We have not merely "withdrawn" from Afghanistan. We lost the war, as we were always going to do, and as reviled figures from Peter Hitchens to Jeremy Corbyn predicted from the start. The reckoning is long, long, long overdue for these twenty years of complete and utter waste.
For one thing, where does not have an Islamist government these days? Our foreign policy is dictated by Saudi Arabia. In NATO's own ridiculous terms, Turkey is strategically its second most important member after the United States.
Even the coalition in Israel now includes an Islamist party, as well as every other shade for which the anti-war movement was castigated on the meaningless, catchall grounds of "anti-Semitism". Having forged such alliances, are Naftali Bennett and Benny Gantz anti-Semitic?
The wars in Iraq and Libya have managed to make the situations in those countries even worse, something that would previously have been considered impossible. They have permanently destabilised much wider areas, giving Britain Islamist terrorism and the refugee crisis.
But the war in Afghanistan has ended, or at any rate it has ended for us, exactly where it started, for all the world as if it had never happened. Perhaps that will be how we ever hereafter avoided mentioning our abject defeat there? It should not be.
Nice to have you back Mr L. I see your brief sojourn pleasuring Her Maj doesn't appear to have had a deleterious affect on the quality of your resumed blogging.
ReplyDeleteAnyway with regard to the Afghan fiasco, not many people know that, along with the premature deaths of tens of thousands, it has also cost US taxpayers over two trillion dollars [$2,000,000,000,000] since it started. If they'd actually wanted to make a decent attempt at nation-building then, making the reasonable assumption that the average Afghan household consists of 10 people, by my calculations, it would have cost less for them to have dropped bundles containing one million dollars on the roof of every hovel in the country in 2001/2. Instead, as well as witnessing large portions of their country fall to (various factions of) the Taliban, three-quarters of Afghans are facing 'food insecurity' this winter. That used to be called hunger.
By contrast, our little foray into Helmand province has cost us Brits much less in blood and treasure: only 450 lives and £40 billion - though that's still nearly two grand for every UK income tax payer. Apparently, we were assigned the province due to our expertise in counter-narcotics. Not many people know that we also seem to have had considerable expertise in helping Helmandis grow their narcotics, including letting them use *purified* water from Camp Bastion to irrigate their poppy fields. Exhibit A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37jPk2oxo3g (The relevant part starts at 10:45 if you're short on time)
Where is Tony Blair? We are about due one of his "rare interventions". Perhaps Jeremy Corbyn should say something? That would shake him out of his shyness.
DeleteThe reckoning is long, long, long overdue for these twenty years of complete and utter waste, and that's why we all wish you were an MP.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's why I'm standing again next time.
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