h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You just don't understand the reality as it is, if you think that is the case; stayign there for wahtever* length of time, will not affect the outcome in the slightest. All that staying longer will ensure is more needless deaths.
But I guess if your in favour of needless deaths that'd make it a good idea.

The UK cannot possibly operate in Afghanistan without the US.

> I certainly don't want our troops leaving with their tails between their legs<

I want them leaving with their legs..sod their tails.

Are you bringing in the argument Incog that more need to die and lose arms and legs, so as not to cheapen earlier deaths? If I've got that wrong, could you clarify?

You said 'we made the mess up', I see that its politicians made the mess up..and now they continue to use young men as canon fodder, but that's nothing new if you look at the history of warfare.

But yes some argue the troops stay. I'd just like a proper rational explanation as to how likely we are to attain the objective. Presumably the politicians have a clear objective of what will be achieved before they finally decide to pull the troops out. Eg in Vitenam peace with honour was finally achived for the US. Yes maybe we should take our lead from the US.

"That was the crime of invading Iraq, not that was illegal -- so was the way we stopped another genocide in the Balkans -- it was that it was betrayal of our troops and those wanting a more progressive future for Afghanistan."

Part of the problem was that it was a matter of faith amongst neoconservatives (who were effectively running the "Bush" administration) that America was a collossus whose military power was such that it could easily fight a war on two fronts and defeat its enemies without breaking a sweat. For this reason, it wasn't seen as problematic to open an Iraqi front before the war in Afghanistan was actually over.

We can now see that this was hubris largely built on the reputation, rather than the reality, of US military power. America has a large, extremely expensive, military force which has spent most of the last sixty years sitting in ports or in barracks. It was largely untested. The previous major military engagement, Vietnam, had been a disaster. Gulf War I and to some extent the Yugoslav war had built-up unrealistic expecations of what US power could achieve even though ejecting an army from a country and pacifying/rebuilding a post-dictatorship country of 20-odd million people are two very, very different situations. Yugoslavia should have rang warning bells - it was a lot harder than NATO thought it would be to make Milosevic cease and desist.

For me the "should we stay in Afghanistan" question is similar to the uncomfortable question Orwell asked about the Spanish Civil War - is it right to keep fighting if the cause is lost? The Taliban are worth defeating but if we honestly can't do it then it's probably "right" to just pull-out and leave the country to their less-than-tender mercies. The alternative is more people - coalition troops, Afghan civilians, even Taliban - being killed before the same thing happens anyway. It's a shame, the Afghans don't want Taliban rule and I've no doubt they'll fight it like they did before. I've also no doubt that the Taliban - who have proved a ruthless fighting force - can probably conquer much of the country again. It's a shame we haven't done good by the good guys.

I was optimistic when Obama took over and I still hope he'll succeed in ending the war in a way that secures some kind of freedom from Taliban theocracy over there, even if it means concessions of some kind. It's in many ways wrong that an armed militia with very little popular support can gain political power via force of arms in a country we've been preaching the virtues of representative constitutional government to but, in the end, we can only do so much.

"You just don't understand the reality as it is"

To be honest, none of us do. Everything we "know" about the Afghan war is fed to us by a media which is full of agendas and, to a great extent, largely ignorant itself. The people who best understand the country's predicament are the totality of the Afghan's themselves and, unfortunately, we rarely hear from them.

Thought William Dalrymple had something interesting to say.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00svvw5/Jeremy_Vine_28_06_2010/

About 1 hour in. Worth listening to.

> The behaviour of some of the NATO members has been frankly deplorable and makes the idea of any future European combined army risible, but that's a side issue.

You've been beating this drum for a while. The reason the French, German and Italians (why not name them?) didn't get more heavily involved is because if they had and more people had been killed then the populations of those countries would have demanded a pull-out. This is nothing to do with them being "soft" despite what idiots claim, and everything to do with it being seen as an American war in American interests that Europeans were used as auxiliaries in (the US, for all the bluster, pulls out pretty damn fast in similar situations for the same reasons - see Somalia in the 1990s). The aforementioned countries took the pragmatic route (since their governments were generally more sympathetic to the American line than their voters) of deploying troops in a limited, back-up capacity. The alternative would have been a pull-out and damaged US-Euro relations.

And I think a European "combined army" has become *more* not less important as a result of the conflict in Afghanistan.

These paragraphs are telling, published in April this year.

'..Although the ministry is now making more detailed casualty statistics available, there remains enormous sensitivity over the large number of troops who are suffering life-changing injuries.

...Journalists are effectively barred from Selly Oak, and one army officer has been quoted as saying that many of the injuries suffered by service personnel are so severe that they are "politically explosive"...'

From,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/apr/04/british-troops-losing-limbs-rise



But maybe under the Tories there'll be more openess about it?

'Presumably the politicians have a clear objective of what will be achieved before they finally decide to pull the troops out.'

For what it's worth, we Canadians have the clear objective of the calendar turning it's way around to next summer, and then our soldiers come home. (We lost two medics the other day to an IED, BTW.)

In the mean time, our men and women are busily battling away in Kandahar and I expect they will still be giving 100% on the last patrol of the last day before they shake the Afghan dust from their heels.

And when the last rotation comes home, they'll be welcomed by cheering crowds, just as each rotation has been welcomed home.

Personally, I see nothing dishonourable about a country's armed forces serving long and sacrificing much as part of an alliance and then announcing that it's time for someone else to take their place. If that were dishonourable, then it would be dishonourable for a battalion to come home at the end of its tour and be replace by another battalion. Our soldiers have served their time well and they're coming home next summer.

It's not the job of any single country's soldiers to 'win' this war (except maybe the soldiers of Afghanistan). No unit from any country has served in Afghanistan for the duration -- they all come home and are replaced by another unit from the same or another country. If the British Parliament decides that the British Military has done its part then the British Parliament can very honourably tell the NATO command that British soldiers will be home for Christmas with their heads held high.

If the NATO command then decides it wishes to prosecute the war further, it will have to arrange strategies and available troops and equipment as it sees fit.

I had a listen last night to that link you gave swl. Thanks it was fascinating if pretty depressing listening..

Jeremy Vine starts off the interview with the info. that 70% of the country is run by the Taliban and increasing.

Dalrymple gives an excellent account of the history of total failure of outsiders in the country. Three times Britain in the 19 century. Tens of thousands of deaths. The Soviets in the last century.

On of the fascinating points he makes is that the west are part of a proxy Indo/Pakistan war, and that the Indians are supporting the Taliban as part of their hostilities with Pakistan, he uses the term 'nutcracker movement'. I heard some bod last year saying that the risk is Pakistan might be de-stabilised because of increasing pressence of Taliban as they cross the border.

And of course countries supporting and funding the Taliban is nothing new. A previous US government did it when the Soviets were there.

I don't think he said a thing that gives the slightest hope that anything other than failure will occur.

I recommend a listen to anyone interested in the topic. It starts at 1hr. 9mins.

Anhaga - thanks for the thoughtful post. Flawed though.

Imagine Canada taking the same line in WWII? Would they have quit after Dieppe and said "Right, we've done our bit for the Commonwealth so we're off home now. Good luck with D-Day and all that."

swl, your point is just as flawed.

hitler was the agressor intenet on world domination, after thr fall of europe, how long would it be till his eyes turned west and he saw freedom in the americas and would want to stiffle that as well,

Canadas involvement in WWII was long term self presevation

if america had been serious about afganistan, it would not have gone after saddam and iraq, and we would all bee pulling out now job done, to some extent, as it was afganistan was put on the back burner, allowing the taliban time to move, re group and re arm, and to infiltrate pakistan.

america took their eye off the ball and the rest of NATO wenyt along with them, much to our shame,

if all the resources that went into iraq had been ploughed into afganistan, the troops would be hoime by now

Plus WW2 had a clear cut objective. Everyone knew what the aim was, the surrender of Germany.

Our objective in Afghanistan is exactly what?

Cameron recently,

'Mr Cameron told MPs Britain was in Afghanistan for UK national security as it was "not yet strong enough to look after its own security".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/politics/10307699.stm

Right so the war will be over when Afghanistan is able to look after its own security. That strikes me as the kind of objective that may very well take decades? Seeing as the Taliban control 70% of the country with signs of that increasing..forever melting over the border, and then melting back again when its safe, increasing the number of IEDs etc, when exactly will Afghanistan be able to look after its own security, seeing as NATO only basically controls a few small areas around Kabal, overseen by its puppet, as Dalrhumple suggests.

There's hard questions which the politicians are simply not answering clearly and honestly. And we are forever being told its to ensure our own security. Oh yeah pull the other one. I agree with what Zagrebo says the people in other countries in Europe think. It's an American unwinable war.

I found that Dalrynple the best appraisal I've heard of the facts on the ground, except it's not bloody funny.

Sooner or later talks with the Taliban will happen IMO.

sadovate.

So lets assume we pull out now on the basis of human cost to our boys. The Taliban re-eastablish a theocracy and invite Al-Quaeida camps back to the country.

Some time later an atrocity of a similar order of magnitude to Septermber 11th takes place.

What then?

FB

On balance thinks a speedy extrication would probably be best, but cannot see how the situation is anything even approaching black and white.

It seems black and white to Canada. Their troops are coming home next summer if I read anhaga's post right.

'Mr Cameron told MPs Britain was in Afghanistan for UK national security as it was "not yet strong enough to look after its own security"

That's rubbish. Afghanistan is certainly strong enough to look after its own security. Hamid Karzai, however, is not strong enough to look after Afghanistan's security. That's what its about: having *our* strongman in control.


swl:

I think your question has already been answered. I'll only add that in my post I tried to make the distinction between this war and previous ones: When my friends in the Loyal Eddies landed in Sicily in 1943, they'd already been training in Britain for years and they didn't see home again until they'd fought right across Europe and Berlin had fallen; now they serve a six month tour patrolling a small area with no front lines and then come home.

Effers.


Yep. They're coming home. Our Parliament voted some time ago on an end date for the mission and the military brass have gone ahead and made the plans for departure.

'Imagine Canada taking the same line in WWII? Would they have quit after Dieppe and said "Right, we've done our bit for the Commonwealth so we're off home now. Good luck with D-Day and all that."'

I just noticed the fundamental flaw in your analogy, swl. To truly be analogous, you would have to write:

'Imagine Canada taking the same line in WWII? Would they have quit in 1949 and said "Right, we've done our bit for the Commonwealth so we're off home now. Good luck with peace and all that."'

The Dieppe Raid took place in 1942. Canada has stayed in Afghanistan far longer than three years. WWII lasted six years. Canada is committed to ten years in Afghanistan. The analogy doesn't fit.

And apart from any flawed logic in swl's analogy..I find the tone of that post really distasteful. Canada came to our aid at the Battle of Britain and sustained more fatalities than any other country besides Poland. By all accounts their pilots were incredibly brave and knew full well the risk they were taking in percentage terms.

Apart from other flaws that have been pointed out, the Nazis were close to the UK and could have invaded at any time, with god knows what consequences, a darn site worse than a few terrorist attacks, horrible as they have been; I'm not downplaying the horror of them in the slightest but I just don't see the comparison of the threat of Al Queda with the threat of Nazi invasion in WW2...and all the bombing that went on.

Canada was a fantastic friend to the UK, almost from the outset.

This war is something altogether different in terms of dealing with threat to the west, and as you point out Canada have already been there for much longer than WW2, as have UK forces.

As a child I remember our family going to Dieppe to get the ferry back to the UK, it must have co-incided with the anniversary, because the whole town was decked out with Canadian flags

And, of course, WWII was about stopping the very real threat of a totalitarian, racist ideology taking military control of much of the world. Afghanistan is about a pipeline, revenge for 9/11, capturing the mastermind of an international criminal gang, and bombing some of the poorest people on earth into peaceful democracy.

Afghanistan was never a threat to the west and al-Qaeda is just a feeble Arab mafia. Invading Afghanistan was like invading Sicily as a response to crime in New York City.