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Straw: Yes, it was a fight for freedom. It would be reasonable to say that WW2 (prior to Japan) was a fight for some limited freedoms in some european countries - but I don't think it likely that Australia would now have less freedoms now if we hadn't been involved. Straw: Just like the later cold war, and the current war on Islamofacism. Neither of which were wars in the traditional sense - but included wars which should be judged on their own right. For instance: Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, East Timor etc. It is hard for me to believe that I would have even less freedoms if we had not (for example) invaded Iraq or helped the East Timorese independence movement. This, of course, is quite separate from whether such actions were appropriate. They may have been appropriate for other reasons (say, a giant humanitarian program), but using 'freedom' as a justification reminds me of the typical misuse of the word that we hear every day - the 'freedom' to violate freedom.
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