why do we fight?

Well, we fight for a lot of irrational and rationale reasons.

Kellie, if you really want to answer such a question you will have to do a lot of reading about human nature, balance of power, international relations, and much, much more.

Merely picking a bit of evidence to support your biased argument, as if it was all to easy, is simply not good enough.

You may want to include some of the reasons why certain countries responded, and what will be the consequences if many pull out.

I don't want to declare war is ok (it is not), but the Afghanistan issue certainly warrants a better explanation than you put forward.

I think Kellie Tranter raises some very good points in this article, foremost of which is that there is virtually no public debate in Australia about our continuing military involvement in what seems to be yet another hopeless war on foreign soil.

What has been achieved in the years of killing in Afghanistan since 2001? How have Australia's interests been furthered by our miltary support in a fight picked by other countries?

Why aren't wars officially declared any more? Apparently, whichever of the Laberal Parties is in power in Canberra can commit our troops to engage in violent conflict overseas without consulting the electorate or even declaring war?

Kellie Tranter is right - the situation sucks. Why do we allow our governments to do stuff like this, without holding them to account?

CJ Morgan,

Why do WE fight?

AUSTRALIA is fighting in Afghanistan because both the Howard & Rudd governments have calculated the brownie points they earn in Washington makes it worthwhile.

I don't know whether they are right or wrong on this. I am simply saying that is the REASON Australia has a troop presence in Iran.

But why does AMERICA continue to fight in Afghanistan?

That's a more difficult question. My guess is there is no good reason and they'll pack up and go home in a year or two. That will leave Afghan women to the tender mercies of the Taleban.

See:

http://feminist.org/afghan/taliban_women.asp

Quotes:

TALIBAN REALITY FOR WOMEN AND GIRLS

* A woman who defied Taliban orders by running a home school for girls was killed in front of her family and friends.
* A woman caught trying to flee Afghanistan with a man not related to her was stoned to death for adultery.
* An elderly woman was brutally beaten with a metal cable until her leg was broken because her ankle was accidentally showing from underneath her burqa.
* Women and girls died of curable ailments because male doctors were not allowed to treat them.
* Two women accused of prostitution were publicly hung.

End quotes

I doubt the Americans are fighting to defend the women of Afghanistan. I doubt many people in Australia or the US CARE what will happen to Afghan women when the Taleban returns to power.

I further doubt that those who do care think we should be sending troops there to help Afghan women.

Personally I think we should leave TODAY.

But I don't kid myself what will happen to Afghan women when Western troops leave. Mostly I won't know anyway. The media will no more report it than they reported the Taleban's treatment of Afghan women prior to the invasion

It has always been obvious to all who are not blinkered right wing extremists that John Howard took us into an illegal war in Afghanistan (and Iraq) on the flimsiest of pretexts.
It was because he imagined that he would gain stature on the world political stage if he were seen to be a cohort of Bush and Blair.
I live in the hope that one day all three of them will be taken to The Hague to stand trial as war criminals and then get their just deserts.
In the meantime we and the other countries foolishly aligned with the US are still embroiled in this act of genocide.
The unfortunate thing is that there were obviously no lessons learned in Vietnam
That this is an unwinable war has still not sunk in to their successors.
The slaughter is going to continue and the innocent killed and maimed until the US economy finally implodes and they will no, longer be able to maintain their war footing in countries they have invaded.
Without the US to urge the coalition of the coerced, it will fall apart and the Afghan people will be left to do what they have always done, fight it out amongst them selves.
Only some sort of partitioning of the country will stop the fighting. The oppressive religious rule will continue by whoever wins. That is their traditional way.
The only other way that Australia could get out of this bloodbath is to have a constitutional change that allows citizen initiated referendums. I think the result would be a forgone conclusion

Every war that Australia has become involved in since and including Vietnam has meant boatloads of illegals turning up. That on its own is enough to tell us that Australia should keep its nose out of wars that have nothing to do with us.

Spare a thought for the *soldiers* killed and wounded? At least they volunteered to go, and got paid for doing so, with additional benefits in terms of housing, pension, education, status etc. etc.

What about the *Afghans* killed and wounded? What about the armies' unfortunate habit of blowing up wedding parties? "Oops! Sorry! Didn't really mean it... hehehe." News footage showed Prince Harry shooting a heavy machine gun into the distance. What are we to suppose he was shooting at? A donkey?

What disturbs me most about Australia's involvement in Afghanistan is
a) I'm being forced to fund it
b) the media treats it all like some glorious goodwill mission
c) it doesn't seem to occur to anyone that our troops might be killing innocent people; that we are in the wrong
d) Alexander, the British Afghan wars I and II, the Russians, now the Yanks ... doesn't anyone get it? Foreign invasions of Afghanistan have a pretty dismal record of success. The Afghans are going to win this war; it's only a matter of time.

No-one would begrudge America the defence of its own country. But its imperium has gone far beyond its own Constitution and borders; it is now truly a rogue fascist state. Troops in over 120 countries, the right of the President to kill, torture or disappear suspected 'enemy combatants' without trial, and a creed of perpetual war around the world. So don't talk to me of 'right' and 'left' - both Democrats and Republicans are equally entrenched in this.

The only person in Congress speaking againt this madness is Ron Paul: America should withdraw its troops within its borders, save $1 trillion a year, and put its own house in order before it tries exporting its own brand of fascist feminism to the wild up-country loons of Afghanistan.

How can one respond to this article in 350 words? Firstly, we can accept up front that the UN has no bearing on world affairs in any way. If Israel and its puppet state US want a war as in the case of both Iraq and now Afghanistan it will happen. If we can accept that, we can move on.
Right at the moment, it is clear that these two military delinquents have their sights on Iran. The reasons (pure logic)..Iran has no bombs, has signed the NPT; Israel has 250 bombs, has not signed the NPT. Forget the US. It does what it is told by the Jewish lobby who just happen to cunningly control the media, particularly Murdoch.
But war. Let's have no uncertainty on this front. When Howard 'the man of steel' said we are with you, George, he didn't really give a damn about death, casualties, but was much more concerned in playing sycophant to the world's #1 military power. The fact that Iraq's oil is now in US hands, that there needs to be a pipeline across Afghanistan to Pakistan and India for future US supplies and now relating to today's insidious Jewish media campaign against Iran, please remember that it has the second largest oil reserves in the world.
What a coincidence that must seem to us all. Iraq's oil, Iran's oil and a pipeline from the Turkmenistan oilfields to India.
The pay-off...Afghanistan and its poppy fields, untouched. 90% of the world's heroin to promote an already dead Bin Laden and a decimated Taliban.
Something of a slight deviation at this point, is the importance of India and Pakistan. Why? They gave nuclear bombs and are totally unstable politically. Why then would one worry about Iran with no nuclear capability while we have India and Pakistan and of course, the evil Empire, Israel, armed to the teeth.
So wars have reasons and with the diminishing supplies of fossil fuels in the world, this is all long range planning, just to survive.
Australia is there for credibility only. A sad fact. (Out of space)

In essence the article said very little. It was a plea to think about the war without taking the debate any further. Kellie wants people to do her thinking for her.
There may have been a case for not going into Afhanistan in the first place but now we are there I would feel uncomfortable about simply upping and leaving the people to the mercy of the Taliban monsters. In fact, the one option that is ever likely to be acceptable in the short term is to some how stabilise the place and leave.
At the moment that is just not happening. The coalition needs to completely overhaul its tactics, and there are indications it has done so. That's a long story but Kellie would make a real contribution to shortening this war if she dropped these empty declations of peace, and started researching Guerrilla counter tactics. Perhaps start with David Kilcullen's the Accdiental Guerrilla.. an eye opener.

Sorry, Peter Hume. Didn't read you response before I sent mine in. Out of words anyway.

You are right on the Ron Paul matter. A gutsy Texan who deserves to be President of the US in that he has a mind, is being patriotic to the US instead of to Israel and at the risk of his seat in the next election is prepared to be honest in a Congress that is so corrupt and subservient to the Israeli lobby on foreign policy, that the US foundling fathers would turn in their graves.

The points you make are so right. We can influence nothing in an Afghanistan war but are needed there for US credibility. The more countries, the more credible they appear. They can by-pass the useless United Nations providing they can encourage others to provide a medical team, a school building program, and other miscellaneous functions. It sure looks like a world body that way.
As in my previous mail, I would gamble all my assets on the fact that Bin Laden has been dead for years. He was on dialysis 5 years ago but it suits the CIA to keep him as an ogre. Like the Taliban; how many are there? They are hardly any competition for the world's #1 military power with over 700 bases worldwide, if the US was at all serious, that is.
Doesn't pay one to look at these things too closely. That's why you need to own the media....which they do.

So this is the old style of warfare. That is, we engage with the enemy and if we harm or kill innocent civilians - then so be it. So this is the old style of warfare.

In the new style of warfare, The U.S. leads a coalition of nations. If there is a problem with a rogue nation, then The President and/or Secretary of State speak with the leadership of the rogue nation and put aside differences to work together as friends to solve the problem as a team. That is, as when we treat others as friends they often reciprocate.

But not everyone wants to be friends. So we bring the military to the negotiation table and remove them if need be. There is no need to wage war against their country - just remove them if need be and then replace them with a new leadership team which is democratically elected.

The future is all about developing long term friendships where we look after each other. If we have no enemies, then it is unlikely we will ever be attacked. So this has good national security benefits. It is best to give them the resources to solve their problems themselves, that is, because of cultural and other factors foreigners often don't belong there and, as such, we can't develop the rapport needed to create lasting change.

Follow the links to some of my related weblog posts,

http://johnanthonypattison.blogspot.com/2010/02/answer-to-iran.html

http://johnanthonypattison.blogspot.com/2010/02/some-further-comments-on-answer-to-iran.html

http://johnanthonypattison.blogspot.com/2010/02/future-directions-in-international.html

I develop simple answers, because simple things are easier to implement. It's all about focusing on the cause of the problem - which is the leadership - and not the average mums and dads or the military who may not even agree with their leaders on the matters of critical concern.

John



--
John Anthony Pattison
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Australia
+61431909642
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The principle justification for this war, after eight years, remains the claim that a terrorist organisation known as al Qaeda used Afghanistan as a base in which to train terrorists and from which the terrorist atrocity of 9/11 was launched. Here's US President Obama restating that justification in Afghanistan recently:

"We can’t forget why we’re here. We did not choose this war. This was not an act of America wanting to expand its influence; of us wanting to meddle in somebody else’s business. We were attacked viciously on 9/11. Thousands of our fellow countrymen and women were killed. And this is the region where the perpetrators of that crime, al Qaeda, still base their leadership. Plots against our homeland, plots against our allies, plots against the Afghan and Pakistani people are taking place as we speak right here. And if this region slides backwards, if the Taliban retakes this country and al Qaeda can operate with impunity, then more American lives will be at stake. The Afghan people will lose their chance at progress and prosperity. And the world will be significantly less secure." (http://webdiary.com.au/cms/?q=node/3043)

Our own Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has repeated this justification on a number of occasions, including on (or, possibly, just before) 26 March 2009:

"When you think about Afghanistan, think about this. I cannot remove from my mind the image of the twin towers coming down. We are there because terrorists, operating out of the safe haven of Afghanistan, caused that to happen. They also, having been trained in Afghanistan, were responsible for murdering nearly a hundred Australians in Bali a year later.

"We have therefore a combined responsibility to do whatever we can to make sure Afghanistan does not become a safe haven for terrorism again. It's going to be tough, it's going to be hard, and it's going to be difficult and dangerous." (http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2008/s2526935.htm)

This, of course, restates what he said in that address of 15 October 2008 referred to by Kellie Tranter at http://www.pm.gov.au/node/5517

(tobecontinued)

(continuedfromabove)

In fact the evidence has never been produced, even though then US Secretary of State Colin Powell promised the UN evidence of the guilt of al Qaeda and of the Taliban regime's complicity when he obtained the UN's tentative support for the War on Terror.

Our own eyes tell us that the Twin Towers were blown apart with high explosives (http://ae911truth.org/images/stories/explo2.jpg http://ae911truth.org/) and that WTC 7 'collapsed' as a result of a classic controlled demolition ("WTC7 in Freefall" at http://911blogger.com/node/17685 http://911blogger.com/node/18771 http://911blogger.com/node/18951 http://911blogger.com/node/18969).

So, there is no possible way that a group operating out of caves in Afghanistan could have accomplished this and then covered up those facts in the subsequent 'inquiries'.

So, the core pretext for this war peddled by Obama, Rudd, Brown, Blair, Howard and Bush is a fraudulent lie.

For for further evidence which demolishes the official justification for the Afghan War, please refer to the discussion in the forum in response to Kellie Tranter's related article "Australia, Afghanistan and three unanswered questions" of 11 Feb 10 at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10034&page=39

(I apologise that this discussion has been considerably disrupted by people trying to prevent the truth from being understood, but that is beyond my control.)

Other discussions can be found at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3330&page=41 http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2166&page=83

I thought I might find you here, daggett.

But I think you may need a stronger opening gambit than:

>>In fact the evidence has never been produced...<<

especially when it becomes a preface to:

>>Our own eyes tell us that the Twin Towers were blown apart with high explosives... and that WTC 7 'collapsed' as a result of a classic controlled demolition<<

To which I can only say...

In fact the evidence has never been produced.

Chris Lewis is correct in stating that we fight for a lot of irrational and rational reasons.

May be so, but should we not question the propensity for irrationality?

Misunderstandings is natural and inevitable. Just think of children growing up, or an illiterate person lacking knowledge. (There is nearly 70% illiteracy in Afghanistan.) In the case of children, lack of understanding is gradually being corrected by learning. (We automatically accept this process.) In the case of adults, lack of understanding can be corrected by diplomacy. Unfortunately, not everyone has the talent, or sees the need for diplomacy. This is especially so in the armed forces and among some politicans. (This is everywhere, not just in Afganistan.)

To reiterate, misunderstanding is natural. The question is: - are we prepared to do something about it, or carry on as before?

Of course, Pericles is very well practised at denying evidence that is perfectly clear to everyone else who looks at it.

If we accept that this:

http://images.inmagine.com/img/imagesource/is_single1105/is300248.jpg

... is an image of a building being destroyed with high explosives, then why isn't this:

http://cms.ae911truth.org/images/stories/explo2.jpg

... even more so an image of a building being destroyed with high explosives?

Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations are very heavily infiltrated by intelligence and we are killing more and more of the senior leadership ever year.

The senior leadership of terrorist organizations are particularly nasty. But those who commit the attacks are probably very severely brainwashed. So they are brainwashed so severely that they are willing to kill themselves for their misguided cause.

We probably won't have the surveillance technology for about thirty (30) years to eradicate terrorism.

What should we do now to stop this violence? Terrorist organizations are enemies of The U.S. and our allies. What would it take to form a truce and potentially a friendship to create lasting peace. Sure forgetting 911 and other attrocities is hard, but does holding on to them justify this and potentially many future wars or violent interactions which will lead to a further substantial loss of life.

So I guess it all comes down to both sides either continuing to act in a vengeful way in return for the loss of their loved ones - or alternatively everyone saying enough is enough and we want peace now.

Terrorist leaders could negotiate with The U.S. and our allies via internet posts or via video tapes sent secretely to news organizations. The Obama Administration could use whitehouse.gov and messages broadcast in the middle east.

The question is - how much do we want peace? I don't think it's logical to die in pursuit of peace.

The terrorists who kill themselves have very strong dedication and commitment for their misguided cause. If they could focus this energy and determination for good - well, this would be great. Imagine all the good work they could do as missionaries.

Who knows once we are all friends a fancy PR Firm may even rebrand them from,

'Terrorists'

TO

'Followers of God!'

This is just a different perspective as I want peace now.

John

--
John Anthony Pattison
South Yarra 3141
Australia
+61431909642
jpattison@gmail.com
http://au.linkedin.com/in/johnanthonypattison
http://johnanthonypattison.blogspot.com/
http://www.meetup.com/Engineering-Machine-Consciousness/
http://www.meetup.com/The-CPX/
johnanthonypattison [Skype Video Call]

So, what makes you so sure that Islamist extremists. operating out of Afghanistan, were the principle perpetrators of 9/11, the London Tube bombings, the Bali bombings and the Madrid bombings, John Anthony Pattison?

Could you please cite any documentary evidence that has led you to this conviction?

Does it strike you as even the least bit suspicious that, after more than 8 years of occupation of the supposed main hotbed of international terrorism, from which all these attacks were supposedly launched, that not one single person with a proven link to 9/11 has been captured?

And that includes every one of the hundreds of Guantanamo Bay detainees, incarcerated and tortured and denied basic human rights for years.

I don't think that anyone except a crackpot conspiracy theorist will agree with you.

The U.S. Government does much good. Barack Obama has good character and vision. He is a once in a lifetime President who has much work ahead of him. I am one hundred (100) per cent behind him. Sure I am a Republican, but I am also very interested in Bipartisan Policy and I don't like it when people interfer with and hamper the government in its attempts to improve The U.S. and improve the world through signing into law the required policy.

John

--
John Anthony Pattison
South Yarra 3141
Australia
+61431909642
jpattison@gmail.com
http://au.linkedin.com/in/johnanthonypattison
http://johnanthonypattison.blogspot.com/
http://www.meetup.com/Engineering-Machine-Consciousness/
http://www.meetup.com/The-CPX/
johnanthonypattison [Skype Video Call]

John Anthony Patterson,

I don't believe that your post answers my questions.

Perhaps, Pericles would care to attempt to answer at least my first question.

He has already made it clear elsewhere that he doesn't find it at all suspicious that no-one linked to 9/11 has been captured in Afghanistan after 8 and and a half years of occupation.

Not this time, daggett.

>>Perhaps, Pericles would care to attempt to answer at least my first question.<<

But I would just point out that you - like the USSR and the US - simply do not learn from history.

>>Does it strike you as even the least bit suspicious that, after more than 8 years of occupation of the supposed main hotbed of international terrorism, from which all these attacks were supposedly launched, that not one single person with a proven link to 9/11 has been captured?<<

"Occupation" by whom, daggett?

Afghanistan is not "occupied" by the US, any more than by the Soviets before them, or even the British back in the nineteenth century.

So no, it doesn't surprise me at all.

Of course, I am not at all surprised that neither John Anthony Pattison (apologies for my earlier mis-spelling), nor Pericles have attempted to answer my simple straightforward simple question that they supply evidence that Islamist extremists operating from Afghanistan perpetrated 9/11, 7/7, the Bali bombings, etc.

The reason that they won't is that the evidence does not exist.

Even the FBI has admitted that it doesn't have the evidence to charge Osama bin Laden for the crime of 9/11 as anyone can see from the FBI wanted poster at http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm

Note how 9/11 has been omitted from the crimes for which he is wanted.

Yet Osama bin Laden's presumed guilt for 9/11 was the pretext used by the invasion of Afghanistan.

Does anyone here fail to grasp the disturbing implications this has for international law?

---

People may assume from the way Pericles declined to answer my question:

"Not this time, daggett."

... that he normally does answer questions I put to him.

However, anyone who peruses the other vast forums in which this topic has been discussed at:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3330&page=41 http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2166&page=83

... will search in vain for clear answers to any of my questions put to Pericles (except, perhaps, for one ...)

---

Yes, Pericles, Afghanistan was occupied by the Soviet Union for about 10 years after 1979 and it was occupied by Great Britain in the 19th century.

Whatever were the rights and wrongs of those occupations, I don't believe that either of those countries used, as a pretext for invasion, claims that they had been attacked by terrorists from within Afghanistan.

So, I fail to see the relevance of your point to this discussion.

At least, Pericles has once again put on record that he doesn't find suspicious the fact that no-one in Afghanistan with a proven link to 9/11 has been captured after eight and a half years of occupation od that supposed hot-bed of international terrorism.

I think that that should be kept at the back of our minds, when we evaluate the worth of anything else he may have to say about this topic.