The author says >>” Although Australian sentiment is to see an end to any Australian involvement in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan,”

Yet tellingly she could provide no evidence for this position. I am highly dubious of these claims, but am unable to find any polling at all pertaining to Australian troops in Afghanistan.

What I did find was reference to a poll which suggest that the majority of Afghans want the Coalition forces to stay and defeat the Taliban. See http://www.afghanconflictmonitor.org/2007/10/majority-of-afg.html and more particularly http://www.afghanconflictmonitor.org/Environics_2007_Survey_of_Afghans.pdf

Australia’s Reconstruction Task Force, which is based in Urzugan province, are mostly made up of personnel from the Combat Engineer Regiments which provide combat engineers and tradesmen (carpenters, plumbers, electricians and plant operators) that have undertaken the majority of the RTF’s construction activities. This includes skills training/trade training schools for the local population. See here for a list of projects being undertaken by the team. http://www.viceversaonline.nl/uploaded_files/Australian_Reconstruction_Task_Force.pdf

The author says>>”The NATO led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) rely heavily on airpower because of “shortages of ground-troops”. Bombings are causing heavy civilian casualties as well as resentment in the Afghan population”

This is a reason to increase troop numbers, not pull troops out.

The author says >>”… resistance to the occupation has not abated. … the US puppet regime of Hamid Karzai exerts control over no more than 30 per cent of the country”

Whilst the resistance has not disappeared there has been strong progress in many provinces. The gov’t may not control all of its territory, but when it comes to the population, the afghan gov’t has control of all but 36 out of 376 districts. The violence is localised mostly in the south and west where 70 per cent of total security incidents occurred in 10 per cent (40) of Afghanistan’s districts, home to 6 per cent of the country’s population. http://www.unama-afg.org/docs/_UN-Docs/_repots-SG/2008/08march06-SG-report-SC-situation-in-afghanistan.pdf.

In Afghanistan we are fighting the real war on terror against AlQaeda and the Taliban, These people are directly responsible for the 9/11 attacks and many others. If we intend to fight terrorism at all, Afghanistan is where it is at.

"Although Australian sentiment is to see an end to any Australian involvement in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan"

Lies, lies, lies. Neither country is under occupation. The troops are there under a UN mandate and with the support of the democratically elected government.

Marlene is right of course.

It is only nutjob mid east destabilisers and liars who want us committed to an unwinnable occupation of Afghanistan.

Their is absolutely no reason for us to be there.

The trials in Cuba of those who perpretrated 9/11 is where the real fight is.

Rudd picked the wrong war to withdraw from ... on a populist basis. The only reason we are in Afghanistan is his desire to suck up to the Yanks.

We have no business in a region traditionally dominated by warlord religious nutjobs. Leave then to it.

Keith,

Your statement that: "Their is absolutely no reason for us to be there" is quite frankly ridiculous.

In case you've forgotten, Afghanistan was Al-Qaida's international headquarters prior to the US-led military action there. Unlike Iraq, it presented a clear danger to the West and there was almost unanimous international recognition of the need to remove that threat by military action.

Withdrawal would simply mean that Al-Qaida and others would once again be able to train, plot and operate from Aghan territory.

"We have no business in a region traditionally dominated by warlord religious nutjobs. Leave then to it."

That would be fine if the religious nutjobs kept to themselves. Unfortunately they don't as proved by 9/11, 7/7, the Madrid bombings etc.

The ignorance of the ranters never ceases to amaze me. The actual killers were mostly Saudis but we did not bomb Saudia Arabia.

Not one Afghan had anything to do with it, the invasion of Afghanistan was planned and approved by July 2001 to get a pipeline from the Caspian Sea and the Taliban had nothing to do with anything.

They were Afghans waging a civil war against other Afghans and that is all.

Beside all that they offered Bin Laden to the US on 14 October 2001 and if the US had said yes we would have left the day after.

Marilyn,

>>”The ignorance of the ranters”

Well excuse me, but coming from an hysterical anti-semite who questions the holocaust, you clearly don’t understand the concept of irony.

The actual killers all spent time training in the many terrorist training camps that Al Qaeda had set up in Afghanistan. Even if the Taliban had any intention of handing over Bin Laden (which is extremely unlikely) there would still have been dozens of terrorist training camps in the country, and the Taliban would still have been ruling the country with an iron fist. Al Qaeda in Iraq has shown that they don’t need Bin Laden to operate successfully, although recent successes in conjunction with Sunni tribes has almost wiped them out.

The world must be a very exciting place for you, with all these top secret conspiracies going on all over the place. I think it’s just hilariously funny that you think that George Bush is a real dummy, yet you can believe at the same time that he and his cabinet are capable of pulling off the most outlandish conspiracies without being caught. The president of the US can’t even get a blow job without it becoming a nation wide incident.

This idea, that the US gov’t and the CIA are pulling off a massive con job on the people of America and the rest of the world, makes a great story, but its bullsh!t. It resonates with those people who believe in fairies, ghosts or UFO’s. Anyone with half a brain should know better. Do you honestly think that if you know about this alleged plot, that the democrats (who HATE Bush) are not privy to it? That somehow they just missed it? Or are they involved as well? That really would be a vast conspiracy, spooky!!

Bin Laden is still in the region, although it is likely he is in Pakistan’s tribal provinces. We can fight Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, or we can fight them in London, Madrid, New York and Bali. The choice is an easy one for me.