A capitulation in Kabul
Posted on Tuesday 20 July, 2010
Filed Under Afghanistan, International
THE upbeat line for public consumption is that the Afghan national security forces ‘will be responsible for all military and law enforcement operations throughout our country by 2014’. Such is the strident claim from Hamid Karzai at the opening of the international conference in Kabul today.
But the Afghan president’s apparent grandstanding speaks not so much of growing confidence in his capacity to keep the lid on the insurgency as the fact that Washington and London have been defeated in a war of attrition, as was the Red Army before them, and the British Empire at the height of its powers three times prior to that. Asymmetric warfare 5, imperialism of various stripes 0.
Foreign secretary Liam Fox has already made plain that he wants British troops out of the country within four years, and Obama is planning to commence withdrawal in July 2011. It only remains for their placeman to publicly endorse the timetable.
Continuation of an unwinnable struggle is not a realistic option from either a military or political standpoint. The troops have been reduced to sitting ducks – or more accurately, walking ducks – for the benefit of roadside IEDs. Even if the word ‘victory’ had any meaning in the local context, it would serve no worthwhile purpose.
While it is true that Afghanistan was once an operational base for Al Qa’eda, Osama Bin Laden retains many other strategic options. The west cannot occupy every failed state or every province beyond government control, everywhere throughout the Muslim world.
Nor is it possible to buy the argument that the fight must be taken Helmand to prevent terror coming to the streets of Britain. The perpetrators of Islamist attacks on London and Glasgow hailed from Leeds and Aylesbury, not Kandahar or Mazar-e Sharif.
Meanwhile, the Guardian claims that Karzai has finally secured the tacit consent of Washington to enter back channel talks with some elements within the Taliban, a policy he himself has long wished to adopt, and which is endorsed by the British and Pakistani governments.
Nine years after the NATO invasion, which I opposed at the time and continue to oppose now, these developments constitute the definitive refutation of the mindset that insisted liberal democracy can become an export commodity.
The entirely predictable outcome we get instead is accommodation with the very medievalist reactionaries the occupation was supposed to depose, with an abysmally corrupt election-rigger stepping in as a suitably convenient face-saving figurehead. If this is not a case of going back to square one, it looks awfully like it.
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31 Responses to “A capitulation in Kabul”
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The humane thing to do before the pullout is to ensure that every Afghan over the age of five has at least one serviceable firearm and a hundred rounds of ammo.
Then seal the borders.
I’ve never understood why the left hasn’t got so exercised over Afghanistan. The Stop the War campaign which has disappeared doesn’t seem to have taken it up. Personally, I reckon if someone organised a ‘Troops Out’ demo, it would be very well supported, but no-one has taken the initiative like they did with Iraq. It wouldn’t be Arab imperialism would it? Although, most of the Mulsims in this country are Pakistani so you would think that tehy would agitate around it more.
Has Sue finally completely lost it?
Why do you say that, boilermaker?
Dave, sit down.
I agree entirely. This whole “war” was entirely unjustified and doomed to failure. And the outcome was pretty inevitable as well.
High five, homeboy!
@ Sue
Because I’ve seen loads of stuff from the StWC on Afghanistan over the last nine years.
This was not a war, we could not use bombing as a means to kill people, we could not go directly for the baddies because we could not find them. And if another idiot tells me the hero’s will not be forgotten, New labour will try it’s best to forget them as soon as possible. this alone should keep labour out of power for the next fifteen years. And we have to make sure we do not again go to war so a Labour leader can make money off that war as Blair did.
This was a US led war and the British government followed sheep like behind. As was to be expected, the Tories would have done the same and now we know the Lib Dems would go along with anything the Tories did. The strange thing is that elements of the left actually believed this war should be supported. Fucking unbelievable. Even more unbelievable, they still think they are correct. Now that is fundamentalism in action.
Oh my! Did you see …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm1vv7OVtto
… this ?
Laugh or cry or scream!
Yes, Dean, there actually are some people who think this is a just war being fought so that Afghan girls can go to school.
Some go so far as to assert that the entire ghastly way of life needs to change to the point that Afghans embrace reality TV, binge drinking, dogging and obesity clinics.
Dean. Do you think the British and US lied when they said Al Qaeda had set up terrorist camps in Afghanistan? Was 9/11 a US plot to enlarge its imperialist base? Can you give a personal explanation why the 9/11 attacks happened.
Great idea we blow them up shoot then kill them and then we pay for another Saddam to run the country.
Nobody in his right mind thinks this bunch of crooks are interested in elections or what the voters think, Afghanistan will return to a dictatorship, and selling drugs, it’s what they have done for hundreds of years
So inevitably we’ve failed to export liberal democracy to the Afghans. Maybe before we give up the entire exercise as a bad job we should see how they get on with The Big Society.
@ Jimmy Glesga
I can’t speak for Dean, but no I don’t think they lied about terrorist training camps, and although the US may have covered up incompetence after the event in their failure to prevent 9/11, I think that only cranks believe that there’s some sinister conspiracy going on. In short, Afghan trained terrorists, destroyed the twin towers.
But I’d respectfully say that’s beside the point. The Afghan war pretty much failed in its objectives to bring peace, democracy, stability, universal education, human rights etc. It failed to prevent further terrorist attacks, and led to enormous loss of life – in addition to the troops who lost their lives or were maimed.
Whatever can be said about what Afghanistan’s main problems are, and we’d probably agree about those, war has proved no solution. That’s what many said at the time, and I doubt they take much joy in being right, given the human consequences since.
It might be said that the war toppled the Taliban and their worst excesses in most parts of the country, but its now more than likely that after the handover, we’ll be, as David Osler said, back to square one, and they’ll be back. So what was it all for?
Left in Limbo. You may well be right about the future. I listened carefully to what a native Taliban supporter had to say a few years back. He was so confidant. He knew the West could not get away with wiping them out. He said he was opposed to socialism, communism and the Western democracies. He said Allah provides. Now how do you beat that. That is why I laugh at socialists or anyone that thinks they can change the Islamic mindset. History is a great teacher. East is East, West is West. The West will never change the East. The East could change the West if we let them.
Yes and he lived here, because 90% of our bombers live here in the UK not in Afghanistan, so we kill people out there, and leave then bomb here, so why are we not killing the people here on the streets of this country
“Left in Limbo asks
What was it all for?”
but he knows the answer already …
Our poltroonish politicians enjoy wagging their tails in Washington DC and being rewarded by being thrown a dog biscuit and getting a pat on the head.
Until it is expedient for THE ONE in the White House to blame “British Petroleum” for messing up Florida’s beaches …
Modernity will never let this happen…he’s organising a decent left interventionist force this very summer. “WE’ll fight ‘em on the Kabul beaches…” Dave Arono is also in “pre-conflict” training too – when he’s not working out with the BBC neo-cons…(upcoming on R4 ~ “Commies in Amerika”)
REMEMBER…
“It’s NOT over until the fat Modernity sings”
DO – “medievalist reactionaries” EH…That’s no way to talk of John Reid.
Why these barbarians will not listen to their Western conquerors I do not know. When George Bush first devised his plans to freedomise with aerial bombardment what he would call the ‘ragheads’ or what your average ‘liberating’ soldier would call ‘sand niggers’ I thought he’d have the job done inside of 2 years.
Still we do have those gas contracts in the bag, so it isn’t all bad and some of our boys have made a financial killing. Others have tasted that nice Afghan meat also. Everyone is a winner.
Bring on the next liberation!
Richard Harris. Would that be the same John Reid of Glasgow Celtic fame. (Chairman)
Yep…Dr.John, Stalinist drunk, New Labour thug and fearless fighter for freedom (“Better a broken nose than a bended knee”)…but hey…
“During the Bosnian War, (Dr.) Reid struck up a friendship with Serb rebel leader (and later indicted war-criminal) Radovan Karadžić; Reid admitted he spent three days at a luxury Geneva lakeside hotel as a guest of Karadžić in 1993.”
Wot’s not to like.
Meanwhile, back in civilisation Nick Griffin (voice of the people) is off to Buckingham palace to meet the Queen. There will be no Burqa at that get together. Plenty of diamonds hanging from the elite though I would imagine. But that oppression is fine so no need to worry. We wouldn’t want to challenge those in power would we.
Dave,
Sadly, your post fails to address the most obvious issues:
1) What is likely to happen when Western forces leave Afghanistan?
2) Is that an outcome which you think is worthwhile?
I’d welcome some thoughtful answers to those points….
Dean: Are you as ignorant of British life as you appear? Guests at Buckingham Palace garden parties do not wear dimonds or evening resses. Most of them are civic worthies, lollipop ladies and charity workers. Grow up.
Are we still on about the Afghans?
Here’s something none of you saw but which will amuse some of you:
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2010/07/bmws_help_afgha.php
Jolly funny, the D.L.I., Afghan runaways and Mexican squaws and the Canadians yet again!
I was immediately reminded of a conversation with a Mill Hill missionary in Sarawak a few years ago. The Mill Hill Fathers had recruited a score or so young seminarians in Cameroon and duly brought them to England to be trained / indoctrinated as Mill Hill Fathers and within a month all – ALL – had metaphorically burrowed under the wire and slipped away to London and the Black Economy of illegals. [YOU know, the sort of people the CiF contributors love so much!]
And, yes, the Sewer Rat is right again. Those garden parties are mainly attended by Alderman Joe Farthwaite* from Scunthorpe and the Regional Executice of Amalgamated Arsewipers’ Union and Mrs Molly Witless from Kier Hardie Primary School for Teachers with Learning Difficulties and Bahavioral Problems.
* Back in the old days, when people were still anguished about posh and un-posh, U and non-U accents, Mrs Ethel Farthwaite would spend quite a lot of brass in hard cash on the nail on elecution lessons [like Maggie Thatcher in her Snobby Roberts days] to make sure she sounded the part on the lawn at Buck House…
SIC TRANSIT GLORIA SWANSON
A thorough accent reprogramming in Barrow-in-Furness in the fifties was a fiver in cash up front [or a tenner for REALLY difficult cases] for several intensive lessons at a time when a rank-’n-file primary school teacher – like my mother – was paid somewhat less than 14 quid a week.
Ina Kemp, a friend-of-sorts of my mother’s, used to even start her reprogrammees with – you won’t believe this – HOW NOW, BROWN COW? … and lead them up to reading Jane Austen and Godfrey Wynne and Beverley Nicols* aloud.
* These may be incorrect spellings but both of these vastly-popular writers are now all-but-forgotten, like Willkie Collins.
And here a clever chappie with a Third World name discusses Griffin’s exclusion …
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/23/allergy-bnp-counters-democracy
Not everyone here reads the MAIL, so here is something in that newspaper written by someone you might not have expected to be a MAIL correspondent …
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1297274/A-slave-greed-Oil-great-god-money-unites-Iraq-invasion-BP-Blair-handing-terrorist-Libya.html
“Not everyone here reads the MAIL”
OH, C’mon! this IS the Mail-Marxist site par-excellence. Dave is the “left-mailist”, avec a large twist of Brit in every cocktail. It’s the daily sensible dialectica, and Paul Dacre* is (our) taste maker.
* BIG fan of Gordon, just like Dave. (its the shared “values” and moral compass)
Talking of political issues and Afghanistan, as we usually are here, some of you may not have seen this …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-VLE8YSBUE
… you WILL NOT see it on FOX that much is 100% certain