Pull Them Out!

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I don’t know what the answer is to the current problems of Afghanistan, and I seriously doubt that anyone has in reality. If they do, they have signally failed in getting the message across to the average man in a British street.

Because of its location, the area has been the centre of strife of one sort or another for centuries during which hill tribesmen would descend upon invaders and others they took issue with and kick their butts. Even in Victorian times during ‘The Great Game’, British forces were to learn just how warlike and deadly the tribesmen could be.

Since the 1960s the country has been effectively in continuous civil war in addition to being subject to the interventions of the Soviet Union in 1979 and a US invasion in 2001 that did away with the Taliban regime and which was then replaced by NATO troops acting as the so-called International Security Assistance Force of which British troops were a part. We now have around 9,000 British troops in Afghanistan and, since 2001, 207 of them have been killed.

Gordon Brown has just been on his fourth visit to the area in a year and has suggested that yet more British troops will be sent to Afghanistan. He has also promised more unmanned surveillance aircraft, better protected vehicles and 200 trained specialists to deal with roadside bombs. It remains to be seen whether these promises will be fulfilled.

My father was in army bomb disposal in WWII and, like any other serving soldier, accepted the risk that he might be killed at any moment. But he had a very clear idea of what he was fighting for, which was freedom from Nazi oppression. But does any serving soldier unfortunate enough to be sent to Afghanistan have much idea of what that is all about? I very much doubt it.

They probably don’t have a much better idea as to what it’s all about than does the average man in a British street. And it is my view that the average man in a British street wants to see our troops pulled out as soon as possible and regardless of anything Gordon Brown or any of the other politicians might have to say on the subject.

And I agree. Don’t increase troop numbers, just pull them out!
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Why Are We There?

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The incoming head of the British army says that the UKs commitment in Afghanistan could last for up to 40 years and that ‘nation-building’ would last decades. Good grief!

The British army death toll in Afghanistan has now reached 195 and one has to ask whether anyone in government has any clear idea as to why, despite more than a century of unwinnable wars in the region, we and NATO are still there and what is trying to be achieved.

While the politicians may theorise and discuss the pros and cons of numbers, tactics, equipment and why some members of NATO provide less support than others, British men are being killed.

Enough already!
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How Things Have Changed

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In a period of ten days, fifteen British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan in a service which the Foreign Secretary says is ‘about the future of Britain’. When troops were first deployed to there three years ago the then Defence Secretary hoped they would complete their mission without a shot being fired. Oh, how things have changed.

I know nothing about the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, its tactics or the people involved - except that no country has ever won against the hill tribesmen. When Russians exited the country after their failed campaign there, I remember commenting to a Russian friend that I was surprised his government hadn’t learned from our experience there in Victorian times.

And yet here we are again, part of NATO and along with US forces, fighting Taliban tribesmen who seem more than competent to take on disciplined and well-equipped forces.

I don’t know what the answer is to what is undoubtedly a highly complex issue, but it sometimes seems to me that if, as reported, Afghanistan has 90,000 troops of their own then we ought to withdraw and let them get on with it.

Then we would be spared the pictures of British and American soldiers returning home in their coffins.
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