The evacuation of serving Afghanis

-OPINION

THE shameful decision taken by the Commonwealth Government, to abandon those Afghans who worked alongside the Australian forces in the Afghanistan War, is tantamount to crimes against humanity.

It is unfathomable that the Afghans who supported this country under the Australian flag, and whose lives are now in grave danger, should have been so cruelly deserted when the Australians troops were withdrawn.

To have left them, unprotected, to reap the whirlwind of the Taliban is reprehensible, bordering on criminal. It displays a shocking lack of regard for the most basic tenets of wartime honour. It marks a dark day in Australia’s record of fighting service. It dishonours those who died for a cause.

To insinuate the resurgence of the Taliban comes as a surprise is political, face-saving gobbledegook, and simply too stupid to be believed. History will record: the Taliban were never defeated. They simply retreated and waited. It was their tactic. They knew they had time on their side. It is their sovereign territory.

The Australian Government’s ham-fisted scramble to evacuate some of those who supported this county is farcical, and embarrassing. Do we really believe the Taliban, which now controls Kabul, will allow those national traitors who served ‘the infidel’ to step blithely onto an RAAF rescue plane and fly-off into the wide blue yonder? The question is rhetorical. Rationally, it is too implausible to deliberate; too silly to contemplate.

In February 2020, former President Trump and the NATO allies began negotiating a deal with the Taliban for the withdrawal of all foreign troops. A mishandled withdrawal which now, clearly, leaves much to be desired.

The US agreement to withdraw its troops in 14 months, providing the Taliban upheld the mutually agreed terms, was signed on 29 February, 2020; at which time Australia should have begun, immediately, setting-in-train an evacuation strategy for those of our serving soldiers and their Afghan support staff.

At the war’s peak in 2001, 130,000 troops, including a contingent from Australia, were fighting in Afghanistan as part of the NATO/UN-authorised International Security Assistance Force.

The Afghanistan conflict was a legitimate theatre of war and subject to the rules of the Geneva Convention which apply only in times of armed conflict, and seek to protect people who are not, or are no longer, taking part in hostilities. These include amongst others, civilians.

Australia’s moral and international obligations to those civilians, who during this time served this country at their peril, did not end when we withdrew our serving personnel.

We owed these hapless, dedicated souls a debt of protection which has been abrogated in the most cold-blooded way. There is no argument: those Afghans whom we have shamefully and hubristically discarded will pay for their service and loyalty to Australia with their lives. Already, the Taliban’s barbaric retribution has begun.

That we have so heartlessly betrayed the Afghans is cause for every Australian to reflect, deeply.

Is this a manifestation of who, and what, we have become as a nation?