Another six pointless deaths
I am prompted to write by the news of the deaths of another six servicemen in Afghanistan. Are these ultimately pointless?
Of course logically it should make no difference if there had been six single deaths spread over the next month, but still the number in one incident does bring home the tragedy.
The only justification for sending forces to America is the protection of the interests of “the West” in general and the national interests of the United Kingdom in particular. After 9/11 that was in my view very simply the destruction of the Al Qaeda cells and leadership that had visited mass murder on the world. That was and is a legitimate aim. But then what? Did it in fact involve any protracted presence in Afghanistan at all?
The idea seems to have been that in establishing some form of democratic government with respect for the rule of law. This would, so to speak, dry up “the swamp” in which radical and aggressive Islamists could breed their own particular form of nihilistic terror.
I can see the sense, but I have always feared the strategy is fundamentally flawed. Having a passing interest in history, I have always taken the view that whilst the precise events are never replicated, history does repeat itself. That is because the human condition never changes. Each generation assumes that it is the only one to know anything, but of course the same blunders, urges, lusts and greed apply.
By the same token I would argue that there are certain rules, or laws, that can be drawn from history. For example, there will always be boom and bust. Like so many immutable psychological principles that is illustrated the Bible in allegorical form, in the story of Pharaoh’s dream of seven lean cattle eating seven well favoured cattle, as interpreted by Joseph (Genesis 41 and following).
Hence the extraordinary hubris of Gordon Brown in claiming that he had abolished it. As ever the dread hand of ironic Fate was to prove him wrong as beneath his very feet the foundations of the banks were being gnawed away by the rats within…
But I digress…
Here are three other Iron Laws.
First, never fight a war on two fronts. Simple enough, but politicians have a peculiar love of doing it with other people’s sons. So, for example, no sooner had the West blundered into the quagmire that is Afghanistan than we were up and running in Iraq, thus making it unable to concentrate money, men and material on one problem.
Second, never invade Russia. It is too big and its people are too resilient. Napoleon tried, and failed. Hitler thought he knew better, He did not. He violated the previous law as well, of course.
Third, the Law of Unintended Consequences (sometimes referred to on this blog as SadButMad’s Law). Which is a rather open ended law, but valid. Please supply your own examples.
Here is the fourth law which I advance.
Never get involved in Afghanistan.
It is sometimes said that Alexander the Great conquered Afghanistan, but I take that with a pinch of salt. It seems to me he marched an army about it in his usual peripatetic style, but that is not the same thing at all.
Afghanistan has always been a wild, backward, dysfunctional, violent and corrupt place. Its one uniting feature is an overwhelming hatred of the foreigner. It is a nation which is, as it seems to me, defined by being a place where nobody really wants to go to. I take on board all the usual geo-political analyses about it lying at an unfortunate confluence of Russia, China and India (formerly under British control, of course).
But, with an apology to those of delicate sensibilities, I will advance a slightly robust description of what Afghanistan is.
It is in soldier’s terminology it is not a country, it is a s***hole.
There have been 11 years of operations in Afghanistan now. That is nearly twice the length of the Second World War. Schools have been built, roads mended, sweets handed out. And what we have is a corrupt government which probably has no more authority in many parts of the country than does your humble scribe.
The drugs trade is still rampant and the backbone of the economy. Crazed men still rage about some books being accidentally burned, women still have their noses cut off for going to school.
When we leave – and it is a when – it will go on being a wild, backward, dysfunctional, violent and corrupt place. In short “the mission” will have failed.
What do I offer as an alternative?
Afghanistan is part of a wider problem, namely the rise of violent and aggressive strains of Islam across a region of the East stretching from Iran and to Pakistan and beyond.
It seems to me that the only threat this poses to the West is via its curious propensity to have porous borders and let in terrorists like Abu Qatada.
There was a strategy well known and understood in the grim Cold War times, called containment. It was simply making sure the Soviet Union was kept within its borders, and watch and wait until the unhealthy and unworkable structure ultimately collapsed. Perhaps we should consider the same. A policy of strict disengagement. Nothing in, nothing out. Awkward of course given the strong links of many citizens of this country with Pakistan, but there we go.
Keep out of the swamp until it is ready to be drained?
Gildas the Monk
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March 7, 2012 at 12:01 -
My godson is in Helmand.
They know that being there is absolutely pointless, but are nevertheless determined to take care of their mates and be as professional soldiers as they can possibly be………until those useless pricks in Whitehall pull them out.
They have great comradeship, and great respect for the fighting Afghan.
p.s.
Your post should have read;
“Never invade Russia because it’s too big, its people are too resilient ……………and because its leaders are fully prepared to to sacrifice its people with human wave tactics and if necessary kill just as many of their own people as the enemy to force the point.”
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March 7, 2012 at 12:16 -
———The only justification for sending forces to America is the protection of the interests of “the West” in general and the national interests of the United Kingdom in particular.————-
America?
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March 7, 2012 at 12:16 -
“…it is not a country, it is a s***hole.”
Something that could be said of so many places we’ve been in, and those we are still being encouraged to meddle in too.
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March 7, 2012 at 12:23 -
My Grandfather fought in Afghanistan, and I am old.
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March 7, 2012 at 12:30 -
Not a very original Rule Four. (Why do so many causes founder on Rule / Clause Four?) Harold Macmillan formulated it slightly differently when he said “Never invade Afghanistan”.
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=906794 -
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March 7, 2012 at 12:30 -
An excellent post Gildas.
I hope your godson and his mates come home safe, sound and soon, Spiral Architect.
Part of the cause of Afghanistan’s instability is the incorrect placement of its eastern boundary. Pakistan’s tribal areas should be ceded to Afghanistan to put the Pashtuns in one country instead of straddling two aid sumps. Coincidentally, India should cede Kashmir to Pakistan.
And then we should mind our own business. -
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March 7, 2012 at 12:57 -
Even comedies know the fourth classic blunder: ‘Never get involved in a land war in Asia’
I can see Gildas’ point on containment and this sort of dysfunctional state and the kinds of religious extremism it produces will collapse down on itself. However…. the containment thing is a bit trickier than it was in the Cold War days. The fallout from the collapse of Somalia is now impacting shipping over an increasing area. That is not to say that I agree with the continuation of UK troops in Afganistan. I don’t. It seems to me inevitable they will leave before what we would call democracy is established and that their presence there now is simply window dressing for politicians. And that’s a piss-poor reason for troops to lose their lives.
A related question: has there ever been a case when democracy has been successfully established by a force from outside a country? Aren’t existing democracies the result of each country’s own efforts?
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March 7, 2012 at 13:29 -
Excellent points. Of course, there is plenty to be said against my containment point. It might be argued that it would be like putting a fence around the swamp, but the mosquitos would still come out…
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March 7, 2012 at 15:02 -
I always laugh at the suggestion that democracy can be imposed upon a nation. I recall an old sci-fi book by Jack Vance where interplanetary explorers were lectured about the impossibility of imposing democracy. It is equally futile attempting to export values across this tiny planet. We have forgotten what our mission is, containment is the brightest suggestion yet.
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March 8, 2012 at 02:44 -
I remember a post (maybe here?) to the effect that imposing a multi party system with universal franchise is NOT the same as “democracy”
A democratic state has a number of other attributes. Rule of law, property rights, an open judicial system, a civil service that is not corrupted and a free press. (there may be others but you get the gist)
We (the west generally) have taken several hundred years to get to the current position (and many woudl argue we do not actually have a succesful democracy yet)
So to think we can use our fighting resources to establish all the above is folly.
I think containment and public ridicule of their cult (sorry – religion of peace) is a better option.
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March 7, 2012 at 13:22 -
The Icelanders have started a new trend which I should like to see extended. Their previous PM is on trial for economic mishandling of their economy. Well, can we not take a new look at Brown, Blair and Balls? And as for Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya there are a line of politicians who could stand trial. The wealth lost to the nation by these three campaigns added to the wealth lost by reckless economic mismanagement, and the endless plundering of the treasury by the public sector, from MPs subsidised bars and restaurants to large bonuses to firemen, policemen, civil servants quango managers, teachers and councillors, would be justification for imprisonment of swathes of our oppressive political class. It is not as if any of these bonuses are for achievement, and as for the loss of life and mutilation of our servicemen, there are criminal offences to answer.
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March 7, 2012 at 14:01 -
It would have cost much less (than the military operation) and saved ALL those killed soldiers lives to have just bought up the opium crops, even at above the market rate. Result? – no deaths of British soldiers, much less heroin on our streets (and therefore plenty of it for medical opiates), and no utterly pointless attempts to educate Afghanis in western “civilisation”. It’s their country – why & by what right do we interfere?
After all the previous failed attempts to pacify Afghanistan over the last 150 years, you’d think these salient lessons from history would be considered by our dear leaders… -
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March 7, 2012 at 14:41 -
I was glued to the Channel 5 documentary on the war in Afghanistan, made by Chris Terrill. As an ex-serviceman I empathised with the plight that the Marines (in this instance) found themselves in… miserable conditions, bad food, boiling hot and bloody dangerous. When setting out on patrol, the Marines referred to the practice of walking a random patrol pattern, in an attempt to avoid setting fixed routes and thereby exposing the patrol to a greater threat from IED’s as playing ‘Afghan Roulette’.
Curiously, none of those spoken to had the slightest personal doubts about being there, nor that they were attempting to do something positive for the people of Afghanistan.
I think the moral arguments of why they are there or whether their presence does anything to protect us went over their heads and, from a personal point of view, when I was in their position I did not refuse to fight or to question why I was being asked to do a particular thing, I got on with it, because that was my job. If I was still in my previous occupation there is a very good chance that I would have been there myself…
I feel that to overly criticise the efforts of our military, is wrong. They are waging a war against a ruthless enemy, who does not follow the established rules, and with the politicians tying one of their hands behind their backs, by giving them a set pull out date and extremely strict rules of engagement that do not really cater for the spontaneous nature of the fighting there. It is incredibly difficult to tell friend from foe when friend may be foe, clad in the same garb, in a few moments time…
Whatever the rights or wrongs of the campaingn, the guys doing the fighting should feel that they are getting 100% public support.
I accept that many soldiers/marines/airmen either choose not to go, or go once and do not go again. There are, however many examples to the contrary. For example, one very brave Marine – Corporal Paul Vicey was on his fourth (4th) tour of Afghanistan and had previously done two tours in Iraq… He was not a ‘shrinking violet’ and could be seen in the thick of the fighting whenever the team came into contact, leading by example.
He knew that he had pushed his luck far too often.
Corporal Vicey was subsequently blown up by an IED, died twice on the helicopter back to Camp Bastion; it took 14 pints of blood to stabilise him, he had 130 staples holding his neck together, has suffered brain damage, is deaf in one ear and his future as a Marine is looking bleak but… he averred he would head straight back there… if he were able and if his wife (at 28 he is the father of four) had not threatened to divorce him!
Another young lieutenant, Simon Maxwell, on his first tour and now missing a leg, courtesy of an IED has no plans whatsoever to give up active service and a career in the military. He is training for an Iron Man competition at the moment…
It is guys like this that should make the rest of us ashamed to criticise their sacrifice. No amount of bleating will change the mind of the politicians in any event, unless there is a massive groundswell of public opinion against the war and that is unlikely to happen. Despite the advances in communications it is still too far away and people are generally too busy with their own lives.
That the mission will undoubtedly fail is, unfortunately, inevitable, given the backward nature of the country and the rabble that the British and the Americans are trying to train to take their place, but it will not be for want of trying, on the part of the soldiers, marines and airmen (and women) on the ground.
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori…? Perhaps not, but anyone who does, or who is maimed deserves the utmost respect from all of us.
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March 7, 2012 at 15:20 -
Certainly Frankie I would be the last to disrespect the young men and young women who are out there in awful conditions, risking life and limb. I watched the Chris Terrill documentary too. Could I play “Afghan Roulette”? No bloomin’ way.
The question is: are the efforts of these brave men and women in vain? I don’t purport to provide an answer really, but I do strongly believe the campaign has been ill thought through and may well achieve very little in the end.
Lions led by donkeys again?
G-
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March 7, 2012 at 18:04 -
@Gildas: You are right again regarding the motive and the probable outcome and I did not detect any disrespect directed toward them from your good self but… it is a fine line to be trod – questioning their presence and bemoaning the loss of life, set against what, for many of those young men is the finest moments of their lives, sometimes their final ones too.
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March 7, 2012 at 18:15 -
I rather agree with both of you. The troops are desperately brave (much better than I would ever be) but their mission is doomed and the politicians are evil for keeping them in theatre, eleven years later.
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March 7, 2012 at 19:58 -
Human beings frequently have their finest moments in terrible situations. War is generally a terrible situation whether the reason for it is noble or ignoble. And it certainly brings out the worst in people but it can also bring out the very best, moments of clear selflessness. I can entirely agree that men and women in the armed forces have a loyalty to one another that is quite exceptional. It has always been so – many WW1 soldiers hospitalised for shell shock were desperate to get back to the front line because of their comrades, not because of any strength of feeling about the war.
I do not think it is a fine line I am treading when I criticise a war whose original scope has not just crept but galloped over its original purpose. There is no sense in which that is intended to reflect on the armed forces out there. One of the things they defend is the freedom in our country to do criticise our politicians. I just don’t think that is what is happening in Afganistan. Many good things are happening, but not that. And when the deployment ends in 2014, a lot of the work that the armed forces are doing out there for ordinary people out there will collapse. Not because the work is shoddy but because the governance will not be in place.
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March 8, 2012 at 12:12
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March 7, 2012 at 15:10 -
The British Empire, in its pomp, tried and failed twice to take control of Afghanistan – the USSR collapsed as a result of trying to build a corridor of influence through their lands.
The Afghanis have two things on their side – an implacable will and an unsurpassed knowledge of the terrain.
The only people who ever invaded Afghanistan with any success were the hippies in the 60s who just wanted to smoke the Afghan temple balls and buy their art.
I would hope if someone decided that it was in our interest that the British Isles were invaded and subdued, that we would emulate the actions of the Afghanis – treating them as a medieval, tribalistic society that deserves our contempt is a mistake that has been made too often. -
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March 7, 2012 at 17:40 -
Gildas, will you remind your readers how many of the British MPs who voted for military action in Afghanistan, have lost their lives in the conflict.
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March 7, 2012 at 20:58 -
Every single serviceman and woman involved in the Afghan venture deserves our utmost respect and, when paying the ultimate price, our deepest appreciation and sympathy. They have conducted the nasty job they were given with honour, commitment and pride. But….
The venture itself is, and always has been, destined to fail. Its stated objective, repeated today by the Defence Minister, was to protect Britain from terrorist attacks. So what has it achieved ?
All it has done is cause the terrorists to move operations temporarily to other sympathetic locations (Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia etc.), pending the advertised withdrawal of Western troops from their ‘home’. It was never going to be feasible to install any democratic or uncorrupt government in Kabul, the place doesn;t work that way. Once the foreign troops have left, the Taliban and Al Queda will return and resume where they left off. Nothing the puppet-idiot in Kabul could do will change that, even if he wanted to.
If the Blair and subsequent UK governments had really wanted to ‘protect Britain from terrorist attacks’, they would have been better advised to spend just a fraction of the money (and none of the 400+ wasted lives) reinforcing our notoriously porous borders. With rigorous border control (and with that sort of money, boy could it be rigorous), we would not now have the extradition farce with Abu Quatada, and all other illegal entrants, terrorist or otherwise, would have been deterred and detected before even setting foot here.
It is never possible to chase terrorists around every corner of the world, but it is possible to secure the coastline of a very small island nation with a very large military – so why did they get it so wrong ? And why have more than 400 honourable troops already had to die for that fundamental error ?
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March 8, 2012 at 08:50 -
The terrorists are in The City State of Washington DC, The City State of London and The City State of The Vatican – nowhere else.
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