The Rule of Law loses twice: in Iraq and at the Cole Royal Commission

And this new dynamic will beggar a response from Europe and China and create its own dynamic of global instability.

Meanwhile, Australia, now linked to the USA to the extent that our Parliament does not even have a say in whether we go to war, will find itself adrift and exposed in its own region.

Those of us marching for peace do not do so in the expectation that our troops will now be sent home or that our misguided leader will reassess his blind adherence to this Extreme White House.

But we must continue to march to indicate to the world that we do not accept that this should be the New World Order. Our presence on the streets sends this message: our government does not speak for us, it does not listen to us and it is barely prepared to talk to us.

Let's pray for a short war; but let us also pray that the doctrine that has brought this war upon us does not become a template for managing all affairs. For if it does, Iraq could be but a brief skirmish in a war that may consume us all.

Vale: Rule of Law

As the US attack on Iraq continues, the Howard Government fires a $60 million shot at the CFMEU and bemused onlookers begin to wonder what the 'Law' means any more.

There was a time when the Law was an absolute: in jurisprudence they called it Natural Law. The equation was simple: the law reflected what was right, therefore the law was, in and of itself, a good.

This principle reached its zenith in the years leading up to World War II before the horrors of Hitler and the Nuremburg Principle broke the link between law and justice for all time.

Since then, the use of civil disobedience in struggles as diverse as India and the southern states of the US further blurred the lines, with just causes given extra weight by their supporters' preparedness to break the law in their name.

Meanwhile, an international legal consensus had developed over the past 100 years, attempting to erect a universal framework to overlay the sovereignty of individual nation states.

Nations had the right to opt into international agreements on security, health, the environment and labour relations and when a critical mass did so, they had a moral force of something approaching law.

Now something different is happening to the Law.