PRIME Minister John Howard has announced a major new deployment of Australian troops to Afghanistan, building up to a 1000-strong presence by 2008.
This is a good thing and whilst Bannerman doesn’t quite see the national interest being served in the same manner as Little Johnny Howler does, he does recognise that the Howardian government’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2002 in order to provide some kind of justification to the Bush Administrations flawed venture into Iraq. Bannerman finds the Howardian claim that Labor is being hypocritical to back this deployment, yet fail to support the chasing of so-called ’terrorist’ insurgents in Iraq, hypocritical in itself. The debacle which Iraq has become never had any validity from the very beginning. Supporting intel was badly faulty, lie after very bad lie was concocted and told by politicians with vested interests in maintaining that climate of fear and loathing, and all to no good end. The result is the failed state we see as Iraq today. That Howard still rests on the claims of ’terrorists’ running rampant in Iraq, as having been there from day one until today, reeks of desperation as it’s clear he intends resting on the old favourite of national security in this years election campaign. Quite frankly, if that’s all he has to run a campaign on, then he’s already lost, to Bannerman’s mind.
A military expedition back into Afghanistan, while somewhat distasteful in given that it’s happening with the benefit of hindsight, is very necessary if that country too is not to become a failed state. Elections and shows of democratic functionality do not a long term valid nation make. One need only look to Iraq to understand that.