In Afghanistan, more of the same won’t do

Andy

I don't think we can afford to lose, for the reasons you mention, never mind losing face. The problem, however, is that to win it will take a massive investment in manpower (where is that EU force set up by Lisbon when you need it?) and equipment. It also needs the political will to do whatever it takes. None of that is likely to be forthcoming from a Westminster clientele that has, with very rare exceptions, never been subject to Queen's Regulations and is in many cases actively anti-military.

Steve L

It seems to me to be foolish to try to create what the west sees as a democratic government in Afghanistan. Corruption (as we see it, perhaps pragmatism as they see it) appears to have been endemic there for centuries.

Surely, all we really want is an established form of government, whatever form it takes, that exerts control over the country and can be engaged with.

We deal with Russia and China, even though they might not seem ideal governments.

We should be pragmatic ourselves - help them form government and society - and if they want top be corrupt and less than clean as far as human rights are concerned, let them get on with it.

We might stand a chance of getting out sooner that way.

Brown talked rubbish today, with his comments about what happens if Karzai fails. He's just trying to make other people responsible, and knows he won't be responsible for this mess in six months anyway!

jon dee

Your powerful analysis is enough to convince me of the dangers of an immediate withdrawal, even though I'm beginning to favour it. Certainly the government has to present a better case for being in Afghanistan than it has to date and avoid the political spin which seems to dominate its intellectual approach to the war.

Both Blair and Brown have failed to convince with the " security at home " argument and the other ever-changing aims seem to have been conjured up as short term fashion items rather than coherent strategies.

Equally, if the sort of options you suggest were to be planned and become operational, who is convinced of the current ministerial abilities to make them a success? Not many I suspect.

Even now Brown's affection for the " five tests" criteria makes a convenient return to fudge politics with his "hastily arranged" speech and attatched gimmickry.

Karsai beware, these are the words of a man determined to disguise inaction while waiting for Obama to make up his mind.

In the meantime our under-equipped troops reap the whirlwind of his indecision and voters become more convinced that the war is in error.

TomTom

Whatever happened to the Northern Alliance, the proxies used to topple Taliban ? As for Pakistan, ever since Labour created Pakistan in 1947 and the mess over Kashmir; and the Tories imported Kashmiri peasants for Britain's clapped out textile industry in the 1950s; this country has shown decolonisation to have been a myth. We now fight problems in countries we do not control and fight for foreign administrations using NATO forces as mercenaries to prop up unstable statelets.

TrevorsDen

Correct more of the same will not do - but we are really at the limit of what we can do.
In fact we, the British, are doing too much with what we have.
Thats the reason for the public discontent.

Leaving aside the vagueness of the purpose and the half backed way the govt are explaining such purpose as they have - the public correctly conceive that we are suffering needless deaths.
Its hard to see how we can quickly correct our lack of suitable equipment. Thus the mission is in danger because of the weakness in the home front.

But ultimately if we want to win a war we will have to fight.
That means killing our soldiers.
We entered Afghanistan with no real expectation of fighting and no concept of what any fighting might mean. We have also been surprised by enemy tactics and been slow to combat them

All in all whether this is a worthwhile war or not - it is being prosecuted ineptly.

Too right things have to change.

John Bell

We could always clamp down on muslims in UK. We did not allow the Germans to wander around at will during the 2nd WW. We are at war with Islam. So let's get serious. If we don't want to do this pull our soldiers out of Afghanistan.

T .England

Do you know what?
I’d rather bring everyone back, stop spending money on a war to make our streets safe & actually make our streets safe with the money we will save!
We still walk in fear on our streets from criminals let alone terrorists, I don’t really worry that much about getting blown up when walking down the street but I do however worry about getting mugged & killed. I still see poverty on our streets, in fact some of those streets are dirty & neglected so all billions & all the billions more we will still have to spend isn’t keeping me safe walking the streets at all is it? Well not in my mind!

I know one fact! I have more chance dyeing from food poisoning than dying from a terrorist bomb but they aren’t going to spend endless billions protecting me from a chicken sandwich are they?

Probably, with the all the multi billions spent so far protecting our streets from terrorism, we could have built an iron curtain around the whole of Britain with only one gate in & out, we could have set up an army of terrorist hunters working around the clock & doing it in the safety of our Iron curtain, we could have set up the best protection money could buy for all our cities & probably still had loads of cash left over to spend on, I dunno, hospitals & schools maybe!

I just fail to see why we have to fight a war half way around the world to protect our little islands streets from terrorists, I’m even failing to now see why it’s our responsibility to get those troublesome countries “straight” when so many more countries are standing by just watching, don’t they have streets to keep safe?!!!!

I have to wonder! Who are we REALLY fighting this war for!

Noa Zrk

The current argument centres on whether we are right to fight a passive, reactive war in Afghanistan, using our forces as armed social workers in order to do so.
In doing so it fails to recognise, as John Bell points out, that the war is against Islam, is being fought on a global basis and that the threat in the UK is greater than in Afghanistan.
We do not have any choice in this matter, the war has already started, we have not yet steeled ourselves to recognise this and therefore to win it. Afghanistan is merely the present, badly chosen battlefield, as is Fort Hood. Next it will be Sudan, or Somalia or London.
War is cruelty and you cannot refine it.

In2minds

“There is only one real alternative: a dramatic, eye-popping devolution of power”.

So is this to be imposed by outsiders regardless of whether it's wanted or not by the indigenous population? This sounds like an ever closer union in reverse!

What is it about messing up Afghanistan that so many people find addictive?

JohnOfEnfield

Surely the REAL issue now is NOT just Afghanistan but about Brown's manifest incompetence and panglossian world view.

He has led us into the longest economic recession on record, a banking crisis, a budget crisis (14% deficit!), a trading balance crisis (is it 12% or 14% deficit?), a crisis in education; he has broken a formal manifesto commitment to a referendum on the new EU constitution (aka the Lisbon Treaty). He has attempted to give us the "bum's rush" into a Copenhagen Treaty on Climate Change. He has ignored the critical need for more Electricity Generating capacity and avoided any investment in any kind of infrastructure, he has been involved in a cabinet which has drastically reduced (removed) our civil liberties and taken us into at least one unjust war. He is nationalising the family. He has taxed us to death and ruined private pensions. He has introduced Quantative Easing (aka Printing Money) and borrowed more than 98% of it back(!). The National Debt has gone from less than 40% of GDP to the best part of 100% and will inevitably climb to 150% of GDP - an implied additional tax on the country for generations. 5 million people haven't worked in 12 years. Immigration is out of control and the BNP fascists are on the march. Hyperinflation lurks just around the corner.

I could go on!

Not bad for a guy who is an unelected Prime Minister.

He lacks any empathy with our plight. You might even describe him as "autistic" in this regard.

He is clearly not up to the job & needs to go to the country for a mandate.

Now, tomorrow - Saturday 7 November 2009 - pronto.

JohnOfEnfield

Surely the issue has gone beyond the problems in Afghanistan? Beyond Brown's starving the military of funds ever since he came to power, of equipment and helicopter shortages; beyond him using the role-call of the dead to try & pervert the purpose of PMQs.

This mad man has led us into the longest recession in history, a banking crisis, an unprecedented budget deficit (14%) and an unbelievable trade deficit this year (is it 12 or 14%?). 5 million people haven't worked since he and his gang came to power. We have entered into at least one illegal war, our children's education is dropping down the world league tables, private pensions have been ruined.

Our civil liberties have been removed in the name of a "War on Terror", family life & childhood nationalised, even sex education taken away from parents.

He has broken a fundamental manifesto commitment and signed a new EU Constitution without a referendum

Millions of immigrants have been let in to the most crowded country in the EU without reference to the electorate. The indigenous population have been burdened with laws to keep them from complaining.

And now "Quantative Easing" has been introduced to meet the budget deficit (98% of the £175 BILLION has been taken up in new gilts issues). Hyper-inflation beckons.

I could go on. He has taken us all for complete fools.

All this from an unelected Prime Minister.

Brown has no empathy with our plight, you could almost describe him as "autistic".

No, the real issues are Brown's strategy, competence & balance of mind. He must go to the country for a mandate in these very difficult times. Now, immediately, pronto - no later than Saturday 7 November 2009!

John Moss

buy the poppy crop three years running.

Frank P

A brilliant article by Charles Moore today in the Telegraph hits the spot for me; best analysis I've seen for years.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/6516737/The-war-in-Afghanistan-is-necessary-so-why-arent-we-trying-harder-to-win.html

Extract (but read it all):

"The strongest argument against any war is this: if it is not necessary, then it is unnecessary, and unnecessary war is immoral. Mr Brown maintains that this war is necessary – "We cannot, we must not and we will not walk away." But if he is right, as he is, that the safety of the streets of Britain is at stake in this fight, why are we not pushing much harder for victory? Where is the urgency about trying to get this right? After all, the news is bad. The presidential election has been unhappy, to put it mildly, and no one really believes in President Karzai's government. It is, as Mr Brown boldly said, "a byword for corruption".The Afghan police, even without murdering its British allies, does not work.
Nor does the UN mission. Nor does the military alliance which is supposed to sustain the whole thing. It is surprising that Mr Brown does not use the word "Nato" more. That alliance, which has secured the Western world since the end of the Second World War, agreed to take on the Afghan task five years ago. Some – the Americans, of course, ourselves, the Danes, Dutch, Canadians, Australians and plucky little Estonians – have done their duty. But others have been contemptible. It turned out that the Italians were bribing the Taliban not to attack them. As for the Germans, I gather that one of their forces' biggest problems is obesity, because they hardly dare leave their Afghan base."

And the pro-European trolls on these blogs want closer military ties with these fat fucks?

poohcat

This from a Telegraph blog.
Says it all really.
Paul Craig Roberts at his best. Worth a read.
The last few paragraphs were posted up as here.

http://www.rense.com/general88/evil.htm

Amb. Murray reports that the people delivered by CIA flights to Uzbekistan's torture prisons "were told to confess to membership in Al Qaeda. They were told to confess they'd been in training camps in Afghanistan. They were told to confess they had met Osama bin Laden in person. And the CIA intelligence constantly echoed these themes."

"I was absolutely stunned," says the British ambassador, who thought that he served a moral country that, along with its American ally, had moral integrity. The great Anglo-American bastion of democracy and human rights, the homes of the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights, the great moral democracies that defeated Nazism and stood up to Stalin's gulags, were prepared to commit any crime in order to maximize profits.

Amb. Murray learned too much and was fired when he vomited it all up. He saw the documents that proved that the motivation for US and UK military aggression in Afghanistan had to do with the natural gas deposits in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The Americans wanted a pipeline that bypassed Russia and Iran and went through Afghanistan. To insure this, an invasion was necessary. The idiot American public could be told that the invasion was necessary because of 9/11 and to save them from "terrorism," and the utter fools would believe the lie.

"If you look at the deployment of US forces in Afghanistan, as against other NATO country forces in Afghanistan, you'll see that undoubtedly the US forces are positioned to guard the pipeline route. It's what it's about. It's about money, its about energy, it's /www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23906.htm>not about democracy."

Guess who the consultant was who arranged with then Texas governor George W. Bush the agreements that would give to Enron the rights to Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan's natural gas deposits and to Unocal to develop the trans-Afghanistan pipeline. It was Karzai, the US-imposed "president" of Afghanistan, who has no support in the country except for American bayonets.

Amb. Murray was dismissed from the UK Foreign Service for his revelations. No doubt on orders from Washington to our British puppet.

Barbara

We would all like to pull our troops out, but deep down we know we cannot, just yet. However, we can, and should make it clear to the president in Kabul we cannot, and will not be there forever. They have, I understand, money stored in accounts, they are destitute at all, yet they receive handouts from us and the USA, and others. Their own troops and police are poorly shod, pay is low, so no wonder the moral is as bad. Corruption is rife, this lawless country has met Western ideas from the stance of an eighteenth century platform. How will be overcome that with so few educated and laws coming from elders of the old men who reside still in this backward way of doing things and thinking. Two very different cultures trying to find a solution to my mind will be almost impossible. Education of the young is one way of doing it, but the Taliban don't like education especially for women and girls and the men and boys, to them they are fighting fodder. Such as desperate country cannot be brought into the 21st century quickly, and we cannot afford to continue our presence there indefinatly, we just cannot afford it. What about our friends in the EU, where are they? Some yes are there, but not on the frontline, it is their freedom we are fighting for too, again it seems. No we need a date of withdrawal, so the government in Kabul realises its options and acts to meet them.

2trueblue

John Moss. Absolutely right, we should have done that from the beginning. We are after all short of the drug. Why it has not even been tried is incredible.