Why are we sending more troops to Afghanistan?

Remember Afghanistan. It was that country we supposedly had “under control”, before heading illegally into Iraq. Howard’s latest announcement that we are too double our deployment in the country must leave many wondering what went wrong.

It was shortly after the 9/11 incident that we had committed our troops to fight the Taliban government and the Al Qaeda elements it supposedly supported. We were supposed to have caught Osama Bin Laden.

Al Qaeda and its leader had been aligned to America during the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in the 70’s. But this time, like too many times before, the old ally who hated the U.S. just as much as the Soviet’s, turned on its former ally who had made it so powerful.

The Coalitions idea of democracy has always been a sham. The election of the U.S. friendly President Karzai been the instigator of compromises made with the warlords, many of whom are ex-Taliban and drug lords, making the democracy dream, simply a mirage that doesn’t stretch far beyond the Presidential gates.

Women’s rights, has been squashed as decent invasion reasoning by women within the country. Afghan MP Malaya Joya was in Australia earlier this year saying that the repressiveness of the previous administration has not ended and has in a lot of cases got worse under the occupation.

The U.S. War on Drugs in the country has also shown itself as a sham. Poppy production has increased under U.S. occupation and now sits at over 50% of GDP and over 90% of the world opium trade. While many small poppy producers have been done out of their living and been strung up as culprits, big time war lords have been able to obtain amnesty from the law. The U.S. War on their country has eliminated a lot of the alternative industries, giving small time farmers no other real choice.

But what about the Taliban being so dangerous and can we really leave without them taking over again? The fact is that for every day we remain in Afghanistan, the resistance grows, Taliban and others.

Our forces in the country are destroying people’s lives while they continue to prop up and defend the sham democracy that is in place. The longer they stay the more deaths we are going to see, with the increased likelihood of Australian casualties. Leaving Afghanistan will take away the main recruiting tool for these groups and will, when fair, unassigned reparations for all the damage we have created is paid, it will finally let Afghans choose their own future.