Tongan Trrops to Afghanistan

[Ed Jewett]

Tongan Soldiers are going to Afghanistan

Saturday, 31 July 2010, 3:22 pm
Press Release: Government of Tonga
MEDIA RELEASE
(30 July 2010)

“Parliament Votes Unanimously to Send Tongan Soldiers to Afghanistan”
Parliament voted unanimously on 27 July to send Tongan soldiers to Afghanistan in response to a request from the British Government. The vote was taken after a lengthy and non-acrimonious debate took place in Parliament following a briefing by a team from The Tonga Defence Services led by the Commander, Brigadier General Tau’aika ‘Uta’atu.
During the debate, the Prime Minister, Dr. the Hon Feleti Vaka’uta Sevele, informed Parliament that the official request from the British Government came in a letter from the British Prime Minister in February and that a reconnaissance team from the Tonga Defence Services visited the UK and Afghanistan in May. He also said that negotiations on the terms and conditions of the deployment are almost concluded with a few areas yet to be finalised.
After the unanimous vote, the Hon Prime Minister said that Cabinet had agreed the final decision on whether or not to accept the British invitation would be left to Parliament to make and its decision to accept the invitation is no different from what the country had done before in response to requests from its friends and allies like the British and American governments. In recent times Tongan soldiers were deployed to Iraq on the request of the US Government, and to the Solomon Islands under RAMSI, and to Bougainville, on the request of the member countries of the Pacific Islands Forum. On top of that, soldiers from Tonga also served in the two World Wars.
The debate in Parliament had addressed the socio-economic, political and cultural ramifications of the deployment to Afghanistan and fully acknowledged that some of the soldiers may come back in body bags.
The Tongan soldiers will be deployed in 4 contingents of 55 soldiers each, rotating over a two year period with each deployment serving for six months. They will serve besides British and NATO troops and are specifically assigned to provide security.
ENDS

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/print.htm...nistan.htm

[Magda Hassan]

All those lovely remittances from those soldiers will pay better than selling cans of coconut milk.

[Ed Jewett]

What strikes me about this is that a nation of former empire, already soundly defeated in a similar war a long time ago, has reached deep into what remains of its world-wide collection of fealties to summon up mere handfuls of an island sea-faring people whose culture is radically different than that of Britain, the US, or the Pashtun, to fight a war they could give two rats' asses about almost halfway around the globe at an altitude unfathomable to folks who live on a small collection of atolls but who can navigate the wide seas of the Pacific based on cultural learning.

How many people(s), from how far away, must we summons to fight, perchance to die and for what reason?

[Peter Lemkin]

Hurray, we can't loose NOW!!!>>>>>And such a righteous war too.... [from Bill Blum ]

So please tell me again: What's the war about?

When facts are inconvenient, when international law, human rights and history get in the way, when war crimes can't easily be justified or explained away, when logic doesn't help much, the current crop of American political leaders turns to what is now the old reliable: 9/11. We have to fight in Afghanistan because ... somehow ... it's tied into what happened on September 11, 2001. Here's Vice-President Joe Biden: "We know that it was from the space that joins Afghanistan and Pakistan that the attacks of 9/11 occurred." 1

Here's Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC): "This is the place [Afghanistan] we were attacked from 9/11." 2

Rep. Mike Pence, the third-ranking House Republican, asserted that the revelations in the Wikileaks documents do not change his view of the Afghan conflict, nor does he expect a shift in public opinion. "Back home in Indiana, people still remember where the attacks on 9/11 came from." 3

Here's President Obama a year ago: "But we must never forget this is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans." 4

And here is the president, two days after the release of the Wikileaks documents, referring to Afghanistan and Pakistan as "the region from which the 9/11 attacks were waged and other attacks against the United States and our friends and allies have been planned". 5

Never mind that out of the tens of thousands of people the United States and its NATO front have killed in Afghanistan not one has been identified as having had anything to do with the events of September 11, 2001.

Never mind that the "plot to kill Americans" in 2001 was devised in Germany and Spain and the United States more than in Afghanistan. Why hasn't Washington bombed those countries?

Indeed, what actually is needed to plot to buy airline tickets and take flying lessons in the United States? A room with some chairs? What does "an even larger safe haven" mean? A larger room with more chairs? Perhaps a blackboard? Terrorists intent upon attacking the United States can meet almost anywhere, with Afghanistan probably being one of the worst places for them, given the American occupation.

There are many people in Afghanistan and Pakistan — the ones still living — who deeply resent the US presence there and the drones that fly overhead and drop bombs on their houses, their wedding parties, their funerals, their life. As in Iraq, the American "war on terrorism" in Afghanistan regularly, routinely, and conspicuously creates numerous new anti-American terrorists.

The only "war of necessity" that draws the United States to Afghanistan is the need for protected oil and gas pipelines from the Caspian Sea area, the establishment of military bases in this country that is surrounded by the oil-rich Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf regions, and making it easier to watch and pressure next-door Iran. What more could any respectable imperialist nation desire? Oh, did I mention that the military-industrial-security-intelligence complex and its shareholders will be further enriched?

But the war against the Taliban can't be won. Except perhaps by killing everyone in Afghanistan. The United States should negotiate the pipelines with the Taliban, as the Clinton administration tried to do, without success, then get out, and declare "victory". Barack Obama can surely deliver an eloquent victory speech.

[Susan Grant]

the only "wars of necessity" that draw any nation these days are wars fought in the name of G.O.D. - gold, oil, drugs - or in this case perhaps guns, oil and drugs.

[Magda Hassan]

Well, isn't it all the better to get 'others' to fight and die for your wars?

As far as this particular mob goes 'opportunities' are fairly limited in the islands, not just Tonga. Traditionally they go to the big smoke of New Zeland but with the bad recession over there I don't think there is much happening there either. Tonga is quite a corrupt society and feudal http://www.transparency.org.au/documents/tonga.pdf A monarchy of whom some members have quite a taste of the good life. They were responsible for monetising the economy and doing all the neo liberal stuff which was disastrous and resulted in massive riots a few years ago. On top of everything it is quite a patriarchial society, even if not quite as martial as PNG. So too many boys with not enough to do at home. The patriarchs have been paid to send their boys off. Boys will send even more home. But Ed, I do take your point. I feel the same when I see some Dutchman blown up there. Why isn't he home selling dope and coffee in the cafe or picking tulips or when some Scandinavian grunt gets shot he should be home herding reindeer or designing mobile phones? They are all a long way away from home. And for all the wrong reasons. What has any Afghan done to any of them?

[Ed Jewett]

Why aren't all the boys in arms buying the coffee and the dope and picking up the Norwegian and Dutch flowers? :tee:

[Magda Hassan]

Too busy looking after the opium poppies.

[Ed Jewett]

The Tongans have been hired as buyers for the coffee shops....

http://therearenosunglasses.files.wordpr...=900&h=546