Kellie,

Perhaps Senator Faulkner would also like to talk about Afghanistan's role in the drug trade.

The Taliban eradicated almost all of Afghanistan's poppy crop in early 2001, but it was replanted at the start of the occupation. The country now produces about double the entire world's consumption of opium, and is also the world's largest producer of hashish (by yield).

Just one more question to add to an already important list.

Cheers,

Aaron

Aaron,it works this way as done throughout history.You create a false flag event which gives you an excuse for war.Zbigniew Brezezinski,"What we need is a truely massive and widely perceived direct external threat."This is a quote from his book, "The Grand Chessboard. Bill Clinton after the Taliban refused to comply pre 911."You can have a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs."

Today we ask," Where's Wally Bin Laden?" No weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,ah but we'll bomb the crap out of it and take the oil anyway.

The Taliban get a bit of money form the drugs to buy weapons from the arms dealers.The middlemen really make the big profits.

They cannot leave yet since the oil pipline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan has not been built.Now they have found $ trillions in resources in Afghanistan.Lithium for the battery industry etc.Hamid Karzai was a consultant for UNOCAL the company constructing the pipe line.All very cosy.

I cannot see the USA/Israel ever leaving since China has the man power to take Afghanistan.They could put millions of troops in there who would be utterly ruthless and fight like demons.

The USA/Isarel could have done a deal with the Taliban and had them guarding the pipline.Instead the neo-cons wanted to make money from war and human misery,then get the contracts to rebuild the results of their devestation.

Kellie Tranter asked 15 questions that require answers
from politicians in our free, open and democratic society.
Will we get the answers in our free, open and democratic society?
No we won't.
The reason?
The Australian spirit of unity was at its highest when the Japanese were streaming along the Kokoda Track towards Port Moresby, and they were stopped, along with the victory in the Coral Sea which was largely aided by the US Fleet.
Since then Australia has maintained grateful ties with the USA, whilst to the British we are treated as foreigners.
But what has happened in the USA since then?
Why are we still following the USA as if we were their 51st State?
Australia has lost its sense of Nationhood. The low point was when Howard sent Australia's SAS into Iraq at the dead of night before Bush's ultimatum to Iraq had expired and conducted a Turkey Shoot at unsuspecting Iraqi soldiers who could not defend themselves in the dark. All well documented. That along with the Invasion of Vietnam and now Afghanistan leaves Australia nothing to be proud of. What has become of the labours of all of our Australian pioneers who came to this country in the 1800's and laboured hard to set up a free democratic country? This has now all been lost to the whims of big-brother countries that are smothering us.

Afghanistan has always been a phoney and contrived war, used to mask other US agendas such as oil pipelines, and was planned well before 911.

We even used it ourselves to help secure a dubious Free-Trade Agreement with them.

Nevertheless, we're deep in it now and have no real way out while we remain a country of appeasement to those we want to impress.

As usual, we're just a supply of cannon-fodder to the rich and powerful to further their interests.

If there is a lot more leaked information, disclosure and public outrage it may go the same way as VietNam.

Pressure for a resolution can old come from the people.
The politicians are not willing (or able?) to do it for any other reason.

Faulkner is only doing the same job that was left to him by those that came before.

Excellent article, Kellie.

I hope that one day you will turn the same critical inquiry to the abuses, follies, lies and waste of government interventions inside Australia as you do now to those outside.

Why do you rightly criticise government interventions overseas, but inconsistently advocate them home? Both involve the use of force or threats against the people subjected to them.