Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is an important opportunity to outline for the parliament the reasons for our engagement in Afghanistan. It is not a debate I welcome; it is a debate in which properly one should be involved. It is not a debate about whether or not Australia supports the Karzai government. All of us would agree that a government with the sorts of values that have been mentioned—and I do not dispute those—is questionable. But it does not mean that we should not be involved in Afghanistan. I note that in an outstanding speech by the Leader of the Opposition in response to the Prime Minister’s statement he had this to say:

Afghanistan may never be a Western-style, pluralist democracy. In any event, it is for Afghans, not for outsiders, to reengineer their society from the feudal to the modern. Our broader mission is merely to foster effective governance, at least by Afghan standards, and to ensure that Afghanistan never again hosts training camps for international terrorism. Australia’s particular mission, in Oruzgan and the surrounding provinces, is to strike at active Taliban units and to mentor the Afghan army’s fourth Brigade into an effective military unit loyal to the central government.

It is in that context that this debate needs to be seen. This is not about a war, as the member for Melbourne suggests, that cannot be won. If the view was that wars could never be won, one would stand aside and allow a Nazi regime to dominate the world. I am sure that there were times of great doubt. But people’s determination in that situation never wavered.

The honourable member for Melbourne quoted General Gration to give authority to the proposition that this war that cannot be won is something that we should walk away from. But I notice that in General Gration’s comments, reported by Cameron Stewart in the Australian on 19 October, the general said, ‘Having come this far, we cannot unilaterally walk away.’ They were observations that were not brought to our attention by the member for Melbourne.

I want to take this opportunity to observe that this week I spoke on a condolence motion for the family of Jason Brown. The family are constituents of mine. I grieved at his death, as I grieve for all those young Australians who have lost their lives. But they are not the only funerals that I have attended. I have attended the funeral of a young man whose sister is very closely known by my daughter and who perished in Bali as a result of a terrorist bombing that took the lives of 88 Australians.

Our Afghanistan involvement commenced in 2001 after a most horrendous event that is now ebbing in the minds of many Australians. I do not know whether the honourable member for Melbourne remembers where he was on 9/11. But I know exactly where I was: in a Melbourne hotel room. I came in late, expecting to get Lateline but instead watching planes flying into the World Trade Centre, tragically taking the lives of many thousands of people, including Australians. It was probably one of the most momentous events in my life to see such horrific terrorist acts occurring; such wanton acts that simply took people’s lives as if they meant nothing.

The enormity of that loss was well understood by the Australian community generally. I look back at the comments of former Prime Minister John Howard, when he determined, along with the government, that, in consultation with the United States, article 4 of the ANZUS treaty applies to terrorist attacks on the United States. He spoke later about those events. He noted that in relation to New York, 22 Australians, as well as people from around 80 other nations, 14 of whom were Muslim, died in that attack. He made the point that no-one doubts that the al-Qaeda network, led by Osama bin Laden, was responsible for the attacks and that the Taliban had allowed Afghanistan to become a safe haven for international terrorism. Later, in a speech that he made about al-Qaeda, he had this to say:

Whilst the destruction of the Al Qaida network must be our first priority, the long-term aim of this war is to demonstrate that organised, international, state-sanctioned terrorism will not be tolerated by the world community.

We know that our mission will not be easy. It will be prolonged and against an enemy hiding in the dark corners of the world. An enemy who will falsely portray our objective to destroy terrorism as an assault upon Islam.

The war will be a new kind of war. There will be few, if any, set-piece battles to bring it to an end. Rather it will be a sustained effort, requiring sturdy patience, and the careful marshalling and coordination of resources.

He went on to say that there could be no valid comparison with Vietnam. He made this point:

In contrast, today all the major powers of the world are as one in their opposition to international terrorism. In the present situation, we are not at war with any other nation. We are certainly not at war against any faith or against the people of Afghanistan, who are the victims of the very terrorism that we are opposing.

He made it clear that there was bipartisan support for our engagement in those activities to constrain the potential impact of terrorism upon Australia.

I served in the government of John Howard. I was a member of the National Security Committee of Cabinet. I received briefings from our intelligence organisations and publicly was able to say that some 10,000 people from around the world went to Afghanistan for the purpose of training with al-Qaeda. Numbers of those were from Australia. It is clear from the prosecutions that have occurred in Australia that people who have been involved in planning terrorist activities in our country trained offshore in that very situation. Of course, that was not only our experience, it has been the experience in Europe. Australians lost their lives in the London bombings that were orchestrated by people who were similarly aligned.

It is important that we do not allow ourselves to be beguiled by arguments that war is difficult, that the Karzai government has perhaps less credibility than we would like and that we walk away from the effort of ensuring that there is no opportunity for al-Qaeda to operate on that scale again. It has always seemed to me that, as hard as it is, it is more important to fight the battle there and win than to simply walk away and fight a battle here, on our own shores, with even greater tragic consequences.

I have had the opportunity of looking at the strategy in which we have been engaged. It seems to me that it is a strategy designed to serve Australia’s interests and to protect our community. I recognise that we are not involved in this task alone. We are committing in the order of 1,500 Australian troops compared with the United States commitment of 78,430, the United Kingdom, 9,500; Germany, 4,590; France, 3,750; Italy, 3,400, Canada, 2,830; Poland, 2,630; Romania, 1,750; Turkey, 1,740; and Spain, 1,555. This is not something in which we are engaged alone. We are part of the world community dealing with this issue.

I have had the opportunity of visiting Afghanistan to see something of what our troops are doing to train the Afghan troops through the Mentoring Task Force. I had the opportunity of seeing something of our special forces. I was very proud of the way in which young Australians serving their country were undertaking their efforts. When I know of the enormity of the task and when I see them, I am very much persuaded by the reports we receive from those who are involved in planning our operations. General John Cantwell, who briefed me and who also briefed the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition when they visited Tarin Kowt, said, ‘It’s not the time to lose faith, it’s not the time to forsake the loss and the sacrifice and expense and the heartache that’s gone into this.’ Twenty-one Australian troops have died during the Afghanistan deployment. ‘We can’t let Afghanistan become a seat for transnational terrorism,’ he said.

What interested me were the reports I saw this week of the views of Australian families who have lost their loved ones in Afghanistan. In McPhedran’s article in the Courier Mail we see this quote:

The father of a soldier killed in Afghanistan and the partner of another who has just arrived in Oruzgan Province have appealed for a deeper understanding of what our troops are doing in the troubled country.

Gary Bewes and Taryn McGowan made a number of observations. Mr Bewes, whose son Nathan died in conflict, said that he hoped that politicians did not get pressured into pulling out in the short term. ‘It would be a terrible waste of the good work they have done,’ he said. Of course, Miss McGowan was similarly concerned. What a tragic loss of young Australians, who gallantly serve the interests of the nation to protect the lives of other Australians, if we were simply to say now, ‘It’s all too hard and we’re going to walk away.’

I was interested in some of the comments made by Alexander Downer, who served with me on the National Security Committee of cabinet. When writing on these matters in the Spectator recently, he made this observation:

Sudden withdrawal would have disastrous consequences. For the people of Afghanistan it would almost certainly lead to the return of a Taleban regime with all its attendant human rights abuses. It would be perceived by the Jihadist movement around the world as a historic victory and give that movement fresh momentum and hope. And a Taleban-run Afghanistan would have the potential to destroy the stability—such stability as there is—of a fragile regime in Pakistan.

He goes on to say:

Remember, Pakistan has nuclear weapons. That, in turn, would escalate tensions between India and Pakistan, and who knows where that might lead.

These are issues of very great moment. They are not issues that have been dealt with lightly. The decision to commit was a decision taken seriously by the former government and it has been supported by this government. I think the reasons by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition outlining our engagement were compelling and I strongly support the statement that has been made.

See this speech in context