We were not born yesterday

As Professor Peter Edwards pointed out in 2001:

... though the American people were animated by a warm friendship for Australia, their purpose in building up forces in the Commonwealth was not so much from an interest in Australia but rather from its utility as a base from which to hit Japan ... The Australian landmass offered a geographically convenient base for American forces, and that was all that mattered to American policy makers.

The late American historian Howard Zinn warned that if you don't know history it's as if you were born yesterday. And if you were born yesterday, anybody up there in a position of power can tell you anything and you have no way of checking up on it.

I would add that 'checking up' may require us to confront uncomfortable and sometimes painful truths, and it does require eternal vigilance by every citizen.

What will our students be taught years from now about our nation's involvement in the war in Afghanistan? That it is was in our national security interests? That it was for freedom and democracy? Or will a more honest account be given about the lies, the cover-ups, the undercurrent of economic opportunism and exploitation, and the cost to innocent victims? Will the words "our military and foreign policies placed us at greater risk" ever appear on the blackboard?

Afghan parliamentarian and acclaimed human rights activist Malalai Joya was in Australia last week. Her personal experience provides a less palatable historical analysis.

In 2003, when just 25 years old, it was she who dared to hold up a mirror to the new Afghan parliament as America's post 9/11 foot soldiers: a batch of brutal criminals, left over from Afghanistan's civil war after the end of the Soviet occupation, who now were not only being granted impunity, but were handed the keys allegedly to bring democracy to the people of Afghanistan.

How ironic is it that sitting in the Afghan parliament, right under our noses, is Abdul Rab al-Rasul Sayyaf, the man who first invited Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan before the Taliban rule, who trained and mentored Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and who massacred thousands in Kabul during the 1990s? There he sits as a member of a government that Western nations support by various means including the lives of our soldiers.

When Joya refers to "warlords" it's not just some generic term. She is specifically referring to the war criminals – known recidivists – who were involved in the Battle for Kabul from 1992 to 1993.

Most are mentioned by name in the 2005 Human Rights Watch report 'Blood-Stained Hands Past Atrocities in Kabul and Afghanistan's Legacy of Impunity'. The report couldn't be clearer:

... Many of the main commanders and political faction leaders implicated in the crimes detailed in this report are now officials in the Afghan government - serving in high level positions in the police, military, intelligence services, and even advisors to president Hamid Karzai...

Instead of helping to bring war criminals to justice, which many Afghans claim would have increased stability and brought security, we have helped to back them. To be more specific, our government, in our names, has helped to back men guilty of or complicit in the massacre, rape, forced disappearances and torture of innocent Afghan women, men and children.