More on ANZAC Day

There’s been some interesting perspectives on ANZAC Day from some of the left blogs, and also comments here on the protesters who thought it a good idea to burn the flag and blow horns during the dawn service.

The comment by Anon comparing protesting at ANZAC Day to protesting at funerals made me realise who the nutters remind me of?

They’re the extreme left counterpart to Rev Fred Phelps and godhatesfags.com! Phelps and his inbred family travel around military funerals protesting against gays in the military. They lack the insight to realise that when people are mourning dead colleagues, it is not the time to make a political protest.

So Valerie Morse is our extreme left equivalent of Fred Phelps. Sounds about right. Someone should lock them in a room together.

Maia asks the question about why do we honour soliders who die, but not others who die such as mothers in child birth, or workers in accidents?

To me that is easy. Of course many people die in accidents, but being slain in combat is no accident. People have volunteered or been conscripted into a job where other people are going to try and kill you. This is not some accidental side-effect. It is literally the ultimate sacrifice. It doesn’t matter whether 80 years later we think the cause is as noble as defeating Hitler was. The soldiers don’t get to make that call.

And back in WWI or WWII it was not like modern warfare where maybe you have 2% casualty rates. Some of their rates were well over 50%. I know how incredibly sad it is to lose even a single close friend. I can’t imagine the mental anguish it must have caused veterans to see somewhere between half and all of their colleagues slaughtered.

Anarchafairy, like the prostesters (or he may have been one) calls for NZ forces to pull out of not just Afghanistan, but also East Timor and the Solomons.

Now I can understand how some on the left can have an issue with Afghanistan. I do not fo course, but I can at least understand their reasoning. But to call for NZ to pull out of East Timor and the Solomons? I mean our involvement comes as close to pure altruism as you can get. Neither are strategically important countries or valuable trading partners. Our involvement there is basically pure humanitarism to help stop locals getting slaughtered by militias, and allow democracy a chance. We gain no money or value or anything apart from not having too many basketcase countries in the Pacific. I mean my God our soliders are risking their lives to try and improve some pretty shitty lives for those who live in Timor and the Solomons, and somehow this is NZ being a bad guy? I wonder what it feels like to hate your own country so much?

What did cheer me up though was how Anarchafairy proposed a campaign against the military, and Maia tells him off for using a militaristic word such as campaign. No wonder the revolution hasn’t yet happened! 🙂

Span has an excellent post on how ANZAC Day is not glorifying war, but remembering the the grim reality of it. Span also has a round-up of ANZAC Day posts.

Jordan also posts on how ANZAC Day is about peace, not celebrating war. He says most wars are bad, but not all.