(May 22, 2016 at 4:53 pm)Aractus Wrote: They aren't resettled anywhere at present - at least a majority of them because it turns out settling Arab Muslims in a Christian country apathetic to their beliefs is not suitable - who knew?You have the temerity to say this and still hold up Australia as a bastion of multi-cultural inclusivity? Don't misunderstand me. I think the case you're making has merit to a certain extent, but don't have us believe that Australia is heaven on Earth for asylum seekers. Your reply also comes across as justifying Operation Sovereign Borders because it's for the asylum seeker's own good.
(May 22, 2016 at 4:53 pm)Aractus Wrote: The current policy should always have been a stepping stone to a permanent workable solution, however they've decided it's too difficult. So until someone has a bright idea that won't result in people drowning at sea, we hold them in conditions that constitute a breach of the UN convention against torture, and if you'd bothered to have read that convention it clearly states that there is no justification for torture (which includes preventing deaths at sea), and yes there in my view that means that a number of Australians associated with off-shore detention should be punished. Right after Dick Cheney, George W Bush, Barack Obama, and anyone else connected to Guantanamo Bay.
What possesses a family to board a vessel that can hardly be considered seaworthy for an opportunity at a life better than oppression and destitution from which they came? This doesn't consider the danger of their overland journey to the shores of Indonesia. Towing them back to Indonesia rather than allowing them to land on Australian shores means that the Australian government and military is endangering them further than allowing them to land on Australian shores. Not even considering the dashed hopes with which they made the journey, isn't it reasonable by your definition to consider Australia the more abusive torturer?
Although there have been significant issues with GITMO and the idea of due process, I think comparing asylum seekers with those that have been detained as combatants in the war on terror, for better or worse, ludicrous. Are you simply unable to make the distinction? Or do you assume that I'm just an ignorant American? There are reasons for holding Bush, Cheney and Obama accountable for humanitarian crimes, but GITMO isn't it. If you now expand your reasons for heads of state to be accountable in court for atrocity then certainly you would implicate Howard's government in your list of those that should be punished.
Trump promises to build a wall (something he's already admitted wont happen and a vote getting ploy) and the liberal world loses its shit; head of state Tony Abbott blockades asylum seekers for a couple years and nary a peep. You justify it for imagined assimilation reasons. Despite our laws, the United States is truly the melting pot of cultures. I won't ignore that the 'melting' process isn't without its hardships. One only has to realize that 100 years or so ago that Italians, Greeks, Irish, Germans, et. al. were denigrated in the U.S.
The dirty secret for those outside the U.S. that take at face value the news and political rancor associated with immigrants is that the situation isn't as dire as is let on. Despite the Statue of Liberty, immigrants have always faced a battle for inclusion. It wasn't that long ago that those with Italian, Greek, Irish, German, Eastern European and Asian decent faced decades of ostracism before being accepted. Assimilation works both ways. I guarantee that the density of pizza parlors is greater in the U.S. than in Italy; not to mention that the world pizza champ in 2014 was from Australia.
