What are the indicators?

While, by and large, I am convinced by the argument that the presence of Australian troops in Afghanistan is part of (and probably necessary for) the 'war against terrorism'; the question that keeps being asked and seldom (if ever) answered is:when we will know that it is time to withdraw our troops?

Clearly there is a range of indicators that could, and perhaps should, be adopted. Not the least of which is the question of the cost in human life.

Let us also not forget that this cost is on both sides.

I do not pretend that there is any easy answer to this question. I would, however, like some assurance that this question is being grappled with.

I am not always convinced that this is so.

Valid medical reasons

We can get ourselves into some curious ethical situations that would not have been possible fifty or even twenty years ago. We read in today's press for example that numbers of active male service personnel who have had their sperm frozen (presumably in case they are killed) unauthorised but at taxpayer's expense have had their sperm removed.
The policy is apparently that only those with genuine "assisted reproductive issues" can avail themselves of this facility. Apparently risk of death is not an "assisted reproductive issue".
One of the problems with reproductive ethics is that the issue are often resolved 'on the run', rather than dispassionately. While it is important to take context into account, it is also important that we not allow ourselves to be swayed in such sensitive areas by emotion alone.
The inevitable sadness we might feel at the death of a soldier, or at the disappointment of his parents at being denied grandchildren, or at a widow wanting a genetic reminder of her spouse are a very heavy circumstantial overlay to lay upon this debate.
I am also cautious about children being conceived with the expectation that they will not just be born into this world and (hopefully) allowed to thrive but also have to bear the added responsibility of representing a dead soldier, perhaps their father. To not just be a son or a daughter, but also have to be the constant living embodiment of a dead parent.
I am not, at this stage, I think, against the idea. I just think there is a discussion that needs to happen, which I have not particularly been aware of. And ti would be best if this was done at arm's length.
I would be interested in your comments.

Counting Cost

An Australian who joined the British Army to do 'real soldiering' has been killed in Afghanistan (here). It serves as a reminder that the cost of 'real soldiering' can and will be at the cost of lives. It is a bit disturbing, I find, that both his parents and the British Army trot out the line that he died doing what he loved. That is as may be, but at what point do we say enough is enough and the cost is too high.
An interesting story too about the costs of flights to Antartica (here) half of which had to be cancelled and/or rescheduled because of the need to fly an injured person back to Tasmania taking up resources.I suppose this can't be held, though there is a tradition, surely, that saving human life takes priority over anything.
Though I must admit to having a certain ambivalence about the rescue of lone sailors (here). I mean who pays for this indulgence of adventurers. It's all well and good if nothing happens, but costs a bomb when the balloon goes up.

Misleading advertising

Came across this little advertsing gem whilst browsing the world papers over the weekend

Would you like the chance to travel to Poland, Canada, Jamaica or Cyprus in the first year of your new job? How about the chance to earn an excellent starting salary and receive six weeks’ paid holiday every year, all while training in a trade, profession or skill?

We will all note that it fails to mention Iraq and Afghanistan, because, Yes!, it is an advert for the British Army.
Who constitutes our armies? Seldomly the sons and daughters of the rich and powerful (H Windsor being the exception that proves the rule) it is the listless, and perhaps directionless, and least hopeful. We don't like to say this but for some, the forces are a place where you can go if your prospects are not too good. That is not to say that it is not a good place for these people. For those who survive (and that is the key) time in the army, or navy can haver proved very formative indeed. But not much help if you don't survive.
I point you again to Lehrer News Hours honour roll (see blog here)...this US Public broadcasting news show is on SBS daily from 4.45-5.45. Often at the end they show photos of fatalities in the Iraq war...last Friday's dozen or so were all either people of colour or of Hispanic name.
And one of our parish dads has become very clucky indeed because his youngest son is presently doing intensive training with the Army Reserve, I felt cruel (and was indeed careless in the extreme) when I remarked that the Reserve was good training until you actually got called up! He is a fine young man, and it will be doing him good; but he is floating, unsure and very vulnerable to a course of action which may end up costing him and his family dearly.

I offer again American poet Wyatt Prunty's poem THE RETURNING DEAD

Each night I make a drink and wait for them
They have become the day's concluding news,
Installments from a world without anthems
Or children, unfocusing eyes

A question that repeatedly rejects
My easy terms. They are ones who believed
And acted in the narrow and select
Ways handed them, while ordinary lives

Ran on without interruption
Or bad pictures, as though nothing had changed
Change is the one unanswerable question
Of these faces. The world can rearrange

Itself repeatedly, but these remain
The same, silent in everything they lack;
That's what they've come to, in places with names
Like Afghanistan, Iraq,

And this is the way it happens: the words
Are old - mother, father, home - and will catch
Surrounding currents in the slow absurd
Descending will of any river etched

Out of a landscape history refines
To myth. The TV blanks between
Segments, but every static face defines
Itself, holds stubbornly its private scene…

Fixed, publicly, as we are led
Back to that little negative whose lack
Is each of us, staring the staring dead,
Leaning, sometimes like grief itself; then straightening back.

Trainers by any other name

The news that PM Howard will be sending 70 more "trainers" to Iraq is a gauntlet down-throwing exercise. Equally well Mr Rudd's declaration that the Labor party's position is now the opposite, and that no more troops should go to Iraq is no surprise. The 70 trainers are a drop in the bucket in the scheme of things, but the amount of heat that this discussion generates indicates one unfortunate feature and that is that this is not about Iraq but about votes and the posturing is about creating a sense of political difference rather than about solving the problem. In realityt they could do this by saying "I say black" and the other could then say "White!" and the same dynamics would be playing out.
It is sad to say that this opportunism, rather than problem solving, will only be resolved when something truly awful happens. When 10 Australians are killed and their bodies brought home in coffins, the debate will be galvanised in an astonishing way that we should be smart enough to envision before it actually takes place.
Each day the Jim Lehrer Newshour from American public broadcasting play back photos in silence of American soldiers killed in Iraq. They do this in silence and it is deeply moving.
As their names, ranks, places of origin and ages flash by it is the ages that impact.
Marine Joseph Cruz-22, Corporal Terry Blenh-25, Captain Mark Harris-28, Private Louis Ouinh-19 (not their real names)...and so it goes on.
Last week Senator Kate Ellis asked ...Why do we persist in sending our finest and our best to theatres of war?
There is a sad, sad answer: It is the political game that old men play with our children.
I want better from both of our parties and our leaders. But I don't hold out much hope.