To the complete disinterest of the American news media, Kevin Rudd had his chat with Barack Obama yesterday.
The upshot? It seems that Obama and Rudd think stimulus spending is good, and will try to convince some of the less enthused European leaders of its merits at the G20.
Furthermore, it seems inevitable that Australia will be asked by the US to send more troops to Afghanistan; given our record of not being able to say no to Uncle Sam dating back to the Borneo campaign, what odds we’ll say no this time?
Perhaps we should have a serious discussion about Afghanistan. Should we want Rudd to say no to Australian participation there? (We could imitate the Chinese model, which is to send no troops overseas unless it’s an intervention endorsed by the UN Security Council.) But before that we probably need to talk about the global strategic situation, a discussion which has been lacking as the G-7 turns inwards in order to deal with its economic crisis. Al Qaeda still exists; do we care? Suicide bombings are still a periodic occurrence in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Should the West just leave SCO and the BRICs to sort out the global strategic order, while it gets its own affairs in order? What ideas are to guide, first of all, what is regarded as good and bad in the world, and second, the actions of Australia in that context?
I don’t know why everyone is so totally convinced that Obama will ask Rudd for more troops for Afghanistan, or that Rudd will agree. Perhaps there might be a change of strategy, from a new President, that involves less bombing and kicking in doors, and more winning hearts and minds (like Australian engineers have been quietly doing all along in reconstruction, which gets less journalistic attention than frontline SAS action). And perhaps there might be more of a political focus on fixing up the mess in Pakistan, cue Hilary. Who knows. I am just unsure why everyone is so sure that its inevitably going to be more and more of the same. Because you know it does not make sense.
My understanding in this area is imperfect, but the Europeans are not doing nothing in stimulus spending. Germany has just agreed to chuck in another 50 billion euros. I think that is on top of 30 billion earlier. That’s roughly equivalent to what Australia is doing, when adjusted for currency value and population.
They claim that the idea is to create confidence rather than spend money as such.
Isn’t the main difference between Europe and the US about the need for a new international supervisory regime, where Australia would align with Europe, and whether the banks should be left in private hands, where our situation is not analogous, except perhaps for Canada and Spain, where the banks are said to be healthy?
We’ll start saying no only when more and more Australian boys come back in body bags from Afghanistan and thousands of people come out on the streets to tell the Government to get out of there. Why should anyone think Rudd gives a shit what people think of our Afghan invol;vement at this stage even if (I gather) about 62% of Australians disapprove of us being there.
Who made the speech about the ugly heads peering at the baby and yelling and that only makes the baby cry. So maybe if they removed themselves the baby could settle down and find peace? I came to it late but I’m sure it was the Iranian spokesperson re Afghanistan.
Head pats from POTUS for PM.
Snivelling paeans to past khaki-clad adventures from PM for POTUS.
Ho hum. Wake me up when something happens.
‘Perhaps there might be a change of strategy, from a new President, that involves less bombing and kicking in doors, and more winning hearts and minds (like Australian engineers have been quietly doing all along in reconstruction, which gets less journalistic attention than frontline SAS action). And perhaps there might be more of a political focus on fixing up the mess in Pakistan, cue Hilary.’
If you have a look at the graph in this post, you’ll see that the Obama administration has been enthusiastically continuing the use Predator Drones for airstrikes in Pakistan. The Bush administration was already stepping these up in 2008.
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/03/airstrikes_in_pakistan.php
As the post says – this tactic needs a lot more attention from the media. Especially the Australian media if more of our troops are on the way.
Perhaps I’m being a little impatient (it’s only an hour since my last comment), but could we have a little more strategic thinking please. So far we are talking about bodybags, airstrikes, winning hearts and minds, and upset babies. Let’s go back to first principles: why is there a war in Afghanistan at all and why are we involved. Let us consider the problem first in the abstract and then as it pertains to us specifically. Is it a good thing or a bad thing, in principle, to have foreign military forces in Afghanistan, fighting Taliban and chasing terrorists? And is it a good thing or a bad thing for Australian military forces to be among them?
Might not the foreign military forces be the terrorists?
Ok then:
‘why is there a war in Afghanistan at all’
Because the Taliban decided they would let Al Qaida use Afghanistan as a base from which to attack the ‘far enemy’ (the USA), and droppins sub poenas down the Tora Bora caves wasn’t going to work.
Afghanistan is also the weak point in the arc of instability from the Middle East to South Asia.
‘why are we involved’
Because we are a US ally and a Western nation. Our elites and the US elites see our interests as essentially the same. The US Alliance is our preferred method of having defence on the cheap (armed neutrality is expensive) – but we have to make symbolic contributions from time to time.
‘Is it a good thing or a bad thing, in principle, to have foreign military forces in Afghanistan, fighting Taliban and chasing terrorists? And is it a good thing or a bad thing for Australian military forces to be among them?’
If the answer to the first question is ‘yes’ then the answer to the second question is ‘yes’. It would be a better thing for there to be no foreign military forces in Afghanistan, but would a combination of Taliban and Al Qaida return? Is that a situation Australia could accept if NATO did a deal with a worst case Afghan government? Australia would have to accept whatever the outcome is because we have zero influence on the situation really.
The class will come to order.
Of course, the whole rationale is nonsense. 9/11-style operations are more efficiently organised in Hamburg apartments than in some freezing hole in the Hindu Kush.
As it stands, the Afghan adventure achieves no discernible western objective. Indeed, it helps to destabilise Pakistan, a country that for nuclear and for sheer population-size reasons, is immune from invasion and occupation by any force on earth.
If no western country should be in Afghanistan for the reasons stated by the Coalition, then it stands to reason that Australia should not be there either.
Are there any sufficient unstated and perhaps unstateable reasons for a western occupation of Afghanistan? No. There is nothing that can be gained from the adventure that is worth a tenth of the price in treasure and blood.
mitchell, it is surely enough for us to learn from our history. Our military history is mostly about sending diggers to the other side of the world in order to curry favour with an overstretched and declining empire.
That has brought us nothing but pain in the past, so the starting presumption should be that this time is no different. Proponents of our involvement will need a strong case to rebut this. And they don’t have it – no-one can even articulate what “victory” would look like in Afghanistan, let alone how it is likely to be achieved.
Khatami’s speech shows that the neighbours are far more worried about the instability in Afghansistan caused by foreign occupation than they are of the Taliban itself. Why should we be any different?
Robert I haven’t time to do the research but my recollection of the Borneo campaign is that Macarthur was decidely unenthusiastic about the whole thing but the Australian government insisted on it. After all a large Australian army was kicking its heels at home and the government wanted to argue that it had made a more substantial contribution to defeating Japan.
As to Afghanistan … we’re fighting to help the US feel good about itself. Hope the bereaved families think it’s a worthwhile cause.
By Chav:”Might not the foreign military forces be the terrorists?”
I think this question, with the answer obviously being “Yes’ needs to be the crux of any discussion.
It would be an mildly interesting exercise to list the countries since say, oh, maybe 1901 or perhaps the timer frame could be in my lifetime say WW2, that Australia has followed some othe bigger bestest friend into and killed the locals.
Always with the bestest of reasons of course, of course!
Anybody care to make the list?
“Ok then:
‘why is there a war in Afghanistan at all’
Because the Taliban decided they would let Al Qaida use Afghanistan as a base from which to attack the ‘far enemy’ (the USA), and droppins sub poenas down the Tora Bora caves wasn’t going to work.”
Or, the US seized the opportunity to expand it influence in the oil and gas rich Central Asian region, place military bases on China’s left flank, Russia’s south and Iran’s east.
Saying you believe the US went into Afghanistan to deal with bin laden is like saying you believe the USSR did the same in order to shore up a peace-loving regime, liberate women, and drag the country “kicking and screaming” into the 20th century.
Incidentally, bin Laden is still on the loose and Al Qaeda still operative. Regime change (sort of) and pummeling ordinary Afghanis with air strikes has yet to change this situation. Perhaps a sub poena may have been more effective, given Mullah Omar offered to hand bin Laden over if the US could prove he carried out 9/11.
Katz@11″Of course, the whole rationale is nonsense. 9/11-style operations are more efficiently organised in Hamburg apartments than in some freezing hole in the Hindu Kush.” Exactly. Rudd is a more sophisticated toady than Howard and Obama is definitely more sophiticated and nuanced than GWB.
There are only really two courses, occupy the shit out of the place with massive force and kill every man woman or child who dares resist or stay right out.
What these new sophisticates will do is settle for the third way – a police state solution, where we go in to provide traing to the police. This will keep the white mans burden in his place by jingo.
Of course the trans Afghanistan gas pipeline will have nothing at all to do with this program. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1984459.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Afghanistan_Pipeline
huggy
http://www.sauer-thompson.com/
Interesting post at this site re Afghanistan and media.
C’mon Huggybunny:
“There are only really two courses, occupy the shit out of the place with massive force and kill every man woman and child who dares resist or stay right out.”
Can’t we on the Left have a better discussion than this? Like just about everyone on the Left, I have a deep scepticism about war and a strong anti-imperialist streak. If a tiny fraction of the money spent in Iraq had been spent on reconstruction in Afghanistan, we’d probably be on our way out of Afghanistan by now.
But the Taliban insurgency is unlikely to develop into the kind of war the Soviets faced for the simple reason that the Taliban don’t have the kind of superpower backing that the anti-Soviet muhahideen had from the U.S.
I’d just make the point that unlike Iraq, the toppling of the Taliban had some kind of moral basis to it (as well as being sanctioned by the UN): there was a clear casus belli – Sept. 11.
I’ve been struck by how reluctant Rudd has been to commit more troops, attaching lots of conditions. I think we should be very careful about committing more troops.
I’d like to hear specifically from women at LP: aren’t you concerned about returning the women of Afghanistan to the tender mercies of the Taliban?
… i meant Muhahideen.
“Of course the trans Afghanistan gas pipeline will have nothing at all to do with this program …”
Sigh. Groan. Not this old chestnut again. Would you care to explain what exactly the US might gain from the pipeline? (Assuming it is ever built.) The American company Unocal bowed out of the project a decade ago.
To put it in terms of the internet meme:
1. The national oil companies of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India agree to build a pipeline to get natural gas from Turkmenistan to India and Pakistan.
2. ???
3. PROFIT!!! for the United States.
Huggybunny, when you can explain to me what step 2 is, I might be inclined to take you more seriously.
Its such a welcome relief to see President Obama meet PM Rudd. I can now consider US-AU relations without feeling nauseous.
“9/11-style operations are more efficiently organised in Hamburg apartments than in some freezing hole in the Hindu Kush.”
OK, Katz, then why exactly did OBL establish bases and training camps in Afghanistan? Why didn’t he just move his entire organisation to the rather more agreeable climes of Europe?
The answer, of course, is that it is extremely useful for terrorist organisations to have safe bases where they can do as they please, without fear of a police SWAT team coming through the windows at 3 am.
And here’s another question for you. Over the last 8 years, it was convenient for you to characterise Bush’s entire foreign policy as the acts of a fool. Fine. But now we have someone at the helm of the US who is evidently not a fool — as even his worst detractors would acknowledge. Furthermore, he’s appointed a bunch of very experienced and qualified foreign policy advisers.
So why hasn’t the Obama administration realised that “the whole rationale is nonsense”, as you put it? Are you claiming to be so much smarter and better informed than Obama and his entire team? Or what?
Rudd in Washington. In teh Oval Office. WOW.
Coming Soon: the Obama Doctrine. C’mon, you know there’s going to be one – it’s the fashionable thing for the POTUS to do these days. Then everyone’ll know how much change there’s been lol
Such a shame about Afghanistan, it was all going so well. Then the whole Iraq thingy happened and we failed to consolidate. Now, because we didn’t do so, it’s too late to.
So what do we do now? We wait. The Oz position will be determined by the US’s, as it always has been since the fall of Singapore. Wait for the Obama Doctrine hahaha
Uh? Sorry, I was distracted.
So… exactly where do the Bezerk Bikie Gangs fit into all of this????
Lefty E 21 Hear! Hear!
Zorronsky 5 – I heard that too, it was the translator of a high ranking Iraqi leader (Nourri Al Malaki?)speaking in Sydney recently about the need for the US to withdraw from his country. I thought it was a brilliant metaphor – the ugly intrusive woman peering into the baby’s face and trying to stop it from crying while everyone around was telling her that if she stepped away and left it alone it might stop and become calm!
Perhaps Obama is capable of understanding that sort of subtlety? And perhaps Rudd can come up with some appropriate Chinese aphorisms for his new friend in Washington which will help bring Beijing into the tent.
For Hannah’s Dad at #14:
Australia’s military entanglements: 1899 to present (Part 1)
1899 South Africa – Second Boer War
Reason: Boer farmers in territories they had carved out from native African peoples, after being evicted, by the Brits, from the South Cape colonies they’d carved out, refused to give the vote to British subjects helping to extract gold and diamonds from said lands. (According to the best history book available to me, 1066 and all that, the true reason was that there’d only been one Boer Woer, and it was to cheer up Queen Vic. This reason is equally as justified.)
Australia’s justification:Queen and country (I say this as the great grandson of Sgt Mjr PJC Wallace, 1st Contingent, Victorian Mounted Rifles).
Note: the first contingents were from the colonies, there was no “Australia” at the time
Opposition within Australia:Actually quite a lot, as many saw the Boers as being rather similar to themselves, eg farmers in territories they had carved out from native
AfricanAustralian peoplesResult:Haig, Hamilton, concentration camps, Captain Maygar’s VC, total incompetence on part of British High Command (totally ignored every lesson learned from US Civil War about rifled weapons, etc), Redvers Buller, Baden-Powell
1900-1901 – Boxer Rebellion (China)
Reason:Chinese dissatisfaction with European carving up of their country, mystical belief that I-ho-ch’uan (the Righteous and Harmonious Fists) were bulletproof, opium (probably helped with preceding reason)
Australia’s justification:Queen and Country. Maybe a touch of White Australia.
Opposition within Australia:None?
Result:Boxers slaughtered by thousands. Japanese Navy, Army occupy parts of China. Australian Navy’s first active role- no ships lost
1914-1919 Europe, Middle East – First World War
Reason:SNIP due to length and incomprehensibility
Australia’s justification: Britain had declared war, therefore we were at war. Queen and Empire. Kitchener Needs Us! Remember Belgium! (I have the badge)
Opposition within Australia: Not a lot to begin with, but became progressively stronger on the issue of conscription, not participation, during 1916/1917 Conscription Plebiscites opposed mainly by Catholics (esp after Easter Rebellion of 1916 in Ireland) and (half of) Labor, but also including the troops themselves. CofE was 110% behind war and conscription.
Result: Australian expedition captures German New Guinea. Gallipoli (see Hamilton above). AIF. horrendous casualties all round (see Haig above). Australian Light Horse having their deeds usurped by T E Lawrence. AIF having its deeds bracketed under heading “British forces”. RAN protects the Mediterranean and North Sea (two submarines lost).
First split of the Labor Party. Significant incompetence on part of all High Commands (again ignored US Civil War and Boer War). Artillery. John Monash. August 8 1918. commencement of Australian tradition to never bloody salute. RSL (which never reached even 50% participation of all returned troops). Japanese Navy, Army occupy parts of China. A Hitler. Many of Australia’s best and brightest buried in France and Flanders.
For Hannah’s Dad at #14: (you asked for it!)
Australia’s military entanglements: 1899 to present (Part 2)
1919: Russian Civil war
Reason: Sergei Eisenstein
Australia’s justification: Our troops were only volunteers still hanging around in Britain
Opposition within Australia: ?
Result: V Lenin, I Stalin, best ever line in Steptoe and Son
1939-1945 – Second World War (Part 1)
Reason: A Hitler, a piece of paper, the First World War had (essentially) not actually finished
Australia’s justification: see same topic, First World War. Actually, we could have stayed out (South Africa essentially did for much of the War) but not under a Menzies government.
Opposition within Australia: Practically none, apart from on the docks (due to Soviet-Nazi non-aggression pact). There was a marked reduction in enthusiasm to join up, compared to 1914, except for the RAAF, which everyone wanted to join so long as they were given a Spitfire
Result: 2nd AIF back to the Middle East, Light Horse (ditto) now drove Bren carriers, RAAF filled out British Squadrons (apart from nos 10 and 3 Sq RAAF, until 1941, when Empire Air Training Scheme created nominal RAAF squadrons under RAF command, such as 450, 452, 453, 457 fighter Sqs and 460, 462, 467 Bomber Sqs), RAN protects the Mediterranean.
Business as usual in Menzies’ Australia. Wirraways and Beauforts built in Australia for RAF/RAAF use. Benghazi and Mersa Mertruh taken, Tobruk defended, Greece and Crete lost (Australian and NZ troops the main British forces sent – see Gallipoli above etc), Syria captured (from French). 9th Division wins El Alamein. HMAS Sydney lost with all hands. Bulk of RAAF fights over Europe – principally in Bomber Command – with 76% casualty rate
1939-1945 – Second World War (Part 2)
Reason: Japan gives its answer to the “China Problem”, other school kids and teacher put them into detention. Japan objects. With Dutch and French occupied by Germany, Brits overextended in North Africa and Europe, Russians being annihilated by invading German Armies, and US officially (if not actually) trying to stay out of war, opportunity to gain South East Asia’s resources was to good to miss
Australia’s justification: 8th Division destroyed in Malaysia, rest of AIF not captured in Greece and Crete facing off against Rommel, RAAF destroyed in Malaysia/Java/Rabaul and/or flying over Europe, RAN either in Mediterranean or badly mauled in SE Asia, it was fight for life time
Opposition within Australia: Funnily enough, very, very little (except dockworkers). As for opposition to the actual Japanese advance, mainly untrained militia. Most advanced fighter aircraft operated in Australia at the time was either a Wirraway trainer or a 1937 Hawker Demon biplane (take your pick about which was more effective against the A6M2 Zero – Rabaul showed the Wirraway’s effectiveness).
Result: Curtin busts many blood vessels before he gets bulk of AIF back to Australia (it was nearly a year later before the 9th Division returned) while Churchill kept sending the ships to Burma. MacArthur.
Kokoda. Buna. Gona. Milne Bay. (Note, all of these reported as “Allied victories” by MacArthur). Australia looks to America (to save us) seeing as the RN was on the bottom of the South China Sea or had booked itself out in the Mediterranean/North Sea/Baltic sea/Atlantic/Ceylon sorry about that chasps. Yanks arrive. We get a few squadrons of Spitfires (our own 452 and 457 Sqs plus an RAF Sq) and heaps of Kittyhawks. Boomerang fighter results from crossing a Wirraway with a Beaufort. We design and build our own tanks. Australian industry has massive expansion as economy goes onto full war footing.
RAN finds numerous novel ways to lose ships. HMAS Krait/Operation Jaywick attacks Singapore. Hollandia last significant part of New Guinea captured by Aust forces.
Philippines becomes all-American effort. Nimitz wins Pacific War by building airfields. AIF and militia retake Bouganville and Borneo, although largely mopping up efforts.
Curtin dies in office after surrendering Australian forces to MacArthur. Aust built Beauforts probably dropped the last bombs of the Pacific war. Blamey (and other non-US leaders) conveniently left out of frame on all the major photos of signing of Japanese surrender by MacArthur on USS Missouri. 8th Division/HMAS Perth etc survivors (and others caught in Java/Bouganville etc) return home.
Note: One third of Australian POW deaths due to Japanese prison ships being sunk, usually by US subs. US not to blame, as none of these ships were marked according to Geneva Convention with Red Cross etc. Took decades before Japanese goods were accepted by Australians.
thanks brettc: looking forward to parts 2 and 3.
Are you in the habit of assuming that because OBL made a certain decision it had to be the best decision? If so you must have a deep reverence for the man.
How many of the 9/11 operatives trained for their mission in Afghanistan? Mohamed Atta trained in the US!
The Power of Nightmares argues persuasively that OBL had hardly any infrastructure at all in Afghanistan. The footage we have seen of “al Qaeda” operatives in Afghanistan were in fact hired extras supplied by the Taliban.
Remember the breathless reports that ran in the western media about Dr Strangelove-style caves and bunker systems allegedly operated by al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Nothing of the sort was ever found.
As to your rather dyspeptic comments about my allegedly superiority of grasp of the situation in comparison with Obama, I too could argue from authority and state that Major General Stretton, who has had a lifetime of military experience attempting to combat insurgencies, has opined that Afghanistan is a fool’s errand. However, I won’t resort to that cheap trick.
I’ll merely observe that Obama has many other matters to consider. He must think of how to maintain workable relationships with a wide range of interest groups both in his own country and around the world. Ramping up the Afghanistan commitment may be designed to serve a larger purpose than any of us can at this time perceive.
Then again, Obama may be as big an idiot as Bush. The jury is still out.
Good stuff brettc, echo Ambigulous’ comment.
Australia’s military entanglements: 1899 to present (Part 3)
1947 – Nederland East Indies/Indonesia (Peacekeeping)
Reason: Indonesian independence movement (many of whom -Sukarno, Suharto, etc- worked for the Japanese during 1942 to 1945) kicks Dutch out. British (under Mountbatten) stuff up restoration, Dutch stuff up recapture of NEI. Independence war begins.
Australia’s justification: Our first peacekeeping gig. Basically supportive of Indonesian independence, we were trusted to be peacekeepers. The eastern parts of Indonesia that Australian troops had captured at the end of WW2 were much more peaceful and stable.
Opposition within Australia: None?
Result: Indonesia
1948-1960 – Malayan Emergency
Reason: British desperate to get as much money from recovered Malayan territories overreact to locals, Communist Party (largely ethnic Chinese) that the Brits had formed, armed and trained during Japanese occupation takes up arms
Australia’s justification: Anti-Communist, dominoes, Queen and Empire, etc
Opposition within Australia: ?
Result: No 2 Squadron drops thousands of tons of bombs into jungle, Aust SAS formed. Effective counter insurgency tactics (which involved removing rebel’s support structure) developed.
1950-1953 – Korean War
Reason: North Korea invades South Korea (over 1945 border) while USSR has absented from the UN Security Council. UN declares war.
Australia’s justification: We still had Army and RAAF forces on occupation duty in Japan. Dominoes. It was a UN gig.
Opposition within Australia:
Result: No 77 Sq RAAF in action within days. Aust Army becomes part of Commonwealth forces, RAN operates with both RN and USN. We have our own aircraft carrier, that gets used and provides very useful air power. RAAF enters jet age when converts from Mustangs to (British) Meteor. We manage to shoot down some MiGs but Meteor found to no longer be top of line. MacArthur all but forces Chinese intervention, gets sacked. Kapyong. War turns into stalemate. Alan Alda.
1963-1966 – Konfrontasi (Malaysia, Borneo, PNG)
Reason: Indonesia under new management trying to expand at expense of neighbours (a continuing story)
Australia’s justification: Treaties with Malaysia, Singapore, etc, PNG was Australian territory, Indonesians rather too close to Russians, Tupelovs flying recon over Northern Australia
Opposition within Australia: Did anyone know what was going on?
Result: SHHHH, but the borders got stabilised and Indonesia didn’t invade anyone until 1975
1962-1975 – Vietnam
Reason: End of WW2 saw French Indochina needing US and British help to regain their empire. Vietnamese meanwhile had come to like making their own decisions after basically neutralising the Japanese themselves. French eventually kicked out and UN mandates national elections within 2 years. Not sure what happened next, but somehow the US ends up supporting minority corrupt and Catholic (correlation only, not necessarily causation) governments in a Buddhist southern region, while a communist North was pissed off that the elections were never held.
Australia’s justification: Dominoes again (we really should have our maps with South at the top, would’ve saved a lot of heartache). We needed the US nearby to help us like they didn’t when we wanted Western New Guinea to remain non-Indonesian. And things just grew: you send in a few trainers, they need some protection (the AATTV? Really?), throw in a squadron of Canberras, and next thing you know you’re in a shooting war.
Opposition within Australia: Very little at first, but built up over the years.
Result: Vietnamese reunification held up by about 20 years at cost of a million or so lives. Now busy building themselves into another Asian dragon. Whole of Indochina destabilised, leading to Pathet Lao, Kmer Rouge, Golden Triangle, and incredible corruption and hardship.
It’s Time.
Having lost their first war, after a decade of foetal position, US rethought themselves based on John Wayne, having rarely found a war since they didn’t like.
Well, I am in the habit of assuming that he knew a little something about waging terrorist operations. He had been in the game for long enough.
In any event, even if you are correct about the al-Qaeda infrastructure being smaller than people thought (but what exactly then did Clinton fire those Tomahawks at in 1998?) nonetheless a Taliban-run Afghanistan would still undoubtedly provide facilities for like-minded Islamist groups.
This is the sort of fun they get up to when they have secure bases, in the words of one of their star recruits:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22957532-5001561,00.html
Do we really want a new generation of recruits leaving Afghanistan, “capable and war-ready”, heading for India or Russia or Western Europe … or even further afield?
brettc,
OT: what’s your source for “Tupelovs flying recon over Northern Australia”? The TNI-AU did acquire Tu-16 Badgers, which were theoretically capable of striking northern Australia, but I’m not aware of any incident during Konfrontasi where they violated Australian airspace.
The US Coalition has occupied Afghanistan for 8 (EIGHT!) years. Evidently there are more people in both Afghanistan and in neighbouring Pakistan today who “are capable and war ready” than there were the day the first US boot hit Afghan soil.
This is proof positive that the entire effort is worse than futile, it is fundamentally counter-productive.
Too late! It’s happening more and more already. Ham-fisted westerners blunder around Afghanistan and absurdly launch their drones into neighbouring Pakistan. These idiots are the most effective recruiting sergeants Islamists have ever had.
Islamists have made giant strides in the region. The day Bush blundered into Afghanistan, Pakistan was a stable, tractable dictatorship. Today this huge country is tottering.
Westerners egocentrically assume that the major target of Islamism was the West. That’s ridiculous. Islamists have focussed on achieving followers in Islamic countries like Pakistan. And Westerners, by their stupidity, have assisted Islamists in achieving this objective.
Katz – I think you mean Dr Evil (or Ernst Stravo Blofeld if you prefer). Doc Strangelove never had an underground volcano lair, unless you count NORAD – Oh. I see what you’re getting at.
Paulus: Re the Tu-14s. It’s anecdotal, from a couple of people I’ve worked with in the past who had extremely good reasons to know.
I started my working life at Government Aircraft Factories in the late 70s. Having always been interested about aircraft, I often chatted about same with others there. Some people I worked with were pretty senior, had very strong RAAF/Defence etc backgrounds and were people I trusted when they said about things they saw or knew.
BTW: U2s were being flown out of Laverton at about the same time.
Australia’s military entanglements: 1899 to present (Part 4)
I’m going to leave off on Iraq (1 and 2) and Afghanistan (yay sez all) because you lot are doing that very well. So to finish, here are a few comments on the various peacekeeping efforts.
One thing I’ve noticed, at the Shrine and again putting this together, is that the Australian defence forces are effectively the White Gurkhas or Sepoys (Imperial Stormtroopers?), sent off to troublespots all over the world as part of sommeone else’s army or cause; originally British, subsequently US or UN.
And since WW2, we have not had very many years where we were not involved in a conflict somewhere. Bit sobering, that.
various – Peacekeeping/ceasefire monitoring
Locations: See this page for a pretty full listing of our peacekeeping efforts. These include:
1956-present – Sinai/Gaza/West Bank (peacekeeping/ceasefire monitoring)
1964-present – Cyprus
1979-1980 – Southern Rhodesia
1989-1990– Namibia
1991-1993 – Cambodia
1992-1995 – Somalia
1994-1995 – Rwanda
1999-present – East Timor
2000-present – Ethiopia/Eritrea
2003-present – Solomon Islands (police)
2005-present – Sudan
Reason: Good world citizenship, being founding member of the UN and all. As well as peacekeeping we are involved in ceasefire monitoring and supporting NGOs in humanitarian missions.
Australia’s justification: Generally humanitarian (Rwanda, Somalia), sometimes imperial support (Iraq, Afghanistan), sometimes for our own interests (Solomon Islands, East Timor) or combinations thereof. I’d like to think it’s more often humanitarian/citizenship, but am sadly disappointed in the main.
Opposition within Australia: Case by case, has been some opposition from interested parties.
Result: I think we are in the top echelon of nations wanted on peacekeeping missions in most areas. Lately of course, in our Deputy Sheriff days especially, we’ve been perceived here and overseas as being too tightly bound to the US, but we don’t have any debacles like the Americans in Lebanon or Somalia, or the Dutch in Bosnia, for example. And unlike many nations, we won’t strip anything not thoroughly bolted down when we leave.
One debatable result is that our military is heavily skewed towards cooperating in multi-national forces, with Timor and the Solomon islands being the only engagements where we were in command. We are still Soldiers of the Empire, reliant on others to defend us, and not in full control of our forces and how they are projected.
“Evidently”? It’s not evident to me. In their war with the Northern Alliance from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban were fielding an army of around 45,000 (just before 9/11). They were backed by armoured vehicles, artillery, and even some aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Civil_War_(1996-2001)
Their battles with the NA, and against the US-NA alliance in 2001, involved thousands of militants.
Skirmishes now involve dozens, or occasionally hundreds — nowhere near the numbers seen in 2001 and before. Estimates of total Taliban strength now are around 10-12,000, one-quarter of what they used to be.
The fact that they’re still going after 8 years does not bother me. This fight might take 80 years to win — but would still be worth fighting.
There were many parts of the world that used to be like Afghanistan, in the sense of containing hard terrain and harder tribesmen. Scotland was like that, 2000 years ago. The Picts managed to wipe out an entire Roman legion, somehow.
But the English put the boots on the ground, and kept the boots there over the centuries, and eventually turned the place into a moderately civilised part of Europe. It can be done, if there is the will and the patience.
Yeah, and apart from anything (everything) else wrong with those statements, the Picts happened to live next door, not 20 countries away. Got any more appropriate historical analogies?
Sure, Nick. India. Without wanting to sound like an apologist for everything done in the name of imperialism, nevertheless we managed to leave the place with a functioning parliamentary system, judiciary, and civil service.
Even next door in the rapidly failing Pakistan, elements of the British legacy still remain — I’m particularly thinking of the judges and lawyers — and now constitute a centre of opposition to dictatorship and fundamentalism.
So we’re assuming that keeping boots solidly on the ground in Afghanistan and Predators prowling would prevent the violent events in Riyadh, Mumbai, Jakarta, Istanbul, Madrid, London, Amman, Ankara, Bali, Glasgow, Hyderabad, Karachi, Jaipur, Bangalore and Yemen?
Oh, and the attacks in Afghanistan…. presumably.
Paulus, Afghanistan is about NATO and the deal with the US to protect The limp wristed wankers in Europe from the Persian,Pakistsan,Afghanistan “threat”; this includes access to resources, the encirclement of China and Iran and all that shit. It just the same old great game. The war against “Terrorism” is a cover, remember the “terrorists” were armed and trained by the US and guess who supported the military regime in Pakistan?
Huggy
Note what one very eminent former Green wrote about the conflict at the end of 2007.
Joschka Fischer.
Scotland was like that, 2000 years ago. The Picts managed to wipe out an entire Roman legion, somehow. But the English put the boots on the ground, and kept the boots there over the centuries, and eventually turned the place into a moderately civilised part of Europe. It can be done, if there is the will and the patience.
C’mon Paulus. Scotland is not exactly emulatable – a personal union with England under James VI followed by a political union some 100 years later. How are we going to replicate this in Afghanistan? Marry off Prince Willy or Harry to some Pashtun tribesperson?
And the Scots civilized themselves – as civilized as other places in Europe. They had their own reformation, for example. And it’s not like the English were civilized when they came invading in the 1300s.
Huggy, in
remember the “terrorists” were armed and trained by the US
would you care to say why you put ” ” around the word terrorists? I would have thought a small group of men who destroyed two very large city buildings leading to a death toll of say 3,000 could well deserve the descriptor
*terrorists*
sub-editor@47
These people were not “terrorists” when they fought the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. They only became “terrorists” when they turned and bit the hand that fed them (the US).
Bush, Obama, Blair and Rudd are all too free with the term and all too ready to use the “war against terror” as a cover for Imperial adventure and white mans advantage.
Huggy
Some of my comrades really lose their minds on subjects like this.
brettc: you forgot something. Korea, result: millions of South Koreans have lived decent lives, and aren’t starving to death in one giant, terrifying Gulag. South Korea has since evolved from a military dictatorship (which, sad to say, would still have been preferable to the totalitarian North) into a prosperous, thriving, interesting democracy. Complete vindication.
Despite the asymmetry of power (to use a horrible piece of jargon) I saw the decision to topple the Taliban as an act of self-defence on America’s part.
And Huggybunny: the Mujahideen was supported by the US (who were helping turn back the imperialist Soviet invasion of Afghanistan). The fact that elements of the Mujahideen have since turned on their former ally tells us nothing at all about the US. It wouldn’t be the first time that a country has turned around and betrayed a former benefactor. Isn’t the US the aggreived party in all this?…sorry, I forgot, U.S. always bad/stupid/has hidden motives (usually involving money).
Funny that America didn’t continue its imperialist adventure – with all those hidden motives – once the Russians quit Afghanistan.
Down and Out: yes, OK, I was being a bit silly with that Scottish analogy. Union in Britain hastened Scottish economic and cultural integration with Europe — as well as providing a fine source of soldiers, engineers and civil servants* for the Empire — but there are enormous differences between that and the Afghan situation. So I withdraw the comparison.
[*Including my grandfather, born in Inverness, who became a mid-ranking official in the Colonial Office. Which may help to explain my benign view of Empire.]
Now there’s an idea! (It would be particularly good to see them married off to male Pashtun tribespersons!)
While you’re in a withdrawing mood Paulus, I’ll give you a chance to withdraw the above.
Consider.
Before the invasion the Taliban were the de facto government that may not have had a monopoly of power but at least had a fair slice of power. They were capable of servicing and running their ragtag collection of ex-Soviet and ex-god-knows-what infrastructure against their internal enemies.
When the US invaded in 2001 the inadequacy of the Taliban military establishment was brutally exposed.
Since then, the Taliban have gone insurgent and cross-border. They are now a completely different and much more troublesome force than they were in 2001. Perhaps you have missed the many statements from US military figures and strategists who are lamenting that the Coalition is losing the war in the region.
And the Taliban threat is regional. Afghanistan per se isn’t the most troubling issue. Pakistan is.
Down and Out: Totally agree with what you say about Korea, so I should say thanks to my Uncle Bill Hempel who spent 9 months or so freezing has arse off there during 1953 (fortunately after all the shooting had stopped).
Actualy Korea would be the absolute best case solution to Afghanistan, although it took over 40 years to get there and didn’t have a mid-level insurrection going on. And the earlier dictatorships were pretty brutal.
While I still think there were better ways to deal with the Taliban about al Quaeda than invading the country (didn’t anyone read any histories of Afghanistan before they went in?) now that we’re there I think that we should be ensuring that the people benefit: infrastructure, schools, hospitals, fostering business. Like Korea, the freedoms are then likely to come from within.
Of cours, the possibly fatal mistake was the diversion of resources to a truly unnecessary war in Iraq.
brettc.
Flood the country with consumer goods, cheap videos, credit and education and health programs and you will win. Flood the country with trailer trash troops and brutal repression and you will lose. That’s the lesson for today, actually it’s the lesson of history – check out Rome and the British empire and the Ottoman empire and any empire you want to name.
Ginga ninja, next you will be telling us that the US was entirely motivated by selfless altruism in Afghanistan. It was a straight out Imperial conflict; was then, is now and always will be.
Huggy.
I only withdraw when I’m wrong about something.
Different, yes. Much more troublesome, no. To take what was, in the regional context, a reasonably powerful army, and reduce it to a bunch of goons launching sporadic hit-and-run raids and laying IEDs, is what most people would refer to as a “victory”. Or at least good progress towards victory.
They are capable of much less harm than they were in 2001. True, they’re also much harder to target now. One is a trade-off for the other.
Agree totally. But what I find incomprehensible is your implicit assumption that the Taliban, if allowed to re-take Afghanistan, would then down arms and return to the Islamist version of an Amish paradise.
OBL made it clear that vanquishing the “distant enemies” (Russia and America) was just a prelude to dealing with the “near enemies” (the governments of most of the Muslim world).
Imagine what power their propaganda would hold: having banished the world’s most advanced military powers — the US and NATO — what could they not achieve? The impressionable would flock to their banner. And Islamabad, far from being safer as a result of the Western departure, would find itself in even greater peril.
A young, aggressive, religiously-inspired soldiery will keep on going if they achieve success. They won’t just return to the farm.
“All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.” {2004}
So it’s a win-win.
Not according to David Kilcullen
And then, this:
Huh? Where the hell did I say that?
Although Kilcullen did point to the inherent difficulties of attempting to do what the Coalition is doing in Afghanistan:
If the puppet government of Kabul can’t be trusted to retrieve a bicycle, how on earth can the Coalition appear credible while attempting to prop it up?
“Huh? Where the hell did I say that?”
Well, you didn’t say that in so many words, but you seem to be arguing that the prospects for Pakistan would improve if the West left the region, and the Taliban were allowed to go guns blazing in Afghanistan.
That suggests that you think that after the Karzai regime gets wiped out, the Taliban would turn their swords into ploughshares and not go gunning for control of Pakistan.
But if that’s not in fact your prognosis, what exactly do you see happening if Kabul falls (for a second time) to them, with the West out of the picture?
Afghanistan’s the geo-political Thunderdome. “Many grand plans go in. None come out.”
Wrong again Paulus.
My criticisms were of the western mission as it was conceived and as it has evolved. Clearly, some form of engagement was and is necessary.
The general rule is if your course of treatment is making the condition worse, then cease that course of treatment. The Coalition is unwilling to adopt other courses of treatment.
Infuriatingly, the Bush clique, through their arrogance and complacency, have made the task even more difficult than it was in late 2001. This record of failure cannot be unwritten. The Taliban have certainly learned from it, as have the Pashtun, whose tribal solidarity has now been engaged against the Coalition, with dire effects for Pakistan and the wider region.
The Coalition will tire of the slow attrition of their extremely expensive and politically sensitive military assets long before a growing insurgency tires of killing them. This calculation should have been written into the original war plans. Plainly, it wasn’t.
What is the correct approach now? I don’t know. But be assured it isn’t a continuation of the Bush policy.