In a belated decision, made largely on the basis of political pragmatism rather than moral principle, Gordon Brown has signalled that he is ready to contemplate an end to digging of the hole that is Afghanistan. In throwing away the spade in the search for an exit strategy, Mr Brown implicitly acknowledged that Britain cannot afford any longer to allow its armed forces, its foreign policy and its international reputation to be a chattel of American foreign policy. That, in no small part, must have helped concentrate the mind of Barack Obama as he prepared to emerge from his purdah on how to extricate the United States from the massive geopolitical trap set by al Qaida, into which it was led by George W Bush and Tony Blair, pootling along behind.
President Obama has dug an even bigger hole for himself by describing Afghanistan as a “war of necessity”. But whatever the President decides, Prime Minister Brown must follow through on his calendar for a staged withdrawal. There will be no victory, neither will political exigencies allow defeat and the corollary conclusion that hundreds of British troops were killed or maimed in vain. Words will be found to justify leaving the country and its corrupt, racketeering government, to its own devices. No words can be found to justify the loss of another single life in a war which long ago lost any purpose, if it ever had one.
Not even Mr Brown and the generals can agree on why Britain has 9,000 troops in Afghanistan. Mr Brown tells us they are there to protect the British people: “Our children will learn of the heroism of today’s men and women fighting in Afghanistan, protecting our nation and the world from the threat of global terrorism.” The heroism and dedication to duty is real enough, but the purported purpose resurrects the adage about truth and the first casualty of war. If Britain is fighting a war on terrorism in Afghanistan – in name, a war on al Qaida – it has 9,000 troops in combat in the wrong country.
Mr Brown’s reference in his Mansion House speech to the fact that “three-quarters” of terrorist plots against Britain originate in the “Pakistan-Afghan border regions” was disingenuous to say the least. Honesty would have restricted him to a single, specific place: Pakistan. Published US intelligence suggests there are only 100 al Qaida militants in the whole of Afghanistan. Nine thousand against 100? Or, to put it another way, what war is Britain fighting?
Whatever the answer, it is making Britain a more dangerous place. For both Britain and the US, the question is not how many more troops to get the job finished, but how to finish the humiliation before there are even fewer troops to bring home. The trap of September 11 was to provoke retaliation against Muslim societies and to open the way for a “clear cut jihad against the infidels”. More troops would be the Taliban’s best recruiting sergeants. Mr Brown has already begun to adopt the language of withdrawal when he talks about the “damage” inflicted already on al Qaida as an opportunity to set a timetable for pulling out. Whatever is decided at the forthcoming London conference, he must make it happen.
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It’s just proved what we have all known, that Brown and Blair had no idea’s at all. all those people killed and for what, all that money spent on young men without arms legs eyes, who the army will soon get rid of.
With a labour government trying to save money by offering the elderly care by cutting disability payments of DLA.
I’ve voted labour for a long long time, I cannot vote labour again.
new labour has been a total and complete lie, it has moved away from the fundamentals of the Labour party and followed Thatcherism, the Falklands was a great hit for Thatcher and these two morons felt it would work for them it did not. Now boys go and sulk in retirement.