No, sorry - Afghanistan is nowhere near a success. The Taliban effectively control large swathes of the country in the same way the VC did in South Vietnam. I’ve been watching a series of documentaries on Channel 4 where a very brave reporter went on patrol with the US army, on an operation with the British Army and got access to Taliban bases and it was a real eye-opener for someone who once thought we might be winning.
In the British operation to clear a town (in theory as ‘support’ for the Afghan Army but soon had to take over leadership) the ANA took heavy casualties, the British a few and took 6 days to achieve their objective against a planned 24 hours. The battles saw a record number of airstrikes called in by the British Army and at the end of it they had to hand the town back to the Taliban as the Afghan Govt could not/would not reinforce them.
This week’s episode saw him visiting a US outpost supposedly ‘controlling’ a region. None of the troops thought the war was going well. They were meant to be company strength but had just 40 men split between two bases which could only be suppled by helicopter as the roads were too dangerous. They could only patrol at night and were under constant sniper attack. The local village upped and left as soon as they moved in due to fear of the Taliban.
The local police in the region could not wear their uniforms because of fear of assassination while the Taliban, safe in their mountain bases, numbered in the thousands have fought off all attempts to dislodge them.
Last summer the USA had only 20k troops in Afghanistan and the UK is leading the fighting with even less. They are vastly outnumbered by the Taliban and the Afghan National Army isn’t stepping up to the plate.
One of the most depressing part of the documentary series was the ordinary people’s belief the govt was doing nothing for them. A whole village of refugees were begging for water in a makeshift camp (a US airstrike had destroyed their village they say and the survivors left the dead in the rubble and fled).
We might have ‘won’ the war in Afghanistan but we took our eye off the ball and the Taliban and Al-Q are right back in the game. They have the numbers, they have the fanaticism, they have the safe havens of the Pakistan Tribal region, they have vast heroin funds and they have an endless stream of new recruits created by the reliance on and the callous use of airpower.
"Yes, but there is nothing stopping us chasing them in Pakistan
sure tribally raised local regiments, but heck, they are not going to lose their pay packets - mainstream Pakistan is, and has always been, very pro USA"
There’s no Muslim country anywhere in the world that’s pro-USA that I can see. Some deal with us like the Saudi’s because it’s in their interest to do so. Packistan has to be bullied into any kind of assistance, their failure to timely mobilize troops is main reason Osama got away.
Yes there are forward operating bases all along the border with Pakistan but they’re not all that effective. They can’t stop the all movement across the borders. The Afghanistan/Iraq/Iran situation is the biggest clusterfuck of all time. The more I think about it the worse I feel. It’s going to get bigger and bigger.
‘President Hamid Karzai’s lined, care-worn face is as good a record as any of five years of terror and counter-terror in Afghanistan. The strain is plain for all to see. Speaking in Kabul last week, George Bush’s favourite Muslim democrat was in tears as he talked about Afghan children killed in the west’s latest campaign against the Taliban.’
‘Since then 4,000 or more people have died in insurgency-related violence. The kill rate is accelerating. Civilian deaths account for roughly one-quarter of the total. There have been over 100 suicide attacks. Drug trafficking is up. And British troops have become the latest foreign detachment to be accused of killing civilians.’
‘Afghanistan has agreed to poppy-spraying measures in a desperate bid to deflate the soaring drugs trade, America’s anti-narcotics tsar announced at the weekend.’
‘The debate has been injected with fresh urgency by this year’s record opium harvest. Production rose 49% to 6,700 tonnes in 2006, more than 90% of the world’s supply. Taliban commanders have started to take a slice of drug profits, which fuel the insurgency. The money trail also leads to the higher echelons of government, where corruption at provincial and central levels has eroded public confidence in Mr Karzai.’
‘France’s decision to pull out the troops comes amid mounting violence in Afghanistan, where the Taliban are returning to the fore despite some 32,800 Nato troops in the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf). Isaf commanders have recently been demanding more troops for the south, where the militants are most active.’
No - they are worse than they have been and are getting worse (from our point of view) because we did not finish the job and show no sign of finishing the job.
‘As good as can be expected’ means the Taliban will be back in five years, heroin is flooding the world market, teachers are intimidated into not teaching girls or killed and schools blown up while the same old bunch of murdering warlord thugs with their democratic face masks on continue looting what little wealth there is until such times as they change sides again.
Iran would not wish to expand into Iraq, they are different ethnic groups, so they would be repelled regardless of a common religion.
My take is that rationally, Iran would not want a failed State on its border, things have a habit of trickling over - not that Iran minds stirring things up for the USA and others.
My understanding is that Iran was alarmed by the ‘axis of evil’ garbage, and it regards itself as being under threat - remove the threat and they should calm down.
It’s a fact that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is losing ground with mainstream Iranian’s and politicians but it’s also a fact that he’s the Mullah’s man and isn’t going anywhere. I’m not so certain he desires a stable Iraq. He’s certanly done nothing to help that cause. Of note, today in 1979 the Shah fled Iran.
The above is from blogspot.com, but the quotation(s) of Churchill should be verifiable.
The article goes on to say that: After the Nuremberg trials were underway, Churchill’s view of the power of prosecution altered.
The jist is that he regarded the criminals as outlaws (which has a very precise meaning that few people appear to understand) and that the prosecution was pushed for by the USA.
I think that Churchill had a pretty good understanding of the basis and evolution of Law, Nueremberg set a precedent - and precedents are things that are vulnerable to the ‘law of unforseen consequences’.
Which does not translate to, “line up the non-useful ones and shoot them.”
It also depends on presumption of guilt – not unreasonable WRT the Nazi leaders; not reasonable or legal WRT suspected Taliban/al-Qaeda members like those at Gitmo.
It means a long-obsolete (and unlamented) category in Anglo-Saxon common law, and one to which, even in the Middle Ages, one could not simply be relegated without some form of due process. Certainly the victors in war would not have had a recognized legal right to unilaterally declare the losers “outlaws,” like Parliament passing a bill of attainder. Churchill would not have had a leg to stand on if he had stuck to that point.