Punch on: Open thread 07/10/09

Daniel says:

07:22am | 07/10/09

Australia should never have got involved in the war in Afghanistan. It was Howard and his warped idea of sitting on the lap of the USA. If Bush had told Howard to jump he would have said “How Hi”?It makes me sick. How many innocent lives have to be lost in the war for oil?

Eric says:

07:42am | 07/10/09

Daniel, there is no oil in Afghanistan.

John Howard was right to help fight Islamic terrorism in its heartland. Just one year after 9/11, terrorists linked to al-Qaeda murdered 88 Australians and over a hundred others in the Bali bombing. Their rationale? They were upset about East Timor, among other things.

We Australians are a target for Islamic terrorism, and burying your head in the sand won’t make reality go away.

You should try to read a bit more about history and geopolitics. Then you won’t make silly statements about a “war for oil” in countries that don’t have any oil.

Zeta says:

08:45am | 07/10/09

To be fair Eric, Afghanistan might not have any oil, but there was a pre-2001 proposal to build a gas / oil pipeline from Azerbaijan to Pakistan; some Dick Cheney / New World Order conspiracy theorists believe this to have been the real motivation for the war. This theory was being tossed around at the same time the first bombs were being dropped: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1626889.stm

No matter which way you slice it, even if the fringe theories about Afghanistan were true, the primary motivation for the invasion was to cut off the strategic planning arm of Al-Qaeda, which was accomplished.

It also shut down the world’s worst theocratic regime, which is slowly being replaced with a regime only slightly better, but that’s still better than one known for stoning women, blowing up ancient babylonian treasures, and beheading dissidents in soccer fields.

Afghanistan, compared to Iraq, was always the more righteous cause. It was also the more winnable war. The same challenges that invading armies face in Afghanistan, namely, maintaining supply lines in the face of a highly mobile enemy, are the same challenges faced by incoming insurgents. Once the local Taliban supporters were obliterated, the Allied forces knew they would be able to keep reinforcements out, and restrict an ongoing conflict to the fluid Pakistan border. What they didn’t count on was having their troop numbers stripped away. Afghanistan is still winnable, it just needs a big dose of political willpower.

shabangabang says:

11:26am | 07/10/09

We beat the Nazi’s and the Japanese in 6 years, but now entering the 9th year of this war, we are no closer to beating men on camels. What is going on over there?

Shane From Melbourne says:

12:15pm | 07/10/09

If the U.S was serious about the war on terrorism it would have invaded Saudi Arabia. Majority of 9/11 terrorists were of Saudi Arabian nationality. Also a large slice of the funding and recruiting for Al Qaeda went on in Saudi Arabia as well as training bases in the Sudan.

BTW the war on terrorism is a bit like the war on drugs and that has been going on for 30-40 years?

stephen says:

12:17pm | 07/10/09

Modern terrorist warfare bro’ : attack in small groups sporadically, then run. Never mass for an attack. (American Indians fought this way.) By the way, we’re losin’. The President should get over to the EU. confront Nato states, and do a ‘Rann’ with a rolled up newspaper, and get this mob to pull their wait. (France has 325,000 full-timers, and has 4000 on the ground.) The last time europe did so much runnin, was against the nazis.

iansand says:

12:35pm | 07/10/09

shabangabang@12:26 One word - Santayana.

pc says:

12:44pm | 07/10/09

There are many things Afghanistan needs; good governance (rather than the parasitical Karzai govt) roads, hospitals, schools, the list is long.

Empire or globalisation is meant to bring good governance with it and so far has failed. The obama administration (from which we are likely to take our lead) is asking serious questions of the mission and until it is satisfied there is no chance of achieving stable and representative government I suspect it is unlikely to advocate withdrawal. The problem in Afghanistan is there is no likelihood of a political settlement. The psuedo cons argue that the surge is responsible for better security in Iraq, but the soldiers and the generals fighting that conflict (U.S, Sunni and Shiite) have argued it was the deal made with Sunni factions - the Awakening councils, that slowed the trajectory towards civil war. (That trajectory is still yet to be changed.) More troops in afghanistan without a better plan for development are simply more targets, and more drones and predators are simply more reasons for people in that region of the world to hate the rest.

Razor says:

12:50pm | 07/10/09

shabangabang - the difference is not in what is going on over there, it is what is going on over here.  To misquote someone else - The soldiers in Afghanistan are at war while the Western world is shopping.  In other words - NATO isn’t committed to winning the war in Afghanistan, yet.  We won’t ever be militarily defeated, but the political war is not being “won” because of lack of political will to win.  They (the US and NATO) need to define what a desirable outcome will look like and then commit the resources requred to achieve that militarily, politcally, economically and socially.

Eric says:

03:00pm | 07/10/09

Shabangabang, in WWII the Allies bombed Germany and Japan literally to rubble, killing millions.

In Afghanistan they’re being much more gentle.