I have an infantry mate who is heading over next year and is really looking forward to the challange. He didn't join up to make coffee.
He's also a batshit crazy driver, and his girlfriend was actually more worried when he got his WRX then when he joined the army. Realistically, with the way he drives he's probably got a better chance of lasting a year in Afghanistan.
Whether it was right for us to be there in the first place is a little irrelevant now. We're in pretty deep and we should stay there because we said we would help the people. We should stay unless we have reason to leave.
So, what reason to leave do we have? Young soldiers dying is a terrible thing. I hate to put it into mathematical terms as a life is a life, but this thread is focussing on the bigger picture of why we are there, so the bigger picture will be looked at.
We've had 27 dead in 10 years, which is an average of 2.7 people a year. Considering the fact that its a warzone, and the number of people we have there is it really a slaughter fest? I'd say that its one of the safest wars in Australian history.
But are these deaths acheiving anything? That is a question I think only the people who know what they're talking about can answer. I can watch the news for weeks and hear nothing about how many towns our troops have cleared out, how many terrorists they have killed, how many people's freedoms they are securing, but i will certainly hear how many Aussie troops have died. This is giving everyone the opinion that our troops are dying for nothing which I'm certain is not the case. As stated in this thread, the troops over there seem to think they are making a difference.
Role Reversal: If you were the ocupied country and you knew all you had to do was kill some soldiers to upset the invading country enough to pack up and go home, you would just kill a bunch of soldiers. With that in mind would it be wise and fair to the rest of the coalition to pull out now?
Ive spoken to a few blokes that went to Vietnam and almost to a man they were disgruntled and pissed off. They would express things like "we were there for nothing".
Was this because as soon as they pulled out things went back to the way they were? South vietnam was invaded shortly after and pretty much the entire war and all those deaths were for nothing?
So if we pulled out of Afghanistan today, it would be different to Vietnam because....?