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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 4 Hansard (1 April) . . Page.. 1161 ..
MR STANHOPE (continuing):
The charter, with its eloquent preamble, creates a compelling vision of a more peaceful future for all citizens of the world. The charter goes beyond mere words, establishing sound and just processes for maintaining world peace and order.
Our government-the federal government-has joined with the United States and the United Kingdom and committed this nation to a war that does not have the sanction of the United Nations.
Up until recently, the United Nations-with its democratic foundations and its vision of a better world for all-commanded international respect. The sneering dismissal by the USA, Great Britain and Australia of the United Nations' opposition to a war against Iraq has weakened the United Nations. Many now openly deride its impotence.
The UN has found itself powerless in the face of the obdurate determination of the world's only real super power to have its way. The UN has lost the respect of many who would support it. The international standing of the UN has forever changed, and a terrible precedent has been set. A new rule of international relations, if not law-namely the legitimacy of pre-emption-has been established.
It is true that we are united with these nations-but we are united in shame in being the first nations to ride roughshod over safeguards agreed by the great democracies of the world. Our actions have mocked the United Nations and held in contempt the very essence of democracy and sovereignty. As I said in my Canberra Day oration, those who choose to ignore history end up repeating its tragedies.
The Prime Minister, in committing our nation and our troops to this war, said:
Only one nation can determine whether force will be necessary or not. Only one nation, acting alone, can make the choice for peace. That nation is Iraq.
I do not believe that statement to be true. We too had a choice but we chose badly and we chose wrongly. I, like many others, question who in Iraq is making those decisions-and who is feeling their impact.
We are now up to day 12 in what our Prime Minister euphemistically described as the operation to disarm Iraq. Make no mistake-we are at war, with all its full gore, its indiscriminate toll of death and destruction and its permanent legacy of trauma, despair and anger. Each day, we are bombarded with words and images that show, in heart-wrenching detail, the carnage taking place across Iraq. We see images of young children, bloodied and distressed, orphaned or lying dead in a morgue somewhere. Would they have chosen peace if we, who had the power, had given them the chance?
Yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald has an article fittingly headed, "Baghdad's children pay the price of freedom with their lives."The article begins:
From outside on the dirt street, the wailing was like a beacon of grief, arcing across the cloudless, star-lit night.
Inside, a dozen women clad in full-length black cloaks sat huddled on the floor of a living room, bobbing back and forth and sending piercing, high-pitched screams into the night.
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