Watch Leigh Sales Grill John Howard Over The Government’s Response To The Afghanistan Crisis
"There's no way this mission can be viewed as anything other than a failure, is there?"
7.30 host Leigh Sales has grilled former Prime Minister John Howard on why Australia hasn’t rescued Afghans who assisted Australian troops in the two-decade military campaign in the country, and whether the infamous ‘War on Terror’ was a “failure”.
Afghan translators who worked with Australia over the 20-year occupation were placed on the Taliban kill list for working with “infidel enemies”, sparking calls to fast-track 300 protection visas. Yet Australia was slow to move, and an eleventh-hour operation is now attempting to rescue Afghan citizens — taking just 26 last night in a plane with the capacity for 128, potentially due to dangerous conditions at Kabul’s airport.
Before Afghan fell to Taliban rule this week, journalists had been warning for months of the threats being made to interpreters, and the need to rapidly rescue them. Last night, Sales pressed Howard in the one-on-one interview: “Why would anyone ever again put their life on their family’s life at risk to assist Australian forces when they see the low priority they’ve been afforded in return?”
Howard refuted that a number of them have already returned, to which Sales replied: “They all should have come though, shouldn’t they? We owe all of them.”
In defence of the Morrison Government, Howard told Sales she was making “a completely unfair generalisation about the behaviour of the government.”
Sales also pressed Howard the “failure” of the war, reminding him of his early goal to, “to seek out and destroy al-Qaeda and ensure Afghanistan can never again serve as a base from which terrorists can operate.”
With al-Qaeda still embedded in Afghanistan with hundreds of armed operatives, and with the Taliban ruling the country, Afghanistan has become “a perfect base for terrorists on your own objectives,” Sales told Howard. “There’s no way this mission can be viewed as anything other than a failure, is there?”
“The mission, whatever may be said of it, has not been a failure.” – fmr prime minister John Howard on the war in Afghanistan. #abc730 #auspol pic.twitter.com/SiiJExV1Hu
— abc730 (@abc730) August 18, 2021
Howard sternly argued that the war had indeed been successful because there were no further “major terrorist attacks” on the West as 9/11, and that “the great fear” of the US and Australia at the time was more attacks orchestrated out of Afghanistan.
Not budging, Howard continued to press the point that the central idea to entering Afghanistan to prevent further attacks from al-Qaeda. “The central objective of going into Afghanistan was to cripple the capacity of al-Qaeda to do that again,” said Howard.
But experts are warning that the threat of terrorism is actually worse than it was at the turn of the new millennium. Professor Blaxland, Chair of Global Islamic Politics with Deakin University told the ABC the threat is “exponentially greater than it was two decades ago — in size, sophistication and determination.” Blaxland believes the Taliban’s success at reclaiming Afghanistan could be seen as inspirational to terrorist groups, and that Afghanistan could become a facilitator for terrorism.
And counter-terrorism expert Professor Greg Barton warns there will now be more opportunity for al-Qaeda to welcome and train foreigners, equipping them as fighters.