War without thought

The government in Kabul is chronically corrupt and would not survive the pull out of foreign forces. Yet one aspect of the hackneyed “mission statement” is to bring freedom and democracy to the people of Afghanistan. The Kabul government doesn’t give a toss about that and neither does the US, otherwise they wouldn’t be droning to death innocent women and children, and as in Vietnam, thereby creating new recruits for the forces they are fighting.

The US is looking for an exit strategy which involves everything but talking to their loathed enemy. For years it was the same in Vietnam.

This is a war of the insurgent, which means they live among and draw sustenance from civilians both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is little the US can do about that, other than kill civilians. Many civilians flee as refugees to avoid that, but that concept is beyond the comprehension of government in Australia even though they have eyes and ears on the ground in Afghanistan.

Denial was a feature of the war in Vietnam and it’s exactly the same in Afghanistan.

America learnt little from the war in Vietnam. Operation Moshtarak in Helmand Province in February 2010, which entailed the “occupation” of the town of Marjah, is a case in point. A “classic” search and destroy, where the Taliban fade away only to return when US and NATO forces withdraw to their vending machines at the Bagram military and air base.

In both Vietnam and Afghanistan the guiding principle is that military might just succeed, and that there is no alternative. If the government’s hands are clean and its actions legally and morally justified what does it stand to lose by holding an inquiry into the legitimacy of Australia’s participation in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and into the conduct of each of those “wars”?