Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Afghanistan

My electricity bill arrived in the mail yesterday. At last, evidence that the solar panel array is paying off. The billing period is over 57/58 days and a comparison with the last bill shows a considerable drop....$59.60 down to $15.50.

Several young Australian soldiers have been killed by ‘rogue’ Afghan troops over a few weeks. Many calls have been made to bring ‘our boys’ home and leave the Afghans fight their own war. I think that most Australians think that these 'rogue’ soldiers are actually Taliban, but there are, in my mind, a few more likely reasons for these sudden attacks.

Allied troops in Afghanistan live in well protected bases, have reasonably comfortable accommodation, entertainment and communications with family back home. They are well paid for their; in the case of Australian troops, eight month tour of duty.

Meanwhile the Afghan troops live outside the security of allied bases, are poorly paid and mostly despised by the population for working with the invaders.

Australian soldiers involved in the training of Afghan recruits may well insult the Afghans in the training regime. In Vietnam there were many insulting names for the Vietnamese allies...almost certainly there will be a few for Afghan soldiers.

Add to this the pressure some families of Afghan recruits would be receiving from Taliban agents. A no-win situation!

What is needed is an honorable way of withdrawing all foreign troops.....perhaps a call from Hamid Karzai for all foreigners to leave now.

2 comments:

Bernie said...

We lost a young soldier 2 weeks ago Kev and he lived a couple of streets from me. He has a 2 year old son and a 10 day old daughter. He was only 28, I agree it is time to bring our boys home. Nothing has changed over there for decades. I have to say though I would rather we fight them over there than over here.
I am having trouble with my laptop, it is barely a year old. It works well when plugged in but shuts down with 70 even 80% power left in the battery. They are sending me a new battery but somehow I think the problem is in the mother board. Talk soon...Hugs

Anonymous said...

Kev, After a year and a half of haggling with Synergy to get the bill in my name which is what I was told had to be done, I received a bill for $ 9o, Maybe I should invest in solar panels or try turning off some of my appliances. Marg