Is our continuing role in Afghanistan in the national interest?
Defence Minister Stephen Smith insists it is. The Prime Minister, after she finally agreed to a parliamentary debate on Afghanistan, insisted it was. Both sides of politics agree.
But the evidence that our continuing role, that the continuing loss of the lives of young Australians, the continuing expenditure of billions of dollars, will make any difference to the long-run outcome in Afghanistan remains thin. It is hard to find between Afghan soldiers turning their weapons on ISAF soldiers, including Australians, Taliban insurgents launching co-ordinated attacks in Kabul and the persistent evidence the Afghan government we are propping up is corrupt and harbours a deeply fundamentalist reflex.
At 1pm today, Julia Gillard, in a speech as usual leaked ahead of its delivery, is expected to indicate Australian will begin withdrawing later this year, once the Afghan government declares its fledgling National Army can take over security in Uruzgan province. It has the air of George Aiken’s famous advice on Vietnam, that the US should declare victory and leave, except that Australia is merely a (small) component of the overall ISAF force.
Polls consistently show deep antipathy toward the conflict on the part of voters. For several years, both major parties have blatantly ignored the views of voters and insisted on continuing with our involvement. It is time they heeded the views of voters that our involvement in this increasingly pointless conflict should end. As quickly as possible.
Is our continuing role in Afghanistan in the national interest?
Yes but only if our national interest is to:-
Place our service men in unneccessary peril and continue to suffer needless casulties
Waste scarce resources
Alienate a people
Repeat the mistakes of Vietnam
Be mired in an unwinnable conflict
and to ultimately face humiliating defeat
The above applies in spades to Iraq
In relation to our involvement in Afghanistan, how can we define ‘national interest’ of Australia? And, in what way do we act in the national interest of the people of Afghanistan?
It’s curious that politicians are so easily influenced by unrelenting approval opinion polls but, when the electorate expresses clear opinion on something of importance such as war involvement, they don’t pay any heed.
We are there and we will stay there as long as it suits our Imperial masters in Washington to have us there. Good, bad, win, lose have nothing to do with it. Our young service people will continue to pay for our American masters’ decisions with PTSD, death, injury and family destruction until such time as Washington decrees otherwise.
You may or may not be happy with either this situation or this assessment, but if you are not happy, do something about it.
Anyone who saw the doco on Vietnam(abc TV) by paul Hams based on his book, should have been staggered @! the Afghanistan paralell. The rationalle is the same , the language identical…………. 10minutes ago I heard Neil James state on ABC radio that we actually won the war inVietnam in 1968 then lost it because we gave up! Who will save us from these myth makers?