Posted by johnlilburne
on November 4, 2009, 10:23 pm, in reply to "Kim Howells in the Grauniad.... Afghanistan"
Must have been chewing too many coca leaves with his mates in the Colombian paramilitaries to have come out with this tosh!
--Previous Message--
: Another ‘Damocleasian’ conversion from the
: ranks of the establishment Warmongers.
: Howell bangs on about our sacrifices but
: fails to mention the tens of thousands of
: innocent Afghan lives destroyed by our
: ‘brave young men and women’ (as quoted from
: his interview on the Today programme this
: morning).
:
: He fails to mention that Karzai is ‘our man
: in Kabul’ and was essentially guaranteed
: victory in the recent ‘election’. You CANNOT
: have democracy in an occupied country – This
: was a betrayal of the Afghan people. He also
: fails to mention the democratic deficit in
: this country where near to 60% of people
: have been against the war in Afghanistan for
: some years now.
:
: No… Howells solution to the illegal invasion
: and war HE wanted and backed is very simple.
: Pull the troops out of Afghanistan and
: impose a repressive, intrusive Police State
: in the U.K. With dickheads like him in
: Parliament, who needs the Taliban?
:
: It's time to pull out of Afghanistan and
: take the fight to Bin Laden in Britain
: I backed the war, but the chance looks
: squandered. Local agencies battling
: terrorism need the funds being spilt in
: Helmand
: For the best part of seven years the British
: public appeared to accept the argument that,
: if we didn't deploy our troops to fight
: al-Qaida terrorists in Afghanistan, we might
: be forced to fight them on the streets of
: Britain. In recent months, however, it seems
: that public support for our military
: involvement in that United Nations-led
: operation is diminishing. There are a number
: of possible reasons for this. The public may
: be asking whether deploying large numbers of
: British forces to Afghanistan at great cost,
: in lives lost as well as in pounds sterling,
: is actually the most effective way of
: preventing Islamic terrorist murders in the
: UK. Perhaps, like me, they are considering
: that there may be more effective
: alternatives to the deployment and wondering
: why there has been little discussion about
: them, save for the usual "if we are
: nice to violent jihadists they might be nice
: to us" variety.
: Seven years of military involvement and
: civilian aid in Afghanistan have succeeded
: in subduing al-Qaida's activities in that
: country, but have not destroyed the
: organisation or its leader, Osama bin Laden.
: Nor have they succeeded in eliminating
: al-Qaida's protectors, the Taliban. There
: can be no guarantee that the next seven
: years will bring significantly greater
: success and, even if they do, it is salutary
: to remember that Afghanistan has never been
: the sole location of terrorist training
: camps. If we accept that al-Qaida continues
: to pose a deadly threat to the UK, and if we
: know that it is capable of changing the
: locations of its bases and modifying its
: attack plans, we must accept that we have a
: duty to question the wisdom of prioritising,
: in terms of government spending on
: counter-terrorism, the deployment of our
: forces to Afghanistan. It is time to ask
: whether the fight against those who are
: intent on murdering British citizens might
: better be served by diverting into the work
: of the UK Border Agency and our police and
: intelligence services much of the additional
: finance and resources swallowed up by the
: costs of maintaining British forces in
: Afghanistan.
: It would be better, in other words, to bring
: home the great majority of our fighting men
: and women and concentrate on using the money
: saved to secure our own borders, gather
: intelligence on terrorist activities inside
: Britain, expand our intelligence operations
: abroad, co-operate with foreign intelligence
: services, and counter the propaganda of
: those who encourage terrorism. Such a shift
: in focus would have the benefit of exposing
: far fewer British servicemen and women to
: the deadly threats of Taliban snipers and
: roadside bombs, but would also have
: momentous implications for UK foreign and
: defence policy. We would need to reinvent
: ourselves diplomatically and militarily.
: Treaties and international agreements would
: have to be renegotiated. In particular,
: relationships with our NATO partners,
: especially with the Americans – our most
: trusted and valued allies – would alter
: fundamentally.
: Life inside the UK would have to change.
: There would be more intrusive surveillance
: in certain communities, more police officers
: on the streets, more border officials at
: harbours and airports, more inspectors of
: vehicles and vessels entering the country,
: and a re-examination of arrangements that
: facilitate the "free movement" of
: people and products across our frontiers
: with the rest of the EU. Some of these
: changes will generate great opposition, but
: many of them will be welcomed. If media
: reports are true, the British public is
: becoming increasingly hostile to the notion
: that any of our service personnel should be
: killed or wounded in support of difficult
: outcomes and flawed regimes in faraway
: countries.
: This shift in opinion is happening at a time
: when the size of the Afghan conflict might
: grow, rather than decrease. Lieutenant
: General Jim Dutton, the highly respected
: British deputy commander of Nato's
: International Security Assistance Force in
: Afghanistan, backs the request of the US
: commander, General Stanley McChrystal, for
: the extra soldiers. Dutton said recently
: that the ideal number required to turn the
: tide in a country like Afghanistan, with its
: 28 million people, is around half a million.
: Currently, there is less than half that
: number of foreign and Afghan troops
: available to him and McChrystal. I doubt
: whether the presence, even of another 40,000
: American troops – brave and efficient though
: they are – will guarantee that the Taliban
: and their allies will no longer be able to
: terrorise and control significant stretches
: of countryside, rural communities and key
: roads. Recent attacks in Kabul and other
: centres suggest that the present balance of
: territorial control is at best likely to
: remain – or, more likely, to shift in favour
: of the Taliban.
: Like many observers of this eight-year
: conflict, I had hoped that by now a degree
: of stability might have returned to
: Afghanistan. I assumed, wrongly, that a
: desire among ordinary Afghans for peace
: would prevail over the prospect of continued
: war and the spectre of being ruled by a
: tyrannical theocracy in one of the world's
: poorest and most backward countries. Dutton
: has stated that the "ultimate
: answer" to Afghanistan's problems is
: "a stable democratic state … in which
: [Afghan] forces are capable of maintaining
: the rule of law". The general knows how
: far away that is. At a recent demonstration
: in the Afghan capital, Kabul, hundreds of
: Islamist demonstrators chanted "Death
: to America". In a Commons debate some
: months ago, I expressed the view that a
: deadly combination of anti-democratic
: Islamic fundamentalism, corruption and the
: proximity of safe Pakistani havens for
: terrorists all militated against the notion
: that we will be able to continue convincing
: the British people that they should prepare
: themselves for a "30-year"
: campaign (as one of our distinguished
: diplomats put it). These are my views, not
: those of any part of the British government
: or of any parliamentary committee. They are
: the views of someone who supported the
: deployment of our forces to Afghanistan. I
: was convinced that, given the opportunity
: offered to them by the UN-led intervention,
: the Afghans would display the resolve,
: skills and courage to tackle the problems
: that have blighted Afghanistan for so long.
: It was never going to be easy but I'm afraid
: that, despite great sacrifice, the
: opportunity has largely been squandered.
: Bin Laden, along with his admirers and
: followers, won't wait around for the future
: of Afghanistan to be resolved. Their
: preparation and training for terrorism
: hasn't stopped, and Britain has no choice
: but to continue to seek out his bombers and
: those of other terrorist organisations. Our
: police forces, intelligence and border
: agencies have mammoth tasks. Their budgets
: already are much larger than they were in
: the years prior to the attacks on New York
: and London in 2001 and 2005, but they will
: have to grow larger still if they are to
: prevent further atrocities, not least when
: the eyes of the world will be on London
: during the 2012 Olympics. The public will
: want to know, of course, where the money to
: pay for all this will come from. It won't be
: easy but it is time to tell them that it
: will come from the savings that will accrue
: from not having to pay for the war in
: Afghanistan. Sooner rather than later a
: properly planned, phased withdrawal of our
: forces from Helmand province has to be
: announced. If it is an answer that serves,
: also, to focus the minds of those in the
: Kabul government who have shown such a
: poverty of leadership over the past seven
: years, then so much the better.
:
:
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