Confirmation of Stuart’s point about religious differences between the Sunni and Shi’a can be seen in the Taliban governor’s reported remarks: “Hazaras are not Muslim, they are Shi’a. They are kofr [infidels]. The Hazaras killed our force here, and now we have to kill Hazaras.”
http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports98/afghan/Afrepor0-03.htm#P186_38364

There was once a wonderful, but expensive piece of equipment designated ECM, Electronic Counter Measure. If you have a command wire to a roadside bomb it needs an electric source, so therefore gives off a radio signal, and this signal can be detected by ECM equipment. The same for a bomb which is detonated by radio control; there needs to be a receiver. This ECM kit is decades old and is now sophisticated. The problem is that it is not effective while in vehicles, so why are we in vehicles? Simple, because we have too few men on the ground.

So we don’t have enough ECM equipment for the patrols on foot that may keep them safe, and we don’t have enough men to patrol on foot to make use of the ECM equipment we don’t have, and we have no vehicles that are effective while we swan about kidding ourselves that we are fighting a winnable battle.

We need more men, more air support, and more equipment. NOT more vehicles. The Government WANT you to think we need more vehicles and that is the answer because they can be sourced easily and cheaply, relatively speaking, but it is a false promise made by people incapable of understanding the situation.

Why do you think they got rid of Dannat and Jackson?

An example of how this was done in the past was during D Day and beyond. Then our troops had constant support from the ‘cab rank’ system supplied by Mustangs and Typhoons. These linked to air support officers on the ground accompanying our troops advancing on the enemy. A squadron was always above; ready to both report enemy positions and engage. As they needed to refuel they were immediately replaced by another.

These days this role should be performed by helicopter gunships but for our troops in Afghanistan they are in pitifully short supply. Mike Stallard rightly points out that we are broke today but we were just as broke in 1944.

From the comfort of middle age and no likelihood of a call-up of men my age, I can say, how much more folly must out young men suffer.

Rgds

Michael
ex-DIS

Unlike most of the Nu-Labour elite, I saw this nonsense first hand and can honestly say, my formal education ceased at 12 and only re-started at 17 when I started reading independently. I was taught to be a good little drone and how the Tennessee valley authority and the New Deal saved America so yay for socialism etc

Anyone care to buy a kidney…

If Brown or Ainsworth can’t be bothered then perhaps Cameron or the shadow defence minister (whoever he might be) could.

the reality remains that the officer class of the forces, especially the army, and especially some regiments, is over populated by public school folk who would not be there by merit if recruitment was a real meritocracy

and most folk who have seen them close up know its a weakness, and we loose out on some of the best talent we have

AND once in working class backgrounds are pretty much glass ceiling at about major regardless of how good they are, RAMC excepted

and the worst part is apart from the PC press releases the generals think this is the way to do it, sadly every other organisation including other armies, have proven them wrong wrong wrong

Exit Strategy: Out of the question. The Americans hold all the trumps (airborne artillery of all types, helicopters, communications, strategic command, relations with the President). If we just walk away (as I think we should) the Americans will not be our Besfrens.
That would leave us with the wimps and surrender monkeys from Europe to protect us from Russia, who has buzzed our airspace now quite a lot in the last two years.
And, of course, we are now broke.
So that means a lot more dead/wounded soldiers, I am afraid. The Minister, for once, was right.

You just get the impression that the government are doing a holding operation. They certainly don’t portray clear objectives or time scales to the public and I don’t think it’s a big issue with the public unfortunately.
So there is little pressure on the government from the electorate.
The war has been going on now for longer than WW 2. In my view if it really is so important to our national security then we should pour resources into concluding it, to arrive at our objectives. (But that’s not going to happen and it may be beyond our capabilities)
Or look to withdraw.
Can anyone really believe that NATO’s involvement there will result in an independent, cohesive, pro western, sort of democratic, Afghanistan?
The Tories should be asking the same questions as Nick Clegg.

“It is disappointing that such a clear thinker as yourself cannot get to grips with the fact that we stopped being a world power in 1945.”

“reply: I am proposing a strategy to get out!”

Oh really. If so why even ask these questions.

“The central issue is can we achieve all that we would like?”

Reply: I delay posting items which are long and may have to be edited. I post anything straightforward and short asap. I do not stop people disagreeing with me.
I think you are failing to understand what I am saying about Afghanistan. I did not want us to enter this war in the first place.

Never in a million years. Wake up.

“What will the cost be in lives lost and injuries sustained?”

If you want to keep trying it will cost you the lives of every soldier there. Ask the Russians and they didn’t mind killing anything that moved that wasn’t obviously Russian.

“For how long will the legitimate civilian power in that country want foreign troops to help it?”

The illegitimate experimental Afghani government is doomed to failure once the US dollar crashes probably sometime next year.

“What is the exit strategy?”

Run for your lives would be sufficient.

On your other musings;

“or who keep open a school that allows young women to be educated,”

Excerpt from ‘What is the Primary Fundamental Right?’

“Ironically extended female education results in fewer future tax payers being produced, the death knell for the profit absorbing Socialism Democracies.”

Afghanistan has a birth-rate between 6 and 7 children per mother. Afghanis love their children and their freedoms. Under American/British rules they would have to embrace Socialism which would result in a major loss of both as has happened in both those countries. The Taliban is probably a transcient reaction to continual interference by other nations.

Are you simply revealing outdated prejudices?