Afghan War Lost

 

The myths will crumble. The lies will be hidden in the hope that they will be forgotten. The war has been lost by the West. The Taliban will be the Government again in Afghanistan. The great majority of Afghans trust the Taliban more than the corrupt Karzai and his depraved thieving army.

The Times described a report today as secret and "highly classified", saying it was put together last month by the US military at Bagram. "Many Afghans are already bracing themselves for an eventual return of the Taliban," the report was quoted as saying. "Once Isaf (Nato-led forces) is no longer a factor, Taliban consider their victory inevitable."

The document stated that Pakistan's security agency was helping the Taliban in directing attacks against foreign forces – a charge long denied by Islamabad. The findings were based on interrogations of more than 4,000 Taliban and al-Qaida detainees, the Times said, adding the document was scarce on identifying individual insurgents.

Despite the presence of more than 100,000 foreign troops, the UN has said violence in Afghanistan is at its worst since the Taliban were ousted by US-backed forces in 2001. The Times said the document suggested the Taliban were gaining in popularity, partly because the severe Islamist movement was becoming more tolerant.

Britain has suffered ten years of lying optimism from Government promising a victory that is unattainable. The cost to the UK has been enormous. 397 brave soldiers dead and up £4billion wasted. The achievements are meagre. There has been no reduction in the drugs trade. There has been some limited progress in education and women's rights that is fragile and certain to be reversed when Karsai is toppled. The biggest lie is that the presence of UK troops protected us from terrorism. Today's court case demonstrated that there is a greatest terrorist threat from Cardiff than Kabul. The Taliban have never been interested in terrorising us.

The truth will grieve the families of the fallen. They have relied for consolation on the myth that their loved ones died in a noble cause to protect the homeland. There is rightly pride in the heroism and professionalism of our soldiers. But all the lies used to justify our incursion into Helmand have been reduced to ashes. Before Helmand two British soldiers had been killed in combat. After the invasion that hoped that not a shot would be fired, 397 died.

In all wars Governments lie: soldiers die. We must work for peace and avoid stumbling into another war in Iran.

 

Comments

[Huwos]

Let's not forget that the biggest lie was the supposed justification for invading Afghanistan in the first place. That not very many British soldiers died before going into Helmand doesn't make an evil act just.
Although, I can certainly see the appeal of not having to deal with negative consequences of our own actions. From 2002 we helped to inflict on the Afghan civilians the equivalent of a 9/11 each and every year.
On the plus side we did ensure that criminal organisations had and have a plentiful supply of heroin to help with their finances

[Ad]

'Let's not forget that the biggest lie was the supposed justification for invading Afghanistan in the first place.'

I agree Huw that the justification for this war was a lie. The war wouldn't have gone ahead unless the prospect of Afghanistan's natural wealth had come into consideration. It is the same with Iraq and Libya. There are huge amounts of money to be made from these wars.

It may not seem sensible to us to have more wars but to a great number of people it is profitable and they have the means to influence politicians and public opinion.

What may look like failure to us is a different story for them. It looks like NATO will flee from their stated aims. The Taliban will follow soon after.

[HuwOS]

I actually don't believe that Afghanistan's "natural wealth" was particularly a consideration.
I believe it was simply that the US wanted to lash out and due in large part to their own actions, the Taliban were a government without so much as a single solitary friend on the world stage.

After the events of September 2001, it was understandable that the less bright in the US would simply want to lash out at anyone, and unfortunately the US was effectively being led by the least bright of the less bright.
The US has also taken to strongly discouraging the kind of friends who will tell it when it is going off the rails.

Unfortunately that left them with only people like Blair who rather than guiding them to restraint, supported them in their madness and the UN that should have prevented them from doing this thing actually gave them their head and in doing so, gave up the moral ground it should have stood on, leading inexorably to the Iraq situation.

People like to assume there was a greater plan regarding Afghanistan, but there seems to be no evidence of that.

[HuwOS]

But opportunism will always occur when the circumstances allow. So, yes, companies and some individuals will do very well out of war, whether supposedly successful in their aims or not.

[Ad]

'I believe it was simply that the US wanted to lash out and due in large part to their own actions, the Taliban were a government without so much as a single solitary friend on the world stage.'

This doesn't take into account the militarist and imperialist mind set of the Neoconservatives which seeks to bring about 'regime change' in places where it is deemed in the American interest. Such people were dominant in the Bush administration. 9/11 really provided the pretext for their agenda.

[rwendland]

Paul, off-topic, but I wondered if PASC would be involved in investigating the Ed Lester (Student Loans Company) chief tax & pay situation that is the big news today?

All the newspaper verbiage today seems to me to fail to ask the big question:

Why has IR35 not caught this situation?

IR35 was supposed to catch service companies tax reduction schemes like this, in fact "chief executives of large plc’s" is given as one of the example occupations IR35 is intended to catch, on the HMRC website.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/ir35/occupations.htm

I assume Ed Lester has avoided IR35 somehow, because if he hasn't, using a service company has no real tax advantage over an equivalent civil service salary. [The 5% admin allowance is negated by not having a civil service pension etc.]

If he has avoided IR35, it is probably by careful manoeuvring through the employed or self-employed tests. Although intended to catch chief executives, they get a pass on one test, the directly managed by someone test. But that is only one of many tests, and the rest should get chief executives - they were intended to.

The Tories are generally anti-IR35, but the LibDem pro I think. So this would be an interesting issue to raise, and potentially this is a much more widespread IR35 problem, beyond one individual.

[HuwOS]

"9/11 really provided the pretext for their agenda"

On that you are right, they certainly took advantage of the fear of the populace to move forward on their plans for Iraq.
But when Iraq came up, it was clear which was their priority, which they were actually keen on, and it wasn't Afghanistan.

[Ad]

The USA has bases all over central Asia, it was identified as a key area because of the energy resources. Iraq was probably the most high priority to the Neocons but I don't think the Afghan invasion was mere lashing out stupidly.

[Ad]

An interesting article I read here describes negotiations with the Taliban prior to the invasion:

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/GOD111A.html

[HuwOS]

"I don't think the Afghan invasion was mere lashing out stupidly."

Well I believe it was, and it wasn't.

There are very few countries that the US could simply lash out against with that level of violence that would not bring opposition and protest from other nations. Afghanistan was nearly unique in that respect and the fear filled citizens of the US desperately wanted an aggressive response, and they didn't really care who it was as long as people got hurt to make them feel better.
It was a national and international equivalent of a parent smacking the ground a toddler fell on, only this one involved a fairly massive loss of life for Afghans.

[HuwOS]

It had the added benefit of getting their active military and equipment fully into the region much easing the way for their Iraq adventure.

[Paul Flynn]

There is powerful evidence that a deal could have been done in 2001 to recognised the Taliban regime by the USA in exchange for handing over Osama Bin Laden to Americans. History will inform us. When the wars continue, no one tells the truth.

[Paul Flynn]

The tax fiddle rwendland had a full hammering in parliament yesterday thanks to Speaker Bercow permitting an urgent question.

[DG]

On the subject of tax evasion, there have been rumours for years that the remuneration affairs of Newport Unlimited had a bit of an odour to them. I always dismissed it as gossip, but does it makes you wonder.

[Paul Flynn]

Have not heard. Met the new supremo Bill Maine recently. He is good news.

[D.G.]

Newport can always use some good news! Hopefully it's just tittle-tattle and sour grapes, then.

And completely off topic - thank you very much indeed for the books, Mr Flynn :) Apart from being entertaining in it's own right, How To Be An MP has also started me playing "Spot-the-species" whenever an MP comes on the news, based on the roles you describe.