While Vietnam involved conscription of young males via ballot balls with numbers on them (chook raffle)showing just how trivial the government thought their lives were, the war in Afghanistan is being fought, without loathsome conscription, by professional soldiers whose occupation it is to fight wars; they signed up for just that.

For the conscription reason alone, I think that any comparison of Afghanistan with Vietnam is insulting. I had relatives involved in the stinking, filthy, highly sexist and discriminatory process of conscription.

The only way that Vietnam should be compared with Afghanistan (and Iraq) is that, while Australian forces are being used and killed unnecessarily and wrongly by our rotten politicians in countries of no concern to us, the same rotten politicians are allowing so-called refugees and illegals to plonk themselves down in Australia.

Without our military interference in their lousy, backward countries, these unwanted people wouldn’t be coming here.

I believe Australian troops should be withdrawn fron Afghanistan this year because we have higher priorities, including reginal defence.

Afgh will indeed be an endless waste of blood and gold. The excuse that troops must remain in Afgh because its a terrorist training ground and order must be restored ignores the perpetual lawlessness of the country.

Afgh is a basket case, its menfolk live for war (inter-tribal or larger scale), making it the terrorist training ground of choice, but no foreign occupation can fix it.

I therefore agree overall with the article but believe it has two main weaknesses.

First - most normal Australian couldn't give a damn that the initial invasion of Afghanistan lacked specific and full international legality (UN or otherwise). Politicians after 9/11 conned the public through fear, passion and a sub-conscious message of revenge against Muslims.

Second - those small parts of the article that are clearly on the leftwing minority hit parade damage the overall credibility of the article. I'm referring to:

"Bush let his dogs off the lead and they tore into Afghanistan, crushed a very surprised and unprepared Taliban and hastily departed Afghanistan for Iraq with blood in their nostrils..."

This undergraduate tone doesn't sit well with the crisp, lucid arguments elswhere.

I'm also referring to the attempted depleted uranium (DU) arguments. While the use of DU is a fixation of people who are anti-nuclear anywhere, anytime, harping on it distracts from more powerful images of villages in Afghanistan being burnt slowly or suffocated by white phoss or the continuing danger of landmines, suicide bombs and IEDs.

But all in all a good article.

Pete

Sorry, but I kind of remember what things were like when the Taliban
ran Afghanistan. Handing the place back to them on a plate is
IMHO not a very good idea, especially for Afghanistan's people,
particularly women.

But then Kellie is in Australia and need not worry, as it won't
affect her. Never mind her Afghan sisters.

I am a huge critic of George and Dick. I think it was silly to
invade a country, when a single well targeted missile, could
have taken out Saddam and his boys. But I do acknowledge that
the Americans have learned to learn from their mistakes and when
they do finally pull out of Iraq, the place will be better off then
it was under Saddam and sons. The people of Iraq will benefit.

Similarly I believe that its worth trying new tactics in Afghanistan
and IMHO that is why Obama, who is hardly a warmonger, agreed to
have one last crack at getting it right.

Given that we have come this far, its certainly worth a try,
the people of Afghanistan deserve it.

If my recollection is accurate, the only invasion forces that have prevailed in Afghanistan, belonged to Alexander the Great, and The Mongols. I recall the significance of those forces not staying long to consolidate their victories, such is the strategic danger apparent of such conquest. There is a saying appropriate to this conflict: “beware the eye of the tiger, and the wrath of the mujahadin.”

We tolerated a decade of the triumvirate of neo colonialism, observed led by George Bush, with Blair and Howard trailing his malevolence. Predicated upon the bigoted and irrational views and attitudes of courtiers such as Wolfowitz, Cheney, and Runsfeld, alike Vietnam, these conflicts of Afghanistan and Iraq rapidly descended into quagmire.

However, alike the lesson of Vietnam, I contend the colonial mindset of these english speaking western countries, are demonstrated retaining such inherent imperialist dysfunction, there appears no capacity for them to heed even catastrophic lesson, of those as generationally recent lessons as Vietnam, and are therefore doomed to repeat such demise until they embrace a new dynamic and paradigm.

The maxim of; ‘people receiving the leaders they deserve,’ rings true with observation of such aberration. In the economic good times Australia tolerated Howard, with Australia now enjoying an increasing international reputation as a racist pariah, with observation of an increasingly intolerant community, and youth who indicate aggrievance of such disenfranchisement and enmity, their suicide rates increase, while they coincidentally perpetuate ‘slam’ drinking as entertainment.

In the 20th Century and prior, did the west consider the depravation and suffering it was inflicting upon the East in coveting their resources and territory, and in creating Israel? Of course they didn’t, and we are expected to swallow 9/11 was a surprise.

A similar ruler may be drawn over the Bali bombing, and the ideology that allowed insidious misfits alike Ruddoch, to reign.

The whole issue of legality is a furphy. It is not as if both sides sit down and contract to have a nice clean war.

The motivation behind the war is not for conquest or profit, but to stop a tyrannical regime from exporting its own version of misery.

The major difference in Afghanistan is that this time the taliban has to sponsor itself through drugs, and is surrounded on all fronts by those who hate it.

The new technologies ensure that movement is restricted, and the locals are not strongly opposed to the US presence.

While you can never have a perfect "legal" reason to go to war, this is about as close as you get.

@Yabby, I think the Australian army should send a couple of battalions of Jessica Lynch clones to liberate the women of Afghanistan. They will get the Taliban running for the hills.