What international organizations is Australia involved in?

Reasons why Australia shouldn't have gotten involved in the war in Vietnam?

• I have got a history assignment, and I need to present a speech of why Australia shouldn't have got involved in the war with Vietnam.I need to convince the audience that Australia ...show more

• Answer:

  There are several reasons for this: * Australia was not directly threatened by North Vietnam in any way, and so it wasn't Australia's business really. In either case, it definitely didn't warrant the huge expenditures and conscription that took place. Forcing people to join the army to fight a war against an enemy that wasn't even attacking us is of dubious legitimacy to say the least. * Under Australian law at the time, the Australian Defence Force could only have been deployed if Australia was either attacked by North Vietnam, or if South Vietnam made a formal request for assistance. What eventually happened was the US came up with the "Many Flags" military program to get its allies involved. Australia's involvement was to a large extent about shoring up support from the US- whether or not we actually needed that is another matter. * Much of the original support for the war came from a fear of communism, but there was little conceivable risk that communism would ever take hold in Australia.