Comments on: Australia takes worst of Vietnam to Afghanistan, WTF?

By: Liz45

Liz45 — Sat, 09 May 2009 14:34:46 +0000

John Roberts - What do you mean by “we will win every time”? Win what exactly? Get rid of ‘terrorism’ -we’re it - we’re doing the acts of ‘terrorism’?It’s just not called that if you’re on the side of the US? IT’s disgusting, illegal, immoral and all instigated for the $16 trillion of oil and gas in the Caspian Sea. How many deaths? How much Depleted Uranium, cluster bombs, dead and maimed children?

“According to an article in the UK Guardian, State Department official, Christina Rocca told the Taliban at their last pipeline negotiation in Ausgust of 2001,just five weeks before 9/11,
“Accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carptet of bombs.”(From Afghanistan to Iraq-Connecting the dots with Oil. http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/47489 ) This article explains the history leading up to the invasion of both countries. Lies were fabricated to con the american people into accepting the invasions of both countries! Blair and Howard went along with the lies!

The US was interested in building a pipeline through Afghanistan, in order for the oil and gas to be piped to the West. The Clinton Administration started courting the Taliban, and the Bush Administration had 3 meetings with them prior to the threat, and certainly prior to 9/11. The people of Afghanistan have not been any danger to us or the US. We’re killing them, destroying their country for the US energy policy! Britain had a stake in this as well. Surprise! Surprise!
The Rudd Government, like the Howard Government is lying to us!

By: James O'Neill

James O'Neill — Fri, 08 May 2009 11:48:22 +0000

Perhaps Mr Guest should acquaint himself with some facts. He might not like what I have written, but it was hardly original or for that matter implausible. The claims are certainly well documented. Because the Australian mainstream media prefers not to dwell on uncomfortable realities and instead serves up a diet of public relations pap is not any reason to avoid the issues. The professionalism of the Australian army is not the issue. Attention should rather focus on the purported reasons for being there. If those reasons are invalid, as I would strongly argue, then the debate should be about whether or not they should remain. Pointing to some alleged “success” such as the assassination of an alleged militant leader completely misses the point.
I would also resepctfuly suggest to Mr Roberts that he acquaint himself with Afghan history. No country has ever won there militarily and there is no reason to believe that the current invasion will fare any better. This current war has already lasted longer than WWI. Yet the Taliban control more than two thirds of the countryside, travel except under heavily armed escort is impossible, Karzai heads one of the most corrupt governments in the world (177 out of 180 according to the UN), illegal drugs account for more than 50% of GDP, the civilian death toll far exceeds the body count for militants, and our main local allies are a collection of brutal and corrupt war lords.
Reality may not be very pleasant, but unless one is prepared to look at the evidence and argue on the facts, one is never going to see this particular misadventure for other than what is is: a misguided and illegal war for which Australia has no conceivable national security interest. Our continued presence there is in my opinion counterproductive.

By: John Roberts

John Roberts — Fri, 08 May 2009 08:46:50 +0000

Militarily in Afghanistan, we will win every time. Societally and culturally, we are inept. We can win every engagement but, we will still lose the war because there is very little appreciation within the Australian military of what it takes to be relevant to the society they are supposed to be there to win over.

The White Paper’s only reference to the import of the societal/cultural engagement we will always need to deal with is, to train more linguists. Yes, this is important, but they fail to see the urgent need to develop a professional anthropological advisor capability and to have them at the operational sharp end, helping to shape the operation.

My perspective has been formed from operational experience in Africa, Timor Leste, and three years of fulltime employment at Tarin Kowt, Uruzgan Province, employing the local people.

By: AR

AR — Fri, 08 May 2009 07:48:23 +0000

“Generals always fight the last war”. Unfortunately so do politicians. As with police, why would any half sane, decent human being want to be a soldier, “learn new skills, meet foreigners and kill them”, etc ad nauseam?

By: James Guest

James Guest — Fri, 08 May 2009 06:36:05 +0000

A lot of what you say sounds unfortunately plausible (though little of what I read in James O’Neill’s comment). One major difference between the Vietnam War and the current ones (apart from an extraordinarily reduced tolerance for American casualties despite the US Army being a volunteer army and recruited disproportionately from amongst the poor) is that conscription has gone and the Army consists only of professional soldiers. A fortiori Australian participants are an elite force. It should be possible to reduce the incidence of barbarous behaviour enormously. Is this not happening? Perhaps the level of tolerance for bad and incompetent behaviour has been reduced in recent decades which is why we do not see a marked improvement, at least subjectively.

By: James O'Neill

James O'Neill — Fri, 08 May 2009 05:22:02 +0000

Sadly, it is not at all remarkable. Australia has signed up for this latest example of western imperialism for the same reason it signed up for all the others: because a great power, in this case the US, told it to.
There are a number of parallels with Vietnam apart from the Phoenix program. Space precludes a detailed analysis, but it is useful to reflect on two aspects in particular that do not get the attention they deserve.
The first is the drug link. The war in SouthEast Asia had as one of its major components the CIA’s control of the SE Asian drug trade, with factories in Laos processing the opium into heroin, Air America doing the drug running, and the body bags from Vietnam providing one of the major means of entry into the US. The CIA is likewise heavily involved in the Afghanistan drug trade that accounts for 93% of the world’s heroin production.
All of this has been well documented, for example McCoy, Scott and Ahmed.
The second parallel is that a false flag operation was used to justify the proceedings. The Gulf of Tonkin non-attack by North Vietnamese in 1965, and the 2001 alleged Muslim attacks on New York and Washington.
As far as Australian soldiers assassinating local “militant” leaders are concerned, the Defence dept might care to reflect that the protection for soldiers for killing in wartime against charges of murder does not exist when the war is an illegal war of aggression. The invasion of Afghanistan is an illegal war. It was not justified under the limited terms of article 52 of the UN convention.
It follows that Australian and other foreign soldiers are no better than war criminals and the Nuremburg principles accordingly apply.