Invasion of Afghanistan wasn’t legal

In an article headlined “Afghan war troubling for Clark, Key”, published in the Manawatu Standard on April 6, 2013, reporter Tracy Watkins quotes former prime minister Helen Clark as saying:

I didn’t have any qualms about the legality [of Afghanistan]. It was absolutely legal. But it was also just the knowledge that Afghanistan as it was had been a failed state and, in failed states, very bad things can happen, including what are obviously terror groups like al Qaeda being able to move around with impunity.

Watkins continues: “She is comfortable she can look the families of all our combat casualties in the eye in the belief New Zealand did the right thing.”

I would say that without hesitation. Just as I would say to families who lost loved ones in World War II, the cause was right.

MY NOTE: So if a country is a “failed state” (as defined by us), it’s okay to invade it, and kill thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of people? And no doubt, like the criminal Tony Blair, she’d “do it all again”. See Helen Clark on Afghanistan in 2001 at hardcaw.com.

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Take me with you, please

As in the case of Vietnam, the local collabora-
tors are desperate to leave with us. Cartoon by Malcolm Evans from the Manawatu Standard of April 6, 2013.

We’ll do almost anything to please our masters in Washington

Yes, that’s the long and the short of New Zealand’s “involvement” in Afghanistan. The cartoon, by Malcolm Evans, is from the Manawatu Standard of March 18, 2013.

Are you sure you wouldn’t like to kill me a third time?

I couldn’t resist this little graphic, which I found at truthjihad.com.

Afghan interpreters face dicey future

The New Zealand Government has indicated it will give political asylum to some Afghans who have worked as interpreters for the New Zealand forces in Afghanistan.

The cartoon is from the Manawatu Standard of October 9, 2012. The cartoonist is Malcolm Evans.

Shock for Mars Lander controllers

From the Manawatu Standard of August 7, 2012. The cartoonist is Malcolm Evans.

NZ must stay the course in Afghanistan, says Dom-Post

“Cindy Sheehan . . . and others have tried to put a dent into the specious logic that attempts to translate unnecessary death into justification for still more unnecessary death.” — More US Soldiers Die in Vain, by Ray McGovern, consortium-
news.com, August 7, 2011.

The argument in The Dominion Post’s editorial has been made so often, and debunked so often, I’m surprised to see it still being advanced. Oh, well, I suppose it sounds like sharp thinking to doltish New Zealanders.

NZ loses two soldiers in Afghanistan: The Dom-Post’s view

The Dominion Post of August 7, 2012. The cartoonist is Tom Scott.

NZ loses two soldiers in Afghanistan: The Standard’s view

From the Manawatu Standard of August 6, 2012. The cartoonist is Malcolm Evans.

Follow Uncle Sam . . . and pay the price

The worthy gent in this cartoon, from the Manawatu Standard of September 23, 2011, is Murray McCully — New Zealand’s Rugby World Cup Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister. No doubt he will also express sadness over the death, announced today, of another New Zealand soldier in Afghanistan. The soldier, who has not yet been named, is the fourth to die as a result of the Government’s foolish decision to support the American imperial adventure in that country.