Britain Must Tell Obama: The Alliance of Denial Has to End
Diplomacy, your hour has come. There is no way soldiers will find an exit from Afghanistan. They can deliver defeat or they can deliver bloody stalemate. They cannot deliver victory and every observer knows it. This conflict will end only when the courage being daily demanded of soldiers is also shown by politicians.
Those who said that sending an army to Afghanistan was madness can collect their winnings and go. But diplomacy is a relativist ethic. Its practitioners cannot say "do not start from here." They must face the fact that Barack Obama and Gordon Brown are entangled in a mess from which there is no easy release.
Obama made a serious error on coming to power. To honor his pledge to disown Iraq he felt obliged to "adopt" Afghanistan. What had begun as a punitive raid on the Taliban for harboring Osama bin Laden morphed into a neo-con campaign of regime change, counter-insurgency and nation-building. Obama rashly identified himself with this crusade and thus leapt from the frying pan of Iraq into the fire of the Hindu Kush.
The president now owns Afghanistan. As a result, he and his British ally, Gordon Brown, are sucked into mendacity that is on the scale of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. They talk of "clearing, holding and building" Afghan territory, to make the world safe from terrorist bases. Brown talks of fighting "to prevent terrorism coming to the streets of Britain." His helpless defence secretary, Bob Ainsworth, tells troops they must stay until the Karzai government "can tackle the threat of the Taliban on its own," which he knows is never.
Such explanations insult public intelligence. The essence of world terrorism is that it does not need bases. The 9/11 attacks were planned in Germany. The safety of Britain's streets is secured not by boys dying in poppy fields but by sound intelligence and domestic policing. We learned last week that MI5's former head, Lady Manningham-Buller, specifically warned the government that British security would be harmed, not aided, by military intervention abroad. Ministers know this. Why do they lie?
The answer is because they are trapped in an alliance with America, a country also in denial. Brown does not believe in this war. That is why he left the 2006 Helmand expedition with so few helicopters and refused to reinforce it with 2,000 extra troops -- though in fairness to Brown the army did tell him that it could cope with what it had. As a result the force has had to be rescued by the Americans, to the glee of the Taliban.
The worm is now turning. Not a week passes without a military and diplomatic source questioning the government's policy, or lack of one. A high-powered British Academy seminar last Friday, attended by senior generals, diplomats and academics, was astonishingly at odds. Some said that Britain should stay "for the long haul", others that staying was a terrible mistake. Some said that security would only follow a "hearts and minds" campaign, others that it should precede it. Some wanted democracy, others said forget it. The shambles was revealing.
Washington hardly displays any greater coherence. On taking office Obama gave his favorite general, David Petraeus, three months to come up with a new Afghan strategy. The advice, to no one's surprise, was for a "surge", with more troops to hold territory and rebuild consent for the Kabul government. Obama appeared to like it.
The strategy was reminiscent of Earl Haig in the Great War, more of what had failed, but with the army still centre stage. Obama's other emissary to the region, the diplomat Richard Holbrooke, is said to have despaired at the Petraeus strategy. He experienced Vietnam and could see the same mission creep occurring again. Afghanistan offered his president no wins, only losses. In addition, were continued conflict to plunge Pakistan into a full civil war, it would be a disaster of unimaginable consequences.
After 9/11, local intelligence in Afghanistan screamed for America to be patient. An immediate 1,000-strong clerical shura in Kabul declared sympathy with the dead Americans and voted for bin Laden and al-Qaeda to be told to leave the country. Taliban commanders were divided, with the younger bloods wanting bin Laden's unpopular Arabs to go at once. They had no interest in crossing America, who had trained many of them to fight the Russians and with whom they had just signed a lucrative deal suppressing poppies. Their ruler, Mullah Omar, only just overruled them.
That was the moment to turn the Taliban against al-Qaeda. Instead Bush attacked and cemented their alliance, making bin Laden the hero of the region. But just as it suited Bush to identify the Taliban with al-Qaeda, so it should now suit Obama to do the opposite. The Taliban has never shown any interest in international terrorism, only in ridding their country of foreigners. On this truth should some eventual deal be built.
The idea of establishing Afghanistan as a western-style democracy is dead. The dreams of Kabul's NGO groupies, to install technocrats or elevate women or eradicate poppies, have vanished in a morass of corruption and aid extravagance. The best hope is for a series of regional deals and compromises, transferring power to local warlords or Taliban coalitions, behind which military withdrawal can gradually take place. The west failed to "build a nation" in Kabul, despite tipping billions of dollars into its underworld. Only colonialists build nations, and the will for empire was never present.
For progress to be made down this messy road, the gung-ho militarism of Petraeus and the British army must be countered. The hyping of British military casualties is wrong, as it suggests that any withdrawal will be defeat. The Canadians, who have suffered terrible losses in Afghanistan, have shown their sovereignty by signaling their intention to leave in 2011. Why not Britain?
Originally published in The Guardian.
If applause is what Gordon Brown wants, he's not getting it. When, for the sake of his country, is the British Prime Minister going to do the decent thing -- and resign?
Robert Naiman: Dear Britain: "Get Out of Afghanistan, So We Can Get Out"
Like the majority of Britons, the majority of Americans oppose the war in Afghanistan.
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Thank you Mr. Jenkins! We have too many jingoists in the US to do anything in a rational manner. As long as people feel tied to this "two party system" that we have, we will be controlled by the military complex and corporate rule. If we can get away from those "controllers", we have a chance to be an honorable country. Right now, we are meddling in Honduras, covertly, in a bad way. Wake up America !!!!! Some sources of information: http://www.informationsources.us.
I voted for Obama given the dreadful alterntive but Obama's policy in Afghanistan is wrong. Sooner or later, after many more dead Americans and billlions to trillions spent, the USA will leave Afghanistan no better than when Bush went in. So what is America's attainable objectives by staying and fighting. Most military experts say there will be no victory only a bloody stalemate or defeat. So why expend more American resources all for naught. A negotiated settlement with the Taleban is in order and Obama needs to redirect all of our Afghanistan efforts into such and leave as soon as possible. The USA cannot remake the world in it's image no matter how hard it tries nor how much we may want to. Reality always wins.
Good article. But can we really be truthful, both wars (Afghanistan & Iraq) were based on the "imperialist adventures" of white men (who evaded war during VietNam) who were more than willing to see other peoples children die - all for AVARICE!! It was never about "democracy" or "freedom" either for the people of those countries or our own! The reality is "democracy" and "freedom" can only be had by the effort and energy of the people in those nations! Until Americans realize this and demand a return of it's young men & women this nation will be embroiled forever in a losing battle!
sooner or later someone will ask ----how are we going to pay for this war ???
You are seriously, seriously underestimating Obama. The one thing he knows how to do better than almost anyone is to get grassroots consensus.
"Such explanations insult public intelligence." It has been my experience that it is impossible to insult public intelligence. And retoric aside, just looking at actions not words, Obama seems somewhat more like a revised neo-con than a progressive.
I would argue that Obama did not make an "error" in committing to Afghanistan. He did exactly what his handlers wanted him to do. (And he has not disowned Iraq, unless leaving 35,000 to 50,000 combat troops in the country somehow qualifies as "leaving" in some bizarro universe.)
These things don't just happen in a vacuum. They are always, always planned.
Britain was crazy to follow the United States into Iraq and Afghanistan
First the damage was done with the insane Tony Blair (who has become even more unhinged since he stepped down and found god), and now with the comical Gordon Brown who is content for British troops to die for no reason in Afghanistan.
And the US govt was crazy to go in there in the first place. When will we learn?
"Only colonialists build nations"
Colonialists don't build nations. Nations happen. Colonialists build colonial puppet states designed to create internal ethnic hostilities.
Nations do get *re*built, but not by colonialists. They get rebuilt by the combination of their own efforts and the support of outsiders who think it will advance their agenda. The prime example is Germany and Japan after WWII. The US gained a lot of influence over the postwar politics and policies of Germany and Japan, as well as benefiting from having those countries on their side in the Cold War, which was the purpose of the whole thing from the US point of view.
I have a friend who has been deployed there and I am always amazed by his positivity. We don't totally agree on the mission & the reasons for being there, but he truly believes they are making a difference.
That being said, I don't think, and have never thought, our troops should have gone there in the first place. Most Canadians want our troops brought home. We used to be peace keepers, we are no longer viewed as such. Enough men, women, & children have died on each side to prove this is not a war which can be won in the traditional sense. As stated in the article, yes, we Canadians were told we wouldn't stay past 2011, however there is already talk of extending that time line.
They lied to us - again. Both of these wars were built on lies.
Eventually, we will have to believe what our eyes tell us - Obama, our anti-war candidate, is committed to the terrible mistake of war in Afghanistan. We will, at some point, have to march in the streets of Washington, DC exactly as we did against George Bush's war in Iraq. Obama, so smart about so many things, has this one wrong, and Americans are dying AGAIN, for lost and imaginary causes in god-forsaken lands. Only the people of Afghanistan can resist the Taliban, by not joining and refusing them any quarter. We can only make them heroes and resistors to foreign aggression.
The best way to eradicated poppies is to eradicated poppies. If we (meaning Monsanto or some other big group that makes ugly potions that wipe out entire species) were to leave the dandelions alone for a bit and concentrate on poppy genus extermination, the taliban would have to revert to broccoli and Brussels sprouts. A bit of green in their diet might just loosen them up where they need loosening.
I realize that morphine et al are a boon to man and would be hard but not impossible to replace and leaving the monetary aside for a time might prove very enriching in the end.
If you have a better idea feel free to shoot me down and I sincerely hope you will.
And the second best way was to pay the taliban to do it. That's the approach that worked.
For some reason, the late Aaron Russo was under the impression that Afghanistan was about Caspian Basin pipelines and the "War on Terror" was a monstrous fraud:
http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/as-wall-street-is-transformed-a-reminder-from-aaron-russo/
But who will "secure" the pipelines, Mr. Jenkins?
http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/the-gas-must-flow/
I get the impression that the British are there in Afghanistan for the same reason we Americans are. But whereas our mission is based around keeping the oil pipeline safe, the UK troops are there to keep the opium flow running efficiently. They even built a nice road/bridge combination to facilitate the process. Clearly this "denial" is just a mask for their true intentions, especially when considering the fact that the British have dominated the opium trade for centuries and even fought wars based around it. It's a valuable commodity and therefore an unavoidable reality according to the science of economics.
This also would go a long way to explain the surge of heroin that has hit Europe like a tidal wave in the years since the Taliban was removed from power.
That is the most id.iotic assertion that I have read in a long time
Idiotic but totally hilarious.
Yes, totally ridiculous. There is no "tidal wave' of heroin in Europe. Blah blah. Besides, the opium war was won thanx to the Dutch East India Co, who forced the Indonesians to grow poppy and then flooded the Chinese market with it. So first go back to the history books and then you maybe can talk some sense.
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