Yesterday the debate in Parliament on the Afghanistan war began. There was no debate between the ALP and Liberals who are both committed to the indefinite colonial occupation of Afghanistan by the U.S. and its western allies. The PM's speech was briefly interrupted by anti-war activist Marlene Obeid who labeled Gillard a "war criminal" as she was ejected from the public gallery.
Gillard two justifications for keeping troops in Afghanistan in some form for the rest of this decade "at least", were that we are helping to prevent Afghanistan become " a safe haven for terrorists, a place where attacks on us and our allies begin". However she then went on to state the real reason why we are in Afghanistan "to stand firmly by our Alliance commitment to the United States, formally invoked following the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001."
Once again Australia is fulfilling its role as loyal ally in prosecuting a bloody U.S. imperial war against a third world country.
Stand Fast the Veteran anti-war group has also drawn attention to the fact that the cost to Australian soldiers goes much higher than those killed and that thousands of young Australians are being condemned to a future dominated by post-traumatic stress and even suicide.
The first MP to give an anti-war speech was the Greens MP Adam Bandt who slammed the justifications for the war as false. Adam draw attention to the oppresive and corrupt nature of the Karzai Government, of the thousands of civilian deaths and the lie that the war protects us from terrorism.
Analysis of the speeches from the World Socialist Web
Note: Image reproduced from the Green Left weekly - by Pip Henman
Comments
Re: ALP and Liberal warmongers committ to indefinite ...
"slammed the justifications for the war as false" The only falsity is for the facts by the Greens they should Stand Back and connect the dots. Clearly this is not a war fought in one or two theaters but one being fought across the Globe. Withdrawing from one theater or any others is not going to stop the killing it never has nor ever will.
This is not a conflict which has appeared from nowhere it has been going on since the seventh century. The fact is the world has shrunk artificial boundaries drawn on maps mean nothing. Conflict can no longer be avoided due to the logistics of distance and supply.
As with any insurgency you cannot withdraw from the field into bunkers. Denial of freedom of movement and support has to be right in the face of the insurgents in what they claim as their own territory otherwise you lose in the long run.
Being in the front line and confronting the clear hypocrisy, absurdity and brutality of war does not mean walking away is going to resolve anything it will make it worse.
Why is that? Because the textual template of the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Iranian elite, etc cannot stand without the imposition of terror against other – internal and external. The existence of other societal systems are simply an anathema to these people because such systems show what they are preaching is utter nonsense. As it has from the beginning. Irrational behavior is the norm driven by the text itself, pick it up and read it.
Change the text you stop the terror otherwise it requires a holding pattern as we have now until sanity prevails and religious freedom for text which vilifies other and condemns other to grevious harm ceases.
Under such text you cannot have the moderate without the extremist. An illusion exists that this conflict is US, Britain etc inspired. This war has been going on for centuries, even before the US existed, and will continue until either the believers that other are ‘mischievous’, 'fools', 'deaf, dumb, and blind' etc and justifiably destined for 'grevious harm' are either wiped out or the text is amended.
The Greens are supporting the return of the Taliban in force by pushing this issue in the way they have. This is the type of Democracy we can expect from the Greens?
Time for Australia to Man-up in Afghanistan
Australia as a nation should make the decision to man-up and become a mature and responsible partner in the ISF in Afghanistan. It would help raise up our homeland as a nation in the international community as well as in the hearts and minds of the Australian people. As a good start to this I believe we should apply what Lieutenant-General Barno calls the Five Pillars of the ISAF'S Counter-Insurgency plan for Afghanistan.
These principles being,
Defeat terrorism and deny sanctuary.
Enable the Afghan security structure.
Sustain area ownership.
Enable reconstruction and good governance.
Engage regional states.
To actively participate in the arena of defeating terrorism and deny sanctuary we need to get serious and pull our socks up about participating with the ISF in pursuing Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants both in Afghanistan and their support network in Australia.
To do this we should increase the size of ADF forces to be at least 5000 troops. We should an auxiliary of educators to educate both the ADF forces as well as the local population with whom we are trying to work with in cross Afghan-Australian culture, politics and history through the utilisation of formal, informal and incidental pedagogical techniques.
As an aid to this campaign Austria police forces at both a federal and state level should take seriously the clear and present danger that is posed to our society by Taliban and Al-Qaeda associates in our own community who utilise insurgent techniques and are gaining control over our suburbs.
To help increase Afghanistan’s security structures against the insurgents Australia should be reforming its approach to both tis civilian and military commitments. We should undertake as a nation to reform our approach form seeing Afghanistan as we want to see it to looking at Afghanistan as it is. To do this we should discontinue the use of the Untied States Institute of Peace’s ‘Orange Revolution Model’ as found in Peter Ackerman & Jack Duval’s ‘A Force More Powerful’ book and training course.
To complement this we should continue our retraining and rehabilitation of formerly Soviet trained Mujahedeen e-Khalqi militias into the Afghan National Army but include in this training the latest counter-insurgency from a western perspective, so that these COIN principles can slowly inculcate and replace their Soviet model of COIN which has at its core a policy of liquidation of community leaders and their replacement by government appointed political officers in total control of local civil, civic and military functions.
The application of a single approach combining both Australian military and civilian approaches is essential if we are to make a serious attempt at helping the Afghani people gain ownership of local problems and develop local solutions to these.
Australia should continue our support of political parties that promote a nationalistic and democratic approach to parliamentary democracy with our European partners so that they can be ready to remove the corrupt Islamic and undemocratic forces now in control of the Afghanistan’s political institutions after the withdrawal of the ISF.
Australia should also help the coalition efforts in Afghanistan by taking a greater r stake in owning the Oruzgon Provence for the ISF COIN effort. To do this Australia would need to increase the size of the ADF forces deployed in this theatre to at least 5000 troops and to around the same number of professional civilians participating in such tasks as education, health and reconstruction to enable good governance.
The enabling of reconstruction and good governance was the factor which won the COIN war in Afghanistan for the Soviet Union. Obama’s proposed ‘civilian surge’ is a task in which Australia should commit itself too. This will need political support of the Australian people and a campaign similar to those surrounding the launches of the GST and the Terrorist Hotline should launched with detailed information and distributed to the Australian people free of charge.
Australia through its diplomatic and cultural assets should engage Afghanistan’s regional community to be included in these efforts is also essential to success. Australia as a member of the Indian Ocean Community has better and closer ties with many key regional states such as India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Australia with its political, economic and cultural ties to these three countries could help bring these states into being part of the solution and not part of the problem.
The political will of the Australian Government to become a real partner in the ISF coalition is sadly lacking. The talking of a mature and grown-up approach to participating in the ISF mission in Afghanistan would see us stop kicking the football on the sideline like a ball boy and a man and get our heads in the game and put our bodies on the line.
The adoption of such an approach as I have stated here today would truly help us become the nation we see ourselves as, but would help us become the nation we truly want to be.
A Concerned Patriotic Australian Citizen Studying at the Strategic Defence Studies Centre ANU Canberra
Australian Greens: No principled opposition to Afghan war
By James Cogan
22 October 2010
Newly-elected Greens’ member Adam Bandt and independent Andrew Wilkie each spoke for 20 minutes on Wednesday in the current Australian parliamentary debate on the war in Afghanistan. While the two speeches spelt out an essentially identical line as to why Australian troops should be withdrawn, Bandt’s was the most revealing as the Greens’ party has been assiduously promoted as “antiwar” and “progressive” by the array of pseudo-left tendencies in Australia.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/deba-o22.shtml