[Bill Hara]

Hang on, what are the facts here?

A family is driving along in their car, in their country, when some foreign Occupying Forces shout at them in a foreign (to them) langauge to stop. They choose not to do so.
They are fired upon and injured.
They are removed from their country and treated - surely there is adequate medical facilities closer than Australia? And did they ask to be re-patriated?
They are undertandable p**sed for being shot up in their own country by foreigners and seek compensation - they don't feel any gratitude to the people that shot them, they want compensation.

Now substitute ANY other country in place of Iraq, imagine if that happened to you in the UK or USA or Australia by an occupying force, where you were shot. Would you not try to get the most you could out of the perpetrators of your misery?? Would you like or want to be repatriated to the invaders country for treatment? However unlikely, wouldn't you use all/every resources that country gave you to make your life better?

I may not agree with their demands, but I also don't agree with being invaded, being shot and badly injured by foreign soldiers in my own country, having my country's wealth siphoned away and left to rot in the dust.
As a new father, I can't imagine a worse hell hole for my child to have to grow up in, and NONE if it is in my control to change.

Lets not lose our humane perspective......

P.S I don't blame the Aussie soldiers, they are a tool that is being used to perform a function. It is the decision makers that put that tool there that I have a problem with. The Aussie taxpayers are having to pay for those soldiers being there, because it serves SOMEONE'S purpose for them to be there, but whose purpose? Not the Aussie taxpayers....