Tag Archives: Lessons learned

Letter to Members of Parliament

By: AWPR | Posted in: Blog | 16 October, 2014 | 2:14 am

Below is the text of a letter sent to all Members of Federal Parliament on 9 October 2014.

Begins

Dear MP [ personalised ]

Your response is sought on whether Parliament should be required to authorise any deployment of the ADF into armed conflict abroad.

The Australian Government has recently authorised the deployment to the Middle East of six FA/18 combat aircraft, a Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning and Control Aircraft, a KC-30A Multi Role Tanker, and 200 SAS soldiers who will serve not only in training and advisory roles, but also in forward targeting missions. This comes despite much concern …

Iraq: a war widow’s view

By: AWPR | Posted in: Blog | 28 April, 2013 | 4:07 pm

On Saturday 27 April The Canberra Times published an opinion piece by Kellie Merritt, an Iraq war widow, social worker and mother. Her husband Flight Lieutenant Paul Pardoel was an Australian navigator who served with the RAAF for 15 years, before transferring to the RAF in 2002. Paul was killed with nine other British service members when their Hercules was shot down in Iraq on January 30, 2005.

It is a powerful and thoughtful piece with some important reflections on the responsibilities of governments contemplating deploying their armed forces into international armed conflict.

What price humanitarian war?

Justification for war …

Robert O’Neill on lessons not yet learned

By: AWPR | Posted in: Blog | 26 April, 2013 | 4:04 pm

 

Today’s edition of The Australian carried a piece by defence writer Brendan Nicholson summarising the views of distinguished military historian Robert O’Neill AO, Chair of the International Academic Advisory Committee at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, as presented in a chapter he contributed to Gallipoli: A Ridge Too Far, edited by Ashley Ekins of the Australian War Memorial.

The text follows:

Lessons from history not learned by politicians

Brendan Nicholson

THE confused thinking behind the disastrous Gallipoli campaign persists a century later and was evident in the military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Robert …