THREE more diggers dead, seven wounded -- and for what? This national interest both Gillard and Abbott go on about, what is it? The need to defend a corrupt government which has neither means nor intention of introducing Afghanistan to the most basic of Enlightenment values? To further destabilise Pakistan? To safeguard a kleptocracy quite happy to see a blogger sentenced to death for the heinous crime of "questioning Islam"?
This is why three more Australian lives been squandered. What a sick, stupid, obscene joke.
We were right to oust the Taliban in the days after 9/11. That was the mission and it was achieved with courage and competence. Now it is touchy-feely soldiering -- building roads and attempting by gentle, culturally sensitive means to persuade an insane, inbred smear of flyblown villagers and boy-buggerers that there might be some advantages to following the rest of the world's lead and leave the seventh century behind.
Osama is dead, finally. Now is the moment to throw up a cordon sanitaire around Afghanistan, patrol it with drones and if the place shows the slightest sign of re-establishing terrorist camps, blow them up from a safe, stand-off distance.
In the meantime, let's declare victory and go home.
Some people like to wallow in filth. Let them. Leave them to their fun before another drop of Australian blood is squandered.
"Some people like to wallow in filth. Let them."
ReplyDeleteYea, but the ones who don't want to wallow in filth end up bobbing around in boats off our northern shore.
The Professor sums up my feelings on the matter of Australia's 'presence' in this s**thole of a country.
ReplyDeleteChange must come from within - not without.
JMH
I hesitate to disagree, prof, but I'm not sure that it is as simple as that. I agree with the unspoken premise of your piece, that only self-interest could possibly justify our being there, and it's hopeless to pursue some kind of selfless civilising mission there - that'll never come off.
ReplyDeleteThe trouble is, it's by no means clear that drones and military hardware operated by remote control will keep the threats posed by a rogue state - Afghanistan under the repulsive Taliban - under control. 9/11 was hatched there. We are entering a period of unprecedented civilisation-threatening danger, with places like Iran developing nuclear weapons and the Pakistani nucear arsenal barely under control. Even the Iranians would be happy to slip a nuke to the hated sunnis, for use against a western city, if they thought they could get away with it (and even if they thought they couldn't). People are burying their heads in the sand about the issue of nuclear terrorism, but it's quite possible to conceive of a bomb going off in London or New York - or elsewhere, and it is far more likely to happen with the brutal, ignorant, psychotic theocrats in charge in Kabul.
You may be right, but just consider that this is a war which the west has absolutely no choice but to run, and to run with grim courage and conviction until it is won.
Well said Bunyip.
ReplyDeleteI feel a fatwah, or even a Mordi coming on. But the Prof. should be safe. The benighted desert tribes are more used to jihadi in the wadi, than mucking it through billabongs. The precious petals in wigs though, are a much more sinister force. RIGHTS can conjured in the most unlikely places.
ReplyDeleteAnd some of them bring their filth with them so we can wallow too.
ReplyDeleteIf we are going to stay there we should at least be able to build a resettlement camp for unauthorised boat arrivals. I reckon an Afghani solution would stop the boats overnight - and Afghanistan is even a signatory to the UN refugee convention.
ReplyDeleteI seriously doubt the Professor's measure of worthiness is based upon the number of soldiers dying. Yet this topic only seems to pop up at the points that the soldiers die. It should not be about soldiers being wounded or killed. Is the purpose for being there still there? Is there an objective? If the answer to these is yet then get on with it. For the soldiers on the ground the measure of worthiness is not the risk of being killed or wounded.
ReplyDeleteThey should be following the lead of Col Jim Corbett: staking out various members of the Foreign Affairs branch, augmented by selected NGO, then kill the Taliban as they approach the lure. The problem with Afghanistan in general is the unwillingness of our 'good guys' to kill the bad guys in sufficient numbers. it was working quite well in the period 2006-2008, but then the diplo-wankers regained their influence and began pissing on things.
ReplyDeleteCheers
"to persuade an insane, inbred smear of flyblown villagers and boy-buggerers that there might be some advantages to following the rest of the world's lead"
ReplyDeleteFeel better now, Bunyip?
40 years on, the boot's on the other foot. Those objecting to our presence in Vietnam were labelled traitors. Over 500 died there. They were sent by the democratically elected government of the day. Nothing has changed, except that all the diggers now are volunteers. That wasn't the case 40 years ago, and when they returned and the war was on the nose, the conscripts and the regulars both became political collateral.
Remembering that places your comment in elegant perspective.
"to persuade an insane, inbred smear of flyblown villagers and boy-buggerers that there might be some advantages to following the rest of the world's lead"
ReplyDeleteBut isn't that why you come here, Teach? Haha. Deep down you want to be one of us.
It's easy. But first, give up the bongs...
Some wars are fought over conrol of oil. This one is about opium.
ReplyDeleteWe have no reason to be there. This business about "nation building" is a wank, same too in Iraq. We should just pack up and come home, and make sure that we protect our borders by keeping the dancing boy lovers far from our shores. Let the Allah worshippers remain in their Islamic paradises, don't let them come here.
ReplyDeleteForget it Professor.
ReplyDeleteThe world is choosing sides for the next bloodbath.
Let it happen, then we can develop our targeting options.
It's the only way to be sure.
If we're not going to get brutal about this, shut out the bleeding hearts and "rights" groups, and start being as nasty to the Taliban as they are to us and if we're not prepared to fundamentally reshape Afghan society at the point of the bayonet... then we have to get out. If the latter happens, outward transfer of troops should be in the direction of the Pakistani border, until such time as we can shake hands with the Indians in Kashmir.
ReplyDeleteBut but Professor, I hate to be always the one to break the news. Its called 'Military Pork Barrel 101'. The basic concept is simple: Large bureacracy in need of prestige, funds and work for idle R&D and production facilities, determines that irrelevant far off land of no consequence needs 'saving' from 'bad guys' in latest 'war on XXX'.....
ReplyDelete