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No winners, no losers, in a conflict unlike any other

Ian McPhedran

by Ian McPhedran

04 Sep 06:00am

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Filed under: Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, Military, Taliban, War

63 comments

A major problem with the war in Afghanistan is the completely misleading and misguided notion of winners and losers in the decade-long conflict.

Friends or foes? Nothing is as it seems in Afghanistan. Pic: Mark Dodd

Defence chief General David Hurley, who should know better, was the latest military or political leader to promote this great deceit when he said in the wake of last week’s tragic murder of three diggers that, “If we blink the Taliban wins”.

This statement is insulting to the intelligence of the Australian people and the men and women who are fighting in Afghanistan. The more the brass talk in terms of winning, the greater the fall will potentially be when accounts are finally settled after the coalition departs.

Unlike World War II or Vietnam there can be no overall winner or loser in Afghanistan. There will be some small victories and numerous setbacks, but the idea of winning against a complex insurgency in a country riven with division and corruption and poverty and violence is stupid.

At the end of this long and expensive campaign there will be parts of the country where the Taliban will find it difficult to re-establish a presence. There will be many others where the brutal Islamic fundamentalists will simply move back into place alongside the drug runners and warlords who have traditionally controlled large swathes of the Afghan landmass.

There will never be nationwide democracy in Afghanistan and it will be many years before anything even resembling a corruption-free regime occupies the presidential palace in Kabul. The best we can hope for, as we honour the memory of our 38 fallen (so far) and the hundreds wounded is that our province, Oruzgan, remains under the control of the Afghan government and the troops that we have trained, after we pull out from late 2013.

There are few valid comparisons between the Vietnam War and Afghanistan, but one that does stack up is the situation in Oruzgan Province and Phuoc Tuy Province in Vietnam. The allies lost the overall war in Vietnam, but Australian forces won their battle in Phuoc Tuy.

In Afghanistan there no doubt that Oruzgan Province is a far more dangerous place to be these days if you belong to or sympathise with the Taliban. Our special-forces troops have killed hundreds of insurgent commanders and bomb makers and the smart ones have fled to neighbouring provinces or Pakistan to bide their time before they attempt a comeback.

That will be the time when our efforts in Oruzgan will be put to the test.

According to Afghan National Army officers such as Commander Jambaz, a scarred, tough-as-teak veteran of the Russian war, the Taliban has definitely fled from the nearby villages around Patrol Base Zafar in the Khas Oruzgan region. The key question is, will they stay away? “They will be defeated if we have the equipment we need to keep them away,” the wily old warrior says.

Jambaz told News Limited that when the Coalition leaves his country, it will be crucial for key force multipliers, such as transport, logistics and air support, to remain in place for some time. “Without that support the Taliban will be back and we may not be able to hold them,” he says.

That is a realistic assessment from a battle-hardened veteran who has no political barrow to push or no interest in “winners or losers”. He simply wants to keep the Taliban out of his area of operations but he knows that without coalition support that will be a difficult task.

As the broader training mission winds down, the Gillard Government will face increasing calls to come clean on what role Australian special-forces will play in the post 2014 ISAF mission. News Limited understands that special-forces operators have been told to expect the mission to continue until at least 2018. That is four-years and at least eight rotations beyond the mentoring mission.

If that is the case then some operators from the SAS and Commandos will have notched up more than a dozen rotations by the time they pull out of Afghanistan. That is a huge workload and a burden that is sure to generate significant problems down the track for taxpayers and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The one caveat on such an extended deployment is a request from the Afghan Government. In the wake of Karzai’s condemnation of Australian troops for killing two men from his tribe, who he says were not insurgents, the request for an extension may not eventuate. That situation will not be helped by Defence Minister Stephen Smith basically labelling the Afghan leader a liar.

“Contrary to suggestions from Afghanistan (Karzai), that partnered operation was authorised in accordance with the normal and usual procedures,” Mr Smith said.

Given that words are bullets and that Afghans are particularly sensitive to being publicly corrected, Karzai will be furious with Smith and Australia. However if Smith was telling the truth and the operation was properly authorised and the dead men do turn out to be insurgent sympathisers then Australians will be entitled to question anything that Karzai says.

Such is the dilemma of Afghanistan where everything is not always as it seems.

Comments on this post will close at 8pm AEST.

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63 comments

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    • L. says:

      06:54am | 04/09/12

      “At the end of this long and expensive campaign there will be parts of the country where the Taliban will find it difficult to re-establish a presence.”

      Really..??

      Where exactly..?

      Reply

    • Trevor says:

      08:14am | 04/09/12

      Radioactive dead zones caused by coalition use of depleted uranium ammo.

    • Barney says:

      09:21am | 04/09/12

      When we finally withdraw we will leave having achieved almost nothing as in Korea ,Vietnam , Iraq , Afghanistan , it will be interesting to see
      what conflict we will be following the US into next .

    • DOB says:

      12:14pm | 04/09/12

      Geez, you need to ask? there are plenty of areas where anyone associated with the Taliban get short shrift in Afghanistan - there was a massacre of “taliban” in the north not too long ago and there are plenty of similar images and videos on the internet for those who want to go looking. Contrary to what seems to be your accepted view the Taliban are not considered welcome across large swathes of the north and the west of Afghanistan - and “the Taliban” is a misleading phrase anyway: many are simply bandits operating under the loose label of Taliban; if you want to be a bandit and enforce your reign in a district then claiming to be “Taliban” is going to help. And who’s going to contradict you? Bear in mind too that some “Taliban” leaders in Pakistan send their daughters to expensive schools overseas, so the picture across the board is highly confused and fractured.

      Afghanistan is a pre feudal society being dragged by the hair into the modern world. All is not black and white there. And it has multiple other problems beside that problem of simple and unevenly distributed backwardsness - so bringing the country up to scratch was never going to be tidy. And Pakistan next door, despite being regarded as a nation state, is not much better. It doesnt help to have a crappy place like Pakistan as your neighbour and a lot of damage has been done by encouraging the militant idiocy of the Pakistanis as a defence against communism in the sub-continent.

      Whatever happens you can expect small oases of stability in both countries and a sea of chaos around those. But it will be a long time before any of these regions can be regarded as truly civilised. One thing you can say: the sacrifices of our guys in Afghanistan will definitely accelerate that process of civilisation. It may not be obvious now but our guys are saving many many future lives and making a huge difference to the future of Afghanistan and probably Pakistan - and their people. Some people just cant seem to see that. The big problem is the lack of cultural awareness of western forces - just watch the documentary film Restrepo and see the good intentions of the officers in that film being completely obliterated by their unwittingly insulting conduct and you;ll get some idea of why green on blues happen.

      At the end of the day green on blues are not about the big picture - theyre about the micro picture of how westerners and Afghans engage with each other. Having all this angst on the big picture issues every time a green on blue happens simply misses the point - and ensures that more green on blues are inevitable.

    • L. says:

      01:46pm | 04/09/12

      “Geez, you need to ask? there are plenty of areas where anyone associated with the Taliban get short shrift in Afghanistan “

      Yes, and anywhere that is off limits to the Taliban now was off limits to the Taliban prior to the invasion (Northern Alliance country).

      So we have achieved exactly zero in that regard.

      “Contrary to what seems to be your accepted view the Taliban are not considered welcome across large swathes of the north and the west of Afghanistan”

      Never said they were. But 24 mths after we leave, they’ll be back to where they were in 2002.

      “so bringing the country up to scratch was never going to be tidy.”

      Or possible in the timefrmaes envisiged.

      “Whatever happens you can expect small oases of stability in both countries and a sea of chaos around those.”

      No, we can’t expect any such thing. We can hope for them, but ‘expect’ them..?? No way. Never could, never will.

      Just leave.. and let them have at it.

    • acotrel says:

      07:24am | 04/09/12

      I suggest we should look where we are, and consider where we want to be in twenty years time.  It might be that we are now being proactive with our efforts in Afghanistan.  9/11 meant something, it makes me wonder about the opposition’s ambitions.  We already know they are totally ruthless.  The question is -  ‘what is the risk - in terms of potential consequences and likelihood, arising from a premature withdrawal ? ’ I believe this could be one of the most important decisions we make in the next fifty years .

      Reply

    • Bazza says:

      08:07am | 04/09/12

      Anyone with a brain knows both sides of politics the world over are always bi-partisan when it comes to wars. There is something about going to war that makes politicians all hot and steamy, what that is, who knows, but they all get their rocks off on it. The only political party which doesn’t believe in ‘gun’ war are the Greens but they have their own way of destroying the world and that is through fiscal stupidity.

    • Paleoflatus says:

      11:49am | 04/09/12

      Yep, how often does a government get voted out of office during a war? And look at the Americans - where would they be without their military-industrial complex that not only drives their economy, but keeps wealthy lobbyists happy?

    • Babylon says:

      01:07pm | 04/09/12

      Acotrel

      What about the Gillard Governments ambitions? Does it have an eye of control on the situation?

      We are only there till 2014 because of US requirement.

      But be warned, if Mitt becomes president he’ll probably start withdrawals immediately, leaving poor Aussie up sheet creek without a paddle.

    • craig2 says:

      07:27am | 04/09/12

      So, to put it in perspective and lets look at the real reason for being there, if it wasn’t for the oil pipeline, we wouldn’t be there? Just how much oil is needed to replace the trillions spent fighting this economic war?

      Reply

    • marley says:

      08:09am | 04/09/12

      There isn’t an oil pipeline, and isn’t going to be one any time in the future.  Anyone with any understanding of the region would have known back in the 90s that it would be too damn risky, especially with a viable alternative going the other way.

    • fml says:

      08:19am | 04/09/12

      You also have to factor in the monies made by the military industrial complex. War is business and business is good.

    • Borderer says:

      08:38am | 04/09/12

      I disagree, for me it was always about fighting the war on someone elses ground and not our own. By fighting in Afghanistan rather than say Melbourne and despite the tragedy of each death, Australian casualties are relatively light, the 9/11 attack shows what happens when the war comes home. Also Afghanistan has no oil infrastructure to blow up like say Saudi or Kuwait so the casualties are generally human not economic.
      I do look forward to the day when we aren’t oil dependant, our troops come home and we can just leave them to it.

    • craig2 says:

      12:01pm | 04/09/12

      Marley: there will be, not the most ideal way to transport oil but it will happen

    • Bruno says:

      12:50pm | 04/09/12

      fighahthaing thahe whaar ihan Mehalbohaurhane

      Borderer sorry I was trying to say ‘fighting the war in Melbourne’ but I couldnt stop laughing. Because the Taliban are so logistically advanced they can fight multiple wars on multiple fronts in ALL the NATO countries. They terrorised us, we’ve terrorised them back. Time to leave.

    • marley says:

      02:18pm | 04/09/12

      @craig2 - why bother?  Moving the oil west to the Caspian and Black seas makes far more sense than shipping it into Pakistan.

    • Michael says:

      08:48am | 04/09/12

      That looks like the footage of the Reuters guys getting shot, was American accents originally.

    • marley says:

      09:50am | 04/09/12

      I don’t believe that video is of Afghanistan.  So, it’s irrelevant to your point, whatever it is.

    • Suzanne says:

      07:50am | 04/09/12

      There is no benefit being in Afghanistan.  The place will implode when we leave, whenever we leave.  They have been fighting for centuries and nothing will change.  We are wasting vauable Australian lives.

      Get the troops out this month

      Reply

    • A Concerned Citizen says:

      10:29am | 04/09/12

      Exactly- it has arguably changed little by us being there I dare say. Forget the Taliban, Afghanistan as a WHOLE is a lost cause. We should have withdrawn when Bin Laden was assassinated, or when the Karzai regime was found to be corrupt- or ANY opportunity when it became clear we were wasting our time there.

    • Paleoflatus says:

      07:57am | 04/09/12

      Discussing the presence and role of Australian forces in Afghanistan (or anywhere else) is pointless. We went in because the Americans asked us to and we’ll leave when they let us.
      It’s similar to Iraq and to our foolish participation in the U.S. encirclement of China. That’s potentially damaging economically and its long-term consequences could be disastrous - although not a problem for our interim government.

      Reply

    • marley says:

      02:24pm | 04/09/12

      What is this thing people seem to have, about only being able to quit the war “when the Americans let us.”  Other countries have quit, and the Americans haven’t nuked any of them.  It’s our decision, in the end.

      As for encircling China - have the Americans invaded Russia and India?  Have I missed something?  Take a look at a map, and show me which countries bordering on China are American fiefdoms, and which are either non-aligned or tied to Russia, which is no friend of the USA even today.

    • TimB says:

      06:51pm | 04/09/12

      @ Paul, please pick up a dictionary and look up the definition of ‘encirclement’. Marley is quite correct.  There are entire swathes of the Chinese border without any American presence.

    • redmond says:

      08:04am | 04/09/12

      Support the troops - not the Seppo invasion. Howard has a lot to answer for with his continual lying over this farce. Bring the blokes back home.

      Reply

    • TChong says:

      08:09am | 04/09/12

      ISAF represents a military occupation.
      Has there ever been a military occupation that has ever been warmly recieved by the occupied ?
      Would australians accept an invasion and occupation “for our own good”, just like we tell the afghans?
      Or would most ozzies do there best to resist ?
      Why do we think the pushtans are any different ?

      Reply

    • youdy beaudy says:

      08:10am | 04/09/12

      I see that Kazai person the so called President walking around like a peacock in his robes and not a bit of dirt on him. Basically a waste of time and effort it is for us to continue to support a President who bad mouths us and obviously seeks to have some control over our position there when our position is supposedly to help the dumb arse get his countries shit together. Pardon the swearing but it really is becoming a swearing situation. Who the hell does he think he is. It is the Australian taxpayer who is funding up the operation to help while he does nothing.

      It doesn’t matter what we do there because as soon as we leave they will all be back. So it to me is only a short term solution and what really has been achieved over the last 10 years. What, we have trained some people to make things and spent our time either getting our troops shot and driving around in their God forsaken rock hole.

      It is not our responsibility to carry along with others the load for them at our own peril just to cry democracy. I know that most of the people are just villagers and pretty ordinary as far as extended brain power goes but really if they want to get rid of the Taliban then they have to get rid of them out of their villages and that requires of them that they stand for something and eliminate them at the source themselves. It is not our responsibility to go around the world freeing everyone from their miseries that they created and obviously support.

      This so called war which is John Howards war should be stopped asap and we should come home and use the wasted money for our own people. We have plenty of projects coming up that need financing and that money we spend there would be quite adequate for our purposes.

      What has Afghanistan got to do with us really. The Russians threw everything at them and then packed up and went home helped by Americas ally Osama Bin Laden. Yes, they loved him in those days.

      And at the end of the day what is in it as a return for our enormous investment. Well, more plaques for our Canberra War Memorial, gotta fill that up haven’t we. What, more heroes, more VC’s, more to march on Anzac Day.

      So, do we stay there so we don’t lose face or is there some other reason not discussed with the Australian Public. Not open for discussion with those who have to pay for it all.

      Stephen Smith as our Defence Minister should be talking to this Kazai bloke in the strongest terms and sticking it to him and his useless Government. How dare he bight the hand that feeds him. I suggest he gets of his very well paid arse put on a uniform and go out and get them himself instead of criticizing us and putting himself in a higher position. We should tell these Afghanis to shove it and then quickly shove off ourselves and leave the feeble place with it. That’s what i think. Let them work it out themselves. Hasn’t everyone of us here had a gut full of this. I’m sure many have especially the families that get the call from the Army informing them that their sons have been killed unceremoniously by another Taliban infiltrator. They can’t be trusted and we should go and go asap. No dishonour in that, maybe some common sense tho.

      Reply

    • fml says:

      02:06pm | 04/09/12

      I do not know how putting “so called” infront of something makes the thing that proceeds it any less valid. Hamid Karzai is the president of Afghanistan and he is, you know, running the country. And this “so called” war is actually a war.

      I wonder how many people now calling for the withdrawl were the ones frothing at the mouth to get into afghanistan in the first place, no one seems to want to admit it.

    • St. Michael says:

      02:26pm | 04/09/12

      You’re taking the straw man of degree, fml.  There is a big difference between a few bombing missions to vaporise Al-Qaeda bases—which should have been done—and occupying an entire country with the intent of making it a Western democracy—which has been attempted and is failing.  Both are acts of war, but one is effective and the other is not. Me, I support the effective one, and therefore oppose the ineffective one, i.e. we should not be in Afghanistan at all.  If anything, we should only ever be above it, at several thousand feet up.

      If there were Al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, then the US had every justification to blow the fuckers up.  But once those bases were gone, the US should’ve been, too.  If the bases returned, then the US should return, again with bombers, and again blow the fuckers up.  And again.  And again.  As many times as necessary until the supposed primitives of Afghanistan figure out it’s not a cool idea to harbour terrorists.  Al-Qaeda, at least, figured out the lesson early: it’s why they nicked off to Pakistan in roughly 2002, and haven’t been back to Afghanistan since.

    • Trevor says:

      08:11am | 04/09/12

      No winners? You forgot about the CIA who have been able to fund and expand their black ops with Afghan opium cash.

      Reply

    • Ray says:

      08:28am | 04/09/12

      Looking at history, Afghanistan has never been a “nation” in our sense of clearly-defined borders (external and internal) and a central government with an efficient network for administration and taxation - not to mention the bitter differences in religion and centuries-old clan feuds. Add to that the modern complexity of drug lords and well-equipped private militia. “Corruption” as we regard it is, traditionally,  normal business and the spoils of power.

      The British and Russians failed to impose an outside regime on Afghanistan - as did many others over the centuries.

      What can the West do today? Nothing!

      Reply

    • TheRealDave says:

      08:37am | 04/09/12

      Its pretty hard to ‘win’ anything when you go out of your way to do the least amount possible. Comparisons to Vietnam are grossly unfair….at least in Vietnam both the US, Australia and other nations actually made signifigant contributions…unlike today in Afghanistan.

      Reply

    • John says:

      09:18am | 04/09/12

      What were the allies fighting in WWII? For Communism to take Half of Europe, for International Bankers to remain in power in the west, for the west to have a bullshit democracy and to allow the third world invasion to flood into every western street.

      Such great ideals to risk your life over.

      Reply

    • marley says:

      02:28pm | 04/09/12

      @John - I think there was something else involved in the war.  Let me see - I think it starts with an N and has a z in it… Because of that war, the Nazis and their ilk have been consigned to the dustbin of history, and, although it took a long time, so have the Communists.  And a bloody good thing that both are gone.  I’ll take our version of democracy, bullshit though it may be, over ideologies that between them have murdered something like 50 million people, any day.

    • firefly says:

      03:55pm | 04/09/12

      Get help john. You are as crazy as a sh*t house rat. Your western/USA hating rants get more out there by the day.

    • John says:

      04:03pm | 04/09/12

      Marley

      You must realize it was France and Britain that declare war on Germany. Germany basically ripped the WWI agreement, and these two nations declared war straightaway. Three if you include Poland. 

      Germany then basically faced the communists on the borders. Them being ideological enemy’s, war was most likely to erupt.
      Constant peace proposals were given to the government of England, and they refused. You can clearly see that it started from one little thing into one big thing. WWII seemed like a continuation of WW1.

      It was in England and the US interests to get rid of Hitler so they allied with the soviets and kept quiet about soviet massacres. Hitler having heavy influence over european affairs would of servery weakened the current power structure ruling europe and the UK, I suspect this power structure wanted this German who didn’t play to their tune out. That’s really what is was all about. Millions of lives wasted so that the current power’s in europe can keep on ruling.

      .

    • marley says:

      07:53pm | 04/09/12

      @John - look, you can invent your version of history - but it doesn’t make it true.  Did you forget the bit about Hitler allying himself with the dreaded communists to slice up Poland?  Hitler was working with the communists, against England and France, back in 1940.  Without Hitler’s pact with them, the Soviets might never have got the time or space to rebuild after all the trials and horrors of the 30s.  Hitler gave them a lifeline, and they took it. 

      That’s your “hero” for you.  A fellow traveller when it suited him.

    • A Concerned Citizen says:

      10:21am | 04/09/12

      The difference between Vietnam and Afghanistan is that we were unable to defeat Vietnam, and withdrew from a war we were losing.
      Afghanistan we are able to fight the Taliban- but we are still losing the war simply because we set unrealistic goals of victory- that Afghanistan will ever change for the better. After 11 years it is arguably just as bad as before, and the abhorrent views of the Taliban are just as mainstream as they even had been.

      Our pullout is not so much we are losing to the combatants, but because we are simply wasting our time (and our lives) for a cause that really does not justify the costs.

      I say we pull out- and our publicity speech should be the very passage I typed.

      Reply

    • TheRealDave says:

      12:24pm | 04/09/12

      We never went into Vietnam in order to ‘defeat’ North Vietnam - despite the North repeatedly invading the South and leading the insurgency in the south. We never ‘crossed’ into the North until late in the war and then only as a punative short term operation. We launched bombing raids in the north on occasion but other than that we pretty much left them alone, free to do what they wanted and pretend that we weren’t fighting them as much as possible. Same with neighbouring countries. We lef the illusion that we weren’t fighting there allowing the VC and NVA flee to safety behind artificial lines on maps.

      Militarily we spanked them all over the place. But we never prosecuted or persued the war ‘totally’. Due to politics and politics alone. We withdrew from that war because we were not allowed to ‘win’ it. Just as we have committed only token forces in Afghanistan. We have not been allowed to ‘win’ by politics.

      See any tanks in Afghanistan? No, and you won’t…becuse that would be deemed ‘too agressive and warlike’....Like our nice new Tiger Armed Reconnasance Helicopters? An Apache-lite helicopter…they would sure come in handy supporting our troops on the ground you reckon?? Pity they’ll never leave Australia - like the new tanks we have. We have never made anything more than a token contribution in terms of manpower and equipment. We aren’t alone however, the US have only ever made a token contribution, as have the UK, Canada, etc

      We don’t have unrealistic ‘goals for victory’ just an unrealistic deployment of force and equipment for victory all due to politics. War ‘on the cheap’.

    • A Concerned Citizen says:

      04:56pm | 04/09/12

      I beg to differ TheRealDave
      In Vietnam, we were up against some VERY tough opposition, and Coalition casualties were far higher than in this war.

      In this conflict, our problem with winning isn’t fighting the Taliban- we are beating them senseless.

      Our problem is that ‘victory’ means the impossible- Afghanistan becomes a moderate, functioning democracy. Over a decade, they have not done any such thing, while the Taliban now hide in neighbouring countries as long as we remain.

      In short, no matter how well we fight the Taliban, Afghanistan will still be a lost cause, and in my opinion, no longer worth fighting over.

    • Sid Spart says:

      10:36am | 04/09/12

      Imagine a military force coming to Australia and trying to win the hearts and minds of Aussies. Than apply that to a diverse country with thousands of years of experience of foreigners trying to unsuccessfully run their country.

      So if pollies try to spin otherwise question it.

      Reply

    • FINK says:

      11:03am | 04/09/12

      “Imagine a military force coming to Australia and trying to win the hearts and minds of Aussies.”
      Boat people are invading, does that count?

    • egg says:

      12:40pm | 04/09/12

      @FINK, “Boat people are invading”

      *people are seeking asylum.

      You’re welcome.

    • egg says:

      12:42pm | 04/09/12

      @FINK, “Boat people are invading”

      *people are seeking asylum.

      You’re welcome.

    • colin says:

      01:04pm | 04/09/12

      @FINK 11:03am | 04/09/12

      “Boat people are invading, does that count?”

      “Invading”, hey? Seems to me that their invasion fleet takes more toll on its occupants than anyone else…but, then, bigots probably only see the lives of refugees as “Collateral damage” anyway.

    • colin says:

      10:36am | 04/09/12

      And if we never went there in the first place, none of this would have been a concern to us now.

      Puppets dancing to the tune of Yankee Doodle? That’s us.

      War is wrong. And evil. And pointless.

      Reply

    • FINK says:

      10:49am | 04/09/12

      If we pull out of Afghanistan then what other minnow is their left to invade? Somalia, Syria?, they won’t take on Pakistan as they really will bite back and hard!
      You would have thought after the annihilation of Iraq that the Allies would have been on a high and wiping out the Afghan rebels a mere formality. 11 years and billions upon billions of dollars later we are no further along than the USSR were after 9 years.
      No matter how hard you try, you can’t change a country that doesn’t want western change.
      If the Pollies want to continue on with this phony war then let them fund it privately out of their own pension fund.

      Reply

    • BruceS says:

      10:52am | 04/09/12

      I find your articles to be disingenuous, at best.

      Reply

    • Dr Jack says:

      10:57am | 04/09/12

      There must still be various agenda for being up there. Once it was to avoid dominance of India by the hordes to the north-west. Later it was because of fears of NOT getting oil access, when and if, and to deprive others. We are there now, I believe, primarily to stay friendly with the US as Ms Gillard assured Obama with those chuckling bottom pats. But it always has been a tribal/religious war zone as well as all else. I thought we were there primarily to teach them how to behave…and to kill people, like us. But they always knew that, so why are we there really? Oddly enough, in Iraq, around half of all medical assistance cares for the indigenous people, whether or not they are combatants. But Karzai thinks he doesn’t that, like Iraq did.
      So how do we achieve something good and also keep us and our forces safer? And please don’t tell me we are there to make it a place that wants to be democratic. Clinton knows why the US is there but has she ever said it out loud? As for Karzai, watch him very closely and wait.

      Reply

    • Dr Jack says:

      11:45am | 04/09/12

      CORRECTION OF ABOVE…sorry:
      “But Karzai thinks he doesn’t NEED that…”

    • St. Michael says:

      12:08pm | 04/09/12

      “There are few valid comparisons between the Vietnam War and Afghanistan, but one that does stack up is the situation in Oruzgan Province and Phuoc Tuy Province in Vietnam. The allies lost the overall war in Vietnam, but Australian forces won their battle in Phuoc Tuy.”

      The last sentence is just plain stupid.  It doesn’t matter one bit whether Australian forces won their battle in Phuoc Tuy.  Every inch of Phuoc Tuy is still part of the Republic of Vietnam today, just as every inch of Oruzgan is going to be under Afghan “control” (if you can call it that) after we leave.

      This idiotic observation is irrelevant, anyway.  What matters is that the US and its allies (not The Allies, Ian, that was World War 2) did, in fact, lose the Vietnam War in that they failed the basic and first task: keep South Vietnam out of the hands of North Vietnam.  Any other analysis is rose-tinting failures to make the military feel better about losing, just as we’ve done with Gallipoli for the past fifty-odd years to the detriment of far more significant and deserving defences of Australia in Papua New Guinea during World War 2.

      As it is, there’s a lot of valid comparisons between the Vietnam War and Afghanistan.

      (1) It’s a war against a determined native opponent.
      (2) It’s a war, also, against an alien culture to the West.
      (3) It’s an asymmetrical conventional war.
      (4) It’s a war heavily covered by the media.
      (5) It’s a war where politicians heavily influenced the goals, terms, and rules of engagement.  For example, in Vietnam, had the US military been permitted to bomb Hanoi, the history shows it’s likely we would have won it.  We didn’t, because the government refused the military’s recommendations.
      (6) It’s a war where, as with Vietnam, the US military is infested with and institutionally more interested in careerism than winning or being morally honest with the government about what it can and can’t achieve.
      (7) It’s a war where there was never full control of the country.
      (8) It’s a war where the enemy is receiving support from neighbouring countries with no comeback or widening of the conflict to stop that support coming through.
      (9) It’s a war where a pathetically small troop density was employed to control inhospitable terrain.
      (10) It’s a war where, by and large, the wrong tactics are used against guerillas because the West’s conventional armies does not know how to beat guerillas and for the most part does not care to learn how.

      There are many valid comparisons between Vietnam and Afghanistan, and it’s demonstrable because the result is going to be the same: withdrawal and decades of hypocritical beating of the breast over 38 lives that should never have been spent there at all.

      Reply

    • Mark says:

      12:20pm | 04/09/12

      And still, still no one mentions the industrial military complex we live in. For more bombs to be made, the old ones have to be destroyed. Remember this the next time your leaders are telling you we have to defend our homeland in a foreign country.

      Reply

    • True Blue Ozzie says:

      01:37pm | 04/09/12

      America’s war and every time the Ozzies are sent to follow there bums! The loss of Australians in America’s wars as been great, not to mention the cost in $ amounts. Our armed forces do’nt choose to go to America’s war’s there sent by our pollies. Every country America has declared war on, has been left in civil war for many years after, that in no way makes better lives for the ordinary people in these countries. America shoild be picking up the tab for the refugee’s not Australia.

      Reply

    • marley says:

      02:20pm | 04/09/12

      @True Blue Ozzie - you do know the Hazara are fleeing the Taliban?  Almost five million Afghans went back to Afghanistan after the allies invaded.  Maybe we should pay the Americans for taking some of the asylum seeker pressure off us for all those years.

    • Sarah Bath says:

      03:16pm | 04/09/12

      This is why we believe we must reduce defence spending by 90% and redirect this into worthwhile programs like sustainable herbiculture and reducing homophobia starting early in schools.  We have a similar proposal scheduled for our next National Council.  It would be good if everyone could have a look

      Reply

    • Rowdy says:

      04:26pm | 04/09/12

      Is this the same Sarah Bath who hijacked Michael Smith’s Facebook memorial to the 5 diggers recently killed in Afghanistan?

      http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/page/2/

      (see halfway down the page)

      LOL at the socialist green troll!!! Get back under your bridge…..

      How’s that 8% figure in the polls going?

    • Sarah Bath says:

      03:27pm | 04/09/12

      I would like to know why the media doesnt report on our very good proposal before National Council and that is to reduce the defence by 90% and redirect the funds into sustainable herbicultural programs and primary education designed to remove homophobia from society.  It seems that we are the only ones with the right answers.

      Reply

    • St. Michael says:

      03:56pm | 04/09/12

      Because the media doesn’t report on crackpots unless they’re interesting, Sarah.

    • Robert S McCormick says:

      03:58pm | 04/09/12

      There never were going to be any winners - unless you call the eventual takeover of Afhganistan again by the Taliban a win.
      last night on ABC-TV’s Q&A the ALP Minister Tony Burke stated that the invasion of Afghanistan was to “remove the Taliban”. He was, as so often this mob of incompetents are, totally wrong.
      The only reason we were giving for the UN’s approval of the invasion of Afghanistan by the USA, Australia and others was: “To drive the Terrorist Organisation known as AL Qaeda out of Afghanistan”
      The UN did not authorise, for it would have been illegal to do so, the removal of the Taliban Government of Afghanisatn. Yes, it was a loathesome regime & will become so again. Yes, it so stupidly denied women the right to an Education, a Profession, a Job. But it must never be forgotten that probably the vast majority of the Taliban - All males - probably had never had an education, a profession or any sort of job. In other words they were, to a man, ignorant louts who think nothing of disobeying one of the most fundamental Laws of Islam as enshrined in the Ten Commandments for Jews, Christians & Muslims: Thou shalt NOT kill. The Taliban went about slaughtering people. They, if they believe their own Koran, will rot in Hell for Eternity. There will be no copious quantities of Virgins for them where they are going.
      That the invasion resulted in the expiulsion of the Taliban Government is coincidental.
      Remember it is illegal for any country to invade another simply in order to oust the legitimate government. Hitler’s regime in Europe was, undeniably, one of the worst, cruellest most criminal regimes ever BUT the rest of the world did not have the legal right to invade the Reich & oust Hitlers & his fellow criminals. The UK had a pact with Poland which required the UK to go to Poland’s defence if she was attacked. Hitler attacked so the UK responded by first ordering Hitler to withdraw his troops & when he refused the UK declared War.
      We can all see what Gillard, David Hurley & their cronies are up to.
      They are now trying to twist things in order to justify the totally unjustifiable.
      Every death of an Australian in Afghanistan will, or should if they have one, rest on the consciences of John Howard, Alexander Downer, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, David Hurley, Bob Carr, Stephen Smith et al. for the rest of their lives.
      The public, Julia & David etc. are thoroughly sick of the perpetual lies we are being told.
      Stupidly you all think that if you repeat your lies & distortions often enough we will start to belive you.
      During the Menzies era the Australian Public may well have done so. But Ming is long-since gone, the Australian Public are a very, very different mob today.
      We simply do not take everything our politicians & the David Hurley’s of this world tell us as being Gospel any more.
      Get used to it.

      Reply

    • colin says:

      04:32pm | 04/09/12

      @Sarah Bath 03:16pm | 04/09/12
      @ Sarah Bath 03:27pm | 04/09/12

      Yeah, nice try to make people believe that these are real posts. Strawman, anyone..?

      Reply

    • Swamp Thing says:

      05:26pm | 04/09/12

      This is a conflict like no other alright! Simply because we cannot employ the methods that would be effective in bringing local recalcitrants to heel! See the US army in Germany during 1945 & soviet troops in their occupied territories in the 40s & 50s for helpful tips. Note, ‘effective’ is not usually congruent with post modern concepts of ‘human rights’ - but is much more likely to garner compliance.

      Reply

    • stephen says:

      05:30pm | 04/09/12

      If Afghanis are as unpleasant as we know they are as they shoot and maim our soldiers, then why are so many prepared to offer sanctuary to them in this country as asylum seekers ?

      Reply
 
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