Ö÷²¥´óÐã

The most pressing foreign policy issue of the day is what to do about Afghanistan. Within weeks of entering office, the Obama administration announced a troop surge of some 21,000 soldiers, and indicated it would be looking to its allies, including Australia, to bolster their own commitment.

Now, a complete rethink is underway in Washington prompted by mounting casualties, an Afghan presidential election that was both messy, fraudulent and disputed, and a pessimistic assessment from President Obama's new commander in the country, General Stanley A McChrystal. The General has raised the spectre of the failure of the mission in the absence of a surge of some 30,000 to 40,000 extra US troops. It is within that context that Britain has just significantly boosted its presence.

Harry Truman had the quagmire of Korea, Lyndon Johnson had the quagmire of Vietnam and Obama appears to fear a similar fate in Afghanistan. After all, it has long been known as the graveyard of empires, an oft-quoted phrase that looms large in the minds of Taliban insurgents.

Australian forces, of course, have fought in all three of these conflicts, partly because of the government of the day's belief in the righteousness of the cause, but mainly to keep in strategic step with America. When it comes to putting troops on the ground, Washington has had no more loyal ally than Canberra.

The Australian Defence Force currently has some 1,400 personnel on active duty in Afghanistan. Almost 700 are involved in mentoring and reconstruction, which is to say training the Afghan National Army and helping to build much-needed infrastructure. Then there are some 300 special forces soldiers actually fighting the Taliban. Their ongoing role, mission, and even their presence will be heavily influenced, if not ultimately determined, by the outcome of the policy review within the Obama administration.

There has not been much public discussion surrounding Australia's presence in Afghanistan, and certainly the debate here has been nowhere near as heated or vitriolic as in Britain, America, Germany, Canada or Italy.

This is largely explained by the number of war dead. Australia has suffered eleven fatalities (I'm aware here of a horrible journalistic tendency to minimise these kinds of numbers, when the loss of even one individual can be impossible to bear for families and friends). At the time of writing, the US has lost over 850, Britain 221, Canada 130, Germany 39 and France 35.

Part of the reason why Australia casualties have been lower is that the large majority of its forces are not actively involved in combat, much to the frustration of many diggers on the ground (although some infantry patrols involved in "mentoring" Afghan National Army units have been ambushed by the Taliban).

Perhaps another explanation for why Afghanistan does not generate the same headlines here as elsewhere is that the ADF has limited the access of Australian journalists to the battlefield. Before coming to Australia, I used to report frequently from Afghanistan, and the embed process granted us extraordinary access to frontline US and UK soldiers. We were allowed to watch them fight the war up close.

Admittedly, the embed process has its flaws. There is the inevitable danger of feeling sympathy towards the soldier who inevitably ends up offering you protection, and expressing that in your reports - a journalistic form of Stockholm Syndrome, if you like. But the ADF has shied away from such openness and access, as reported last week.

Ahead of the Afghan presidential election in August, the ADF allowed three Australian journalists to go on embeds, a first-time experiment. But even then, The Australian newspaper's defence correspondent, Ian McPhedran, complained that they were kept away from the sharp end of the war - a decision which the ADF says was to protect their safety. By contrast, the Pentagon does not think that personal safety issues should limit the access of journalists to the battlefield. If journalists are prepared to take the risk, the Pentagon reasons, than that is up to them.

When Afghanistan has been openly debated in Australia, the defence specialist Hugh White from the Australian National University has often been in the forefront of the discussion. Back in July, he had this to say of Afghanistan: "The government cannot justify committing troops unless there is a reasonable chance they can succeed... I don't believe there is a reasonable chance they can succeed. I do not think the government is persuaded that there is a significant chance of success in Afghanistan." So is he right?

Or do you side with former Prime Minister John Howard who last week told Fox News in America, during a trip to meet the former US President George W Bush, that Australia should increase its troop presence to avoid handing victory to the Taliban?

Kevin Rudd has argued that Afghanistan should not be allowed again to become a safe haven for al-Qaeda, whose attacks have killed Australians and inspired Jemaah Islamiah to carry out attacks like the Bali bombings. Like other Western leaders, he also fears the consequences for an already unstable Pakistan if Afghanistan, its neighbour, becomes even more unstable.

So, put crudely, is Australia's mission becoming increasingly dangerous and pointless, or does Canberra and its allies owe it to the people of Afghanistan to finish what they started and to contain, if not defeat, a resurgent Taliban?

PS Thanks for your comments on race. I thought I would get back to them over the weekend in a blog I've been meaning to write for weeks on Australia's most talked about book, The Slap. The two subjects dovetail very neatly...

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |
• - What's this?