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    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default OEF has it been worth the human cost?

    I think this question has been asked before within a variety of threads, but the Lowy Institute have raised the issue - under a different headline. Questions that all of those nations involved need to ask, not just Australians.

    Link:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/...n-failure.aspx

    The author starts with:
    Some good things have been achieved in Afghanistan, and some of them may even last once ISAF has gone. But for those of us interested in the decisions that governments make about the use of armed force, the fact that something has been achieved is not enough. The question that must be asked is whether the achievements have been worth the cost..(sentence removed)....But it is a question that we Australians cannot afford to duck.
    Citing an Australian TV documentary, which cites retired Major General John Cantwell:
    : At its heart it's about supporting an alliance with the United States. That's what got us into this when the ANZUS Treaty was invoked. Is it worth it? I as a Commander asked myself that question many times. And I really really struggle with it. The only way I can see through this, so that I can sleep at night, is to differentiate - to say it's not worth it for the lives that you lose. You could never look at any soldier, sailor or airman and say, your life's forfeit for some political purpose. That's just unacceptable. But at the highest level of strategy, and in the dirty ugly world of international relationships, where it's you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, that those lives become less important. And taking that longer term view, that hardnosed, realpolitik view, that politicians do, and must, it's worth it. But not at the human level.
    Link:http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stori...12/3476114.htm

    He writes:
    ...the decisions – including the moral decisions — to commit soldiers to combat are made at two different levels. There is the operational level, where the decisions are military, and the strategic level, where they are, to use his word, 'political'...He seems to argue the standards of morality at the two levels are different. At the strategic level the standards are lower, and 'lives are less important'.....

    Everyone involved in such a decision has a responsibility to exercise exceptional diligence in contributing to it. All of them must meet the same moral standard: have they been sufficiently careful in ensuring that the potential cost in lives is justified by the potential policy benefits?

    I believe Australian strategic decisions about Afghanistan failed to meet this standard. Soldiers were committed to dangerous operations when there was little prospect that those operations would achieve their policy objectives
    He ends with an even more difficult passage:
    Military service in a society like ours is based on an implicit agreement. Soldiers agree to follow orders; to go where they're sent and fight who they're told, even at risk to their lives. In return, we – their senior officers, their ministers and ultimately the public – promise that we will not order them into danger unless really critical national interests are at stake, and the operations they are committed to have a reasonable chance of success. In Afghanistan I'm not sure we have lived up to our side of that deal.
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 04-26-2012 at 01:41 PM. Reason: Add Cantwell quote
    davidbfpo

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