Afghanistaninside Australia’S War
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AfghanistanInside Australia’s War © ATOM 2016 A STUDY GUIDE BY MARGUERITE O’HARA http://www.metromagazine.com.au ISBN: 978-1-74295-931-3 http://theeducationshop.com.au Sections 1. Overview 2. Curriculum Guidelines 3. Background and History 4. The Filmmakers In this series, the men and women who fought 5. Pre-viewing activity Australia’s ground war in Afghanistan tell its 6. Glossary story themselves. We hear the war as they 7. Series Synopsis 8. Personnel lived it, and in the images they filmed, see it as 9. Viewing Activities for Episode 1 they saw it. 10. Episode 2 and Episode 3 11. Conflict and Consequences discussion points 12. The Aftermath 13. Timeline Overview 14. References and Resources This three-part series tells the story of Australia’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan mainly from the perspective of the soldiers who fought there between 2001 and 2013. We learn how the war started and why Australia continued to be involved. We hear directly from the soldiers about the difficulties of fighting ‘a war on terror’ where the enemy cannot be easily identified. We also see and hear from Afghans SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2016 © ATOM SCREEN EDUCATION about their responses to the successive waves of invasions of their country. Politicians and military leaders also reflect on their roles in the Afghanistan conflict. 2 EPISODE 1— Acts of War covers the period from September, Curriculum Guidelines 2001 to August, 2005 when Australians took part in a sec- ond operation in Afghanistan. Afghanistan: Inside Australia’s War would be an excellent program to show to middle and senior secondary students EPISODE 2 — Hearts and Minds covers the period be- of History, Politics, International Relations and Studies of tween 2006 and 2010 when the Australians returned to Uprisings and Conflict. It would also be an ideal program Afghanistan to help rebuild a country that needed assis- to show to Defence Force students as an account of the tance to establish and maintain a working society. complex and difficult nature of a great deal of modern warfare. EPISODE 3 — We All Have to Get Home explores the exit strategy from 2010. This vivid and compelling account of a war in which Australians have been involved for thirteen years, with 40 casualties, offers There are many approaches to developing an understand- information that is crucial to understanding the difficulties and ing of the complexities of wars. Maps are as important demands of global conflict in the 21st century. What happens to civilians as they are to military personnel. A map of in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq affects all of us. A power- Afghanistan showing its position in the Middle East is es- ful narrative runs through each episode and across the series. sential to orienting students to the strategic importance The images and reports that many Australians have watched Afghanistan has held over centuries of conflict. While there and heard on the nightly news during those thirteen years are are many online maps students can access online, the one given both context and meaning — the deaths of soldiers and referenced below shows many of the areas and places civilians, the hostile terrain in which the soldiers were fight- featured in the series, including Uruzgan Province and the ing, their individual responses to what the experience meant cities of Kabul and Kandahar. to them at the time and when they returned from their tour or tours of duty. http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/Afghanistan_map.htm An understanding of the ongoing mass migration of citizens This site is also useful as a source for understand- from areas of conflict such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, ing something of the terrain and demographics of from where thousands travel to countries not beset by Afghanistan. sectarian strife and ongoing unrest and violence, can best be understood through knowledge of the war situations from STUDENT ACTIVITIES 2016 © ATOM SCREEN EDUCATION which these people are fleeing. Following the background information in this guide is a There are three one-hour episodes in this series — each synopsis of the three episodes in the series. For each one dealing with a different period of this long campaign, episode there are sets of viewing questions and key quotes with the story seen and told through the eyes and ears from each episode, intended for student discussion. Each of Australian fighting men and women (airforce and navy episode deals very specifically with a different time frame characters there also): and set of operational priorities. 3 BACKGROUND INFORMATION AND HISTORY OF AFGHANISTAN Landlocked Afghanistan lies in the heart of the Middle East. Its location has made Afghanistan’s history a turbulent one, serving as a gateway for a continuous cycle of invaders dating back to Alexander the Great in 330 BC. Various internation- al power rivalries have used Afghanistan as a pawn in a larger power game – Britain invaded twice in the 19th century in a larger struggle with Russia; and in the Cold War tension with the US, the Soviets invaded in 1979. The Afghans succeeded in expelling Britain, and with the covert help of the US, forced the Soviets to withdraw in 1989. The Afghanistan War Under the label of Operation Slipper, Following the collapse of the Soviet’s client Australia undertook military operations in communist regime in 1992, the Mujahedeen, Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014. This makes the Afghan guerrillas that had fought against the the Afghanistan War the longest military Soviets, took power. Another civil war erupted as conflict in Australian history. At its height, the Mujahedeen turned on itself and fought for the ADF had 1,550 personnel serving in control. From this in-fighting factions surfaced, Afghanistan and has spent an estimated $7.5 such as the Taliban, The Northern Alliance and billion on its operations there. By the end of Al-Qaeda. In 1996, the Taliban emerged victorious. 2014, the US had spent USD $686 billion After years of civil unrest, they gained influence on Operation Enduring Freedom. Overall, through the promise of stability and order. Yet this Australia deployed over 33,000 Australian came with a price. While in power, the Taliban Defence Force personnel, Australian Public regime enforced an extremely austere interpreta- Service employees and Australian Federal tion of Sharia, or Islamic Law. The most severe of Police to the Middle East Area of Operations. the regime’s policies was their treatment of women Currently, around 250 ADF members from who were forced to cover themselves, banned from the Royal Australian Navy, the Australian attending school and taking part in the workplace Army, the Royal Australian Air Force and and required to have a male relative escort them defence civilians are deployed in Afghanistan whenever they left the home. Punishments for not as part of Operation HIGHROAD, mainly to adhering to the law included beatings, amputations train, advise and assist. and public executions. SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2016 © ATOM SCREEN EDUCATION 4 Uruzgan Osama bin Laden’s global militant Islamist terrorist organization, Al-Qaeda, had moved their opera- tional headquarters from Sudan to Afghanistan in Uruzgan is one of the poorest and most 1996. Following a series of bomb blasts targeting remote provinces in Afghanistan. 97% US facilities in Saudi Arabia and across Africa, the of the population is rural and 40.8% are US retaliated with air strikes against suspected living in poverty according to AusAID training camps in Sudan and Afghanistan in 1998. and the World Bank Economic Policy & The complex alliance between the Taliban’s leader, Poverty Sector South Asia Region. The Mullah Omar, and Osama bin Laden played a major province is part of ‘greater Kandahar,’ factor in the US decision to strike Afghanistan the origin of many Taliban leaders, in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist including Mullah Omar. In mid 2006 the attacks. Netherlands established leadership of the province as part of NATO’s assumption of responsibilities in southern Afghanistan. The mission centered on reconstruction which evolved into mentoring and training the Afghan National Army from 2008. In August 2010 Dutch forces withdrew. The Netherlands government collapsed following NATO’s request for Dutch forces to stay in Afghanistan beyond August 2010. The United States assumed leadership and partnership with the Australians. Australians focused on reconstruction or building new infrastructure, implementing and supporting stabilization activities and capacity - building projects in the areas of health, education, 2016 © ATOM SCREEN EDUCATION agriculture, water and roads. In 2012 the Australian government announced the transition of forces out of Uruzgan, officially concluding the engagement in Uruzgan by December 2013. 5 THE FILMMAKERS Many people worked on this production, including researchers, graphic designers, historical consult- ants, additional cinematographers and sound recordists. The individuals listed below are just the key crew. About the Director – Victoria Midwinter Pitt Writer and director Victoria Midwinter Pitt joined the ABC’s documentary unit straight out of univer- sity, where she’d studied History, Politics and Law. She later did a Masters in directing at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. As well as working on Four Corners, Enough Rope, and Newsnight (BBC), Victoria has written and directed an armful of major history documentaries including Leaky Boat (the story of the Tampa and the Howard Government’s campaign to turn back the refugee boats of 2001), Surviving Mumbai (the story of the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai told by the men and women who found a way to survive them), Rampant: How a City Stopped a Plague (the little known story of how Sydney became the first place on the planet to turn back the spread of HIV AIDS), and Frontier (a history of the land wars between white and indigenous Australians, told through letters and diaries of the time).