What are we fighting for?

"We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky": Afghanistan has laid low the hubris of conquerors for two-and-a-half thousand years - and still they come.

THE detonation of the IED rattled off the walls of the narrow mountain pass in ever-diminishing echoes. Alerted by the blast, SAS snipers hidden among the crags knew immediately that their comrades were under attack.

None of them moved a muscle.

The deadly chatter of small-arms fire rose fitfully from the road, interrupted every now and then by the thwack and thump of rocket-propelled grenade-launchers.

Like the grey rocks they resembled, the snipers remained motionless.

A few minutes later the low drone of an American gunship filled the valley, followed by the murderous roar of its Gatling-guns. As the Lockheed AC130 banked and flew away, a grim silence settled over the landscape.

For what seemed like an age, the snipers heard only the hiss and rattle of the wind threading its way through the rocky outcrops and sprawling scree. Then, faintly at first, but growing louder and stronger as the aircraft neared the site of the ambush, they heard the familiar thudda-thudda-thudda of helicopter rotor-blades. If any of the marksmen’s support team were left alive, medical attention was now at hand. If not, at least the bodies of their comrades would be laid to rest in the soil of their homeland.

At daybreak, a small column of the same Taleban irregulars whose deadly improvised explosive device had killed three New Zealanders just eighteen hours earlier, attempted to escort one of Afghanistan’s leading opium-growers over the pass. In the glare of the morning sunlight none of them noticed the tell-tale dots of the snipers’ laser gunsights playing over their bodies.

Not one of them made it out of the valley.

　
ONLY a fool would question the courage or competency of the New Zealand Special Air Service. It’s high reputation among the world’s special-forces is well deserved and has been dearly bought. Nor should anyone doubt the Service’s capacity to inflict serious damage on the Taleban – our men always make a difference.

But, that’s not the point. In the light of John Key’s decision to once again commit New Zealand combat forces to the Afghan War, the question we must ask ourselves isn’t: "Can we make a difference?" But: "Is it a difference worth making?" When, inevitably, some of our finest soldiers find themselves in situations like the imagined incident described above, and more and more of them start arriving back home in body-bags, will it have been worth it?

Mr Key’s argument for re-engagement derives its force from the counterfactual proposition: "What will befall the world – and New Zealand – if the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) cuts and runs, and the Taleban are once again permitted to take over Afghanistan? His answer is brutally simple: If the ISAF’s mission to bring security and stability to Afghanistan is allowed to fail, then sooner or later this country will be attacked by terrorists.

In other words: Let’s get them, before they get us.

Is this a credible argument? Is there any evidence that countries which attack terrorist-harbouring "rogue states", make themselves less vulnerable to terrorist attack?

The answer, of course, is: "No."

In fact recent history suggests that the opposite is true.

Just look at the pattern of terrorist attacks since 2001. Australian citizens became the prime targets of the Bali Bombers after their government openly supported the US invasion of Afghanistan. British citizens were targeted on the London Underground after Tony Blair and George W. Bush illegally invaded Iraq. In Spain, another "Crusader State", two hundred people lost their lives to Islamic terrorism. Countries guilty of attacking Muslim states actually appear to make their citizens more – not less – vulnerable to terrorist attack.

But if we don’t go, aren’t we guilty of selfishly allowing other mothers’ sons to die for Afghanistan’s freedom?

That would be true if the conflict in Afghanistan was a genuine war of liberation. But, it’s not. An enraged United States, backed by its allies, invaded and occupied that unfortunate land. But, as the Soviet Union discovered (to its great cost) any attempt to impose one’s core ideological precepts from a helicopter gunship is doomed to fail.

The evolution of freedom and equality in any given society is a process only the members of that society can (or should) determine.

The brave men of the SAS cannot deliver security and stability to Afghanistan.

Only the Afghan people can do that.

This essay was originally published in The Timaru Herald, The Taranaki Daily News, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Evening Star of Friday, 14 August 2009.