This an excellent article and deserving of a more considered and intelligent response than shown by the majority of the comments to date (ozandy-an honourable exception).
Space limitations preclude a detailed analysis of Mr McInnes' arguments, but I will take up on one point. He says that the primary threshold question is whether we can still morally justify exposing our troops to death and injury (paraphrased).
I suggest that there is an earlier threshold question: are we justified, legally or morally, in embarking upon the (in this case) invasion and occupation of a foreign sovereign nation?
The answer in international law is very clear. One nation may only attack another in circumstances permitted under the UN Charter. None of those circumstances pertain to the attack a, invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Ergo, it is illegal and Australia is merely part of ongoing criminal activity.
For a refreshingly honest appraisal of the current state of affairs in Afghanistan readers might like to go to Tuesday 1 November's broadcast of Democracy Now where Amy Goodman interviews Jonathon Steele of the Guardian. One will learn more from that interview than hours of the mindless pap that ABC and SBS inflict upon us.

Well, if memory serves me correctly we justified ourselves initially because we believed not only that Bin Laden was still there, but that deep down the Afghans wanted to live under a secular system instead of a Shariah authority like the Taliban.

Now that Bin Laden is dead, and now that the Afghans have failed, after 10 years of us removing the Taliban, to embrace this system we *thought* they wanted, there is really not much reason to stay anymore.

James O’Neill

So, there is a Law of that regulates Wars: Who wrote it and where is it?

I need a copy of it to make my bully neighbor laugh himself to death.

Soldiers know what they are there for, and they know the dangers. If they read posts like that they would be embarrassed. Radical belief, is the cause of war, and that is not going away any time soon. If they kept their tribal belief, to them-self, with out exporting it, there would be no need for war.

James I personally believe that Drugs would be sufficient for me to justify a military action in Afghanistan; But 10 years have passed and Afghans are still cultivating Poppies .

We have failed , there are no victories , none of out troops have let us down we instead have let them down , injuries and deaths have prevailed because we are in a war zone but we are not there to win ; to much pussy
and no grunt, a footy team dressed in Pinafores . Then we have to put up with a cowering Defence Minister on the brink of tears choking out his
cringe.............did you ever hear Churchill bleating like a lamb , not likely he knew war and had the balls to win .

@ Skeptic: You comment is so profoundly ignorant that anything I say is unlikely to influence you one little bit so I won't bother.

@ Garum Masala: Afghanistan was a major exporter of heroin prior to the Taliban government. The Taliban virtually eliminated production, at least in the areas they controlled. The overthrow of the Taliban government by the Americans and their allies in late 2001 led immediately to a surge in poppy production and hence heroin. Afghanistan now accounts for 93% of the world's production of heroin.

There is ample evidence that American intervention around the world is always followed by surges in illegal drug production. That is not a coincidence. See for example, Alfred McCoy The Politics of Heroin and Peter Dale Scott The Road to 9/11.

The UN Drug Agency's director said that it was illegal money laundering of drug money that kept western banks afloat during the 2008/09 financial crisis. Wachovia Bank pleaded guilty to laundering more than $400 billion in drug money, not that you would read much about that in the financial pages of the mainstream press.