andrew wilkie on afghanistan

8/8/2019 Andrew Wilkie on Afghanistan

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/andrew-wilkie-on-afghanistan 1/7

of 7

Andrew Wilkie’s Speech to Afghanistan Debate - 20 Oct 2010

Thank you Mr Speaker.

Mr Speaker, I’m a Duntroon graduate and former Army Lieutenant Colonel. For a

time I served as a senior intelligence analyst. I believe in just war and supported the

2001 invasion of Afghanistan on the grounds that al Qaida was involved in the 9/11

terror attacks, and so significantly intertwined with the Taliban that any effective US

response warranted regime change in Kabul.

Unsurprisingly I’m a strong supporter of the Australian Defence Force, and have

been as saddened as anyone that it’s my old battalion – the Sixth, based at Enoggera

in Brisbane – which has lately borne the brunt of casualties in Afghanistan.

I was a platoon commander, the adjutant and then a company commander in 6 RAR

and understand well the difficulty of the job our soldiers are doing in our name.

On balance I’m also pro-US. The United States and Australia are natural allies on

account of our common histories, cultures, values and strategic security interests.

The US-Australia bilateral relationship is understandably one of Australia’s most

important and I can understand Prime Minister John Howard’s decision to invoke

the ANZUS alliance after 9/11. When the US is in strife it is right that we should

come to its aid, as in fact we should try and help any country so long as doing so is

within our means and consistent with our national interests.

But, despite all this, I’m a vocal critic of the war in Afghanistan and believe we must

bring our combat troops home as soon as possible. And when I say as soon as

possible, I envisage a withdrawal timeline carefully planned by military

professionals, not politicians, which speedily hands military responsibility over to

Afghan security forces in a matter of months.

Yesterday the Prime Minister was talking about us still waging war in Afghanistan

in ten years time. That was an extraordinary admission of the difficulties we’ve goneand got ourselves in to and entirely inconsistent with our national interest. If it was

up to me, I’d be very concerned with any military plan that still had us fighting in

Afghanistan in 10 months time, let alone 10 years.

Mr Speaker, in 2001 Afghanistan was a launching pad for Islamic extremism. But

now the country is irrelevant in that regard because Islamic extremism has morphed

into a global network not dependent on any one country.

Yes, countries like Pakistan are incubators for terrorists. But so are countries likeAustralia, Indonesia, the United Kingdom and United States which now grow their



of 7

own terrorists. And this is a much more worrying situation because it enlarges the

threat and buries it deep within us where it’s even harder for the security services to

detect.

In 2001 Osama bin Laden was thought to be in Afghanistan. But now no one knows

where he, is or even if he’s alive or dead. Not that it matters anymore, because his

ideas have taken hold and grown strong globally.

In 2001 al Qaida was the world’s pre-eminent Islamic terrorist organisation. But now

al Qaida, like bin Laden, is much less important because it has spawned off-shoots

directly and inspired other terror groups to crystallise.

The misguided response to 9/11, not the least of which was the failure to finish the

job in Afghanistan when we had the chance in 2002, followed by the outrageous

invasion of Iraq in 2003, has resulted in a significant baseline number of would-be

Islamic terrorists and a global network of small terrorist clusters.

In other words, Afghanistan is no longer relevant to Australia’s security in the way it

was in 2001 and the continued Government and Coalition insistence that we must

stay in Afghanistan to protect Australia from terrorists is deliberately misleading – a

great lie which, in recent Australian history, is second only to the gross Government

dishonesty over Australia’s decision to join in the invasion of Iraq.

Mind you just yesterday there was no shortage of misleading statements in this place

regarding our military commitment in Afghanistan. Both the Prime Minister and the

Opposition Leader laid it on thick with 9/11, the Bali bombings and the attacks on

our Embassy in Jakarta.

Yes, a token effort was made to distance these shocking events from our current role

in Afghanistan, but the way they were recounted achieved the speakers’ aim of

forming associations in people’s minds and steering listeners towards the conclusion

that the terrorist attacks of years ago are as relevant today to our mission inAfghanistan as they were then.

If there is in fact any relevance of Afghanistan to terrorism and Australian security

nowadays , then it’s the way in which the ongoing war continues to enrage

disaffected Muslims around the world.

Just last week, the Victorian Supreme Court heard that that one of the men allegedly

plotting to stage an attack at Holsworthy Army Barracks in Sydney was angry at

Australia’s ongoing presence in Afghanistan.



of 7

According to media reports, one Wissam Fattal discussed a trip by former Prime

Minister Kevin Rudd to Germany to hold discussions about the war and was

overheard to say ‘it was shameful that Australian troops killed innocent people.’

Mr Speaker, if the Government and Coalition are going to continue to argue for

years’ more fighting in Afghanistan, and deaths, then you need to start being honest

with the Australian community. Ditch the dishonest terrorism rhetoric and try and

sell the real reasons for our seemingly open-ended involvement in a war that has

gone from bad to worse over nine years, making it one of the longest wars in

Australian history. Only the 13 years of the Malayan Emergency and the 10 year’s

service of the Australian Army Training Team in Vietnam surpass it.

The reality is that the main reason we’re in Afghanistan is to support the United

States, and by that support to enhance the likelihood of the US coming to our aid in

the event Australia’s security is one day threatened. Such a reason for staying in

Afghanistan has appeal to a not insignificant number of Australians.

Problem is, it’s a misplaced appeal because the reality of foreign policy remains that

alliances last only so long as interests overlap. So US support for Australia at some

point in the future will depend on our usefulness to Washington at that exact point

in time. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and other supposed down-payments on our

American insurance policy will not, in themselves, necessarily amount to anything.

Turning this point around is the reality that Australia is, and will remain, as

important to United States’ strategic interests as the US is to ours. Our location,

political and social stability and inherent security, in part because of our air-sea gap

and inhospitable frontiers, combine to ensure this is one piece of real estate the US

will continue to be prepared to shed blood over.

Some commentators see in New Zealand a demonstration of the perils of saying ‘no’

to America. But the reality is that Prime Minister David Lange’s decision in 1984 to

deny US nuclear ship visits did not unplug Wellington from US securityarrangements for the simple reason of the continuing need for America to access the

material collected by at least the Waihopai signals intelligence ground station

located on the North Island.

In other words, the bilateral New Zealand-United States security arrangement did

continue, albeit in another form, because the security needs of the two countries

continued to overlap. And all the theatre about New Zealand being completely cut

adrift by the US was just that, political theatre for public consumption mainly in

America.



of 7

So too Australia could continue to rely on United States’ security guarantees even if

we pulled out of Afghanistan, because we’re simply too important to the US’s own

security for them to do otherwise. In fact we’d almost certainly be at less risk of

being taken for granted in Washington if sometimes we just said ‘no’.

All of which, Mr Speaker, leaves ordinary Afghans as pawns in the strategic game

we continue to play out with the United States. Yes, the Afghans in our area of

operations have often benefited from the good work of our soldiers and the Prime

Minister’s speech on the war yesterday was a fitting reminder of the local

achievements of our soldiers.

But let’s not kid ourselves. After nine years of war and billions of dollars in foreign

aid, a third of a million Afghans are still displaced within that country’s borders ,

while 10 times that number eek out an existence as refugees, mainly in Iran and

Pakistan. Moreover the central government still fails to exert much control outside

Kabul and the Taliban’s strength is put in the tens of thousands and growing, even

though foreign force numbers have now maxed out at well over 100,000.

I remember well my visit to north-east Iran some years ago where I met with some

of the Afghan refugees accommodated at one of refugee camps on the border there.

There were thousands in the camp, and even though the conditions were relatively

good thanks to Iranian Government efforts, the looks in the faces of many of the

refugees, including the children, was the stuff of nightmares. Such experiences help

explain my compassion for asylum seekers to this day.

Australia’s achievements in Afghanistan are eerily similar to the way in which

Australia achieved tremendous results in Phuoc Tuy province in South Vietnam

between 1965 and 1972, only to see those achievements eventually steamrolled by

the broader Vietnam War debacle. In other words, it doesn’t matter how well we do

in Uruzgan Province because ultimately Afghanistan’s fate is being decided

elsewhere.

Mr Speaker, another alarming similarity between Afghanistan and Vietnam is how

these wars were, or are, propping up deeply corrupt regimes. And this matters.

There have now been two elections in Afghanistan in the space of 14 months and

both have been widely ridiculed for intimidation and fraud on scales completely

discrediting the outcomes. And at the end of the day this is the government our

soldiers are propping up and dying for. And I find that totally unacceptable, and

something the Government still needs to properly explain.



of 7

No wonder Australian public support for the war and our involvement in it are at

such low levels, as evidenced by a poll in June by Essential Research which showed

nearly two-thirds of people want the Government to withdraw troops from

Afghanistan. Only seven per cent thought the number of troops should be increased.Also this year research by the esteemed Lowy Institute put at 54 per cent the number

of people polled who felt that Australia should not continue to be involved in

Afghanistan militarily.

Very few Members might be unambiguously speaking out against the war here. But

standing behind those of us who do are the millions of Australians who are

concerned with the ongoing war in Afghanistan and feel strongly that it’s time to

bring the troops home. Every one in this place needs to understand that while the

number of members speaking against the war in this place is small, the number of

people out there concerned about it is huge.

In other words numerous Members are prepared to sit there behind your party’s

policy at the expense of genuinely representing the views of your constituents. And

that is a shocking break-down of democracy. Some things should be above party

discipline and this is one of them. Whatever happened to some of you that now

you’re so ready to sacrifice your soul for your party’s political self-interest?

Those of you who’ve travelled to Afghanistan to visit our soldiers I also

acknowledge. But please understand you’ve experienced an intoxicating experience

more likely to entertain than deeply inform the sort of strategic-level analysis and

decision-making needed more than ever in this place.

The views of our enthusiastic diggers and operational-level commanders are

obviously important, but they’re only one perspective when it comes to

understanding Australia’s strategic interests and the most sensible way to achieve

them. That most of our soldiers are keen to stay in Afghanistan doesn’t necessarily

make staying there the right thing to do.

Mr Speaker, one argument for staying in Afghanistan is the need to stabilise

Pakistan. But this notion is baseless because one of the main reasons Pakistan has

become increasingly unstable since 2001 has been Islamabad’s support for the war.

Moreover one of the reasons the north-west frontier has become so much more

problematic has been the flow of militants across the border. Pulling out of

Afghanistan will help rather than hinder Pakistan.

This is something I saw first-hand in 2002 when I visited the Protestant church in the

diplomatic enclave in Islamabad which had, only days before, been attacked byterrorists. The grenade attack, which killed five including the wife of an American



of 7

diplomat, is a sobering reminder of the dangers faced by our own diplomats

overseas, especially in the many countries with heightened levels of Islamic

extremism.

Mr Speaker, the difficulties we face in Afghanistan, especially coming as they do so

soon after the Iraq debacle, throw into question how the decision to wage war is

made in Australia. That currently such decisions can be, and are, made by the Prime

Minister acting virtually alone is patently inadequate and potentially disastrous. It’s

hostage to the competency of an individual with all his or her strengths and

weaknesses, ideology and prejudices. There’s no mandatory gross-error check,

neither at the outset nor later on.

This Parliamentary debate is a case in point. That we’re having it is good, but that

we’re having it all is only because of the extraordinary 2010 Federal election result

and the pressure brought to bear on the new Government by a small number of

agitators experiencing extra ordinary political influence.

There is a real need for a public and political discussion about this matter because

the current war powers arrangement is indefensible. Perhaps, for example, Section

51 of the Constitution, Legislative Powers of the Parliament, could be amended to

include ‘to declare war or make treaties of peace with foreign powers.’ One option I

favour is that the decision to go to war should be made by a conscience vote in a

joint sitting of the Parliament.

Mr Speaker the international community, including Australia, confronts a dreadful

dilemma in Afghanistan. On the one hand it could walk away from the seemingly

inevitable disaster that would unfold. Or it can stay and fight, as it plans to, in the

hope of somehow avoiding a different but equally inevitable disaster.

Success will not be measured by capturing the capital – we did that nine years ago

and in any case civil wars are rarely won that way. No, success will be measured by

some sort of consensus among the Afghan community. And that will not be possibleuntil there is a political solution underpinned by an agreement between all the major

political groups. In other words, there can be no enduring relative peace in

Afghanistan without first negotiating with the Taliban.

The Prime Minister said yesterday she believes Australia has the right strategy in

Afghanistan. She is wrong, dangerously wrong.

The reality is that the best plan the Australian Government can come up with so far

is simply to continue to support whatever the US Government comes up with. Andthat alone is no plan - it’s just reinforcing failure.



of 7

The only way to turn Afghanistan around now is to hastily rebuild the governance,

infrastructure, services and jobs which give people hope and underpin long-term

peace.

But this appears increasingly unachievable because the foreign troops which anchor

such a solution are now seen by many Afghans as the problem. They’re prompting a

nationalist backlash which is sometimes coalescing around Taliban elements

That is our dilemma. On one hand there’s an argument for keeping our combat

troops in Afghanistan, but on the other hand we must pull them out. There is no

good solution. Whatever we do from here there will be violence and people will die.

There is no avoiding that.

The only certainty is that Afghanistan will never face the possibility of enduring

peace unless it’s allowed to find its natural political level. And that can not happen

while the Afghans regard themselves as being occupied by foreign powers propping

up an illegitimate puppet central government.

In closing I reiterate my support for our soldiers on active service, especially in

Afghanistan. Vale Andrew Russell, David Pearce, Matthew Locke, Luke Worsley,

Jason Marks, Sean McCarthy, Michael Fussell, Gregory Michael Sher, Mathew

Hopkins, Brett Till, Benjamin Ranaudo, Jacob Moerland, Darren Smith, Scott Palmer,

Timothy Aplin, Benjamin Chuck, Nathan Bewes, Jason Brown, Grant Kirby, Thomas

Dale and Jared MacKinney. You died serving your country and I salute you. May

you rest in peace. And may my new colleagues in this place see the sense in ending

this operation now before too many more young Australians are sent to their deaths.

Thank you Mr Speaker.

andrew wilkie on afghanistan

Documents