The author's legal and moral criteria befit a lecturer but not the politicians, commanders and official who are responsible for our country's defence and security policy. While he presumes legal and moral are immutable criteria I don't think they are considerations valued by the terrorists that need to be disabled.

The legal/moral was tailored to such august bodies as the League of Nations and ineffectual UN.

The author might like to know, in any case, that the legal trigger for Australia's initial involvement in Afghanistan in 2001 included the ANZUS Treaty with the US. The US was attacked by foreign elements in 9/11 and those al Qaeda attackers were principally based in Afghanistan. ANZUS is a legally important consideration the author should be aware of.

National interests, national security and alliance maintenance are important to Australia.

Meanwhile quoting a figure of "50" al Qaeda in Afghanistan is putting over reliance on minimalist estimates. Al Qaeda is a political feeling and terrorist stratgy. Stab in the dark estimates of numbers who who adopt it is rather simplistic. In any case Afghanistan shares an open border region with Pakistan where thousands of Muslim terror specialists are temporarily based. They would be quite happy to return to the Afghani free fire zone once Western pressure is removed.

Pete

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article26521.htm
The cost of killing one Taliban is $50 million US.Who are making money out of this filthy war? The US Fed loans the money to the Govt who buy from the Military /industrial complex.The tax payer foots the bill and suffers the debt,while the people of Afghanistan languish in war and poverty.

This time we are the war criminals who support a totally immoral war against a contrived enemy called terrorism.

Plantagenet,
With the excuse you give for invading Afghanistan;
*The US was attacked by foreign elements in 9/11 and those al Qaeda attackers were principally based in Afghanistan.*
Surely you are joking?
It was not a legitimate reason, as most people well know. For a start most of the so-called attackers were from Saudi.
The attack was planned in Germany.
This was more on a par with the so-called Polish troops attacking the radio station on the German border in 1939.
Manufactured to suit the paranoid leader of a country, being led well off course.
The true facts will probably not ever be known but a large percentage of people are pretty sure that it was “helped along” by the Bush gang to enhance their claim for a “new Pearl Harbour”.
Australia and the UK were also dragged into this mess because of the delusions of their respective leaders and one day they may, with luck, face a court for war crimes.

I am really surprised that any writer who addresses the problems of Afghanistan does not mention one of the highest motivations of such a war, the 90% of the world's poppy fields that are the source of revenues for the weapons used by the Taliban that are killing our soldiers, twenty one to date and likely to rise.
The following article also covers the end use of this money in the US political scene, long since trying to disguise the involvement in the buying of support for compliant Zionist Congressman, now a known and undisputed fact.

Read the Veterans Today article by Gordon Duff.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/10/18/gordon-duff-how-drug-money-is-buying-our-new-congress/

Yes, it is a US website, staffed by veterans of US wars, some from the Afghanistan charade. They should have a clue or two on the inner machinations of the US military and their motivations. They do NOT include, national security, the elimination of terrorism, the provision of a democratic government in Kabul, the education of the Afghanistan people and the elimination of al Qaeda, very few in number.

Why?

The less said about al Qaeda the better, latterly a figment of the imagination of those parties that have something to gain in the maintenance of such a fearsome group whose leader, Osama bin Laden, has probably been dead for 7 years.
The reason for the involvement of Australians in this 'engineered' war, a war that the might of Russia could not win either, was the sycophantic behaviour of John Howard, always anxious to build up some credit with the feckless George Bush, historically reqarded as America's worst President, manipulated by Zionist Neocons and directly responsible for many thousands of American deaths.
Now twenty one Australians as well, on the rise.

So our 2010 Parliament of professional protagonists including those with vested interests, will promote the idea that those who raise concerns about Afghanistan as a war environment for Australians are disloyal. They will probably win the day, so weak is our resolve for the value of Australia's position in the world as an independent country, accepting us forever as a US lackey.

How sad that it is only the Australian body count that determines when we've had enough. Even more sad is that we will have "had enough" only when Murdoch decides that this is so.
Here we have a blatant resources war that benefits the arms manufacturers, the mercenaries (sorry "contractors") and harms almost everyone else.
I believe that "defence forces" should be for defence, and that can be no holes barred. This "killing for US mate ship" is so ethically barren that I feel disgusted whenever our politicians role out the weak excuses. Fighting terror? By bombing villages and treating locals like dirt? The US wars only create terrorism. Killing families tends to do that.
It's about energy and war profits. Who would support such a thing?
I'm hoping that the Greens have some uncomfortable facts for the debate, and the media actually reports them!

sarnian

Afghanistan's Taliban gave bin Laden a relatively safe place to live and may do so again.

Afghanistan also hosted a large number of al Qaeda/JI training camps. JI bombers in Indonesia (Bali I) Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and terrorists visiting Australia also were taught to use explosives in Afghanistan. Pakistan currently hosts many of the terrorists but this comes with strings attached. The JI who kill Australians in Indonesia would prefer the safety and anonymity of Afghanistan for their training.

9/11 required long term basing and plans which was provided to bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan. Yes the 9/11 bombers mainly came from SA and the UAE. Germany was also a place where some Saudi pilot/bombers lived as was Maryland in the US, all temporarily.

I wouldn't downgrade the importance of Saudi money to again make Afghanistan the centre of terrorist training once Western forces leave.

Pete