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Great, Briton

“We shall abandon them in the mountains! We shall abandon them in the cities!  We shall run like frightened children! Out of my way, I’m trying to surrender!” 

Hang on, that’s not what Winston Churchill said when Great Britain faced a fundamental threat to her existence. And it’s not the great Brit of old that Simon Jenkins is channeling at all when he calls for a hasty exit from Afghanistan.  He’s mistaken 2008 for 1842, and apparently doesn’t get that such a mistake could bring us back to 1940. Jenkins has tapped into the spirit of Elphinstone, as he counsels disastrous retreat from Kabul as the remedy to dithering inaction on the part of our allied NATO leadership. 

Some wag of a subeditor at the Times of London seems to have made the connection, however, because he slapped the delightful headline “Fall Back, Men, Afghanistan is a Nasty War We Can Never Win,” on this shameless drivel:

The American secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, flies to Britain this week to meet a crisis entirely of London and Washington’s creation. They have no strategy for the continuing occupation of Afghanistan. They are hanging on for dear life and praying for something to turn up. Britain is repeating the experience of Gordon in Khartoum, of the Dardanelles, Singapore and Crete, of politicians who no longer read history expecting others to die for their dreams of glory.

Every independent report on the Nato-led operation in Afghanistan cries the same message: watch out, disaster beckons. Last week America’s Afghanistan Study Group, led by generals and diplomats of impeccable credentials, reported on “a weakening international resolve and a growing lack of confidence”. An Atlantic Council report was more curt: “Make no mistake, Nato is not winning in Afghanistan.” The country was in imminent danger of becoming a failed state.

A clearly exasperated Robert Gates, the American defence secretary, has broken ranks with the official optimism and committed an extra 3,000 marines to the field, while sending an “unusually stern” note to Germany demanding that its 3,200 troops meet enemy fire. Germany, like France, has rejected that plea. Yet it is urgent since the Canadians have threatened to withdraw from the south if not relieved. An equally desperate Britain is proposing to send half-trained territorials to the front, after its commanders ignored every warning that the Taliban were the toughest fighters on earth.

Meanwhile Nato is doing what it does best, squabbling. Gates has criticised Britain for not taking the war against the insurgents with sufficient vigour. Britain is furious at America’s obsession with spraying the Helmand poppy crop and thus destroying all hope of winning hearts and minds. Most of the 37,000 soldiers wandering round Kabul were sent on the understanding that they would do no fighting. No army was ever assembled on so daft a premise.

Nato’s much-vaunted 2006 strategy has not worked. It boasted that its forces would only be guarding reconstruction and training the Afghan police. There would be no more counterproductive airstrikes against Pashtun villages. The Taliban would be countered by American special forces, with the Pakistan army attacking their rear. Two years ago anyone expressing scepticism towards this rosy scenario was greeted at Nato headquarters in Kabul with guffaws of laughter. Today that laughter must be music in Taliban ears.

…

Common sense advocates a demilitarisation of the occupation, with a withdrawal of western troops to Kabul where they can try to protect the capital and the northern trade routes. In provinces to the south and east, Karzai’s money, weapons and negotiating skills must deliver what results they can. The West cannot possibly police Afghanistan with anything remotely like the resources it has available.

How would we know that, when the West declines to use the resources it has available? Just asking. While he touches on assorted British and American debacles, Jenkins makes no mention of the British military and political disaster of 1842. Odd, given what a popular touchstone it was for the dithering classes in the fall of 2001. That may be because the lesson of 1842 … like the lesson of Saigon, 1972-75, which he does mention … is that disaster is an option, not a foregone conclusion, for a superior force that has it in its power to prevail, but is led by men on the verge of panic and giving way to the temptation to cut and run. 

The scholarship strongly suggests that the destruction of Elphinstone’s army in the retreat from Kabul in 1842 could well have been averted by judicious use of force and diplomacy. A 2008 disaster could be as well.  The threat of disaster today is in fact serious, though not exactly under the terms Jenkins describes. If the fair-weather elements among our European and Canadian allies succeed in their Afghan pullout, how far behind is the Iraq abandonment camp in the United States likely to be?

But first to facts. Contrary to Jenkins’ claim, the combat troops in Afghanistan have been taking the fight to the enemy. Overlooked by Jenkins is the inconvenient truth that the Taliban is getting its ass kicked; is despised by the locals in the areas it controls, as was seen in the fall of Musa Qala; and as with al-Qaeda, the Taliban’s “successes” are largely limited to the mass slaughter of civilians by suicide bomb.  As the AP was unable to avoid mentioning when it bemoaned the violence of 2007, of an estimated 6,000 Afghans killed in the Taliban’s year of resurgence, about 5,000 were Taliban and most of the rest were innocents killed by Taliban terrorism.  Jenkins also makes no mention of reports that the Afghan Army is growing in its numbers and effectiveness, or that Afghans, in those places where security has allowed development, are enthusiastic about the roads, schools and clinics that dramatically improve their lives. But it’s not clear where Jenkins is getting his information, let alone his conclusions:

George W Bush’s reckless elevation of Al-Qaeda after 2001 promoted a small group of alien Arab guests into global warriors for Islam. It also destroyed Islamabad’s hold over the Taliban. America bribed the Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf with $1 billion a year to declare a U-turn and fight his former allies.

That’s a curious claim. I thought it was the successful attacks on the Khobar Towers, USS Cole, the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and the Madrid and London subway systems, plus all the jihadi nose-thumbing, that elevated the alien Arabs into Islamic rock stars. As for Islamabad’s hold on our former anti-Russian allies, that was working well. 

Musharraf duly broke his non-intervention treaty with the Pashtun and sent his army against them. The Taliban’s influence increases with every attack and with every American bombing of villages. The Pakistan army is suffering greater losses in this war than either the British or the Americans.

True, lately.  Hardly devastating losses, militarily, however.  Maybe enough to convince the Pakistani military to increase its cooperation and allow more U.S. special operations forces into the tribal areas … something that may well be happening despite the public denials, as the Pak military has already expressed an interest in a heightened advisor role.

There is no sensible alternative to ending military operations against the Pashtun, flying under whatever flag. Like Iraq’s Kurdistan, Pashtunistan is a country without a state. It has been cursed by history, but it returns that curse with interest when attacked. Fate has now handed it a starring role in Britain’s nastiest war in decades, and offered it the power to wreck an emergent democracy of vital interest to the West.

To have set one of the world’s most ancient and ferocious people on the warpath against both Kabul and Islamabad takes some doing. But western diplomacy has done it. Now must begin the agonising process of escaping that appalling mistake.

Run! Last one to London’s a rotting corpse! Lords and ladies first! Sepoys, water carriers and camp followers be damned! Thin red line, form up at Gandamack, prepare to go to yer Lord like soljers! Make that a thin digital khaki line! Let the bloody Yanks do our dying for us!

Of course, there is little likelihood that Western troops would be massacred in a hasty 2008 withdrawal from Afghanistan.  It will be Afghans who will be slaughtered in large numbers for collaboration, and others who will have to live … beaten, tortured … and die under the renewed rule of the murderous Taliban. Al-Qaeda will again have free run of a failed state, and a victory to crow about. At which point, with Iran unchallenged and Iraq abandoned, we can look forward to a resurgence of the global jihad that for now, is being successfully suppressed and contained by our efforts. 

The fact is that in Britain and Europe, where governments are capitulating to Sharia demands, harboring jihadi sympathizers among their large Islamic immigrant populations and fighting rearguard actions against homegrow terrorism, they are already fighting on the beaches, the landing grounds, the fields and the streets, the hills … and should be contemplating what happens if they choose to surrender in the prime breeding grounds and support bases of global jihad.   

NEWS UPDATE: Fortunately, so far, not all Brits share Jenkins’ view. AFP:  

LONDON (AFP) — Britain wants some of its NATO allies to start pulling their weight more in Afghanistan, International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander said Sunday, ahead of crunch talks on the issue.

Germany and France are among the nations which have been criticised for failing to send forces to the areas where fighting is the most intense.

“We’ve made clear to our NATO partners that we do want to see appropriate burden sharing, not simply in terms of the number of troops on the ground, but where those troops are committed within Afghanistan,” Alexander told BBC television.

“It’s obviously a discussion that we’ve recognised we need to have with colleagues to make sure there is appropriate burden-sharing right across Afghanistan.”

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to visit Britain this week to discuss Afghanistan and NATO defence ministers are to hold an informal meeting in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on Thursday and Friday.

The United States has ramped up its attempts to get other countries to get stuck into fighting the Taliban insurgency in the battle-ravaged south of Afghanistan.

“… to get stuck into”  That’s an odd turn of phrase. The secretary for international development seems to think more troops can help, however.

“Notwithstanding all of the real challenges — poverty, narcotics, insurgency — we are making progress in Afghanistan,” Alexander said.

“It’s a desperately poor country.

“Where the roads end the Taliban begin.

“Where you have law and order and security you can eradicate poppies, and where you have insurgency it’s far more difficult.”

Topics: Iraq, Iran, al qaeda, Europe, Britain, Afghanistan, Canada, Pakistan

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:24 am on Sunday, February 3, 2008

5 Responses to “Great, Briton”

1. RebeccaH Says:
   February 3rd, 2008 at 2:22 pm

   Well, if you can’t force a defeat in Iraq, why not try Afghanistan?

2. Fatty Bolger Says:
   February 3rd, 2008 at 3:56 pm

   Brave Sir Euro ran away
   Bravely, ran away…away…
   When danger reared its ugly head
   He bravely turned his tail and fled
   Yes, brave Sir Euro turned about
   And gallantly he chickened out
   Bravely talking to his feet
   He beat a very brave retreat
   Bravest of the brave, Sir Euro

3. Michael Lonie Says:
   February 3rd, 2008 at 11:58 pm

   Fredegar, excellent.

4. Jules Crittenden » Ignorance is Brits Says:
   February 5th, 2008 at 12:59 am

   […] Yeah, sounds good in theory. It should count for something that Robin Hood and King Arthur may have been loosely based on real people, and that Richard the Lionhearted actually has a cameo in the Hood tale. Sure goes a long way to explaining this guy. […]

5. peacelikeariverblog.com » Afghanistan Study Group Report Says:
   March 22nd, 2008 at 8:41 pm

   […] and Afghan President Karzai rejected Lord Ashdown for the new role of international coordinator. As Jules Crittenden points out, there is cause for hope, though. Contrary to Jenkins’ claim, the combat troops in Afghanistan […]

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