Afghanistan

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Andrew Wilkie, I want to start with you from Hobart.  You spent 20 years in the army, you've described the justification for keeping Australian troops in Afghanistan as a great lie. Why?

ANDREW WILKIE, INDEPENDENT MP:   Well good evening Jenny.  In fact I believe it  was the great lie of the federal election campaign. Of course we went to Afghanistan in November 2001 in response to 9/11 and I believe that was a egitimate reason for joining in the invasion. But to say that these days we are there to fight terrorists in order to protect Australia from terrorism is a lie. The fact is that most of the violence in Afghanistan now is being fought by what I'd call Afghanistan nationalists who are fighting what they perceived to be an army of occupation and hence I believe it's a lie to say we're there fighting errorists and I believe peace won't come to Afghanistan until foreign troops are gone.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Okay.  I want to get a feeling for what people think of the war here, Fazila, what do you think when you hear Andrew say that, what do you think?

 

FAZILA HAJEB:  I think the war in Afghanistan started by the coalition at the beginning, right at the beginning, to hunt the Taliban and to hunt the Al Quaeda. And since then it's been going nowhere as we can all see that nine years past the fall of the Taliban is still, the war is still the conflict is still happening in Afghanistan.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Do you think we should be there or not?

 

FAZILA HAJEB: Definitely yes.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  You think we should?

 

FAZILA HAJEB:  Yes.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   So you disagree with Andrew?

 

FAZILA HAJEB:  I disagree with Andrew.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Why?

 

FAZILA HAJEB: Because the job is not finished yet. The mission has Started and it must be completed now. If the coalition leave Afghanistan right now, the effect and the consequences will be everywhere, not only in Afghanistan.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Well hands going up everywhere, yes, here.

 

ELLY KOHISTANI: I agree definitely. They came into Afghanistan in 2001 with a job to do, they came in with excuses like we're here to fight off the terrorists, we're here to secure the land and yet we're the most unstable, we're in the most unstable position we've ever been in in three decades. Basically if you're in there, get your job finished because our people are desperate, they're in need of help,
they need the peace and security and they need international forces, with the inclusion of the United Nations, everyone to come together and assist them in restabilising.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   And Elly, you're from the north?

 

ELLY KOHISTANI:  Yes, from Ha -- -

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   And you're part Tajik, is that right?

 

ELLY KOHISTANI: I'm half from the north and half from the south.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Half there the north and half from the south and

your friend Raihana beside you, you have a different view to Elly,

yes?

RAIHANA HAIDARY:  Yeah.  I think if they haven't done much,

haven't created much stability in the last ten years, which - I mean if

you ask me they went in, it was actually invasion. I don't think it was

to help the people, I think the concern was these people are

threatening the international community, we need to be involved.

 

But the thing is there isn't much care about the Afghan people themselves

and for the past ten years, what has been done to fix the situation? I

mean corruption is rife. If they can't have done much progress in the

past ten years, women's rights are still as bad as before. I mean they

went in with the mantra of women's rights and now they're leaving

with the same mantra, but I don't think that the concern about the

Afghan people is central to the Australian involvement or what I think

should be called an invasion.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   And you're from a Pashtun background in the

south of Afghanistan?

 

RAIHANA HAIDARY: Yes.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   How do you two get on about it?  Do you argue

about this a lot?

 

RAIHANA HAIDARY:  We've known each other for a really long

time so this has always been a subject between us and I guess,  I mean

in the sense that,  you know, they haven't done anything, the question

is, you know, we're looking at the future. We're the new generation,

we're Afghan Australians and we're looking at the future, and if the

troops were to leave Afghanistan they will leave a power vacuum and

it will mean a bloodbath for our people in Afghanistan and that's not

what I personally think is right and I don't think it's justified.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Okay, Andrew, what do you say to that

argument, that you know,  if we were to leave it would result in a

bloodbath?

 

ANDREW WILKIE:   Well look, I think some of those comments are

obviously quite varied but what they're doing is reflecting this

impossible position we find ourselves in now.

There is a tension there which is almost unresolvable. In other words,

we can stay and fight and it will be bloody and awful and people will

die, or we can leave and come home and people will die. I suppose the

question is, you know, what is the course of action that ultimately will

allow Afghanistan to find it's natural political level and I think on

balance, it's going to be troops out and to let it find that balance.

 

The process is going to be awful and ugly and people are going to die.

I can't think of a better solution at this stage.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Okay, James Brown, you served with the special

forces in Afghanistan last year. Why do you think our troops are there

now? Given that we went there as part of the "War On Terror" to fight

Al Quaeda, why do you think we're there now?

 

JAMES BROWN, MILITARY ASSOCIATE, LOWRY INSTITUTE:  Look, I think the first thing that we need to make clear is that this war has only really been fought properly in the last two years. You know, when I went there it was in a pretty embryonic state.  It's much better now, there's much more troops now. Why are we there? Well, the Australian government says we're there for two reasons.

 

Firstly, to make sure the terrorists don't have a safe haven and secondly to

support the US alliance and to support our allies.  And then there is a

third reason which is sometimes talked and sometimes not, which is to

make Afghanistan a better place for the Afghan people.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Okay, Jim, what do you think? I mean you're a

retired Major General, you were the highest serving officer in Iraq for

Australia. Can you see a clear mission, sense of mission in Afghanistan, for

what we're there for?

 

JIM MOLAN, MAJOR GENERAL (RETIRED):  What the comments reflect, I think, is that we can go back two and a half thousand years to the time of the Persians and argue about who was right and who was wrong. The fact of the matter is we're there now.  We've converted what should be have about have been a two year war into a nine year war and all our efforts now, in my humble view, should be put into how to run the war to achieve some result.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   That makes it sound like you think we're stuck in it.

 

JIM MOLAN:  No, I don't believe we stuck at all. That's an emotive term that I think - it's like saying Vietnam was a quagmire,  Iraq was a quagmire, Afghanistan's a quagmire.

 

It creates a sets sense of how you approach the problem. I think a lot of the problem that we have in talking about Afghanistan comes from the fact that often it's difficult to differentiate between when it is just appallingly hard and when we're being defeated and I think we'll see

that reflection here today.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   And when you said before it should have been a two year war, how could it have been a two year war?

 

JIM MOLAN:  Well, it could have been a two year war had NATO seriously taken it on in the first instance. As James said, we've only just started running this war on the basis of some logic.

 

I'm not saying in any way, shape or form that the military is the only part of this war or even the military is the biggest part of this war, but what I'm saying is that the military and security is the first part of this war. For all the fine things that everyone wants to do in Afghanistan, we must establish security and it's military or police forces that establish security.

JENNY BROCKIE:   Okay, hands up, hands up everywhere, Zabi, I'd

like to go to you because you left Afghanistan in 1992 because of the

Mujahadeen, yeah?  And you're there a Tajik background as well.

What do you think Australian troops are fighting for in your country?

 

ZABI SAHID:  There was a reason to go to war in October 2001, but I think it has lost it’s purpose, it’s lost it’s mission. You have a force in there that  the Afghans do not trust – NATO, United States – we do not trust them, Afghans do not trust them and we are trying to get these forces to come up with a solution for us – it’s never going to work.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Okay, gentleman up the back wanted to say

something, yes?

 

KHALIL NASRI: I'd like to first take issue with the point that Andrew Wilkie made. It's an affront to the Afghan nation, it's an affront to the people who have lost their lives to describe a bunch of habitual terrorists as Afghan nationalists.

 

The majority of Afghan people want the help of the international community. These troops were invited to help the Afghan nation rid themselves of the Taliban, of Al Quaeda.

JENNY BROCKIE:   Okay, Raihana, you don't agree?

 

RAIHANA HAIDARY:  I don't agree with the comment about the Afghan people need or want international involvement.  No matter what idea they come under, whether it's for peace, whether it's for an invasion, whether it's to help them get rid of the Taliban, foreign forces are essentially alien to them and I think that's the reason why there's such strong support for Taliban.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Taqi, just quickly.

 

KHALIL NASRI:  Of course foreign forces were, no Afghan wants foreign forces in Afghanistan but we need the help of the international community to help train our army, to help train our police, to establish the rule of law as it were. To help us, yes, but we're not at the stage to

run the country as it should be by ourselves.  

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Taqi, what did you want to say?

 

TAQI KHAN:  I agree with my two friends here.  He say we need the international help in Afghanistan but now I think international, this is not helping Afghanistan. I think they want to play a new game in Afghanistan. They want to play with the life of people in Afghanistan.

 

JENNY BROCKIE: You're from a Hazara background, aren't you?

 

TAQI KHAN:  Yes,  yes.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   And you came to Australia only six months ago?

 

TAQI KHAN:  Yes.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   From Pakistan?

 

TAQI KHAN: Yes.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   So your group was persecuted in Afghanistan?

 

TAQI KHAN:  Yes, of course, you know, two months before in Kabul 25 people killed by this terrorism so where is the international troops? How can they save the life of the people? I'm very worried about this.

JENNY BROCKIE:   Okay, Bree, I want to bring you into the discussion at this point because your husband Sergeant Brett Till was killed in Afghanistan in March last year. He was a bomb disposal expert. Did he ever talk about what he thought the war was about to you?

 

BREE TILL:  Well, I suppose it's a really individual, even a personal thing and it's more than about just one person. There's, if you don't think there's any morals or any purpose behind what the guys do when they go, then I'd say you're pretty misdirected.

 

RICK LINDSAY, FORMER SOLDIER: Absolutely.

 

BREE TILL:  The guys are over there, they've got families, they've got morals, they've got families. Can you imagine what it's like for your kids to walk to school and pick something up off the side of the road and just kick it around, like they always do, that's what our children do when they go to school, and all of a sudden look, boom, ten kids gone. That happened a week before Brett died and it's been happening for while and we've mentioned that before.

 

Whether or not we should be there, shouldn't be there, I don't know. I don't know the answer. I don't think it's something we should be determined by an SMS poll or

something like that, but it's something that we should actually really, really think about and talk about.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Did he - did Brett feel he was making a difference? Did he give you a sense of that when you spoke to him?

 

BREE TILL:  I think they all do.

 

RICK LINDSAY: Absolutely.

JENNY BROCKIE:   And you have three kids and you were just pregnant I think when Brett was deployed to Afghanistan. How did you deal with that as a family and did he want to go? You know, I'm trying to get sense of --

 

BREE TILL:  Yeah I know. He left and he was only there a short time and when he died I was five weeks pregnant. So it's not like he had to consider that at the time. He did get to find out which is nice. But yeah, of course it's hard to leave your kids, of course.  Like the army life is constantly away and constantly doing things to keep their skills at the level they need to be, and yeah, that's hard.  Which is why family is so important, having your friends and having that structure set up so that the kids can deal with that safely. And yeah, there's heaps of thing that you do to make sure that their world is normal and safe and don't worry because, you know, of course he'll be home.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Yes, and I get a sense from you that when you hear polls about the war and everything else, it feels very superficial to you?

 

BREE TILL:  Well yeah. I guess I'm concerned with the coverage that's available, that there isn't kind of that much of a perspective about why we're there in the first place, that we're not considering these things when we're talking about something, like someone dies, let's do an SMS poll.  Someone dies, should we be there?

 

Not should we have a look at the information --

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Or what's going on there.

 

BREE TILL:  Or what's actually happening or what's the purpose we're there again?  Like I said I don't know if we should be there or if we should not be there, but we should have the information that's valid and like there's two parts - we're mentoring, mentoring reconstruction Taskforce. Every single day, day after day after day after day, IUDs are getting dealt with instead of going off in much worse circumstances.

 

Like you want to walk to school safely, how hard's that? And it's not because the troops are there that they're there. Those things have been there for a long time and it's not like it's just around the bases that they've been planted. It's all over the countryside.

 

RICK LINDSAY: They're not just there to kill the troops either.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   And Rick, you served in Afghanistan?

 

RICK LINDSAY:  Yeah, I did.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   In a combat engineering regiment in 2007 and 2008?

 

RICK LINDSAY:  Yeah, that's right.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   I mean when you listened to Bree talking, you were nodding your head a lot there.

 

RICK LINDSAY:  Oh absolutely I agree with most of what she says. It always comes down to mean people say, you know, should we there be there or not or do the guys want to be there, and are they making a difference? I think absolutely.  Those guys on the ground that are over there doing the job, they believe and we did believe we were making a difference. You could see it, you know?

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   But you left the army in 2008, why?

 

RICK LINDSAY:   As Bree touched on it, like umm, there is a lot of training and a lot of time away from families and I've got a wife and two young kids and I just wasn't seeing them enough and I wanted to dedicate as much time as I could to my family. Knowing that - you know, kids grow up pretty quick.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   So what do you think the war is about now?

 

RICK LINDSAY:  I mean that's a tough question I suppose, but I mean my belief on it is to try and make Afghanistan a better place.  And I know there's a lot of fighting and a lot of people being killed over there, whether they're civilians or soldiers or whatever,  but I believe if there weren't soldiers on the ground, there'd be still people dying over there,  you know, and I believe it's about making a better place for the Afghani people.

JENNY BROCKIE:   Andrew Wilkie, a quick response from you to

this, listening to this?

 

ANDREW WILKIE:   I think it's very sobering, particularly hearing

the words of a widow and it is time to remember that we have the best

soldiers in the world and they are making a difference within that part

of Afghanistan where they're operating. And I don't think any critic of

the war, such as myself or people like Jim Molan who are involved in

the discussion as well, none of us have anything but the utmost respect

for Australian soldiers.

 

One of the shocking dimensions of this is if we'd stayed and done the job, finished the job in 2002 when there was a narrow window of opportunity, instead of mainly the US and its allies

racing off to get ready to do Iraq, I don't believe we would be there now and  I don't believe people would be dying now.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Okay, just very quickly Jim before we go to a

break, you were nodding your head for half of that, but not necessarily

the second half  I think.

 

JIM MOLAN:  No, no, definitely, I think that we did miss an

opportunity to conclude this war early and that's our history of war.

We continually, in our interventionist modes now, we continually get

into these wars but never with enough resources to make them

decisive. I think what Andrew said was exactly right.

JENNY BROCKIE:   Tonight we're talking about the war in

Afghanistan and I'd like to find out what it's like on the ground and

go now to Kabul,  Saad Mohseni, thank you very much for joining

us from Kabul. You run a TV and a radio station there and I'm just

wondering if you can give us a picture of how secure the

Afghan capital feels at the moment.

 

SAAD MOHSENI, MEDIA OWNER: Well Kabul is a very safe city, nothing compared

to Baghdad on its worst days. Touch wood we haven't had a major

incident for three or four months and people can walk around the city.

They feel relatively safe. I'm sitting on a rooftop right now, fairly

exposed, so we don't feel threatened per se.

 

But of course the country itself, there is conflict in the south, parts of

the east and of course in areas in the north. We understand that there

are security issues but sitting in Kabul, you feel fairly safe.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   And how much do you think security at the

moment is dependent on coalition troops? What do you think would

happen if they were pulled out in the next couple of years?

 

SAAD MOHSENI: Well I think that, I think all your guests are right.

I think longer term we need to, as Afghans we need to take ownership

of the security issue but it will take time. Two years may not be sufficient. Nonetheless, it is something that we have to fast track.  But will two years be enough? I don't think so but I think that we will be in a much better position than we are today.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   So how do you feel about the war Saad?

 

SAAD MOHSENI: Well that's a complicated question - Andrew mentioned the fact that it's a civil war.  It's not a civil war, the Taliban ideology is not an Afghan - it's not an Afghan only strategy, they seem to have a regional ambition.

 

I think Australian politicians need to explain Afghanistan a lot better. The strategy was not perfect in 2001, still not perfect but I think we're in a much better

position today,  the Afghans, as well as the internationals, than we were a few years ago.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   How much, I know there have been polls in

Afghanistan on support for the Taliban, I mean how much support do

you think the Taliban has on the ground there?

 

SAAD MOHSENI: Well it's very low. Nationally, I believe, I think

the most comprehensive survey was conducted in earlier 2007.

Nationally the approval rating, let's say, is less than 10 percent. Even

in the south where one would expect for the Taliban to be fairly

popular, it's less than 30 percent. Whereas the coalition forces

continue to remain relatively popular.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   James, is that your impression? I mean the

Taliban has relatively low support and does that correlate with how

much power they potentially have and how they organise themselves?

 

JIM MOLAN:  Look, I make two points on that. I think the Taliban

are people who throw acid in the faces of girls on their way to school

and as Bree talks about, they set IUDs that attack civilians so they're

not popular at all across Afghanistan.

 

I think they've been remarkably successful in the western world

because they have a very slick propaganda and media operations

network and they're very good at that. So the picture that we see

through the media and through commentators is  a lot different to

what's actually happening on the ground in Afghanistan.

Andrew Wilkie is going to vote on this in the next couple of weeks, or

next couple of months, I'm pretty sure he hasn't seen an intelligence

brief in recent history, but  he swears black and blue that there's no

terrorists in southern Afghanistan. It's very difficult for us to

understand what's happening there when we have parliamentarians

with military experience, who don't themselves know what's

happening and we have a media that's often struggling to paint the

picture of what is happening tactically on the ground in Afghanistan.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Okay, Andrew Wilkie your response to that? I

mean  have you had intelligence briefings?  Do you know the situation

on the ground there?

 

ANDREW WILKIE:  No, I haven't had an intelligence briefing but and

I'd appreciate it if people didn't put words into my mouth. I didn't say

there are no terrorists in the south of the country. What I said was

that overwhelmingly the violence is being fought by nationalists. There are

terrorists, there are criminals, there are families getting even, there are

nationalists, there are all sorts of things going on.

 

And when I say nationalists, I'm not meaning to offend Afghans as

such. What I'm doing is recognising that in vast parts of the country

there is a widespread dissatisfaction with foreign troops. That the parts

of the country are virtually lawless and it's unsurprising that these

people are coalescing around the Taliban because after all in a lot of

these villages and towns and remote areas it's the Taliban that's

providing the law and order, the Courts and so on.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Okay, Fazila, you travel to Afghanistan twice a

year.   Yeah.  And you work for a charity that helps women and

children. What's your sense of how strong the Taliban is?

 

FAZILA HAJEB: Jenny, let's not forget the Taliban in Afghanistan

are not as strong. The war against terrorism is an international war. A

war against terrorism internationally, not only in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan being such a small place, it's only a safe place for them to

grow. So if this war is a war against terrorism, the coalition and the

international community has got an obligation to finish this job

properly by implementing a better strategy to Afghanistan.

 

First of all, rebuilding Afghanistan, bringing up a stronger and much

more reliable government. At the moment the government of

Afghanistan is such a corrupt government and we all know that. The

war lords who were in power in the past and they were responsible for

some, some horrific activities in the past. They are still very well and

active inside Afghanistan.

JENNY BROCKIE:   Okay, Rick, I want to get a bit more of a picture

of what's it's like on the ground and I wanted to talk to you about that

Rick because we mentioned that before. But you worked in a combat

engineering regiment in Ooruzgarn province?

 

RICK LINDSAY:  Yes, that's right.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Where our troops are at the moment.

 

RICK LINDSAY:  Yes.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Just paint us a picture of what it's like for the

troops.

 

RICK LINDSAY:  It's a very busy time over there. When I was there we

were mainly - our role was to build fort operation bases for the Afghan

national army and police so that they could be put into areas that were

used by the Taliban to come into certain locations.

 

We were building basically patrol bases which consist of findings

positions and places that people could come and rest.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   And did you come under attack often doing

that?

 

RICK LINDSAY:  Not direct attack. We were in indirect attack via

RPGs or via heavier rockets and that was well and truly enough for

me.

JENNY BROCKIE:   And how hard was the physical environment?

 

RICK LINDSAY:  Oh, it was tough.  Anyone that says it wouldn't be

would be a liar. I mean you're carrying loads of mounted gear, the

body armour that  you're using is heavy. You're carrying lots of

ammunition.  The conditions from over there go from hot, I was there sort of from

the end of summer, I was there leading into winter.  When we got the

there it was quite nice, the temperature was 30, 35 degrees and there

were times there where it was minus 20 degrees, minus 25 degrees

sitting than picket at 3 o'clock in the morning, it was freezing. As you

can see, it's dusty, it's tough. You know, without a doubt it's tough.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   And James, describe it from your point of view?

Because you were working across the country with the special forces,

yes?

JAMES BROWN:  Look, my existence in Afghanistan was certainly I

think a lot more comfortable than Rick's. Most of my time was spent

in Kabul but I also travelled around a reasonable amount as well.

 

And I think the thing with Afghanistan is it's a local war so what it's

like in one valley in Oruzgan might not be replicated to the next.

There are parts of Afghanistan I went to where I could walk around

very lightly armed, no body armour.  There are other parts I went to

where to do that would have you in a lot of trouble within a very short

space of time.

JENNY BROCKIE:   Yes. Mahbooba, you run an aid organisation for

widows and orphans in Afghanistan. How would you describe the

state of your country to an Australian audience right now?

 

MAHBOOBA RAWI:  With respect with the widows we have here

and all the soldiers risking their life in Afghanistan, from what I see in

my country, this is what my country needs. My country needs pen and

paper. My country needs education. Afghanistan needs education,

stability, more clinics, more hospitals, more schools, more factories, more

opportunity for work.

 

Tackling poverty, that's what bothers the country.  To bring peace in

Afghanistan, you cannot bring peace in Afghanistan without

education.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Okay, so how do you achieve that though…

MAHBOOBA RAWI:    What the soldier is bringing into Afghanistan

what we have in the past thirty years of war, gun, soldiers, Russian

soldiers with guns. We don't need more gun hand.  In Afghanistan we

need healing hand, we need healing hand and we cry for healing hand.

 

BREE TILL:  How many healing hands can go there if when they

walk down the road they'll get shot?  We've got guys there and they're

building hospital, they're building schools, they're clearing a path --

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Let Bree finish and then we'll come back.

 

BREE TILL:  I am a fan of education.  I'll give you the tip, like I'm a

teacher myself and I would love nothing more than to have adequate

schools, adequate hospitals, and if we could get that and have it so that

people could safely use those facilities and education rises and you

know, literacy rises, I'd love that more than anything. But in order to

walk to those places or build those things or be able to access those

facilities, you need to be able to do that without getting blown up.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Mahbooba, what do you say to that?

 

MAHBOOBA RAWI: I spent twelve years --

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Bree's argument is that she thinks, from what

she's heard from her husband and what she knows of the war, that she

thinks that the soldiers need to be there too, do things as practical as

making the streets safe for the children. I mean, do you not agree with

that?

 

MAHBOOBA RAWI: No, I don't think Afghanistan needs soldiers. I

disagree with this, I built five schools, I built three community centres,

I built, I can build in every corner of Afghanistan something safely.

 

Afghanistan needs opportunity. Afghanistan needs resources.

Afghanistan needs help from international community.  Yes, I agree

we need help from international community but that help is not

soldiers.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   So you want the troops out?

 

MAHBOOBA RAWI: I want the troops out, yes.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Ehsan, can I bring you in at this point because

you were went back to Afghanistan a couple of years ago in the work

in the education ministry?

 

EHSAN AZARI: Yes.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   And you didn't stay?

 

EHSAN AZARI: Yes.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   And what happened, why didn't you stay?

 

EHSAN AZARI:  Particularly I was disturbed and frustrated within

weeks because actually I found a dysfunctional government there. I

found a government totally losing ground to the insurgency on the

daily basis, so it was too difficult for me to work in such an

environment. Although it was lucrative because you know now for

some Afghan ex pats going to Afghanistan is going a Californian gold

rush - because they are making money there. Lots of money, free

money that's coming from the west in Afghanistan and people are just

working in Afghanistan to get rich.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   So how would you describe the government

there?

 

EHSAN AZARI: The government there is totally corrupt and it is, I

wonder why the western powers are treating this government with

velvet gloves and I don't know why they are shaking the

government --

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   A cry of corrupt went up around this room I

have to say when we mentioned the government?

 

WOMAN:  It's not Afghan people government. It's not. I've been

in Afghanistan and I come back February.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   One moment, one at a time.

 

WOMAN: I've been Afghanistan after 22 years, or 20 years and I

raise up my kids here. I gone back Afghanistan and I see the situation

in my country. I see five people killed in front of me, I see, it was one

day before I was there, the building is fall down in front of my house.

I was there. Where is the government over there?

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Okay, Saad, I want to ask you about this because

I know that you originally supported the Karzai government but

you've changed your mind.  Why?

 

SAAD MOHSENI:  Well we supported the process and we continue to support the process. But we don't, you know, we don't stop that from - that doesn't stop us from criticising the government for being corrupt.

 

But you know, there are a lot of good things happening  as well, I think people should realise that Afghanistan is very different to 2001. Millions of kids go to school. You know, we have shopping centres in Kabul, roads are being built. We have probably the best road system Afghanistan has ever had.

 

If we were to have a more honest government and a government that basically served the nation, and dealt with a lot of our issues across the country, economic development, education and so forth, it would make your job a lot easier in terms of figuring out when you're going to leave and feeling comfortable that Afghanistan is not going to fall into the hands of the Taliban.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Jim Molan, how do you reconcile sending soldiers off to fight for a government's that corrupt?

 

JIM MOLAN:  They're not fighting for a government that's corrupt. They fighting in a country which, and we've just heard it.   I mean Mahbooba's life is an inspiration to all of us and the suffering is quite incredible. Our soldiers aren't over there fighting for the Karzai government. They're over there fighting as an expression of western interest in the future of Afghanistan, and that's an important point to make, and just because the Karzai government is corrupt, that doesn't mean the whole thing falls over. Doesn't make it impossible.

 

What it means is- what it means --

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Let him finish, let him finish, let him finish.

 

JIM MOLAN:  What it means is that it's just very, very, very hard. We should not think that this is the end of the world and we should all come home.

 

MAHBOOBA RAWI:    That's where the problem comes from.

 

MATTEN OLUMEE:  How can you support the country when you can't have the support of the government. Why did the west, why did the west --

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   One at a time, one at a time, okay?  One at a time.

 

MATTEN OLUMEE: Who picked the government? Not the people. My advice is the not the advice of the people,  right, because it's not her. The government of the west picks the government and puts it there and then you turn around and say that we're not fighting for the government, we're fighting for the people? That's not true though. That is not true.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Jim, do you want to answer? I mean it's an interesting distinction.  I take your point about the distinction but there is a perception that, you know, there's a corrupt government sitting there and that we're sending soldiers over to fight a war where there's a corrupt government sitting above everything.

 

JIM MOLAN:  Yes, and that doesn't mean that the whole thing will fail by any stretch of the imagination.

 

WOMAN: Yes, it will.

 

JIM MOLAN:  It just means that it will take that long time for us to be

successful.

 

WOMAN:  Walking in the street and --

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   One at a time.

 

WOMAN:  I'm sorry.

 

EHSAN AZARI:  Let me tell you one thing.  Sending troops in Afghanistan

while we do not have a reliable and credible local partner I think it is a

futile mission.

 

JIM MOLAN:  What are you saying?  Are you saying we should pull

out until the government is good? My view is we should stay there and

assist the government to be good in the future.

 

EHSAN AZARI:  If you look at it from an historical perspective, during

2001 when the Taliban government was collapsed, at that time we had

9,000 foreign troops, but now we have more than 150,000 and also

thousands of contractors, but the situation is even getting worse. So

that the government that was put in place in 2001, this government is

totally kidnapped by a few families and war lords who are now

multi-millionaires.

 

And now sending troops to Afghanistan, sending troops, sending military

option to Afghanistan is totally, and Afghanistan is a black hole for

western, black, western money.

JENNY BROCKIE:   Jim Molan, you've been quoted as saying that you think we need more troops in Afghanistan. Why?

 

JIM MOLAN:  Because the mission that the government has given to

the Australian Defence Force, which is primarily to train the Afghan

army, is far too narrow. To be successful in Oooruzgarn province

there is probably five different tasks going from governance,

economy, social stability, security, protecting the population, building

an Afghan army and attacking the insurgents.

 

Now we have picked up one of those tasks and there are certain things

going on at the moment which would indicate that perhaps we haven't

fully resourced even that one task.

 

To deliver what I think most of the people in this room, the Afghan

Australians in this room with the experience of Afghanistan would

like, we need to deliver, someone needs to deliver all of those tasks in

Oruzgan.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Now we've heard those criticisms recently. You

know, we've heard from a soldier on the ground following a recent

battle where an Australian soldier was killed, I  think we've got some

footage of that battle here. The criticism was that there wasn't enough

support. You don't think there's enough support for the soldiers?

 

 

JIM MOLAN: I differentiate it from the leaked email that portrayed

that, I do agree with the essence of that email but it's been so totally

confused since it's come out. What I think is the big point from the

email and from the description of the battle is that possibly our

soldiers are not being permitted to act decisively in the country. Now

that's a function of the government and if you meet the Taliban and

don't prosecute the conflict with the Taliban, that is fight, kill and

capture, then we're going to be going around in circles in this province

forever.

 

Until we convince the Taliban, particularly in our own area but across

the country, that they must come to the table and negotiate with us,

because at the moment they think they're winning, God bless them,

until we convince them that they've got to come to the table and

negotiate, then this war will go on forever.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  The gentleman here first.

 

ZABI SAHID:  Going back to the negotiations, Karzai has formed a

group of people to go and negotiate with the Taliban. Well the Taliban

are saying we cannot negotiate until the foreign troops are out  - you can not negotiate in the presence of someone you cannot trust. We need to establish an

environment of trust before we can negotiate.

 

Here is the problem, the Taliban are becoming stronger, there's 531

troops died so far, that's more than the whole year last year and twice

the number in 2008, and that's increasing. The Taliban are becoming more stronger whether you like it or not – whether they are winning or not is not my concern.

I do not support the Taliban, I do not support the government, I

support the people. So how do you bring peace?  You cannot have

NATO and United States who left us in '92, because of whom I left

my country,  to come and negotiate.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Rick?

 

RICK LINDSAY:  You say you want someone you can trust. We are

Australians, can you not trust us?  Give us a go and to trust us.

 

ZABI SAHID:  Here is the problem, the moment America decides to leave

our country….. The moment United States decides to leave Afghanistan, Australia will leave Afghanistan, Australia is not there on their own mandate.

 

RICK LINDSAY:  You just said you wanted to be able to trust

someone to help you in your country.

 

WOMAN:  …. not to them, to Afghan people. They can't trust you because you're

not Afghan, you're not from there.  I think they do need your help. They don't want your help.

 

RICK LINDSAY:  So because I'm Australian you can't trust me, is

that right?

 

WOMAN:     ……no, not me.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Okay, one at a time. Okay, no, Ehsan I'm going

to stop you. Rick has not had a chance to say anything here. What did

you want to say back to this?

 

RICK LINDSAY:  The question, the point that you put forward is that

you can't trust anyone to be able to do it.

 

MATTEN OLUMEE: You've got to trust someone. A group of people….

 

RICK LINDSAY:  We're not American mate, we're Australian. You're

saying--

 

ZABI SAHID:  … on the American mandate.A156

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Okay, I'm going to stop this for one second but

Bree, you had your hand up very quietly there, you wanted to say

something?

 

BREE TILL:  I just wanted to kind of again bring the perspective back

that we're talking about Australia and what Australia does and

obviously  - yes, there's a coalition and there's a whole group, but can we

just keep the focus on what we're doing? And the missions and the

tasks that we're achieving and that we're trying to do?

 

RICK LINDSAY:  That's a good question.

 

BREE TILL:  Hey, hey, I didn't interrupt anyone else, can you just let

me finish please? Sorry, I feel like I'm at school again.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Go ahead.

 

BREE TILL:  But if the focus is should we be there or what are we

doing or what things do we need to change, can we focus on what

we're doing? Like again, I've said I don't know the answer but we need

to be focusing on what Australians are currently doing, be it building,

be it clearing, be it mentoring, be it searching, be it finding things, we

need to actually get a better insight on what we're doing so we can

understand whether or not what we're doing is good or bad. And it's

got to be that simple.

 

Like we don't know if we should be there, like all the big sort of

question things but can we worry about the little things of what do we

need to change? Do we need to train better our troops? Do we need to

equip them better? What can do that's tangible that we have some

control over?

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   That's a really good question. That's a really

good question and James, I want to put that to you. I mean what are

we there for?  What are we doing and should we do be doing what

we're doing in Afghanistan?

 

JAMES BROWN:  Look, let me spoke to the issue of trust. What we're

doing at the moment is we are fighting and dying alongside the

Afghan national army in Oruzgan. We are training up the police

and we're doing a damn good job at it. And they trust us, they're going

out on patrols with us. Friends of mine are doing the hard work out

there to do those kind of patrols and train these guys over the long

term.

 

So what should be we be doing? To speak to what Jim was talking

about before, I think we had an opportunity to take over command of

Oruzgan province when the Dutch pulled out and I think we should

have taken that opportunity. We seem to have shied away from it and I

think that indicates that we're having some sort of each way bet on the

future of Oruzgan.

 

If we're serious about what we're doing there, and if we're there for the

reasons that the government says we are, we should have taken

command in Oooruzgarn.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Raihana and Elly have both been fighting for

time here and the two of them have completely different points of

view so I'll give you a few minutes.

 

ELLY KOHISTANI:  I just really quickly want to say they asked

us what we want, and I'm sure I can speak on behalf of the Afghan

people,  we want a government that is empowered by the people. We

want a government …… Help us establish that.  Help us establish a

government that we can trust.  As we said, or trust issues is not

because you're Australian or you're this or you're that. It's based on our

history.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   But that's the dilemma, isn't it?

 

RAIHANA HAIDARY: Yes. Basically --

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   How do you create stability in a country? Can

you create the stability in your own country to get that sort of

government without foreign troops?

 

RAIHANA HAIDARY: I think a bottom up strategy needs to happen.

Not a top down strategy which is what is happening with what the

Afghans perceive, the foreign forces are doing are empowering the

corrupt government and then people feel disempowered and that's

what leads them to the Taliban. Because to them the Taliban are an

Afghan face and no matter what the foreign forces are doing, no

matter what interests they're doing, whether it's for peace or whether

it's  a war strategy --

 

MOHAMMAD KHEDRI:  Definitely not my face and I'm an ex Afghan.

 

ELLY KOHISTANI: Exactly but the people are still supporting them.

 

MOHAMMAD KHEDRI:   no, no, no, please, we have to understand what is the issue. the issue is, excuse me, just give me one moment.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   One at a time, one at a time, one at a time.

Keep going.

 

MOHAMMAD KHEDRI:  The issue is that Afghanistan, as we said, is pushed in to be known as a tribal country. We could had leave Afghanistan and the terrorism could come and knock on our doors here, all around the world, anywhere else. We could not live in peace.

 

The only way to fix it, I think, is the ones who want to live in barbarism, if I say that, or if they want to live with Taliban, let's leave the southern parts. Now the coalition and the Australian forces are doing a fantastic job educating people about the values that we believe in a western, in a country that should be living in a peaceful manner.

 

We cannot impose democracy, we could only educate people. Now if

the southern parts of Afghanistan do not want to do this and they want

do live under Taliban, they're most welcome to do so. Let's centralise

and the peaceful parts of Afghanistan, the northern and central parts of

Afghanistan.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   I want to go back to Andrew Wilkie, I'd like to

go back to Andrew Wilkie. Andrew, I'm going to have ask you all to,

you can keep this going later - Andrew, I'd like to ask but this question

of leaving the country in chaos, you want to pull the troops out. What

about the prospect of leaving the country in chaos, a country that

we've gone to war in, you know, we've made a commitment to do that.

We've been there since 2001. What about that, that outcome?

ANDREW WILKIE:   Jenny, if we stay, there will continue to be

chaos. If we go, there will be chaos. There is a need in Australia now,

an urgent need for an informed political debate about why we're there.

We need to develop a better plan. At this stage our plan is not much

more than sophisticated than continuing to stand by our allies and in

my opinion, that's not a plan, that's reinforcing defeat.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Saad in Kabul, do you think it would be chaos if

we pulled out, if the coalition troops pulled out of chaos, would the

country descend into chaos?

 

SAAD MOHSENI:  I think if you pulled out immediately or in the

next six months, yes,  there will be chaos. Because of different power

groups within the country will fight each other to find the foothold.

We need an honest government. We cannot transform the government

overnight. But you know, the international community, our friends,

the Australians and others, do have levers. They do have leverage with

the Afghan government. Whilst they can rebuild our institutions and

they have an obligation to work with Afghan institutions,  at the same

time they can press the Afghan government to bring about changes

that would positively impact things on the ground.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Rick, do you think the war can be won and what

does that mean in terms of Afghanistan?

 

RICK LINDSAY:  I don't know if it could ever be won.  It sounds like

from what the guests here today think  that if we pull out, then it

seems like it's can be won. But from my point of view I don't think

pulling the troops out is going to help at all. But I think it can be won.

I think it's going to take a lot of time, and yeah, you well may see

more Australians soldiers killed.

 

WOMAN:  How much time?

 

RICK LINDSAY:  Well youse tried for thirty years, nothing happened

there.

 

WOMAN: How many time?  How much resources do we have and is

it worth it?  Is it worth the soldiers getting killed?

 

RICK LINDSAY:  Well, I don't know, that's the question. I don't

know.

MATTEN OLUMEE: I don't think so Rick.

 

RICK LINDSAY:  You don't  think so?

 

MATTEN OLUMEE: For every life that we lose there, either be Australian

soldiers or the innocent people there, the war will never be won. This

war will never be won one because the war was created by the west

and put in there. We had peace there, we did have peace there.

 

RICK LINDSAY:  I see the kids on the ground when I was there and

though they --

 

MATTEN OLUMEE: I look at myself and I've been there, I been to Afghanistan

in 2005 for the first time and I look at myself as an Australian and

then I'll put my other shirt on and say look, I'm an Afghan Australian

as well. So I'm both ways visiting there and seeing what I've seen.

Personally as an Australian I don't want you or him to go to

Afghanistan.  Why? Because I'm scared you're going to die and I'm

going to get hammered because the way I look.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Jim, you were in charge of the counter

insurgency operation in Iraq and I just wonder what you think it will

take, you know, where do we have to get to before you think we can

leave Afghanistan, Australia can leave?

 

JIM MOLAN:  I think the Afghan war will be won or lost by the

Afghans some time in the next 10 or 20 years. I have no idea when.

 

FAZILA HAJEB: Why by Afghans?

 

JIM MOLAN:  We are an interventionist force, we aren't there to win

the war in Afghanistan. The role of an interventionist force is to put

the Afghans into a position whereby they can win their own war by

themselves.

 

FAZILA HAJEB: Yes, but why do you --

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Let him finish.

 

JIM MOLAN:  I'm fairly confident that that could take two to four

years, three to five years, but we should not be there any longer than

three to five years.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   No longer than three to five years?

 

FAZILA HAJEB: Time is not the question.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Yes?

 

EHSAN AZARI: I think this leaving or staying, this is the crucial, the core

point of our discussion of all guests here. And I think now the

important thing is that we have to understand that now it is the high

time to draw a lesson from. We have been there for ten years. The

important thing now is that if we leave, of course if we turn out the

light and leave there will be a huge vacuum in Afghanistan and the

vacuum will be filled with a very bloody civil war as we experienced

in of the past.

 

And I believe the only option, viable option which is in the interests of the

Afghan people, which is in the interests of the west, is that we have to

reach out to the insurgency. There is no other point that we have to

bring them into a negotiation, into a political settlement. So we need

to build up a process, a process of bringing the insurgency to --

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Okay, James?

 

JAMES BROWN:  I think he's partly right.  Winning is going to negotiate

with the Taliban but you need to make them think they're losing on

the ground for them to get to the table. And you know what? This year

we're having incredible tactical success against the Taliban,

particularly in southern Afghanistan. There's been massive disruption

of Taliban networks.

 

But the question --

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Just let him finish.

 

JAMES BROWN:  To speak to the question of how we win in

Afghanistan, it's the things that Mahbooba has been talking about,

education, information, it's allowing people to watch TV on the mobi

group channels. It's giving people in those isolated valleys the ability

to hear a different point of view so that they just don't just listen to the

local Taliban Commander.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   So what would success look like James, in your

terms?  What would success look like?

 

JAMES BROWN:  I think we need to revise what success is going do look

like in Afghanistan. It's not going in look like Australia. It's going to -

there will be  an element of corruption in the government and we all

know how problematic and traumatic that  is.  The government will be

partially dysfunctional.   There will still be poor infrastructure but it

will be getting better. Maybe it's going to look a lot like New South

Wales, but we need to be realistic. We need to be realistic about what

we can achieve.

 

If we can have an Afghan national institution in government, in

security forces, and if we continue the trend towards allowing people

to get the information about what's going on in their own country so

that they can call out people when they are corrupt, then I think we'll

be doing pretty well.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Okay, we have to wrap up. We're going to lose

the satellites in a moment. We haven't even talked about women and

we need to talk about that. We need to talk about that on-line

specifically but just a final comment from Raihana and Elly.

 

RAIHANA HAIDARY:  Can I just say one thing?  I think at the

moment there is a false sent of security and Kabul is the centre point. I

think it's most secure at the moment but if you look all around it, it's

instability, it's corruption and there's a huge support for the Taliban.

 

I think that the troops need to start withdrawing and I think that the

wound needs to heal and it will bleed. Chaos will happen no matter

when we exit out of Afghanistan, that's inevitable.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Okay, a final point from you Elly?

 

ELLY KOHISTANI:  I agree, chaos will occur if the troops leave. I

honestly believe that, you know, the Australians are there for a good

purpose.  But there are hidden political agendas and at the end of the

day, the Australians are allies with the Americans and you guys can't

believe that, you know, you guys are in there doing your own thing

and that the Americans cannot impose their beliefs on you.

 

You know, that's the issue and until we re-stabilise our economy, help

the women, empower women, emancipate the women, which is really

necessary and you know, build the infrastructure and educate the

people which are 90 percent illiterate, we won't be able to win this

war.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Okay we have to wrap it up I'm afraid, we're

going to lose the satellites. We'll keep it going on line. Just very

quickly Bree.

 

BREE TILL:  If we can sit here and have this conversation and we've

got more than half the audience is female who can say what they want

with to say, there's people who are against the norm or out one field

or right in the middle, but we can all sit here and have this

conversation and I just think it's fantastic.  Without fear, without

anything and I just yeah, would like to make that point.

 

JENNY BROCKIE: And you feel that that's what Brett was there for,

to try and help that?

 

BREE TILL:  I feel that I really appreciate that we get to do that and I

wish that more people could get to do that. Whether or not or how to

do it …

 

JENNY BROCKIE:   Okay, we have to stop unfortunately. Thank you

very much for joining us Bree. Thank you everyone for joining us

today, it's been fantastic and a special thanks to you Saad in Kabul,

thank you very much for joining us from Afghanistan, and Andrew

Wilkie, thank you too very much for joining us from Hobart today.

Very good. And thank you all for joining Insight. You can keep

talking to our guests, Mahbooba Rawi, Jim Molan and James Brown.

In you're in the eastern states just hop onto your website and click on

to our live chat. There's also footage of Taqi singing in Pakistan, don't

miss that, and some clips from Afghanistan's version of Australian

Idol taken from the documentary "Afghan Star". The show is

broadcast on Saad's TV network and it's terrific so jump on-line and

have a  look at that as well.