of other companies which make a LOT of money from oil from Saudi Arabia and that whole region. Osama is more or less Saudi Arabian and the family is very well connected in Saudi Arabia and with the Bush family and oil world of the USA.
I know a lot of people think oil doesn't have anything to do with it. I happen to disagree in a big way.
Islamic Jihad is not NZ's fight as much as yours. The USA dabbles and blunders around in the oil fields and middle east politics decade after decade. Gave USSR their own Vietnam by supporting Osama and co in Afghanistan against Gorby and co. Duh!! Can you imagine how stupid that was? Supporting Osama against Gorby. That's about as dopey as it gets. But that was the way it went. Told Glaspie to tell Saddam that what they arranged with Kuwait [with an army of Iraqis sitting on Kuwait's border] was not the concern of the USA. Well, duh!
I suppose the thinking was that Moslems were religious too, like the USA, and it was the religious against the godless Commies. The details of what Moslems think didn't seem to matter. And it helped get the USSR back in their box, further from the oil fields down south, and the ocean.
Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, Germany and co invited hordes of Moslems in. It's not our problem that Moslems do what Moslems say they'll do over there. If Europe and the USA wants NZ help, perhaps they could have been a bit more helpful when France conducted a terrorist bombing right here in my own harbour. I went to inspect the damage for myself. Perhaps they could have been a bit more considerate on various trade and other issues instead of kicking NZ in the bum and thinking they were clever.
In case it escapes your attention, China is buying up friendships around the world and doing a reasonable job of it. Without pointing missiles at everyone in the process. More like a chequebook. Japan showed how that is much better than guns.
Mqurice |
