Along with the rest of the world, we are getting sick and tired of hearing about the deaths of our soldiers fighting in Afghanistan. The war has been going on now longer than WWI and WWII and it's about time we brought the troops home. So why did we commit to the war in the first place?
Australia's friends and allies share a lot of history together and we've got long memories. We owe a lot to America for their help in the Pacific during WWII. Japan planned to extend their Pacific control by setting up a base at Tulagi in the Solomons and they had every intention of taking Port Moresby. If America hadn't stepped in, we might all be speaking Japanese today. Thanks mates.
So just like the Vietnam fiasco, when America asked her friends to send troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, we readily obliged. (However, the British had more sense and stayed out of it.)
The real question here is whether you think the war in Afghanistan is justified. No it isn't. Should our troops die in this God forsaken part of the world for a reason we don't fully understand? No they shouldn't.
But here's the bottom line. I think the main reason we are fighting a war in Afghanistan is because, like so many other countries in the world, we are loathe to deny the greatest fighting machine in the world any request it makes of us. Why? Because we may need their help one day. Is that a pathetic reason? Probably, but we're stuck with it.
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