Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to be participating in this very important debate on Australia’s commitment to the war in Afghanistan. It is a debate that is taking place in the ninth year of our involvement, and I think we can say that it is a war that Australians generally appear to have concerns about and may no longer support. Public support for the war has changed over the course of the last nine years and I do believe that a great number of Australians now are not supportive of Australian military involvement in Afghanistan. It is on behalf of those people, many of whom are my constituents, that I wish to make my contribution here today.

We have heard a lot about Afghanistan from many speakers, and many great contributions have been made. Afghanistan finds itself at the epicentre of a global paradigm which speaks constantly to us all of national security, of Islamist terrorism and of the war on terror. This is a somewhat narrow perspective and it has dramatic human consequences. These consequences very much include the loss of Australian and Afghan lives and the mass displacement of people seeking refuge. Ironically, in my own electorate some 150 young unaccompanied Afghani minors are currently being accommodated in the Melbourne immigration transit accommodation centre in Broadmeadows. So the reality of displacement is very much in my own electorate and in our neighbourhood. It is clear for us all to see and to try to understand.

The prognosis for resolution in relation to the war in Afghanistan has been assessed. It is often referred to as protracted and is often also considered to be a military success, but from time to time it appears to be described as outright hopeless. As I said, most Australians, including many of my constituents, are asking very pertinent questions. They ask me often and they have certainly been asking me over the course of the last nine years. The obvious question is: what is the war in Afghanistan all about? They want to know where it is leading and what the cost is of our continued involvement—not only to Australia but to the people of Afghanistan, to the region and to the US and all of our allies.

In her speech to the House, the Prime Minister did answer some of these questions. She pointed in particular to two very vital national interests that drive Australian involvement in Afghanistan. The first is to make sure that Afghanistan does not continue to be a haven for terrorists. The second, most emphatically, is that we are there to stand firmly by our alliance commitments to the United States. The Prime Minister also went on to make it clear that we would not abandon Afghanistan and that we will be engaged throughout this decade at least. I know that that has resonated with a lot of the public, particularly with a lot of people in my electorate. So the war appears to be a long way from being over and, despite little progress, it also appears that we intend to stay the course—that is another phrase that is very often used and linked to what we are doing in Afghanistan: ‘We intend to stay the course.’ A lot of people do not fully understand what that course is.

In 2003 I said in this chamber regarding the Howard government’s decision to commit Australia to war in Iraq:

I am a representative who cares about the reason our country went to war.

I also recall addressing an antiwar rally in Melbourne where over a quarter of a million Melburnians marched against the war in Iraq. The rally in Melbourne was part of a weekend of mass international protests which saw tens of millions of people out on the streets in over 600 cities and towns across the world.

At that time, the war in Afghanistan was seen as different. The attacks on the twin towers on September 11 did cast a very violent narrative, and the almost immediate association of Osama bin Laden with these horrific acts catapulted Afghanistan to the forefront of a new and dangerous threat, a threat the world and we here in Australia were not familiar with. It was easier to support Australian involvement in Afghanistan because there was a strong and obvious correlation between the killings on September 11 and the man who has come to personify the face of Islamist terrorism.

Iraq was a different proposition. There were questions about regime change, missing weapons of mass destruction and shifting geopolitical balances. Our involvement in Afghanistan seemed to have a nobler cause, especially so in light of the Bali bombings that so horrified our country and killed so many innocent Australians—young people who were just going about their business while on holidays.

I think this debate therefore gives us the opportunity to take stock—and many members have done that in the course of their contribution—and to examine what has become of our Afghanistan mission: what progress have we made? What have we achieved? Have the original objectives in going to war been met? In short, I think they have not been met: bin Laden has not been captured; al-Qaeda has not been eradicated but has, rather, been pushed into Pakistan, relocated but not defeated; stability and peace have not come to the people of Afghanistan or the region; and the allied troops are no closer today to resolving this theatre of war than they were nine years ago.

The renowned American journalist of Watergate fame, Bob Woodward, in his recent book Obama’s Wars, describes Afghanistan as a war bogged down with slow progress, almost no capacity to build a new nation and little or no prospect of victory. Indeed, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, made this concerning assessment:

… I don’t think you win this war; I think you keep fighting. It’s a little bit like Iraq … This is the kind of fight we’re in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids’ lives.

Concurring with this assessment of the military situation on the ground, Australia’s Brigadier Mark Smethurst, one of our top combat soldiers, said that our troops are overwhelmed and unable to defeat the Taliban. This prognosis is devastating, I think, and does not offer much hope for progress. It is therefore only logical that, given those cited assessments, we carefully and truthfully re-examine our commitment to this war—a commitment that places the lives of Australian soldiers and Afghani civilians at risk and a commitment on which we have failed to make decisive and definitive progress.

This quagmire is neither new nor unique. Putting aside renditions of George Santayana’s altered phrase that ‘those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it’, we have been down this road before. I want to reflect on the words of Arthur Calwell, who stood against another infamous war that was both protracted and unwinnable, a war waged on the pretext of national security, the need to stop the spread of communism—those of you who have studied this war will recall the so-called domino theory and the yellow and red ‘perils’—and our commitment to the US alliance. I am referring of course to the Vietnam War.

In May of 1965, Arthur Calwell, leader of the Australian Labor Party, long before Australian popular opinion morphed into a groundswell of antiwar protestation, stated:

Our men will be fighting the largely indigenous Viet Cong in their own home territory. They will be fighting in the midst of a largely indifferent, if not resentful, and frightened population. They will be fighting at the request of, and in support, and, presumably, under the direction of an unstable, inefficient, partially corrupt military regime which lacks even the semblance of being, or becoming, democratically based.

A debate similar to this one took place in this country at that time. Our government’s commitment was espoused with the catchcry ‘All the way with LBJ’. It would, however, take Australian governments another decade to realise that Arthur Calwell’s assessment was indeed correct and that, perhaps, LBJ’s way was the wrong way.

I think Calwell’s words ring true today, as they did over 45 years ago. Afghanistan and Iraq have become the 21st century’s Vietnam for both the US and for us here in Australia. I do not intend, in expressing my views, to disrespect or devalue the sacrifices and the courage of our young Australians serving in Afghanistan. Rather, my objection to the war and our involvement goes to its purpose, the prospects of the mission itself and our ethical responsibility to those we send to fight in our name. I was here when the member for Makin made mention of the approaches—indeed, the pleas—that he has received from the mother of an Australian soldier, a mother who wants the member for Makin to support our soldiers being brought back home. We need to be conscious of that anxiety and concern here in Australia.

As we mourn the death of our fallen soldiers, we have to also reflect on the countless deaths of Afghani men, women and children who through no fault of their own have become the casualties and victims of a war they have no say in. Given the course, the prospects and the cost of our engagement, I believe it is now time for Australia to withdraw its troops, or to disengage from its military involvement in Afghanistan. The objective is to end terrorism by removing al-Qaeda and, sadly but clearly, together with our American allies, we have not achieved that objective. It is now clear that we cannot meet these objectives through a continuation of war.

It is my view that peace talks working towards a political settlement should commence almost immediately amongst the Afghani parties, and that includes the Taliban, mediated and facilitated by the United Nations. If this entails power-sharing with the Taliban, such a proposition should not be viewed as fanciful and intractable, but it should be seen as the way forward.

I want to refer to comments made by Professor Amin Saikal, who is the director of the ANU Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies. He recently wrote, and it is very important because he is right:

The problem of Afghanistan is not that the US and its NATO and non-NATO allies have not deployed enough forces and firepower. They have.

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The problem of Afghanistan is largely political, economic and regional. The corrupt, dysfunctional and nepotistic nature of the government of President Hamid Karzai is well documented.

Professor Saikal is correct in his assessment. We cannot resolve this issue by staying only on a military course. Dialogue and negotiation for political solutions are now the only viable option. And, again, as Professor Saikal notes:

It is now absolutely imperative for the UN Secretary-General to convene a regional conference with all five permanent members of the UN Security Council to establish such an agreement.

We will need to come to the realisation that we cannot choose who the Afghan people put forward to make peace. We must discard the idea that, if the Taliban were not there, it would be easier to manage Afghanistan’s transition into a peaceful and stable state.

After nearly a decade of being consumed by the monologue of war on terror, it is time that we commenced a dialogue on the politics of withdrawal: how to peacefully and effectively disengage our military forces from Iraq and Afghanistan. As Australia we should—indeed, it constitutes our moral imperative—continue our commitment to the Afghani people through our technical and even our international aid programs. By calling for an end to the military engagement, we are not abandoning the people of Afghanistan. Instead, by supporting a peace process through dialogue towards a political settlement rather than a military solution, I believe we are providing the only real hope for peace, stability and prosperity for the people of Afghanistan, for the region, for us here in Australia and for all of the international parties involved in this conflict.

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