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Australia, Afghanistan and three unanswered questions

By Kellie Tranter - posted Thursday, 11 February 2010


Logically these questions surrounding the war in Afghanistan require the government to satisfy us, as citizens in whose names this war is being waged, about the legality of the war. But that would require careful scrutiny of the issue and public debate about it, so you can bet our government won’t be encouraging any debate. Governments don’t seem to like that sort of thing.

An example is the recent dropping of the desertion charge against Lance Corporal Joe Glenton. He was a prominent speaker at anti-war rallies. Glenton had planned to defend the desertion charge by calling an expert on international law to challenge the overall validity of the Afghan conflict. John Tipple, Glenton's legal case worker, said he believed military prosecutors had backed down to avoid a high-profile trial centred on such an issue, particularly at a time when the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war was hearing from Tony Blair.

Prime Minister Rudd also said in his address:

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... Under the Taliban, the people of Afghanistan lived in an environment of oppression and extreme poverty with the constant threat of violence. This was a period where the basic needs of Afghans were left ignored - indeed people’s lives went backwards - amid the pursuit of violent ideology. It was an ideology that bred hatred. It was an ideology that brutalised women.

This brings to mind a quote from Pat Schroeder: "When men talk about defense, they always claim to be protecting women and children, but they never ask the women and children what they think."

Has Mr Rudd spoken to any representatives from the Revolutionary Association of the Women Afghanistan, the oldest political and social organisation of Afghan women that has been struggling for peace, freedom, democracy and women's rights in fundamentalism-blighted Afghanistan since 1977? Is he aware of their outrage about President Karzai backing a law governing Shia family relations that effectively legalised marital rape and allowed for women to effectively be imprisoned in their homes? Or of that organisation’s claims that the UN is concerned that the number of violent incidents against women had risen to their highest level since the fall of the Taliban? Or of their calls for coalition forces to withdraw their troops?

Mr Rudd was also at pains to point out that:

... Working with our partners in Afghanistan, we show that we are committed to doing our fair share to tackle international security challenges as an engaged middle power and as a real partner in our alliance with the United States. We are a regional power with both regional and global interests. It is right for us to play a role in meeting global security challenges. We do not just talk about security co-operation. We are also prepared to do our fair share of the work. It is dangerous work and it is hard work, and our diggers’ lives are on the line every day. It is part of being a real ally of the United States. It is part of being an active member of the United Nations. It is part of contributing to a stable international order - and not just being a passive observer of events.

This self-aggrandising rhetoric is a simplistic emotional and jingoistic appeal that obviates any questions of legal or moral validity. It’s exactly the same sort of rhetoric as that which dragged conscripted young Australians to their deaths in Vietnam 40 years ago, when Australia’s presence again was intended to lend legitimacy to an illegitimate US invasion.

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But on hearing such fine words from our PM one would assume that a country of such moral rectitude would only work with allies who follow the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and customary international law in terms of regulating military operations in an attempt to protect civilians from the devastation of war. Yet we heard late last year that the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court is gathering information about possible war crimes committed by NATO soldiers and insurgents in Afghanistan.

In a time when our governments cry poor in answer to calls for funding to tackle things like homelessness and improve our medical and social services, the war in Afghanistan is budgeted to cost us $1.2 billion in 2009-10. There is no “budget” of the lives of young Australians that have been and inevitably will be lost over the same period, and each of them is a tragic loss. But what about the death toll of unnamed and uncounted civilians which continues to soar and objectively is an even greater tragedy?

Every journalist in the country, and indeed every concerned citizen, should be asking the Rudd Government for straight answers to the questions whether the UN Security Council authorised the invasion of Afghanistan, whether or not the war is legal under international law, and exactly how many civilians have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001.

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About the Author

Kellie Tranter is a lawyer and human rights activist. You can follow her on Twitter @KellieTranter

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