The BFD | Eric Abetz: Yes, Afghanistan Was Worth It

In the popular (read: left-wing) media narrative, the war in Afghanistan sits somewhere between WWI and Vietnam. It was, we are told, a colossal waste of blood and treasure. Fought on a false premise and doomed to fail.

But is that true?

It certainly isn’t true of WWI; despite what military historian Gordon Corrigan calls “the Blackadder view of history”, the Allies went into WWI with clear objectives. France was defending its very existence, the British Empire was combating Prussian militarism which was very much the ‘Taliban’ of its day.

It isn’t true of Afghanistan either, argues Tasmanian senator Eric Abetz.

20 years ago, the Al Qaeda terrorist operation being harboured in Afghanistan was putting the finishing touches on its 9/11 hijacking massacre operations. 2,977 people died on that fateful day from nearly 100 different countries of whom 10 were Australians. More than 6,000 were injured – many scarred for life.

This barbaric shedding of innocent civilian blood was as brutal as it was brazen. Any self-respecting nation could not allow such a travesty to pass without a strong definite response. Given the attack’s Al Qaeda antecedents, the US Government demanded the Afghani Taliban regime deal with the Al Qaeda in their midst. It refused.

This, it often seems to be forgotten, was the clear objective of the invasion of Afghanistan: to root out the Al Qaeda terrorist training camps.

But in many ways, at the behest of the same left-media who are now washing their hands of the war, that mission morphed into “nation-building”. Establishment media ran hard on the “women of Afghanistan” narrative. Feminist literature at the time cheered the invasion.

Yet now the Taliban are back in brutal, crushing power. So was it worth it?

It clearly was worth it. In answering such a question, heed must be had to the circumstances together with the intelligence available at the time (some 20 years ago). Who isn’t smarter with hindsight? How many things would we have done differently if we knew 20 years ago what we know today?

The removal of Al Qaeda’s safe haven within Afghanistan and the disruption and dismemberment of this horrific terrorist organisation was much needed. A question to which we will never know the answer is, how many other attacks and resultant thousands of deaths and injuries would have occurred but for the blotting out of this truly horrid organisation by military action?[…]

Those who served in Afghanistan should be the beneficiaries of our universal admiration and appreciation for blotting out Al Qaeda and giving the Afghans the opportunity to live in a more open and free society. The fact that the latter has not been embraced does not in any way diminish their efforts and contribution.

Still, Abetz argues, the very fact that tens of thousands of Afghans are fleeing (or trying to) “highlights how despised the Taliban is by their own people”. Hopefully, Abetz says, the 20-year taste of freedom will drive the thirst for change from within.

Perhaps. Abetz is still forced to admit that 20 years of nation-building have been erased overnight.

But, he reminds us, that was not the original mission. We shouldn’t forget that “we are all the beneficiaries of a more secure world and future because of Al Qaeda’s defeat”.

For now. With the Taliban better armed and equipped than ever, thanks to Joe Biden, and a new head of the ISIS hydra snapping at their heels, the prognosis for at least the short-term future is grim. The first terror attacks have already rocked Kabul. Will they strike once more at the homelands of the West? It seems horribly likely.

Still, the fact remains that our soldiers went to Afghanistan to defeat Al Qaeda. They did that.

If the decision-makers back home changed the mission behind their backs to an impossible task, they can hardly be blamed for that.