THIS is a war that will not be won on the ground, says Michael O’Connor.
THE war in Muslim Afghanistan cannot be won by the armed forces of a Christian country. Even less can it be won by those of a pagan country which is the way the US and Australia are increasingly perceived.
For Muslims, we are too easily portrayed by the Taliban and al-Qa’ida as unbelievers and enemies of Islam. For all our billions of dollars, the theories of counter-insurgency, the brilliant weaponry and the dogged courage of our soldiers, this conflict is unwinnable because Western politicians have lost sight of their objective, the cardinal sin of war-making.
Looking back to the immediate aftermath of the al-Qa’ida attack on September 11, 2001, the US demanded of the Taliban government of Afghanistan that it hand over Osama bin Laden, the mastermind. The Taliban refused and the US went to war. The Taliban was joined with al-Qa’ida as the enemy. The Taliban was overthrown and a replacement government was manufactured.
It was supposed to be a national government of a collection of tribes that demonstrates nationality only when attacked from outside: by the British, the Russians and now the Americans.
In the process, the West has developed a mythology that Afghanistan can be turned into a modern nation, that its women can be educated to take their place in the modern world and that Western-style democracy will reign supreme. Most futile of all, the West seeks to replace opium as Afghanistan’s premier cash crop with something else that probably won’t grow as well, won’t pay as well and will have to face competition from other sources.
So the Taliban has recovered. With a combination of fundamentalist Islamic proselytising and terrorism that the North Vietnamese of another era would envy, plus safe havens in Pakistan, the lightly equipped, very mobile Taliban can keep the fight alive indefinitely. Certainly they suffer casualties but these are relatively insignificant politically compared with those suffered by the West. And every time Western technology kills by accident, it recruits even more willing foot soldiers for the Taliban.
The religious factor must not be underestimated. It was not a factor in Vietnam which was lost by American incompetence and a loss of will. Whatever we in the West think, religion is the dominant factor in Afghanistan, as it was when the US backed the anti-Soviet Afghan forces between 1979 and the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. Since that time, militant Islam has become an even more powerful force. It will continue to be the primary motivating factor of the Taliban and its allies in Afghanistan. If Afghanistan is to be modernised, that will be achieved only by Muslim countries that are frankly reluctant to take on the militants in their own countries, never mind elsewhere.
When questioned, the soldiers will assert that the job can be done but that is loyalty rather than wisdom speaking. They may – probably will – insist that the cost in money and blood will be significant over the long haul but the decision to stay or go is one which must be made by the political leadership which bleeds no more than votes.
The only credible solution to the mess is withdrawal. The clever people who constructed the case for intervention are equally capable of constructing a credible case for withdrawal. The initiative must come from the US which carries the burden of the intervention. Its allies who have been more or less willingly shanghaied into the mess need to press the US into committing to a safe but rapid withdrawal.
The fundamental problem for all of the US’s allies, including Australia, is that they have committed their own security to the American alliance. None – certainly not Australia – provides adequately for its own defence so all are handcuffed to US policy. Australians tend to see the American alliance as one of friends anchored in shared experience in past conflicts. They tend not to see the shackles because it has suited every Australian government since 1944 to severely limit its own commitment to national security.
The problem for those governments is that they are then compelled to do what Washington wants regardless of the merits of the case. Sometimes those merits will be obvious to Australia’s core security interests. In Afghanistan they are not. Terrorism, especially Islamist terrorism, cannot be defeated in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia or elsewhere. Only good intelligence and solid police work will protect Australia from terrorist attack.
Michael O’Connor is a former executive director of the Australia Defence Association
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