Silverado
10-18-2004, 06:40 AM
Well it seems now that the election in Oz is over some pressing questions should be asked of the "Howard Regime" and its contribution to the so called war on Terror. This article in The Australian illustrates this perfectly. Now there are those who will poo-hoo this but when you stop and look at the facts as they stand there are some pertinent points raised here.
Combat reality check ... we've already cut and run
Patrick Walters, National security editor
October 18, 2004
THERE'S more than a whiff of hypocrisy about the Howard Government's continual crowing about our contribution to the US-led war on terror.
The Government is fond of citing Australia's efforts in assisting the overthrow of regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly our membership of the three-nation 'coalition of the willing' that toppled Saddam Hussein.
But the paucity of Australia's military contribution to the war in Iraq and in the Afghanistan theatre is fast becoming a source of embarrassment to our military.
When hard-pressed US and British commanders muse about needing more help in Iraq, our senior military, knowing full well that the Howard Government is disinclined to offer any more troops, cannot respond.
'We talk the talk but we are doing f..king nothing. We should be doing more in Iraq,' one senior Australian government source observed.
In Afghanistan, Australia has but a single soldier. Also, we have no diplomatic mission in Kabul.
This is not to denigrate the role of our modest defence force contingent based in Baghdad and the Gulf, who do a superb job. But the fact that we have not had a single Australian killed on operations in Iraq is a tribute not just to their professionalism but to their carefully circumscribed roles, which rarely take them into combat zones.
The reality is that, in a war-fighting sense, Australia cut and ran from Iraq straight after the fall of Baghdad last year. In what turned out to be a decision that superbly anticipated the growing chaos in Iraq, John Howard insisted on Australia's combat forces being present only at the "sharp end" of the war -- a position a grateful George Bush accepted.
At the time, Howard's compelling argument for limiting our post-war contribution included the rationale that our defence force was fully stretched in East Timor, the Solomons and other theatres -- a case that cannot be sustained today.
The Australian position is now so well understood that formal political or diplomatic requests are simply not made. But that does not mean Washington, London and the UN in New York are not interested.
Now, as the insurgency in Iraq deepens, there is a growing likelihood that Australia could be formally approached to lift its military contribution.
There are limits to what we can usefully offer the multinational force in Iraq. Our ability to supply an army battalion or brigade is constrained by the fact that we do not have sufficient "hardened" or well-protected army units to rotate through Iraq.
But we could do more to help train Iraq's new defence force (we have 53 army trainers in Iraq) and more in Afghanistan, and in a formal diplomatic sense. There have been plenty of unheeded requests from the new Afghan Government.
Even New Zealand, whose defence force is one-sixth the size of ours, has more than 100 defence personnel in Afghanistan, in addition to its military contribution to Iraq.
Combat reality check ... we've already cut and run
Patrick Walters, National security editor
October 18, 2004
THERE'S more than a whiff of hypocrisy about the Howard Government's continual crowing about our contribution to the US-led war on terror.
The Government is fond of citing Australia's efforts in assisting the overthrow of regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly our membership of the three-nation 'coalition of the willing' that toppled Saddam Hussein.
But the paucity of Australia's military contribution to the war in Iraq and in the Afghanistan theatre is fast becoming a source of embarrassment to our military.
When hard-pressed US and British commanders muse about needing more help in Iraq, our senior military, knowing full well that the Howard Government is disinclined to offer any more troops, cannot respond.
'We talk the talk but we are doing f..king nothing. We should be doing more in Iraq,' one senior Australian government source observed.
In Afghanistan, Australia has but a single soldier. Also, we have no diplomatic mission in Kabul.
This is not to denigrate the role of our modest defence force contingent based in Baghdad and the Gulf, who do a superb job. But the fact that we have not had a single Australian killed on operations in Iraq is a tribute not just to their professionalism but to their carefully circumscribed roles, which rarely take them into combat zones.
The reality is that, in a war-fighting sense, Australia cut and ran from Iraq straight after the fall of Baghdad last year. In what turned out to be a decision that superbly anticipated the growing chaos in Iraq, John Howard insisted on Australia's combat forces being present only at the "sharp end" of the war -- a position a grateful George Bush accepted.
At the time, Howard's compelling argument for limiting our post-war contribution included the rationale that our defence force was fully stretched in East Timor, the Solomons and other theatres -- a case that cannot be sustained today.
The Australian position is now so well understood that formal political or diplomatic requests are simply not made. But that does not mean Washington, London and the UN in New York are not interested.
Now, as the insurgency in Iraq deepens, there is a growing likelihood that Australia could be formally approached to lift its military contribution.
There are limits to what we can usefully offer the multinational force in Iraq. Our ability to supply an army battalion or brigade is constrained by the fact that we do not have sufficient "hardened" or well-protected army units to rotate through Iraq.
But we could do more to help train Iraq's new defence force (we have 53 army trainers in Iraq) and more in Afghanistan, and in a formal diplomatic sense. There have been plenty of unheeded requests from the new Afghan Government.
Even New Zealand, whose defence force is one-sixth the size of ours, has more than 100 defence personnel in Afghanistan, in addition to its military contribution to Iraq.