The blather of ‘progress’ in Afghanistan

Forum for Saturday 09 October 2010 afghan debate

By CRISPIN HULL

THIS month’s parliamentary debate on Afghanistan will not be as easily dismissed as Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s address to the troops there suggests.

She virtually ruled out any idea of the debate influencing the Government’s policy when she told the troops at Tarin Kot: “Some of you might have wondered what that [the debate] means. What does it mean for the Australian people? Does it mean that people are lessening their support for the mission here? And I just want to come today and make it very clear to you that the parliamentary debate in my view is a very great opportunity. It’s a great opportunity to tell the Australian people what you are achieving here. It’s a great opportunity to tell them about the mission. It’s a great opportunity to tell them about the progress. It’s a great opportunity to remind them, though they probably don’t need any reminder, of the bravery of the soldiers we have lost and the need to show care and concern for their families, and it is an opportunity to showcase your courage, determination and professionalism on the national stage, and that’s certainly what I will be using it for.”

Yes, well, we have all learned at least one message from Vietnam. It is unfair to blame the soldiers on the ground for political decisions about which wars we fight.

But the Howard, Rudd and Gillard Governments should not get away with blurring the “support our Diggers” argument with the “support our invasion” argument.

The three Prime Ministers have always liked being seen with the troops. And they have often hinted that opposition to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars amounts to opposition to our troops and its therefore unpatriotic and unAustralian.

Let’s leave aside clanging inconsistency of Gillard spending blood and treasure to help the US bring democracy to Afghanistan while declaring that she will not be moved one iota by a parliamentary debate in the Australian democracy.

Instead let’s concentrate on what the debate might bring. With any luck it will put her on the spot. People will be listening (inevitably in vain) for some cogent reasons for going into Afghanistan and some cogent reasons for not getting out as fast as we can.

When her reasons do not add up more people will join the majority opinion that we should not be there. Ultimately it will be more risky to the Government’s existence to offend those people than to offend our American allies.

Oddly enough, the Americans have hitherto accepted the decisions of democratic governments to withdraw from Afghanistan. Gone are the days when the US would invariably undermine governments that did things it did not like.

Those days are gone precisely because the Iraq-Afghanistan experience shows that the US cannot be the policeman of the earth in opposing communism, terrorism or Islamic jihad, or imposing democracy. There is simply not enough treasure and blood in the US to do the task, or at least not enough that the American public will permit to be spent.

The debate will highlight again the absurdity of starting a war to impose democracy on the basis that democracies do not go to war against other democracies nor do they support terrorism. It is the Vietnam logic reincarnate: we had to destroy that village to save it. We had to go to war to prevent war.

The debate should also highlight the hopelessness of using invading armies to fight terrorism. Even if pro-Western democracies were established in Iraq and Afghanistan it would not defeat terrorism. Terrorists do not need despotic regimes to function. They just need a small base – a suburban house will do – and some weaponry.

Terror has been committed in democracies by people born in democracies: Britain, Spain and Indonesia, for example.

The Iraq and Afghanistan invasions and wars suffer from that fundamental misunderstanding in the same way that US invasions, wars and interventions in Greece, Iran, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Cuba, Chile and a dozen other countries suffered from the fundamental misunderstanding that communism or left-leaning movements were not part of a diabolical Soviet plan to dominate the world, but nationalist movements.

After Vietnam the US appeared to learn the lesson that it cannot be the world’s anti-communist policeman. But as time went on the message dimmed. The US again got into intervention. With each success it got bolder, especially after the Wall came down. But the “successes” were over-estimated – Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama, Haiti.

So was the success in the one reasonably justified invasion – that of Iraq in the fist Gulf War which was in response to Iraq aggressive invasion and annexation of Kuwait.

Those “successes” in really tiny places led to the White House of George W Bush to think they could easily knock over any opponent they liked for any reason they wanted, especially after the 9/11 attack gave them an excuse, however concocted.

The debate will look at the reasons for going in: curbing terror and the regimes that support it; getting rid of undemocratic governments and establishing democracy; supporting the US in doing those things; or supporting the US no matter what, even if the real reasons are one or all of: revenge for 9/11; making the world more secure for US business; making profits for military contractors who make big donations to members of Congress; and making sure the US dominates as much or the world as possible.

Again a further fundamental misunderstanding might be revealed – Australia’s view of the American alliance. It does not require us to join every major US adventure. Sometimes friends should urge caution. Good friends often hold back their mates from getting into unnecessary pub brawls where they might get a blood nose or worse.

Opinion against the war is growing. In March a Lowy poll had 54 per cent for withdrawal. In June an Essential Research poll had opposition about 10 per cent higher.

If Julia Gillard’s blather this week about “progress” and “completing the mission” are any guide, the debate can only increase the opposition to the war. And rightly so.

Gillard is deluding herself when she rejected the possibility that the debate would mean people were lessening their support for the Australian mission in Afghanistan.

That is precisely what the debate will do.

Ultimately, the US and Australia will have to accept the lesser of two evils. We will have to accept that Afghanistan will return to a lawless, poverty stricken, undemocratic hellhole of battling warlords rather than spend countless blood and treasure trying to turn it into a peaceful, terrorism-free democracy.

The latter is clearly fantasy.
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times on 10 October 2010