Last week John Key was saying that the SAS would be coming home from Afghanistan at the end of March.
“I made it clear actually that the SAS are coming back at the end of March, that they need to re-group,” says Mr Key.
But a trip to Kabul and a conversation with a five four star General later, and the policy is changing. Changing so fast that neither his Foreign Minister nor his Defence Minister know anything about it.
Its easy to see why Gen McCrystal would want the SAS to stay on. He needs all the friends he can get, and especially ones as good at their jobs as the SAS. But surely this is not how New Zealand should be making a decision about sending New Zealanders into a war?
Good on John Key for going to Afghanistan to visit the Kiwis who are up there. As with Helen Clark going there, these visits are an important sign that politicians have the courage of their convictions. But making decisions about re-commitment is serious stuff. It should not be done on the hoof. It all feels a bit like someone who goes on holiday to Brisbane and decides to move there on the basis of having had a good time. Only to discover that the daily grind of living is not quite the same as being on holiday.
New Zealanders and our troops deserve better than John Key simply agreeing with the last person he talked to
Posted in Afghanistan, Defence and Foreign Affairs. |
Hard to follow where Murray McCully is at in terms of the proposal that emerged from the London conference to pay some moderate Taleban to lay down their arms. The Herald reports McCully as saying ” We won’t pay Taleban to give up arms” In the article McCully says they would support reintegrating Taleban fighters into society
But anything that involves significant amounts of money being used for reintegration needs to be looked at very carefully to make sure there are no funds travelling to people we would not wish to be supported.
However the Press quotes McCully talking about the fund
“It makes sense to try to provide an alternative for low-level Taleban operators who have not been involved in any serious deeds and who are not fanatically committed to creating disorder,” McCully said.
National’s positioning on Afghanistan will be interesting to watch in the next while. They certainly made a mess of the SAS/Willie Apiata photo saga. John Key was talking exit strategies some months back, but McCully’s desire to stay on side with the US is strong.
Posted in Afghanistan and Foreign Affairs. |
Interesting story in the Sunday Star Times today, quoting among others former Afghan Foreign Minister and now Otago University lectuer Najib Lafraie.
Revelations about the SAS in Afghanistan last week suggest Prime Minister John Key broke his promise that the elite force would not fight alongside Afghan commandos, says political scientist Najib Lafraie.
Last year Key said that the SAS would not fight alongside the Afghan soldiers that the SAS would be training. Giving this information was part of Key’s “half-open approach” on the SAS, which he continued this week. Now he has gone silent, but Wayne Mapp has waded on in
“The actions that took place were essentially the domain of the Afghan national army, which, you can see from the photos, were the people actually engaged in the fighting.” The CRU was not directly involved in the action, he said, and neither were the SAS.
The CRU is the part of the Afghan army that the SAS has been training. However those on the ground have a different view
However, Norwegian defence correspondent and author of a book on the Norwegian special forces, Tom Bakkeli, said the CRU “absolutely were involved in the fighting” and “the CRU got a lot of acclaim for their counter-action against the attacking Taliban and suicide bombers”.
The National Government handling of the deployment, and recent events in Afghanistan has been a shambles. Both Key and Mapp on one hand seem to want to tell the world about where the SAS are and what they are doing, but are now regretting the consequences. I do not believe the SAS should be in Afghanistan at the moment, but if they are, surely we need some kind of consistent approach to ensuring their safety.
Posted in Afghanistan and Foreign Affairs. |
The furore over the publication of photos of SAS soldiers in Afghanistan brings to light a couple of issues.
1. The nature of the SAS work in Afghanistan. What is described in the story today is pretty disturbing. Phil Goff outlined Labour’s reasoning for not commiting SAS troops at this time, (emphasis added before howls of “Labour deployed the SAS”) and this story re-inforces that. New Zealanders can be rightly proud of the work our Provincial Reconstruction Team has been doing. However the overall conflict in Afghanistan has gone in a different direction and the SAS appear to be right in the thick of that.
2. The policy around commenting or not commenting on the SAS has been thoroughly compromised in recent times. From my perspective it really is an all or nothing situation. If there is a policy not to comment then leave it at that. If we decide that modern communications and other countries agenda make that impractical then accept that. But having John Key confirm that the SAS were in a particular situation, and then criticise the media for investigating further and publishing photographs is ridiculous.
Actually there is a third matter. The reaction from the New York Times blogger who originally reported the SAS role shows that blogging does not always involve research, and can lead to some shoddy reporting!
Posted in Afghanistan. |
