With yet another needless waste of five more armed service personnel lives, one has to ask, why are we still there.

For the record, I was opposed to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and think it was one of Howard's worst decisions, however, my understanding was that it was based on the suspicion of weapons of mass distraction and, to capture, or kill, Husane and Bin Larden, both of which have been achieved.

So, given we have now lost somewhere in the order of 35 people, one has to wonder at what point are our leaders and decision makers in breach of their duty of care to our service personnel.

Let's face it, it's hard to offer training and assistance, when those in need and our enemy are one in the same.

Furthermore, no amount of help will change their culture.

So what do you all think, as I say get out now.

Butch, (I can't get my mind around rehctub, it doesn't seem right)

I know what you are saying. Every rational and practical bone in me tells me get out and do no get involved in other countries problems.

We get no thanks from the people in those countries and we are sacrificing our best. Then there is the financial cost and the loss of equipment. Perhaps we gain a little from troop experience and improvements to equipment, but hardly worthwhile.

Maybe we abandon the whole middle east as efforts have proved fruitless and these days we do not even need to use the suez canal. Let them fix their own problems. Recently I saw pics of a building being erected in Arabia so they could snow ski there. Cost is enormous so why can't they spend that money on their social problems.

Look at iraq, they were handed democracy on a plate and were too stupid to take it. within a couple of weeks of liberation they were blowing each other up and we were stuck there trying to keep them apart. One advantage is that they are keeping the world population down by killing people.

Likely Egypt and Lybia will be the same and Syria as well. The people will not be better off. I think these tribes are so stupid they need extreme dictators to keep them in line. The young blokes are coming here illegally when they should be home fixing it up.

No, bring our troops home and leave the idiots there to stew in their own juices. No way is it worth the effort, we cannot fix stupid.

I'm right with you on ths one, rechtub.
Whether we stay until 2014, 2054 or 2104, at the end, what happens in Afghanistan will be determined by the Afghan people.
The government is corrupt and held in no regard by Afghans, so it's highly likely the Taliban will gain control no matter what we do.
Our government says we must complete the mission.
I'm a twenty year military veteran, and I always knew what success looked like when given any undertaking.
Yet, not one of our leaders, of any persuasion is able to describe what this mission's completion will look like.
Nobody can define success.
And for me, that a good enough reason to get out of there and not lose one more soldier's life for a purpose we cannot even define.
Anthony
http://www.observationpoint.com.au

Simple answer - we are still there because the politicians want to appease the Americans, which is why we went there in the first place.

Dear Rehctub,

I'm with you on this one.

How can we help people that don't want to be helped?

You can't kill half of the population so that the
other half can be happy.

It's a tribal culture that will take centuries
to diffuse. The only winners are the armament
manufacturers. If the allies get out of Afghanistan -
the armament manufacturers will find other places
to start their conflicts.

We should get out now.

When Napoleon entered Egypt in 1798 it was run by local beys, backed up by a warrior caste imported from around the Black Sea called Mamluks, this arrangement had been in place for hundreds of years.

Napoleon brought the concept of fraternity and equality fresh from the French Revolution but the Egyptians hated it. The Egyptian in the street was infinitely better off under the judicial and social reforms that Napoleon brought with him. He even declared that Islam was the real religion of peace inferring that Christianity was inferior.

It made no difference; the population wanted the brutal beys and their foreign mercenaries back. In exactly that same way the people in Afghanistan will never accept the western infidel over the Taliban.

Bottom line is that the “terrorists” that attack the west on their home ground have a lower frequency of bombings than the IRA had in its struggle against the Aristocracy of England. In the same way the poor bastard with a bomb strapped to him in Palestine is being used by his brother handlers, the terrorists are being manipulated by their so called victim, the west, the Caucasians.

It turns my stomach to watch the fit young Afghani men arrive weekly via boats. Gutless economic refugees that despise the residents of their new host nation. It tears at my heart to know that as I write this five Aussie mothers and five Aussie fathers have had all that they have had and done in life become nothing because of the loss of your reason for being.

I love our youth, they are free spirited accepting and open, and we sacrifice them to the vision of how the world should be driven by the finance houses of Europe and America.