The moral emptiness of the Green Left

From The Weekend Australian Editorial, 31 Aug 2014:

...the opposition of many on the Left to the prospect of Australia extending its humanitarian aid to provide military assistance against the Islamic State is telling.

...this past few weeks ...many on the Left have highlighted images of suffering civilians in Gaza in a relentless and erroneous push to depict Israel as a brutal represser. Some critics, however, have been curiously reticent about reporting or showing Christians under siege in Mosul in northern Iraq and other persecuted minorities. Commentators such as the ABC’s Jonathan Green, for example, think censoring images of the Islamic State’s atrocities is good journalism.

Further muddying the public space, activist group Australians for Palestine failed to correct a falsehood in a recent email newsletter that misrepresented a photograph of a group of dead children as victims of the Gaza conflict. In a letter to the editor today, Sonja Karkar from Australians for Palestine admits the image was used “inadvertently” and that no correction email was sent out.

The hypocrisy of the Left and its rampant moral equivalence makes a rational debate on national security and the threat posed by extremists more difficult. The murderous rampage of the Islamic State, whose warlords have Israel, the rest of the Middle East, much of Asia and some of Europe in their sights, shows what is at stake in quashing the caliphate. Apologists for Hamas and those who would turn a blind eye to the Islamic State barbarism are on the wrong side of the moral ledger of history and humanity.

The Prime Minister spoke yesterday about the atrocities perpetrated in Iraq — beheadings, crucifixions and mass executions. He reminded us of our nation’s obligations under the UN’s doctrine of a responsibility to protect those facing slaughter in Iraq. “This is as near to pure evil as we are ever likely to see,” Mr Abbott said, and urged our nation to strive for a better world. Yet, this bracing dose of reality for our nation, and those like our own, is greeted by the sadly predictable, but utterly obnoxious, refrain of “mission creep” from those unable to discern our nation’s vital interests.

The threat of terrorism for us is real, but the slaughter of innocents is occurring right now.

We must be part of the mission to end this, rather than indulging in the moral emptiness of the Green Left.