Maybe Wikileaks Can Find an Election Policy

Wikileaks has got their hands on ninety thousand documents proving that the war in Afghanistan is kinda screwed. Who knew? Apart from everybody that is. Seriously while these leaks may provide depth and intimate detail of the exact way in which the war is screwed the essential screwedness of the war should surprise nobody. The Americans made their big mistake when they decided to hold it in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is not a place anyone should hold a war.

If one looks at the history of Afghanistan over the centuries it becomes increasingly obvious that the place is the military equivalent of an elephants graveyard. It's where the armies of various empires crawl away to die. The British invaded Afghanistan (three times, so much for them being fast learners) and on each occasion left faster than they went in. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan with horrifying results. Take Rambo III for example. The Iranians have invaded Afghanistan at various times with no good result and even Alexander the Great didn't hang around very long after proclaiming his dominance of the area. Invading Afghanistan is something you should only do if exercises in futility are a hobby of yours.

I read a book on one of the British invasions of Afghanistan (I forget which one) which had an interesting quote from an Afghan tribal leader of the nineteenth century. His British interlocutor had been expounding on the benefits to be gained from living under Britannia's benevolent sceptre and in response the Afghan said, "it is true that we can gain much from British rule but we will never tolerate a ruler who can tell us what to do". That last bit should be written in gold in letters ten feet high. Afghanistan is a lawless chaotic mess principally because a goodly number of Afghans prefer it to the alternative. People with degrees in sociology and civilisation building need not apply.

Eventually the Americans and their various hangers on (I mean us) will leave and Afghanistan will carry on as before until next time. Oddly, there probably will be a next time as people just can't seem to keep away from the place. Why? There are nicer places to invade. There are countries where a state of war would be safer than peace in Afghanistan, most of them actually. But people keep coming back to Afghanistan.

In a way its flattering. The current invasion has really put Afghanistan on the map. People are flying in, earning huge salaries (paid for by aid euphemistically described as going to Afghanistan) and leaving again. While there they can dabble in drug smuggling, resource plundering, office buying and various other traditional pass times. Once this invasion is done of course Afghanistan will drop off the map again and the Afghans will have to smuggle their own damn drugs.

The other thing that wikileaks discovered is that the Pakistani ISI has been bankrolling the Taliban. Again, who knew? I did. Anybody else with half a brain did as well. For ninety thousand documents this latest release is surprisingly short on interest. I may not have been across all the particulars but so far nothing that has been revealed has surprised me in the least. I wonder what people expected? Do they hope that buried in the documents is an admission that the United States intended to invade Tajikistan but took a wrong turn at Albuquerque?

The war in Afghanistan surfaced briefly in the leaders debate we had last week for our increasingly wretched election campaign. It took both leaders about thirty seconds to state that we are there, would continue to be there until the job was done and they supported our troops. It must be nice for our troops to know that their presence in Afghanistan has the support of the people who sent them there, at least in general terms. After that the war sank beneath the radar again. The rest of the debate seemed to be a competition to see which leader could say the least in the most boring way possible. The debate was televised and was actually rescheduled and cut short so that it didn't clash with the final of Masterchef which was on immediately after it. This gave the debate more respect than it deserved. The networks should have refused to broadcast it at all out of respect for their audience. I watched the whole damn thing and I can't remember a single thing about it except that nothing much happened.

The media generally agreed that our current prime minister won the debate more or less but that the opposition leader gained a boost because he didn't swing from the overhead lighting while hooting like a gibbon. Honours pretty much even I'd say. Now that the debate is over, thank god, the politicians have returned to saying even less than they did at the debate. This would be all right except that they refuse to shut up while not saying anything. Normally a government can run on its record, unfortunately the currently leader of the government knifed her predecessor a few weeks ago because of the governments record. Normally an opposition can point to chaos and instability in the government as a bad sign however we are currently on our third opposition leader since the last election and the current incumbent is working very hard trying not to say what he thinks. This is made more amusing by the fact that he released a political autobiography only a few months ago in which he made it very clear what he thinks. He is now desperately hoping nobody has read it.

Having made huge commitments and screwed them all up the government is now avoiding committing to anything at all while at the same time trying to come up with a reason why we should vote for them. At the moment their slogan seems to be "At least we're not the opposition". The oppositions slogan is "Vote for us we're not the government". Both of these messages are resonating with those sections of the public who would have voted for them anyway, except when they're not.

A plague on both their houses, I hope that whoever wins will show more courage, personality and even interest in governing the country than either of them are displaying at the moment. You could get a more vibrant display of competition and interchange of ideas in a chook raffle. Immigration seems to be some sort of issue although its difficult to tell as both sides are trying to say they want to reduce it without actually having to reduce it or something along those lines perhaps. Global warming gets a lot of airtime thus contributing to the problem without bringing us any closer to a solution. The prime minister has announced that she will summon a citizens assembly of a hundred and fifty or so people to advise the government on what it should do. We already have one of those; its called the government. A more wretched abdication of responsibility would be harder to find. The opposition seems to think that asking polluters nicely will make them stop, or reduce or something but they don't really care because they don't believe its a problem anyway but they haven't got the guts to say so. The opposition leader did say so but several months ago before the election was called and I suspect that his media advisers have kidnapped his wife and family in an attempt to keep him on message.

As Australia limps towards its democratic expression like a mortally wounded deer I find myself with a strange paradox. How can something so bland be so nauseating.