Hearing Peter Beattie resurrect the idea, first proposed 70 years ago, of diverting rivers in Queensland's north to augment flows in the Murray Darling river system took me back to my yoof in the late 60s. Then, the idea of using large engineering projects to 'tame nature' were common.

The nearly completed Snowy Mountains hydro project was the inspiration for other, sometimes wacky, schemes being proposed. One of the more silly ones was a proposal to use an atomic explosion to create an artificial harbour in the country's north-west. Madness!

The environment was seen as a limitless resource that could be altered at will for human advantage.

We now know that these grandiose schemes often result in unintended environmental consequences. It could be land degradation due to salination, the destruction of animal habitat, or accelerating climate change due to the creation of greenhouse gasses during construction and operation. It's fair to say that all these projects have an environmental downside.

As a engineer, I'm not against sensible engineering projects, as long as a favourable cost / benefit ratio can be demonstrated. I suspect that Beattie's proposals would have been built by now if the benefit was there.

From Gerard Henderson's column in today's SMH ...

If Howard was undiplomatic in commenting on US domestic policies then the same can be said for Obama's response. Obama told reporters in Iowa that if Howard's comments were anything other than "empty rhetoric" he would commit 20,000 additional troops to the war. This is rhetoric in itself.

Australia has about 1500 men and women in Iraq. On a comparative population basis, an Australian force of 21,500 in Iraq would equate to some 320,000 Americans - almost double the US deployment.

In itself, this is true. But it also shows to have the same level of commitment as the US, Australia would need to deploy over 10,000 troops.

Sometimes it's better to concentrate just on the rhetoric, Gerry.

And it's not about global climate change ...

"I would also note that we [the US] have close to 140,000 troops in Iraq and my understanding is Mr Howard has deployed 1400.

"So if he is ... to fight the good fight in Iraq, I would suggest that he calls up another 20,000 Australians and send them to Iraq, otherwise it's just a bunch of empty rhetoric."

It took John Howard's undiplomatic meddling in US domestic politics to provoke a US politician to draw attention to Australia's small contribution to the Iraqi war effort.

This small level of military involvement is 'the elephant in the room' that neither side of local politics wants to notice. The conservatives aren't about to admit that Australia's contribution doesn't match their rhetoric, and those against the war (thankfully) aren't going to draw attention to a fact that may well provoke the establishment into committing more troops.

Until now, the US has gratefully acknowledged any support provided by coalition partners. We now know that some in the US government have indeed noticed the difference between the tough talking of Howard, Downer and Co, and their willingness to commit Australian military resources.