Saturday, June 12, 2010

The reality of Afghanistan: comment from Britain

Matthew Parris is a well-known (in Britain, at least) journalist who has had some experience covering foreign wars ... or "police actions" or whatever the euphemism of the day calls them. He reported from Afghanistan during the Soviet Union's failed attempt to prop up its puppet government there.

Today he writes in the Times of London about the new British coalition government's dilemma as it tries to appease the wrath of the Americans -- who are getting really pissed off about British Petroleum (BP) -- yet respect the wishes of the majority of Britons who are opposed to any continuation of the "mission".

His piece, in the online edition of the Times of London, is headlined "They must know our mission is doomed". Here are a couple of paragraphs.

David Cameron has picked a fine time to make his Afghan debut. Convoy torched; helicopter shot down; the two security advisers to President Karzai whom the West most trusts resigned; and 29 Nato and British servicemen killed in nine days.

So let’s get this straight: Afghanistan’s own army can’t shoulder, their own air capability can’t support, and their own economy can’t pay for, this war. And that’s reckoning without the corrupt and impotent Government in Kabul we are there to shore up. Some exit strategy.

We can see now that we should never have gone into southern Afghanistan in 2006 — but feel that today it’s too late to repent. In four years’ time I fear we’ll be saying that quitting Helmand in 2010 (as we are) would have been a good time to pull back completely; but now, in 2014, beseiged in Kandahar (or wherever) it’s too late.

Can the British, American and Canadian governments not admit that the situation is hopeless and quit Afghanistan now? Walt says that's not defeatism, just realism!

FOOTNOTE: Thanks to Agent 17 for passing on this comment along the same lines from the USA: "The courage to leave" by New York Times op-ed columnist Bob Herbert.

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