Obama's War Stumbles On Through The Blood

In October 2008, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, outgoing commander of UK forces in Afghan­istan, bluntly told The Indendent: "We're not going to win this war." He urged a political dialogue with the Taliban. But we carried on fighting. On 15 October, 21-year-old Trooper James Munday from Birmingham was killed in an explosion in Garmsir. On 27 July 2009, the then foreign secretary, David Miliband, called for talks with the Taliban. Yet the war raged on. On the day of Miliband's speech, Trooper Phillip Lawrence, a 22-year-old from Birkenhead, was killed in an explosion in Lashkar Gah. Countless civilians have died (NATO certainly isn't counting them) in the interim. On 22 June this year, Obama announced the start of the US "drawdown" in Afghanistan, including the withdrawal of 33,000 troops by October 2012. On the same day, Foreign Secretary William Hague confirmed that, by 2015, British troops would not still be fighting in Afghanistan. However, meantime, we carry on fighting. Hague has conceded that the British military's involvement will continue for "many years" after the end of combat operations in the country. But Britain's national security is not at stake in Afghanistan. None of the hundred or so Islamists imprisoned in the UK for terror-related offices hails from Helmand. Nor did our military presence in Afghanistan on 7 July 2005 prevent four suicide attacks on the London transport network that left 52 people dead. As one US official noted at a recent briefing to reporters in Washington, DC ahead of the Obama speech: "We haven't seen a terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan for the past seven or eight years." Even by the standards of the US government, the cynicism is astonishing: play up the threat from terrorists to justify an intractable conflict until the time comes to start withdrawing and then reveal that the "threat" was, after all, non-existent. H/T the Independent and the Staggers.