Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to argue the case very strongly that Australia should withdraw its troops from Afghanistan as quickly and as safely as possible. Like everyone in this country, I watched the television coverage of the funeral of Lance Corporal MacKinney, who died in Afghanistan on active duty and was buried on 12 September 2010. He was the father of Annabell, and his son Noah was born on the day of his funeral. Noah will never see his father and he will grow up knowing that his father was the 21st Australian soldier killed in Afghanistan. Whilst I, like the rest of the nation, grieved for his death, Noah, his sister Annabell and the family will pay the price of the war in Afghanistan for the rest of their lives.

So you really have to ask: why are we in Afghanistan and what is the reason that we are paying the price of the deaths of young Australians in Afghanistan? There is no greater responsibility than committing the country’s forces to war. This should have been debated in this parliament long ago, and I am glad that we are now at the point of being able to have this debate in the Australian parliament, but each and every one of us has to answer that question: why are we in Afghanistan and why are we risking the lives of Australian forces in that war in Afghanistan? The answer has to consist of more than statements based on actions taken by then President Bush, then Prime Minister Blair and former Prime Minister Howard. They botched Afghanistan, and if we were being honest we would all admit that. President Bush, with Australia and the UK in tow, pulled out of and abandoned Afghanistan to go on flawed intelligence into Iraq and then went back into Afghanistan. The reason for going into Afghanistan was to deal with terrorism—to deal with al-Qaeda. But we all know that al-Qaeda is no longer in Afghanistan and that when we talk about al-Qaeda we are talking about Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan and other places around the planet.

At what point did anyone go to the Australian people and say, ‘The original reason we went into Afghanistan is no longer the reason we went into Afghanistan’? Nobody went and consulted with the Australian people about the fact that terrorism is now in several other countries and that these terrorist cells are in different places and even better organised than they were in Afghanistan. No; instead we kept on with the war. I would argue that the reason we did that was that we did not know how to withdraw. There was no exit strategy for Afghanistan, and there still is not. Prior to this election, the government said that there would be a two-to-four-year time frame in which we would withdraw. Subsequent to that, the Prime Minister has said that it could be 10 years before we leave Afghanistan. But there is still no coherent argument to the Australian people as to why we are there. I ask: how is Afghanistan going to be any different in two to four years to the way it is now? What is it going to look like as a result of our efforts in Oruzgan province? How is it going to be different in two to four years time? I would argue that it is not going to be any different.

I also ask the question: why are we propping up a corrupt government in Afghanistan, one that will not endear us to the Afghani people? We say that we are there to help the Afghan people, but we are actually protecting and propping up one of the most corrupt regimes on earth. The Karzai government has been accused of state organised drug running, bank fraud and endemic bribery. Transparency International has said that the only country with a more venal government than Afghanistan’s is Somalia. Ordinary Afghanis have to be persuaded to shun the Taliban and support the pro-Western Karzai government in Kabul. But why would they? Why would ordinary Afghanis want to support a corrupt government propped up by an invasion force? They clearly do not and will not. As for the details of that level of corruption, in a recent article in the Australian press John Kerin wrote:

Take the Kabul Bank debacle: according to reports in The New York Times, Karzai’s brother, Mahmoud, is a major shareholder in the bank, which teetered on the brink of collapse until the Afghan Central Bank stepped in.

Bank executives such as Mahmoud Karzai had allegedly been lending themselves millions of dollars to buy villas in Dubai. There were allegations that as much as $300 million was missing.

Thousands of depositors tried to withdraw their funds until armed government goons put a halt to the bank run.

In Afghanistan, corruption and the military campaign are intimately linked. The fate of the Kabul Bank has a direct impact on the war because the Afghan police and the army, along with the civil servants, are paid by the bank.

Hamid Karzai appears to be positioning himself for the eventual withdrawal of coalition forces by stacking his government with extended family to maintain control.

At least six Karzai relatives have influential positions in the administration.

The article went on:

Karzai has undermined a series of tribunals set up under coalition tutelage to stamp out corruption.

An election in late September was riddled with fraud in up to one-third of Afghan provinces. Both Hamid Karzai and his brother Ahmed Wali were accused of trying to fix the result.

The Taliban and other insurgent groups made good on their promise to disrupt the elections by mounting rocket attacks and intimidating election workers.

The attacks led to the closure of  1000 of the 6000 polling stations.

The issue is: what are we doing supporting a totally corrupt Karzai government against the wishes of the Afghani people; why are we propping up this government; and why are we actually forcing the Afghani people to continue to support the Taliban against this corrupt Western supported government in Kabul?

The final point I want to make this evening is: the Australian government should be committing our forces in the best long-term interests of this nation, and there is still not a clear explanation from the Australian government as to what we hope to achieve in terms of this nation’s strategic interests by remaining and supporting a corrupt government in Afghanistan against the wishes of the Afghani people. We should be supporting the Afghani people through our aid dollars and the support of those programs run by the United Nations, but it is inappropriate for us to continue supporting the war in Afghanistan which everybody agrees is unwinnable.

Now we have the Obama administration in discussions with the more moderate groups in the Taliban trying to work out a withdrawal strategy in that country. It is time that Australia brought our troops home. It is time that the Australian government said to the Australian people that this is an unwinnable war and that there is no clear objective any longer in being in Afghanistan because terrorism has moved elsewhere.

We need to support the Afghani people but we need to support our own troops as well. They need a clear rationale as to why they are there or when they are coming home. I do not believe it is appropriate to keep on saying how much we support our troops in Afghanistan without giving them a clear reason as to why they are serving in that country in an unwinnable war, knowing that there has to be an exit strategy but the government cannot make up its mind what that exit strategy is and what time frame it will be carried out over.

We want our troops brought home now and we want them brought home safely. We want to support the Afghani people and we want to say to our troops who have served in Afghanistan how much we appreciate the sacrifice. We want to say to our troops in Afghanistan how grateful we are as a nation for the service that they have offered us. But we also want to say to them that we respect them and their families enough to recognise that staying longer in Afghanistan is not going to result in a significant change for the Afghani people because of the level of the corruption in Kabul with the Karzai government, and it is time they came home. The Australian Greens will keep arguing in this place and in the community that our Australian troops be brought home to their loved ones before we lose any more young Australians as casualties in that war.

I will end as I began in talking about Annabell and Noah Mackinney: they will grow up being proud of their father’s service and rightly so, but we owe it to them to say here and now that Australia has lost its way in Afghanistan. By staying we will not significantly alter that country now or in two or four years time. In Oruzgan province, yes, we are working with the security forces but when we leave they will come under the command of a corrupt government. It is time for our troops to come home and it is time, when they do come home, that we give them the support they will need after the experience they have been through in this war in Afghanistan.