In the wake of the latest incident in Indonesia, the opinion shapers are out again doing their schtick. One can see the logic of the claim. Few people who care about the loss of human life like to believe that lives are being lost without good purpose and that goes especially for those who have lost friends and family in wars.

The sentiment that “it was for a good cause” certainly mitigates the pain and even those of us who know its bollocks would probably be reluctant to put it as baldly to someone who had lost someone, but some delusions are also pernicious because they lay the foundations for more wrongdoing. If someone died in Afghanistan fighting for some good cause that was only achievable through accepting the risk of death, then presumably more have to take that risk with all that implies, both for the risk takers and the locals who, despite being at risk of becoming collateral damage, don’t get a say in it.

What this underlines for me is one should refrain from getting entangled in military adventures that aren’t absolutely and plainly justifiable on the grounds of net public good. Sooner or later you will have to withdraw and if you haven’t won, then by definition almost everyone has lost.

I agree, but I do wonder why the ALP were interested in Garrett at all. They handed himn a seat that the proverbial Drovers Dog was going to win and created some friction in the process. I also wonder why they handsed him a ministry first up when they could easily have begged off … first term an all that and made him a parliamentary secretary to someone on ageing … now that would have been delicious — or given him zip. Of course as a backbencher, he could have preserved some of his cred.

These days the Greens sound a lot closer to what most people think “traditional labor” is/was all about (minus the White Australia thing of course)

He invented Samuel Beckett.

Eh?

That said, I’m coming pretty strongly to the view (even though I disagree with many specific Greens policies) that it would be good for the ALP, the Greens, and Australian politics if the Greens took an inner-city ALP-held seat or two.