Australia and Afghanistan
The most pressing foreign policy issue of the day is what to do about Afghanistan. Within weeks of entering office, the Obama administration announced a troop surge of some 21,000 soldiers, and indicated it would be looking to its allies, including Australia, to bolster their own commitment.
Now, a complete rethink is underway in Washington prompted by mounting casualties, an Afghan presidential election that was both messy, fraudulent and disputed, and a pessimistic assessment from President Obama's new commander in the country, General Stanley A McChrystal. The General has raised the spectre of the failure of the mission in the absence of a surge of some 30,000 to 40,000 extra US troops. It is within that context that Britain has just significantly boosted its presence.
Harry Truman had the quagmire of Korea, Lyndon Johnson had the quagmire of Vietnam and Obama appears to fear a similar fate in Afghanistan. After all, it has long been known as the graveyard of empires, an oft-quoted phrase that looms large in the minds of Taliban insurgents.
Australian forces, of course, have fought in all three of these conflicts, partly because of the government of the day's belief in the righteousness of the cause, but mainly to keep in strategic step with America. When it comes to putting troops on the ground, Washington has had no more loyal ally than Canberra.
The Australian Defence Force currently has some 1,400 personnel on active duty in Afghanistan. Almost 700 are involved in mentoring and reconstruction, which is to say training the Afghan National Army and helping to build much-needed infrastructure. Then there are some 300 special forces soldiers actually fighting the Taliban. Their ongoing role, mission, and even their presence will be heavily influenced, if not ultimately determined, by the outcome of the policy review within the Obama administration.
There has not been much public discussion surrounding Australia's presence in Afghanistan, and certainly the debate here has been nowhere near as heated or vitriolic as in Britain, America, Germany, Canada or Italy.
This is largely explained by the number of war dead. Australia has suffered eleven fatalities (I'm aware here of a horrible journalistic tendency to minimise these kinds of numbers, when the loss of even one individual can be impossible to bear for families and friends). At the time of writing, the US has lost over 850, Britain 221, Canada 130, Germany 39 and France 35.
Part of the reason why Australia casualties have been lower is that the large majority of its forces are not actively involved in combat, much to the frustration of many diggers on the ground (although some infantry patrols involved in "mentoring" Afghan National Army units have been ambushed by the Taliban).
Perhaps another explanation for why Afghanistan does not generate the same headlines here as elsewhere is that the ADF has limited the access of Australian journalists to the battlefield. Before coming to Australia, I used to report frequently from Afghanistan, and the embed process granted us extraordinary access to frontline US and UK soldiers. We were allowed to watch them fight the war up close.
Admittedly, the embed process has its flaws. There is the inevitable danger of feeling sympathy towards the soldier who inevitably ends up offering you protection, and expressing that in your reports - a journalistic form of Stockholm Syndrome, if you like. But the ADF has shied away from such openness and access, as ABC's Media Watch reported last week.
Ahead of the Afghan presidential election in August, the ADF allowed three Australian journalists to go on embeds, a first-time experiment. But even then, The Australian newspaper's defence correspondent, Ian McPhedran, complained that they were kept away from the sharp end of the war - a decision which the ADF says was to protect their safety. By contrast, the Pentagon does not think that personal safety issues should limit the access of journalists to the battlefield. If journalists are prepared to take the risk, the Pentagon reasons, than that is up to them.
When Afghanistan has been openly debated in Australia, the defence specialist Hugh White from the Australian National University has often been in the forefront of the discussion. Back in July, he had this to say of Afghanistan: "The government cannot justify committing troops unless there is a reasonable chance they can succeed... I don't believe there is a reasonable chance they can succeed. I do not think the government is persuaded that there is a significant chance of success in Afghanistan." So is he right?
Or do you side with former Prime Minister John Howard who last week told Fox News in America, during a trip to meet the former US President George W Bush, that Australia should increase its troop presence to avoid handing victory to the Taliban?
Kevin Rudd has argued that Afghanistan should not be allowed again to become a safe haven for al-Qaeda, whose attacks have killed Australians and inspired Jemaah Islamiah to carry out attacks like the Bali bombings. Like other Western leaders, he also fears the consequences for an already unstable Pakistan if Afghanistan, its neighbour, becomes even more unstable.
So, put crudely, is Australia's mission becoming increasingly dangerous and pointless, or does Canberra and its allies owe it to the people of Afghanistan to finish what they started and to contain, if not defeat, a resurgent Taliban?
PS Thanks for your comments on race. I thought I would get back to them over the weekend in a blog I've been meaning to write for weeks on Australia's most talked about book, The Slap. The two subjects dovetail very neatly...
I'm 
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Hi Nick, I miss the dutch contribution to Afghanistan in your blog. Very sad to report that the Netherlands already lost 21 soldiers. Also, the whole operation is discussed pretty intensively in our media.
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The other reason for Australia's low death count in Afghanistan is because only our special forces troops are fighting in Afghanistan (ie. SAS, 3RAR) and are engaged in specific targeted missions. Compared with lots of groud troops from the US and UK.
Also, the nature of the missions that the Australian troops are on make it more difficult to imbed journalists. They're not doing the patrolling missions that US etc troops are doing.
I think sending more troops won't make any difference. The Russians couldn't do it, so I don't see why the US think they can defeat the Afghans.
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I always assumed the Australian public could only handle good news so that's all they were given. Why else would the Aus media focus so heavily on Australian successes and British difficulties? Australians appear to need a regular feed of 'we're doing really well' stories in order to keep up their almost psychotically positive image of themselves and their country.
More regular news of a nasty war would not sit well with the Australian public. It might make the shouts of 'send em back', in reference to the boatloads of desperate people from war-torn countries, sound as disgusting to Australian people as they already do to the rest of the world, and that would show Australia's revolting immigration policy up for what it is: revolting.
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#5
Australian successes and British difficulties'
I think the Australian public is sympathetic to Britain's losses
Australia learnt considerably from the failures of Vietnam, Britain was not involved in Vietnam and appears to be caught up in some of the issues wrt Afghanistan which Australia experienced in that earlier war.
Regarding refugees, there are desperate refugees fleeing war torn countries who are in UNHCR camps awaiting resettlement and unable to pay people smugglers. Do you suggest the UNHCR knows who are the most needy to be resettled or the people smugglers?
I would agree with #2
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I am suggesting Australia's government intercepts boats full of vulnerable people, many of whom are from Afghanistan, and either keeps them in terrible conditions on Christmas Island before sending them to other countries ill-equiped to deal with them, or sends tham back to certain persecution.
Meanwhile the Australian people show their empathy with their 'Oh it's such a shame for them, but we don't want them here, thank you' attitude.
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Stirling222 do you know that, under the previous Aussie Governments boat people policy, we spent billions of dollars building detention centres at Baxter, Christmas Island and Naru, not to mention other centres where the thousands of boat people were housed. All but a handfull were accepted as refugees. As the current minister stated last night, the boat arrivals are only a fraction of the illegals arriving by plane.
We take in far more illegals than you realise.
What has got to stop, is the extremely dangerous practice of boat people and boat smuglers. It is estimated that one out of every five boat that start the journey either sinks or fails to make it to Aussie.
The idea of the Liberal National Government was to detain those that got here, burn the boats and charge the smugglers in a court of law. All very expensive in this financial climate.
The smugglers now resort to buring their boats if their cargo is not accepted.
Our current Government is now working at stopping the boats leaving Indonesia, so that lives are not lost.
Our aim is to stop the extremely unsafe practice of boat smugglers, not the stopping of genuine refugees.
Also if you consider the cost these illegal migrants are causing Australia, the money intended for genuine refugees who are doing the right thing and waiting for process, you can see that in actual fact the boat people are actually harming the cause of genuine refugees.
You make this sound like we Aussies are elitists, without a French accent, suggesting they 'eat cake', when the reality is nothing of the kind.
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I am not sure where Sterling222 gets his/her information from but I am unaware of any media reports (here in Australia) about how fabulously positive the war in Afghanistan is going, or how badly the British are doing.
I also believe he/she is under the impression that Christmas Is is some sort of horror camp. Maybe its not a 5 star resort but what do you mean by "terrible conditions" Please explain to me what exactly do you mean by terrible conditions.
It drives me crazy that an entire nation can be judged by a 5 second soundbite someone sees on the news. The media seeks out 1 or 2 uninformed comments from some small minded person and that is taken as the whole nations opinion or official government policy, how small minded is that.
Before making sweeping statements about this country get your facts straight.
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Nick, if there was ever a reason NOT to vote for conservative Governments, Iraq and Afghanistan is it. America's extremist conservative President, who technically was a dictator, haveing achieved his position in both instances with less that 50% of the total vote of all Americans, started the mess.
Tnen a so called British Labour PM, who was as Labour as Stalin was Communist ...and Stalin wasn't....blinded by the light shining from the orifice of the US dictator, rushed that country into a war, on both fronts, that was doomed the day it started.
And of course our Little Kermit...er...PM John Howard...who actually went tunnelling to find the light emitting from the US dictator, made no bones of the fact he had found God in his searching.
We went to war in Iraq, where we deposed a dictator who held the three factions together, albiat in a way that I wouldn't like to be governed, caught and killed this dictator, promised the people something that was unachievable, and all because America had a few terrorists...from a totally different nation...attack a building in New York.
The real fight, the Afghanistan war, should have been sorted out, with the inclusion of Russia...who had attempted but failed...to supress the Taliban....in the UN. But the US dictator decided he was better than the UN, planted an anti UN embassador there, John Boulton, and virtually made the UN useless.
Now we are paying for it, and those players that caused this mess are smiling, scot free, with retirements bonuses the likes of which you and I will never seen in a million lifetimes.
As to the solution, the fires that almost destroyed Victoria last year had a better chance of being stopped than the sorting out of this mess.
Isn't it time we stopped supporting conservative war mongering idiots whose only use of the orifice we call the communicator, is to say 'Charge, kill, war"?
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Well Australia is one of a very few countries committed to accepting thousands of refugees every year from around the world. So your overall understanding of the countries immigration laws is flawed.
I tend to agree that the attitude towards refugees coming over in boats is xenephobic and disgusting. But their are similar problems in Europe and the US, and similar attitudes amongst alot people in those countries.
Not to excuse it, just to point out it's not an exclusivley Australian issue.
The truth is that the majority of ilegal immigrants in this country come from the UK and NZ, and are tourists who've overstayed their visas.
But that's not relevant to the Afghanistan mission, except to point out the irony of helping to invade a country then objecting when that country's people flee to Australia.
The problem with Afghanistan is huge.
People need to realise we aren't fighting the Taliban or Al-Queda as such, but really we are trying to defeat the Pashtun tribe.
This is a tribe of roughly 40 million people spread between Afghanistan and Pakistan. These people have defeated every single attempt at subjugation in recorded human history.
They are a highly militant, extremely heavily armed group of people.
Their entire history is full of conflict and war, they have been fighting non-stop for decades.
When the soviets invaded the US spent billions taking an already warlike group of people and arming them to the teeth. Some of the biggest gun factories in the world were constructed in Pakistan for the express purpose of arming these people in their fight agaisnt the Soviets. Well the Soviets are gone, but the gun factories are still there and doing a roaring trade.
Many of these people still live in the huge, sprawling refugee camps created in Pakistan during the Soviet war. They have no opportunity or chance of a better life, and so picking up an assault rifle and fighting the Americans in exchange for (by their standards) a good wage supplied by the leaders of the anti-American forces is one of their few options for an escape.
As rightly pointed out by the UN recently, there will never be a lack of armed Pashtun tribesman willing to kill foreign forces.
The only solution is to somehow win the najority of the Pashtun around to support the govt that has been punt in place by the occupying forces.
That's a hell of a task and killing the locals will only make it more difficult. For every person that foreign forces kill they are creating a dozen new enemies.
In regards to specifically Australia's mission, it is important to note that Oruzgan, the province the Aussies and Dutch operate in, is considered probably the most succesful province, in terms of stability.
It is the only province in the south that has seen a reduction in violence and a strengthing on stability and prosperity for the locals.
This is due largely to the strategy employed. The Dutch deserve as much credit (if not more) for this than the Aussies do.
In Oruzgan the strategy of ink-blot counter-insurgency is working.
This may be because they Dutch and Aussies actually believe in it and are sticking to it's doctrine.
Their is a critisizm that other countries say one thing and do another (ie they may build a hospital in a town but then they ruin that goodwill by conducting large scale offensives in the same town).
In Oruzgan the Dutch and Australians focus not on killing Taliban (this is important because what people refer to as Taliban are really just the locals) but on improving their lives, through reconstruction and improving security. They also focus on training and equiping Afghan forces. They do this at the expense of everything else, and avoid engageing the Taliban in open conflict, since it acheives nothing. As I've stated you simply can not kill your way to victory in this type of war.
The only troops in Oruzgan who activley seek out Taliban forces are the Aussie special forces. Eevn they focus almost solely on killing and capturing the leaders of the local resistance movement.
This strategy has been fairly succesful, and in alrge part is a copy of the strategy emplyed by Australian forces in Veitnam, where their province was one of the most peaceful in country.
And Stirling222, why do you think Australians enjoy hearing about British difficulties in Afghanistan.
What a crazy thing to think.
Australians don't want to see anyone dying over there, let alone our allies and cousins from the UK.
Your view of Australia is twisted and macarbe.
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Nick, though this blog deals primarily with Afghan boat people, currently in Australia, we are dealing with a situation concerning Sri Lankan Tamils and I assume this story is currently being reported in Britain.
We have a very unseaworthy boat, full of Tamils, looking to find refuge in Australia, currently held in Indonesian waters, by Indonesian police and or military, I stand corrected as to which.
They are refusing to leave their ship to be housed in emergency accommodation in Indonesia and have resorted to using children to plead their case.
No one is denying they are possibly fleeing Sri Lanka, now that the civil war there, between the military and the Tamil Tigers, is over.
However many questions are being asked concerning these refugees.
The primary, unspoken question being, how do we know these refugees don't have remnant of the Tigers amongst their number. And on arriving in Australia, do they intend to forget the war lost or do they intend to use Australia to re group.
The longer such refugees are held in detention, the less the intention to re group.
On the other hand, there are most likely quite a few in the number that are non militants, ex Tigers.
This is again why we can't accept these, or any, boat people, till the UNSCR had looked at each case and determined whether it is safe for Australia to accept them.
Note: On ABC's LateLine program last night, a reporter from a Sri Lankan media outlet commented on how well dressed, how well spoken and how well financed were these boat people. He indicated they were more likely to be fleeing for financial reasons more than for persecution reasons.
I guess we'll here more as this case unfirls.
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JPWallace 11 Fully concur with you here. Well said, especially about the real illegal migrants.
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Here's a couple of questions:
First up, do you classify Indonesia as a totalitarian, oppressive dictatorship whose police or armed forces are engaged in the persecution and/or killing of minority ethnic or religious citizens? Or a country that holds a policy of ethnic/religious persecution? I should hope not.
Secondly - do you classify the current boatload of Sri Lankan tamils as refugees? Quite probably yes.
If the answer to one is no, as it must be, and two is yes, please explain why another country is responsible for assylum seekers who are currently located in a country that can provide assylum? They've got to a place where they wont be subject to a civil war, and a country that has wide ethnic and religious diversity including hindus, christians, muslims and others. Why can they not find assylum in Indonesia? What threat do they face in Indonesia there that their only option is Aus?
They've successfully made it safely to a country that doesn't threaten them. If assylum is what they seek - they have found it.
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There is another reason why Australia's armed forces were/are involved in the conflicts Nick mentions - it is to have a cadre of Officers and Senior NCOs who are battle hardened - that is, veterans.
Such troops, sailors and airmen then play a key role in training those of Australia's military who have not been in harm's way.
As far as Afghanistan goes, the most recent U.S. assessment is that the Taliban does not constitute a direct threat to American homeland security and I would say the same thing applies to Australia, Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands etc.
The real problem in Afghanistan is that more and more Afghanis are fighting back against the concept of having their country overrun and dominated by foreign forces.
How would you like it if foreign soldiers were swaggering down your streets and foreign governments were telling you how to treat your women?
Not many men would put up with that - the partisans in Europe during WW2 certainly understood the concept.
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I'm glad that Australia has forces in Afghanistan doing the job on the ground, even if not in the more expansive and front line roles that US, British and Canadian forces are in. Australia has a lineage in operating counter-terrorism operations going all the way back to the first in Malaya alongside us Brits.
Although its true that Britain didn't get involved in Vietnam, I don't think that means we couldn't see the lessons from that conflict. The tactics used in Vietnam were at first similar to British tactics in Malaya before becoming completely unrelated as the war dragged on and quicker solutions were sought. Australia's involvement was more about keeping-in with the US and looking after its own strategic interests more than anything else about a cadre of officers etc. Australia couldn't afford like GB to stiff over the US as ANZUS/SEATO did not provide for Australia's defence as as strongly as NATO did for GB's. It should be noted though that for the majority of the 1950s, the Australians stook with British SEA plans rather than US SEA plans which would have had Vietnam starting in 1954 along with war with China.
oldnewshound, I don't get your point about treatment of women. Surely you can't be condoning these recent laws which allow a husband to rape his wife? How would your wife like it if such a law were introduced in Australia? Afghani women have come out of Taliban rule, tasted some Western freedoms and thanks to this law are being brought back to heel again. Its not right and I think its only right to criticise and say its wrong.
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Can we really afford to be spending $4 billion a month on this war against a bunch of yokels? Let the Afghans fight their own battles. They don't want Australians or any other foreigners on their land. Leave them to it, with a promise of great unpleasantness if they dare to let Al Qaeda set up training camps there again.
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Sterling222,
I didn't realise that other Western countries had an 'open door' policy to refugees or illegal immigrants.
Oz has made some progress, we're not cannon fodder in Britain's wars any more and the US just might be a more reliable ally than Britain,however the belief that we're paying a premium on an insurance policy by involving ourselves in Afghanistan is naive. There appears to be no state and nothing to consolidate, instead of a nation there's a collection of warring tribes. Those bellicose people who support the war should volunteer to fight the Taliban themselves. Bring our troops home.
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As to why we don't allow the media to "embed" with our current forces, well as stated there are 1400 only, how many media do you want embed?, access to what and to who, ? dare I bring up the salient point that civilian media need to be fed , watered, protected and "provided" for in an actual combat zone? And who pays? should I point out the Australian media can (and does) regularly report from Afghanistan?, ( controlled of course for their own safety) .
No disrespect intended to real journalists but the story below shows the inherent danger for “misdirection”
http://www.aim.org/media-monitor/civilian-deaths-in-afghanistan/
The fact it was a commercial company found out in the end does not lessen the horror of this particular incident, but as the quick 30 second sound bite for TV was only concerned for a quick easier “bad USA killed innocent wedding guests “shows the inherent dangers uncontrolled media c can do.
Us Australians by nature can tolerate many bits of ,,,dare I say it bullshit in the modern media, but in a combat zone allowing free range of media personnel (civilian) is a logistical and legal nightmare, (who pays for an injured journalist from an I.E.D ?, who has authority over that individuals right of movement within a war zone? , can Barry Spatter from the New Brunswick Gazette sink a few beers outside a Mosque and scamper back behind the wire if the local mullahs get P.O. Squealing it’s his “right “as a civilian, (note neither Barry Spatter or the New Brunswick Gazette exist).
To put it simply if the media in a war zone are not controlled all sorts of unbalance, incorrect, un confimable rubbish is taken as gospel and released and believed, some control is needed and yes all you left wingers over site by the press is valid up to the point where ongoing operations are not affected or serving personnel are put in harm’s way for a fluff piece to pad a jouro’s resume. The current Defense (ADF ) policy on media is the correct one, the Americans should take notes.
P.S. just to cover the whole “full disclosure thing” (you Journo’s know what that is?) I’m a currently serving member of the RAAF and this is my opinion, mot the ADF’s just mine, feel free to sniff and say I’m wrong and your right, then go have another de café soy milk frappachino.
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Richo, there seems to be some ignorance in your post in that anything that has a right and not a left, is to say the least, unbalanced. Being RAAF you should know you can't fly a plane with only a right wing. You need both. And that applies in politics just as much as it does to a plane. There are, of course, extremists on both sides, but we need the moderates...those close to the centre...like fuel tanks on a plane...which I believe are closer to the body of the plane than to the tips...to keep the plane balanced.
I have yet to see any extremist posting here.
As to your actual posting, you are paid by the people of this country. YOur future is determined by what 'we the people' decide. Now, as you are no doubt aware, there are some unbelievably stupid numbers among 'we the people' so we need to have a 'balanced account' of what is actually happening with our tax dollar...the same dollar that is paying your wages...to encourage those particular voters to make a decent decision when they next vote.
The question is, who best to inform us of where our dollar is being spent. The current Government is going to feed us it's perspective, and the Opposition will naturally oppose it...actually in the case of our current Opposition, they will Obstruct it...which is their want with any Government legislation, opinion or direction...so we need a third opinion to give us clarity.
The best opinion would be representatives of the actual forces themselves, but because of the very structure of the military...namely they are controlled by a dictatorial system...and can't have an individual voice outside of the structure....we have to rely on a forth option....the media....which, as you indicate, can be easily swayed towards any of the antagonists.
So...
How about you encourage memebers of our armed forces, that you know, to informe us, via the Web, of what is REALLY going on at the front line...
Oh then there is the problem that you may be breaking the law by sharing information that is considered classified.
But wait a minute....if what you have posted above is classified, why are you posting it? And if not, why isn't the military brass announcing it?
Why is the only information you share with us that which matches the 'dictatorship?'
Change that and you'll be better respected when you post material concering the conflicts we get drawn into.
Remember, we Aussies have a healthy disrespect for anything authorative...with good reason.
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Perhaps those not so well-informed about the plight of many Tamils (and indeed Singalese & Muslims) who are subjected to continuous human rights violations in Sri Lanka, would be advised to consider the numerous reports from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Asian Human Rights Commission to name a few. Currently over a quarter of a million Tamils are suffering behind barbed wire in internment camps in the north. Elsewhere indiscriminate detention, torture, murder, oppression of the media and a frequently corrupt judicial process is well documented. Where is the dialogue between Kevin Rudd and the Sri Lankan government? Possibly a better place to start is to work with the international community to ensure a country where its citizens can live without fear for their lives. Many would prefer not to have to make a perilous journey, risking their lives & leaving behind their homes and extended family & friends. To focus only on knee-jerk methods to keep out the influx of refugees/asylum seekers is a crude political gesture. Australians would be right to feel uncomfortable. The humanitarian issues will not recede by pushing the problem out of sight.
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shula21: In the dying days of the Kofi Annan governance at the UN, a whole list of amendments were presented that would have made the UN a far faired body, relating to world conflicts, solutions to such conflicts, and methods of prevention. The US's then President George Warmonger Bush sent JOhn Boulton, a rabid anti UN person, as replacement Ambassador. With months of his arrival, all the amendments, which had been passed by every other country worth mentioning, had been re written by Boulton, making the UN virtually useless.
It will take years before the UN is able to re assert itself to a place of respect again in world affairs. Yet it is this body that we rely on to determine steps to be taken concerning refugees, human conflicts and wars generally.
Any approaches from one country to another, concerning conflicts such as that happening in Sri Lanka, has to be done in a manner more harrowing than having to walk through a mindfield, thanks to Boulton. It may be years before we fully understand the damage done by both Bush and Boulton, in world affairs.
In the meantime, conflicts will continue, peoples will be killed or ill treated, leaders will negotiate, and only those with a particular interest or concern will notice how depressiong the world is at the moment.
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22. At 11:39pm on 17 Oct 2009, Petesyc wrote:
"shula21: In the dying days of the Kofi Annan governance at the UN, a whole list of amendments were presented that would have made the UN a far faired body"
Can the UN be even remotely fair if the committee responsible for democracy and human rights is packed with embassadors from dictatorial anti-human rights countries? Reform is not possible because corrupt regimes sell their votes. Needless to say they will vote against reform.
As bad as GWB was, and as bad as some US actions have been, one can't blame everything wrong in the world on them.
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McJakome there is no denying the UN is a structurally unsound organisation that desperately needs reform, especially in the Security Council. However, to have one country, America, totally gut the amendments out of hand, that would have started decent reforms, just shows how the conservative side of American politics totally disregards the concept of 'we the people' of the world. If it is not American, it doesn't exist.
Our Doc Evett, who dedicated most of his life to building a decent UN, and one of the architects of its early day, resigned to the fact that if it wasn't American, it didn't get done. I'm sure if you Google or Yahoo his name you'll find the appropriate material to support my comment.
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Oldhermit...no, I am not condoning the Afghani law that says husbands can rape their wives with impunity, but that is from my perspective as someone who was brought up with what we could perhaps call a Western philosophical tradition. My point is that the law you refer to is an AFHGANI law...it is their law, not ours. Perhaps such a law is difficult for you and me to accept, but what right do non-Afghanis have to impose their will on the mores of the Afghan people? And when you get into areas of how men relate to their women, and begin to tell those men that you can't do this, and you can't do that in relation to their women, you touch upon one of the most incendiary of all subjects within the human spectrum, and one that has had men reaching for their weapons since the beginning of time. You may recall the scene in the movie "Braveheart" where the concept of "Prima Noctis" got the local chaps rather riled. My point regarding the present situation in Afghanistan is, let's not add fuel to the fire by imposing so called Western standards to do with how Afghani men relate to their women. Frankly, it is not our business. And as far as a cadre of veteran Officers and NCOs goes..I will stick to my guns on that one too. When you first hear the supersonic crack of the bullets passing over your head it's good to have that veteran sergeant say to you "Don't worry lad".
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Re: Australia in Afghanistan
"Defence Minister John Faulkner has expressed his desire to accelerate the training of a brigade of Afghan troops in Uruzgan province, in order to fulfil Australia's commitment in Afghanistan and facilitate an exit."
An interesting snippet of news that may hint at a possible withdrawal from Afghanistan at around the time as the Dutch who plan to withdraw in the next 18 months? I certainly hope so - Bring our troops home!
The war certainly is discussed among ordinary Australians and also, like many other people no doubt, I've watched with a mixture of deep sadness and quiet pride every clip shown of the repatriation service for each of our soldiers killed over there.
I've not much to say on the issue of access for journalists. Perhaps its a similar philosophy to that of our defence personnel had about saluting officers in the World Wars ie. it marks out, identifies, easy targets for the enemy. Our soldiers are noted as some of the best in the world and I'm sure they have their reasons.
In reply to your question "Or do you side with former Prime Minister John Howard ..." Ha! never in a million years. That look of demented joy when warmonger George W Bush hung that freedom medal or whatever it was around John Howard on a previous visit to his friend is an image of our former PM that is quite sickening.
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#Stirling222 It is quite obvious you have not been watching too much Austalian news reports on Afghanistan recently especially on the recent incident of Australians killing and injuring Afghani civilians. There are a number of reasons that there has not been many negative reports on the Australian Army mission in Afghanistan
1.Is partly due to the fact of the thankfully low death toll compared to the rest of the international forces.
2. Due to the fact that the Australian army mission is mainly made of soldiers training the Afghani army or rebuilding the infrastructure of the Oruzgan province compared to that of the US and British which is mainly made up of frontline soldiers actively engaging the Taliban.
3. Another is that compared to the last major engagement of the Australian armed forces in Vietnam there is no national draft which outraged a large section of the population.
4. The media from the member countries of the International Force in Afghanistan have only shown reports and images which don't have the same shock value as that from other wars (like the photo of the vietnamese child fleeing from her burning village whilst or the monk who set himself on fire protesting the South Vietnamese persecution of bhuddists)
5. Not much has been reported on the lawlessness in Afghanistan and the widespread corruption being commited by the Afghani Govt and regional warlords who are propped up by the International Forces.
On another note growing up as an "Army Brat" I saw first hand the scepticism of many members of the defence force towards the media about their objectivity to reporting stories especially about the military.
Case in point the 60 Minutes CH 9. report a number of years ago where they reported on the bastardisation in the army. Where they talked about three soldiers who were assaulted whilst serving in 3 RAR.
Or the Australian Story (ABC) report on the suicide of a young soldier whilst in training at the Infantry Training Command at Singleton (country NSW) and they mentioned that it took them 3hrs for the same soldier to be taken to a hospital after suffering a broken ankle. If the case was serious enough they could have easily taken him to the local hospital a mere 10 min drive from the Army Camp.
Now in both cases they made the comment that they requested an interview from various from the Army but all of those people they approached refused to comment.
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Who is doing the fighting? Here is a Google maps outlining international troop deployments in Afghanistan, including brief mission histories, and the number of fatalities. Embed if you like ...
http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=106927227736098152803.000474e585f470659fa7b&t=h&ll=31.991771,66.049805&spn=0.948065,1.766052&z=9
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