Australia should pull out of Afghanistan

[russtafa]

i think that we should pull out of this miserable shit hole but if another september 11 can be traced back to the crap hole what's to be done

[Ben]

Well, Australia should've never went in. It isn't their war. It has nothing to do with Australia. I mean, if Afghanistan (meaning the government of Afghanistan) ordered an attack on Australia then Australia has every right to defend herself. So, it seems pointless for Australia to have gone in. I mean, Australian troops should be IN AUSTRALIA protecting Australia. I mean, why are Australian troops in Afghanistan protecting Afghans? Again, Australian troops SHOULD BE IN AUSTRALIA protecting the people of Australia.


Republican Ron Paul is very good on this front:


Is the US Ready to Talk the Taliban?

By GARETH PORTER
The Taliban leadership is ready to negotiate peace with the United States right now if Washington indicates its willingness to provide a timetable for complete withdrawal, according to a former Afghan prime minister who set up a secret meeting between a senior Taliban official and a U.S. general two years ago.
They also have no problem with meeting the oft-repeated U.S. demand that the Taliban cut ties completely with Al-Qaeda.
Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai, who was acting prime minister of Afghanistan in 1995-96, told IPS in an interview that a group of Taliban officials conveyed the organisation's position on starting peace negotiations to him in a meeting in Kabul a few days ago.
"They said once the Americans say 'we are ready to withdraw', they will sit with them," said Ahmadzai.
The former prime minister said Taliban officials made it clear that they were not insisting on any specific date for final withdrawal. "The timetable is up to the Americans," he said.
Ahmadzai contradicted a favourite theme of media coverage of the issue of peace negotiations on the war - that Mullah Mohammed Omar, head of the Taliban leadership council, has not been on board with contacts by Taliban officials with the administration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the U.S.
He confirmed that Mullah Baradar, then second in command to Mullah Omar, had indeed had high-level contacts with officials in the Karzai government in 2009, as claimed by Karzai aides, before being detained by Pakistani intelligence in early 2010.
And contrary to speculation that Baradar's relationship with Mullah Omar had been terminated either by those contacts or by his detention, Ahmadzai said, "Baradar is still the top man," and "Mullah Omar's position on him hasn't changed."
Ahmadzai, who studied engineering at Colorado State University before joining the U.S.-sponsored mujahideen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, maintains close ties with Quetta Shura officials but has also enjoyed personal contacts with the U.S. military. He brokered a meeting between a senior Taliban leader and Brig. Gen. Edward M. Reeder, then commander of the Combined Special Forces Special Operations Army Component Command in Kabul in summer 2009.
The former prime minister's account of that meeting in the interview with IPS further documents the Taliban leadership's interest in entering into peace negotiations with the United States prior to the Barack Obama administration's decision to escalate U.S. military involvement sharply in 2009.
A senior Taliban leader told Reeder at the meeting that the insurgents had no problem with severing their ties to Al-Qaeda, but could not agree to U.S. demands for access to military bases.
Ahmadzai said he negotiated the meeting with the Taliban leadership in the spring of 2009, at the request of Reeder, who had just arrived in Kabul a few weeks earlier. The process took four months, he recalled, because the Taliban leadership had so many questions that had to be addressed.
The main question, of course, was what arrangements would be made for the Taliban representative's safety. In the end, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) command facilitated the Taliban representative's travel into Kabul, Ahmadzai recalled.
The Taliban official who met with Reeder and Ahmadzai in Kabul was a member of the Taliban Quetta Shura (leadership council) who called himself Mullah Min Mohammed for security reasons, according to Ahmadzai.
The Quetta Shura representative complained to Reeder about the failure of the United States to follow up on a previous contact with a senior Taliban representative, according to Ahmadzai's account.
"Mullah Mohammed" recalled to Reeder that the Taliban had met two years earlier in southern Kandahar province with an unnamed U.S. official who had made two demands as the price for U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan: an end to the Taliban's relations with Al-Qaeda and U.S. long-term access to three airbases in the country.
"We agreed to one but not to the other," the senior Taliban official was quoted by Ahmadzai as saying.
The Taliban leader explained that it had no trouble with the demand for cutting ties with Al-Qaeda, but that it would not agree to the U.S. retaining any military bases in Afghanistan – "not one metre", according to Ahmadzai's account.
The Quetta Shura representative then reproached the U.S. for having failed to make any response to the Taliban offer to cut the organisation's ties with Al-Qaeda.
"You haven't responded to us," he is said to have told Reeder. "You never told us yes or no."
The Taliban complaint suggested that the Quetta Shura leadership had been prepared to move into more substantive talks if the U.S. had indicated its interest in doing so.
Reeder, who has been commander of the U.S. Army Special Forces Command at Fort Bragg since July 2010, did not respond to an e-mail from IPS to the command's Public Affairs Office for comment on Ahmadzai's account of the meeting.
After the announcement of the major increase in troop deployment in Afghanistan, the Obama administration adopted a public posture that suggested the Taliban leadership had no reason to negotiate unless put under severe military pressure.
In light of the contacts between senior Taliban leaders and U.S. officials in 2007 and 2009, the Taliban clearly concluded that the United States would not negotiate with the Taliban except on the basis of accepting U.S. permanent military presence in Afghanistan.
After the 2009 meeting between Reeder and the Taliban leader, a number of reports indicated the Taliban leadership was not interested in negotiations with Washington.
Despite the apparent policy shift against seeking peace talks, the Taliban continued to signal to Washington that it was willing to exclude any presence for Al-Qaeda or other groups that might target the United States from Afghan territory.
Mullah Omar suggested that willingness in an unusual statement on the occasion of the Islamic holiday Eid in September 2009.
Then in early December, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – the official title adopted by the Quetta Shura leadership for its political-military organisation – said in a statement posted on its website and circulated to Western news agencies that it was prepared to offer "legal guarantees" against any aggressive actions against other countries from its soil as part of a settlement with the United States.
Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist with Inter-Press Service specialising in U.S. national security policy.

[russtafa]

helping the crappy USA that's why

[robertlouis]

Has Australia had troops in Afghanistan since 2001?

I'm just thinking about the Bali bombs in 2005, which whether by accident or design seemed to result in a disproportionate number of Australian victims among the dead, and wondering if the motivation for the attacks could have been Australian involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.

[hippifried]

Yeah, go ahead & pull y'all's soldiers out. Both of them.

[russtafa]

my god then America's fucked .who's going to do all the work for you,oh yeah you still have the Brit's

[Stavros]

Is the US Ready to Talk the Taliban?

Its been going on for some time. The Afghan govt and NATO representatives realised some time ago that the 'Taliban' is no longer a single 'unified' movement under Mullah Omar. There are elements of the group who want to stop fighting and live what counts for a 'normal' life in Afghanistan. Attempts have been made to hive off the 'moderates' in order to bring them into government and further split the movement but also provide evidence for people in difficult areas that there is an alternative to violence. The problem is that the Afghan govt itself is seen as so useless and corrupt across the country, it would only make sense if the Taliban softies actually produced more effective govt -which means functioning schools, markets, medical clinics, above all safety in local and often remote areas. In addition to the corruption and inefficiency of Karzai's govt, there are elements of the Taliban who are in it for the money and local power, a replay of the internecine warfare that has been going on since 1974. Into that mix you have the interference in Afghanistan of 1) Pakistan, whose military elites are addicted to American $$$ and maintain a state of tension while claiming to be part of the 'solution'; 2) Iran, who took in around a million refugees in 2002-2002 and which claims to be supporting the Hazara who are Shi's Muslims discriminated against; and India which is Afghanistan's largest trader, and perceived by Pakistan to be 'in it to win it' at Pakistan's expense.

Thus, you have the problem that nothing NATO can do will solve these political problems. Or, some deal will be done which will allow NATO to claim that they have laid the foundations for a functioning state, that they are 'handing over' security to the Police and the Army, and find a graceful way to withdraw troops, at least in volume, leaving behind 'security advisers'.

There are alternatives: Once Pakistan accepts that it is a small country in a region of big hitters (India, China and Russia), and re-focuses its efforts on governance in its own country a substantial part of the violence will end. Because of its own history, there will always be powerful regional barons in Afghanistan, government will always be the result of the centre negotiating its way through local powers; there will be revenge attacks, and petty violence, which is not nice but its Afghanistan not Connecticut or Sussex. There is actually more money to be made trading with India and developing Afghanistan's modest gas resources, than there is in Heroin and Bombs. The incentives have to change; currently Pakistan is the weakest link. If something can be done to defuse the situation in Kashmir, and if Pakistan's crooked elite are challenged, then maybe there will the semblance of peace in the region -military action by NATO and Australia cannot achieve any of this, its down to the dreary business of talks, talks, and yet more talks -but with real political incentives. And at the heart of that is good governance, something Afghanistan has not had since...

[Prospero]

There are things in this world called allies - and the US, UK and Australia have long been considered allies of each other. That applies i think whatever the rights or wrongs of our sustained presence in Afghanistan. Or do you think that fact that Australia is miles from the Middle east makes it somehow immune from the currents of global politics?

[russtafa]

There are things in this world called allies - and the US, UK and Australia have long been considered allies of each other. That applies i think whatever the rights or wrongs of our sustained presence in Afghanistan. Or do you think that fact that Australia is miles from the Middle east makes it somehow immune from the currents of global politics?

wish we were not part of this mess but we believe in the same rubbish as the other leaders of the alliance

[Miss Aeryn]

All the way with LBJ