Nov 03 2009
Afghanistan
I have been asked to update you on my thoughts on the war.
The failure of the Afghan regime to conduct a proper election is a blow to those who thought the US and its allies were there to create and sustain a democratic state on western lines. It may lead the ever dithering President to be even more cautious about committing more troops to the cauldron.
As someone who did not want us be fighting a war there, I have always thought the best use for our presence was to support the civilian power, and to train the forces of the Afghan state as quickly as possible to do their own police work. This has the added advantage that it would cut the risks to our troops and hold out the best hope of getting them home more quickly.
The lack of legitimacy in the Afghan regime is unhelpful even to this strategy. However, President Obama and Prime Minister Brown have accepted the legitimacy of the re-elected President, and believe they have to do business with him. Once you have recognised his legitimacy to that extent, the best you can do is to put pressure on the Afghan President to say you intend to withdraw as many of your troops as possible as soon as possible, and to narrow the definition of the remaining tasks they need to do.
The best of a bad job remains to train and support the forces of the current civilian power. We should stop placing our troops in front line combat with Afghans against the current regime.
25 Responses to “Afghanistan”
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
David Wilshire: “Branding a whole group of people as undesirables led to Hitler’s gas chambers.”
Do you agree with David Wilshire?
Reply: I do not agree with David’s analogy.
Thanks for the post JR, much appreciated.
What a bloody mess.
First its democratic, then its corruption, now its democratic again.
What has changed ????.
You could not make it up.
If this is world Politics at work, no wonder the United Nations idea has failed.
Blair’s war.
A grotesque act of self aggrandisement by our worst ever Prime Minister – attested by the millions he’s made in … money since on US dinner circuits … while our young men are still being mutilated and killed.
At last some sanity but, to argue that as we are there we must find some rational or other for doing something whilst we are there risks missing the point.
Our involvment in Afghanistan was madness and we should get out now. Our politicians should receive no encouragment for their folly nor any excuse to delay the exit.
We are now supporting an illegal regime that has no interest in democracy; we display no interest in the rights of the ordinary Afghan and our presence does no more than suppress the rights of their electorate.
This was another of the dark and evil deeds hatched between Bush and his lacky Blair and we should be quick to wash our hands of the blood.
If our politicians are so desperate to get involved in foreign adventure, there are far more deeserving cases in the world than Afghanistan.
It’s a tragic spiral. We shouldn’t be there, but we are. Our troops are heroic but fighting to support what? A sham undemocratic regime. The Taliban (not Al Qaeda) are on the march again. We need more troops to take them on. The more troops we have there the more will be killed and maimed. History teaches us that foreign powers never ultimately win in this benighted country and always eventually leave defeated. It will happen again. And yet politically we cannot withdraw – unless somebody (Cameron?) says enough is enough.
The most informed view on Afghanistan I’ve read is here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/5797197/Afghanistan-a-war-we-cannot-win.html
Next year, the Commons should get the benefit of hearing it themselves rather than ignoring its publication in the press. I commend it to the House.
Can I come at this laterally?
As a Catholic, I respect the Muslims for their religion because, like them, I believe in Allah/God. There have always been fanatics in our two religions. I was hearing only yesterday about the monks who sacked, on religious lines, the Library at Alexandria and then gouged someone’s flesh off with oyster shells!
Islam, however, and Christianity are vitally different. With the tribal system, based on polygamy, Muslims are not and, to my own mind cannot, be democratic. It doesn’t work like that. The Prophet Mohammed took his instructions directly from the Angel Gabriel, certainly not from his own followers.
So did Moses with JHWH.
The trouble with Americans is that they assume that everyone is a fledgling American.
Not so. “There is no God but God and Mohammed is the prophet of God” is not an American way of life. One mindset has to yield and guess which one it is gong to be in Muslim Afghanistan?
Greetings John,
Well at least Karzai has faced his electorate, even though there appeared to be more registered to vote than there are actual people in some areas, unlike our own usurping, unmandated & fiscally illiterate Prime Minister.
If Karzai & his cronies are the only game in town we should withdraw our troops & all financial support immediately.
No British politican can look into the eyes of servicemen & womens families & say with full conviction:
“The Afghan Government of Karzai is worth your childs life”.
And certainly it is now perfectly obvious to all that the British taxpayer can no longer afford to expend our dwindling accumulated wealth on New Labours “ethical foreign policy” objectives – what ever they now are.
Troops out – it is the only solution.
Regards
Google General William Nott in relation to the Afgan War of 1839-1842. It says it all.
It is a silly war in a silly place – get out now.
I might also add that the US & the European governments have perverted the aims of NATO. We need to get it back on track to defend the North Atlantic Treaty nations – not fight in some benighted 3rd world slum.
The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings, and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own: Aldous Huxley – English novelist and critic, 1894-1963
The Italians pointed the way by simply paying off the Afghans not to fight. Its a war we cannot win and we are only there to keep the Americans as our best mates ready for the future battles over resources.
Afghanistan is not a nation state, never has been, never will be. It is a collection of tribal areas in the middle of the Iran – Afghanistan – Pakistan region. Keep in mind that the west invented Pakistan in 1947 as a home for Indian Muslims. The jury is still out on the Jammu – Kashmir case.
Most of the middle and western parts of the region is barren, surrounded by inaccessible mountains and 97% of its 250 million population are Muslims; over half of them in the Pakistan area. The whole region has been kicked around more times than you can shake a stick at. We forget that Iran has a border with Pakistan; and, Pakistan is where the Nukes are.
I just don’t see a solution for Afghanistan on its own. Some smart guys have to start thinking of a regional solution for Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan together, recognising that tribalism is a major factor both within and between all three and the current provincial borders are artificial.
The Bruges Group made the following statement in response to the news that David Cameron intends to renege on his pledge to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty
Barry Legg, Co-Chairman of the Bruges Group and former Chief Executive of the Conservative Party says,
“David Cameron needs to come clean with the British people: why is he breaking his pledge to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty?
“There was absolutely no wriggle room in the unambiguous pledge he made in September 2007. He offered a “cast iron guarantee” to put any treaty in front of the voters. Why has he changed his mind now? What has changed his mind now?
“It cannot be good enough for a man who wants to be British Prime Minister to hide behind the leader of any other European state. Václav Klaus is a hero in his own country for having stood up to Communism. David Cameron seemingly can’t even stand up for his own past promises.
“What is the point in David Cameron upending one pledge on Europe , but promising he’ll offer us yet more European promises in his general election manifesto? Why will they be any more credible than the ‘cast-iron guarantee’ he has just broken?
“How can David Cameron claim he’ll fight to repatriate powers from Brussels when he won’t even fight to implement his own past words?
“When David Cameron made his pledge to readers of The Sun to hold a referendum on Lisbon, he said this about the Prime Minister:
The final reason we must have a vote is trust. Gordon Brown talks about “new” politics. But there’s nothing “new” about breaking your promises to the British public. It’s classic Labour . . . Small wonder that so many people don’t believe a word politicians ever say if they break their promises so casually.
“The Tory leader stands condemned by his own words.
“David Cameron’s future European policy is now incoherent, disingenuous and utterly unconvincing. This is a dark day for the Tory party, but a worse one for Britain.”
Will you be making a statement?
Acording to Mathew Hoh, who resigned from running one of the provinces, having our troops on the ground exacerbates the problem because even the most reasonable Afghan absolutely hates seeing troops from a foreign coun try in his tribal area. He isn’t even very keen on having troops from a different tribe there.Afghanistan is a patchwork of localities, like switzerland but medieval, & can be run that way & in no other. Our only objective there was to kill bin Laden & keep al Quaeda down. That should still be our only objective (though I think BL is long dead).
They could unite the Afghan people by installing as King the nearest relative of their recently deceased Monarch. He could be a figurehead of unity in a Parliamentary system involving an elected Chamber with a universal franchise open to all adults.You could have a nominated second chamber so that instead of bribes etc the government of the day could just give its friends seats in the second chamber – subject to the approval of the elected House that would have to approve all new laws,the Budget and major appointments to major positions.The Second Chamber if it blocked or amended a new law would thus send it back to the elected House.It would be for the elected House to then have the last say on whether the Bill was passed and whether any amendments stood or not.The Second Chamber if it voted against a Budget could delay any changes for six months – but would have no say over appointments.The elected House would sit for five years between elections on a fixed term basis and the government would rule by decree in an emergency. Those decrees would not be valid after the emergency ended unless approved by Parliament.The elected House would supply government Ministers from the largest group that would lose office if a confidence motion was lost.
You could also grant a US style Bill of Rights and a Supreme Court that could strike down any laws that undermined the freedoms granted in that Bill of Rights.
An hereditary and constitutional monarchy would unify the people and entrench the freedoms that I suggest while greater scrutiny would ensure better law making and thus better governance.Tribal leaders once in the Second Chamber having a role in running Afghanistan and getting decent pay & expenses might decide that like the Feudal Barons of old England when the House of Lords was set up that having peace,prosperity and democracy was great as their Tribes where now represented in Parliament and they where benefiting personally.Imam’s could sit in the Second Chamber a la C of E Bishops in the UK House of Lords.To learn from our experiences in Britain – if the Second Chamber voted down an international treaty then there would have to be a referendum on it. Parliament would only sit if the government had any business to discuss or if the elected Houses Speaker had a petition from Afghan MP’s that they wanted a debate on something (non binding debate & vote save a confidence vote which if lost would trigger the appointment of a new government if approved by the elected chamber).
So what this shows in Afghanistan was how stupid we where to allow them to have a Republic when we had the exiled King still alive and we & America knew how to make constitutional government work.After all we helped restore the exiled Louis XVIII to the French throne in 1814-15 and that kept France as a well behaved neighbor until the 1848 when the reverted to Republicanism again. King Louis XVIII accepted a constitution and sort to reunite his people and from what I know of the Afghan Monarch I think that he would have been a wise Ruler of a Constitutional Monarchy.
Afghanistan is a divided Republic that lacks faith in its head of state – surely a united Monarchy with a King who can only be an improvement on the current President could only be better ?
The present situation in Afghanistan could have been averted had we learned from the French experience and restored the exiled King.He could have united his peoples as good Sovereigns like him invariably do.Look at King Juan Carlos of Spain after Franco or King George VI & his wife Queen Elizabeth during the Blitz or the Savoy Dynasty that built a united Italian nation in the 19th Century.
Afghanistan is biting us and America in the arse because of what needs to be done. This has nothing to do with democracy for the people of Afghanistan (or Pakistan when the time comes.)
It is about removing the cancer that we placed in that region of the world a long long time ago, every so often giving new training to people from within that region to help keep various neighbouring regions unstable. Now the time has come for the Unification of most world regions we have to do the clearing up.
If goverments were honest with people then more would know the truth, this isn’t about the people or for the people. It is about the few for the few, their ideas, thier ideals. The many just have to pay the price for the folly of the few as it has always been.
A council of the elders with training offered to their own army from the start would have stabalized the region and allowed the council to build a real future for the people.
Supporting the civil power will not work, because the Pashtun do not recognise the civil power, in either Pakistan or Afghanistan.
They want no dealings with Kabul, the British Army cannot change that.
We must accept that we were dragged into a civil war we didnt understand, with players and alliances we cant even name, and that the only sensible option is to leave.
Both Pakistan and India are supporting “their” Taliban as matter of national survival, jus6t how far are we prepared to back ours?
That would work if there were a civilian power, but there isn’t. Afghanistan is not a country in any meaningful sense, and its various tribes have no interest in adopting western forms of government. It would possibly make sense to retain an well-defended airbase there to keep an eye on the place, but other than that there is no point us being there.
I’m pessimistic. Afghanistan has never been democratic. It has always been characterised by weak central government, poor internal communications and regional warlords.
In addition to John Redwood’s suggestions, we should find a way of getting the Taliban’s women folk to revolt against their men. A job for Abdullah Addullah?
Is it too late for the strategy we – and a few others we believe – have advocated since the outset?
That’s too legalise and licence the growing of poppy for medical use. We’ll never capture hearts and minds unless and until we give the Afghan peple a source of income. This is the weakess of the Taliban – they offer no economic future.
Our strategy would provide a census and control as well as a reason for us to be in Afghanistan for peaceful means to introduce and police the system and oversee the distribution of payments.
Could someone please point out the weaknesses, if any, in what we propose because nobody seems to have listened or seriously considered it.
@Essex boys
There looks like there has been a slight change of heart and the Poppy for medicine and Senlis Council initiatives to control rather than eradicate the production of opium seem to be more in favour now.There is some evidence that similar programmes have worked in Turkey and India.
If this scheme were operational, you might as well leave Karzai to carry on (encouraging-ed) tribesmen to behave themselves.
Perfectly put – British soldiers laying down their lives to support a government that seems to have jurisdiction only within Kabul is shameful.
In addition I don’t accept the argument that the war is keeping terror from the streets of the UK.
There are a number of states where terrorists may prosper, Somalia, Yemen. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and indeed the UK as the Labour government’s relaxation of border controls has allowed.
I notice my comment above is still” awaiting moderation”.But it has already been moderated : I wrote “bribing” while you have ,in an unwonted moment of political correctness, substituted “encouraging”.Far from using the original term in pejorative way, I was seeking to commend so -called bribery and corruption as perfectly reasonable way to induce people to stop fighting. You will have noted that the Afghan police are being paid a pittance and less than the Taleban volunteers who attack them.It is only a common sense to pay them a very great deal of money ,if necessary through the revenues of an Opium marketing Board as part of a Poppy for Medicine type project (see above from the Essex Boys & DBCR).
I would expect conservative-minded people to look to such policies since they were the methods by which the British gained control of ,for instance, India with Clive bribing one enemy contingent not to fight at Plassey and how the Brits ruled thereafter with hundreds of princely states and ‘political pensioners” rajahs etc who were paid ( and ‘advised’ by Residents) to enjoy themselves (playing cricket ,spending money) and not cause trouble.And the British were not going round destroying opium poppies in those days:Orwell’s father was an Opium Officer (collection agent) quite late on. There was the problem of the Chinese being forced to take the product but that is taken care of in Poppy for Medicine.
Reply: The Uk and other western democracies make bribery as properly defined an offence. It is not sensible to recommend that public officials authorise a policy based on bribery. Financial encouragements or inducements are legal payments to pursue policy ends, which is why I substituted the word. This site does not support illegal acts, as it is dedicated to the belief that in a democracy we use democratic means to change bad laws, but do not break them in the meantime.