The Australian’s editorial (“The Anzac sentiment defies central planning”, 26/4) cheapens Anzac Day by using it to sell a populist anti-intellectualism at odds with the Anzac spirit. Was the First World War “a war that had to be fought”? Was it “patriotism” or British imperialism that decimated a generation? Should the ideals of “[h]onour, duty and mateship” be used to justify war? These are not the “tortured arguments of the intellectuals”, but questions that must be asked, especially on Anzac Day, out of respect for those who suffer in any war.

For sheer rhetorical chutzpah, it is hard to beat The Australian’s contention that Palestinian statehood is an obstacle to a two-state solution (‘UN bid has dire consequences’, Editorial, 16/4). Logic strongly suggests it is actually a prerequisite.

Michael Fullilove’s retrospective on the second Iraq war (“We stood by the US as it erred grievously in Iraq”, The Australian, 19/4) is insightful, but no more so than the prescience of the millions who took to the streets to protest the war at its outset. They were described at the time in The Australian by Greg Sheridan as “anti-American”, “hysterical”, “emotional and irrational”. But they were also correct, and not just in hindsight, because they could see the inevitability of the pointless bloodbath to come, just as others had with Vietnam and other past military misadventures.

That the “Coalition of the Willing” could so easily forget this, and thus be blind to what was so obvious to their own people, demonstrates the corrosive effect of national ambition acted out on the world stage. The ugly mess the war became was another unnecessary demonstration of the hard-learned reasons why international laws exist.

The international community now faces new challenges similar to those posed by pre-war Iraq. Let us hope that nations tempted to take the law into their own hands have now been cured of both their amnesia and their blindness to the wisdom of their own citizens.

Sharryn Wightley (The Australian, 30/3) is among several letter-writers who object to formal apologies to groups harmed by national policies because they were, as she puts it, “part of the times and had nothing to do with me”. Fair enough, but to be consistent she must also abandon any pride in national achievements she was not personally involved in.

Scott Morrison’s view (“Advance the bold idea of diversity”, 25/1) that “cultural tolerance is not a license for cultural practices that are offensive to the cultural values…of Australia” overlooks the fact that our fiercely defended “freedom to offend” cuts both ways.

He further states “respect for diversity does not provide license for closed communities”, forgetting that freedom of association is an important plank of our democracy. Accordingly, there are already many non-migrant closed communities in this country, many of them Christian. Does he propose to outlaw them all, or only migrant groups?

Morrison’s view of immigration as on condition that “people have come to join us, not change us” jars with history. Immigration has already transformed Australia from the dull, smug, parochial monoculture I recall from my childhood, to the vivacious global citizen it is now. This was not achieved by social engineering, by telling people they must live according to some imposed template of Australian-ness. People came with their new ways, the old and new blended and adapted to each other or not as they chose, and our contemporary multi-culture was formed naturally. Long may we change.