.Iraq hypocrisy caught in Afghan gunsights
IT is time to remember what Kevin Rudd said a few months ago about wars just like this one.
It is time because nine soldiers were wounded this week in an ambush in Afghanistan - more than have been wounded in any single battle since the Vietnam War.
And it's time because six of our soldiers have died there already, and more will almost certainly lose their lives in a war with no end in sight.
So what did the Prime Minister say?
First this: "If you're going to embark upon a war like that, have it very clearly in mind from day one, what your exit strategy is to be and what you're mission statement is to be."
And this: "(This is) the greatest single error of Australian national security and foreign policy decision-making since Vietnam." And we had to pull out our troops. Immediately.
Ah. You see already I've made a mistake. Or maybe the mistake was Rudd's. You decide.
The mistake is that Rudd was actually not talking about Afghanistan at all, but Iraq.
Iraq was that war without any end or any "exit strategy". Iraq was the war to Rudd likened to Vietnam. The one we had to quit, defeated.
Of course, it was all nonsense. Rudd no sooner spoke than the battle for Iraq was indeed won, thanks to the surge of American troops he opposed.
Just 11 US troops died in combat in Iraq last month, and so stable is the country that even al Anbar province, once a stronghold of al-Qaida, was this week returned to the control of Iraqi forces.
US President George Bush is now preparing a huge withdrawal of troops, and Iraq, flushed with booming oil revenues and a big budget surplus, estimates it will stand on its own two feet within two years. Its economy is growing fast, and its democracy seems secure.
So the exit strategy has now been triggered. We won, so can withdraw.
And Rudd's Vietnam analogy? Absurd, of course. We lost Vietnam, but saved Iraq. We left 520 combat dead in Vietnam, but not one in Iraq.
But if Rudd was wrong on Iraq, the war he denounced, are his criticisms right if applied to Afghanistan, the war he actually supports? In a way, yes.
We have no exit strategy at all in Afghanistan, and there's not the slightest chance of winning there for some years yet. We must fight on, or give up. A bit like Vietnam, really.
Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan has no oil or other great wealth to help drag it off its knees. Its people are less educated, and less familiar with democracy, freedom and secularism.
They are also much more tribal. Democracy there hangs on by its fingernails - saved largely by the guns of the coalition troops. So tough is the fight that even Rudd demands more foreign troops, not fewer.
The best that we can hope for is that eventually, after years of "occupation" and billions in aid, Afghanis will learn to appreciate the habits of peace enough to want to guard them - and to have grown strong enough to be able to do so without our help.
How many of our soldiers will die while we wait, God knows, although we pray for the best.
So was Rudd's analysis right, even if he applied it to the wrong country? Are we mad to be in Afghanistan without any "exit strategy"?
Are we stupid, suffering casualties among young Australian soldiers in numbers we haven't seen since Vietnam - and in a war that will keep us even longer?
If Rudd meant what he said about Iraq, then he should mean it even more with Afghanistan - and pull out. But I think he didn't believe a word of what he said then, and will not give up now.
Rudd would know that there is in fact no guaranteed "exit strategy" in any war other than to leave when you've won. And he will know that this is a war we cannot afford to lose.
Should the Taliban recapture Afghanistan, how soon before it becomes again a base for terrorists? How much will its fall re-inspire jihadists, now in retreat around the world?
The same arguments against giving up in Iraq apply in Afghanistan, only this time Rudd uses them himself, rather than attacking them.
We cannot afford to surrender, and Rudd knows it. The words he spat at Iraq were worthless, insincere, reckless - and Rudd proves that by not applying them to Afghanistan, where they fit much better.
So the exit strategy in Afghanistan is as vague as it was in Iraq: to win.
And that means Rudd is caught in exactly the kind of war he only months ago so frivolously denounced.
HeraldSun
Thank god for the auzzies
It is time because nine soldiers were wounded this week in an ambush in Afghanistan - more than have been wounded in any single battle since the Vietnam War.
And it's time because six of our soldiers have died there already, and more will almost certainly lose their lives in a war with no end in sight.
So what did the Prime Minister say?
First this: "If you're going to embark upon a war like that, have it very clearly in mind from day one, what your exit strategy is to be and what you're mission statement is to be."
And this: "(This is) the greatest single error of Australian national security and foreign policy decision-making since Vietnam." And we had to pull out our troops. Immediately.
Ah. You see already I've made a mistake. Or maybe the mistake was Rudd's. You decide.
The mistake is that Rudd was actually not talking about Afghanistan at all, but Iraq.
Iraq was that war without any end or any "exit strategy". Iraq was the war to Rudd likened to Vietnam. The one we had to quit, defeated.
Of course, it was all nonsense. Rudd no sooner spoke than the battle for Iraq was indeed won, thanks to the surge of American troops he opposed.
Just 11 US troops died in combat in Iraq last month, and so stable is the country that even al Anbar province, once a stronghold of al-Qaida, was this week returned to the control of Iraqi forces.
US President George Bush is now preparing a huge withdrawal of troops, and Iraq, flushed with booming oil revenues and a big budget surplus, estimates it will stand on its own two feet within two years. Its economy is growing fast, and its democracy seems secure.
So the exit strategy has now been triggered. We won, so can withdraw.
And Rudd's Vietnam analogy? Absurd, of course. We lost Vietnam, but saved Iraq. We left 520 combat dead in Vietnam, but not one in Iraq.
But if Rudd was wrong on Iraq, the war he denounced, are his criticisms right if applied to Afghanistan, the war he actually supports? In a way, yes.
We have no exit strategy at all in Afghanistan, and there's not the slightest chance of winning there for some years yet. We must fight on, or give up. A bit like Vietnam, really.
Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan has no oil or other great wealth to help drag it off its knees. Its people are less educated, and less familiar with democracy, freedom and secularism.
They are also much more tribal. Democracy there hangs on by its fingernails - saved largely by the guns of the coalition troops. So tough is the fight that even Rudd demands more foreign troops, not fewer.
The best that we can hope for is that eventually, after years of "occupation" and billions in aid, Afghanis will learn to appreciate the habits of peace enough to want to guard them - and to have grown strong enough to be able to do so without our help.
How many of our soldiers will die while we wait, God knows, although we pray for the best.
So was Rudd's analysis right, even if he applied it to the wrong country? Are we mad to be in Afghanistan without any "exit strategy"?
Are we stupid, suffering casualties among young Australian soldiers in numbers we haven't seen since Vietnam - and in a war that will keep us even longer?
If Rudd meant what he said about Iraq, then he should mean it even more with Afghanistan - and pull out. But I think he didn't believe a word of what he said then, and will not give up now.
Rudd would know that there is in fact no guaranteed "exit strategy" in any war other than to leave when you've won. And he will know that this is a war we cannot afford to lose.
Should the Taliban recapture Afghanistan, how soon before it becomes again a base for terrorists? How much will its fall re-inspire jihadists, now in retreat around the world?
The same arguments against giving up in Iraq apply in Afghanistan, only this time Rudd uses them himself, rather than attacking them.
We cannot afford to surrender, and Rudd knows it. The words he spat at Iraq were worthless, insincere, reckless - and Rudd proves that by not applying them to Afghanistan, where they fit much better.
So the exit strategy in Afghanistan is as vague as it was in Iraq: to win.
And that means Rudd is caught in exactly the kind of war he only months ago so frivolously denounced.
HeraldSun
Thank god for the auzzies
posted by madtom at 9:15 PM
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