I'm looking forward to Cabinet making a decision to bring the Afghan interpreters and their families to New Zealand, or to assist them passage to other safe countries before our troops come home. The issue has been highlighted for several years now but is becoming a pressing matter with the expectation of the withdrawal of New Zealand troops from Afghanistan in 2013.
Nobody is entitled to, and few will, look back on our involvement in Afghanistan as having achieved a success fundamental to the misconstrued term 'War against Terror.' But there we have seen that our soldiers have risen above expectation in their efforts, most often in the difficult concept of bringing help to a country ostensibly under invasion. Our troops have been tasked to help rebuild strategic public services, essentially a neutral role in a country at war. But it is clear that the neutrality of our role in Afghanistan is not appreciated by those that see New Zealand as part of a coalition of invasion.
The war in Afghanistan was never able to be won, because as in Iraq, defending armies predictably melted away into civilian life from where they continued their campaign. The striking thing is that this was an invasion by the most powerful allied force in the world, and it was against a third world nation ostensibly without a army, navy or Air Force, yet even from the beginning it was plain it was a war that couldn't be won. A war that became conflicted with it's stated reason. On the evaluation of terror the recent 'double tap' strikes by drones show how far the 'war' has distanced itself from it's 'noble' intentions. If there had been no invasion there would be no opportunity for the Taliban to claim the victory they already have, there would be no recognition that, like the Taliban, America has broken all the rules of war, having first introduced the odd couplet 'War against Terrorism' they have sullied their own position and allowed themselves to foot it with the terrorists, refusing to treat prisoners as POWs, renditions, willingness to transport prisoners into exile where International Law, including the Geneva Convention doesn't apply.
Of course such translations are not the business of New Zealand troops, and successive NZ Governments have held to legal conventions. Likewise I expect that Cabinet fully appreciates that the Taliban troops that slipped into the night will emerge to take revenge on their own countryman, as they have continued to do to this day. What our troops have achieved will only be strengthened by a Government decision to look after those that helped us, and who for that reason, are in perilous and real danger. That must be out duty. If even the enemies of our troops observe that New Zealanders do not depart friends in time of peril then our nation has spoken for the New Zealand view of the World, most often as bridge builders and those that will be there what ever the pressure maybe. Where bridges have been destroyed our troops have rebuilt them, working with Afghans as people no different than ourselves.
Afghanistan has shown the world for a second time in recent memory that it can defeat great armies using time, patience and stealth. I hope what we as a country have shown not only Afghanistan, but the world, our independence, also our vision that the world is built on people, not by raining bombs, double tapped for deadly effect.
