You still haven’t answered the question what right you have to decide that a certain number of deaths are acceptable. Why should you, Brown, or anyone else decide that some Afghanis are dispensable in the name of liberalism?

At what figure would you give up and abandon the idea of pursuing a concept?

The argument that now less people are being killed than with the Taliban (or anyone else) in power is not only wrong, it is the height of liberal arrogance (that ‘we’ know what’s best for them).

The alternative isn’t simply ‘troops out now’, but acknowledging that the Great Liberal Crusade might actually have failed.

I think a “south Asian centric” view is fair enough. Such a view might ask why both India and Pakistan have far larger armies than they need, since no one else is likely to invade either country, and whether armies of that size stabilise or destabilise the region.

It might also notice that Pakistan has been partitioned once by force, and ask whether the region would enjoy more stability if its boundaries were redrawn on ethnic/cultural lines (i.e. the NWFP was allowed to go its own sweet way).

But perhaps it wouldn’t. Perhaps it would notice that Afghanis have conquered the subcontinent once already (and having done so ran it pretty successfully for longer than the Brits, let alone the current systems) and decide that there’s something in the water of those mountain streams…. or rather, some form of idiocy among those in power down on the plains which supposes you can do deals with Afghanis from which you, not they, come out the better off.

Two things. I note you don’t make much of the role in proxy wars the Americans had in the past, nor the role of British imperialism prior to that, Sunny. Pretty specifically relevant, in the US case, to the rise of fundamentalist Islam.

Also, as for setting up an Afghani militia, exactly why should we? This is a country run by warlords: the people we’re arming and organising are their supporters. How many instances of corruption, of fanaticism, of plain crime and of every kind of gender discrimination will we have to witness before we decide that, whether or not Afghanistan will always be the playground of the global bullies, at least our hands should be clean?

@1″it is the height of liberal arrogance (that ‘we’ know what’s best for them).”

Am I right to assume that all the Afghan women and men who were crushed into submission by the Taliban and who begged the West to intervene may have failed to arouse your interest?

@3

Hi Dave,
we all know that the US and the CIA have loads to answer for regarding their active fostering of the Taliban and a certain bloke called Bin Laden. Significant sections of the Left will be quite happy to remind you of that at every turn – and rightly so. Similarly, Muslim commentators and associations will waste no time in condemning the US-led invasion, shouting “GENOCIDE!” each time a US missile hits the wrong target.

All that is fair enough.

What isn’t, however, is that each time the Taliban slaughter civilians as if they were ants you don’t hear a single word in condemnation – unless we have a tendency to blink, that is. Last May’s reports of the Taliban’s umpteenth attack on a girls’ school, with 90 (ninety) of them gassed in one go, quite clearly failed to tickle the fancy of UK commentators and blogs alike of every political allegiance. Similar levels of apathy as last November, when Taliban attackers on motorbikes used water pistols to squirt acid in girls’ faces as they walked to school on the outskirts of Kandahar.

Why are people who fight foreign invaders referred to as insurgents? We have no business in Afghanistan and should get out now. A quick way would be to leave the utterly useless affair known as NATO.

Why are we there? Which is it? Perm any three.

To find bin Laden.

To protect women’s rights.

So when we realise that none (or even all) of the above provide the moral or political justification to invade another country and attack its people, Sunny now postulates a strategic interest in preventing war between India and Pakistan!!!

Surely it’s only a matter of time before we are told that invading Afghanistan is a more cost effective method of training the military than running exercises at home- that’s why we’re there.

The fact remains that we have no more of a moral right to occupy Afghanistan and try to impose liberal democracy on its people than al-Qaeda or the Taliban have to invade the UK in an attempt to impose an Islamic dictatorship here. By doing so we are alleging that our world view is innately superior the theirs- and that makes us the fundamentalists. I am surprised that more people on the liberal left do not seem to understand this.

In fact, as long as we are there, we give moral legitimacy to radical Muslim terrorists to attack us.

Really, we do.

Sunny, one of the feature sentiments of Gordon Brown’s speech yesterday was to make it clear that the British army would be there, hopefully, to oversee the creation of a new independent Afghani military. And I think, now, it would take nut-nut to expect a British pullout now.

But what was so different in your CiF article and Salman’s entry? He’s a little more to the view that the occupation has done more to hinder the creation of an independent military and government I suppose. Though, If you support the overthrow of the Taliban, realise that feminist enlightenment wouldn’t be an overnight phenomena, can see the shortcomings of foreign occupation but know it ever more problematic if Britain left now, then this is not such a controversial point, even from a leftwing standpoint.

On ways around the problem of where the British army stand Salman’s entry was a little weak, but he admits this himself. So what possible solution could please both views (which in my mind more or less accounts for both level-headed views of Afghanistan, that is the question of whether we should’ve gone is irrelevent now in a sense, the question is what are we doing there, and how best to secure an independent military/govt).

For me in an entry I looked into the US military strategy of containment which is the position between “appeasement” (compromise through negotiation) and “rollback” (military force to destroy the enemy at its root), usually referred to when talking about US military strategy of carefully watching the expansion of the Soviet Union in the hope that this would relax its tendencies. The way in which this could be appropriated in Afghanistan is if we (owing to our proximity to the problem of the Taliban, they have their sites on Britian etc) limit our remit to overseeing the creation of an Afghani army/govt, and not try in any way to influence the creation of the infrastructure of those things.

The notion of invasion/propping up has not got a particularly good reputation, but I do however buy into Sunny’s notion that owing to Britain’s proximity to the danger of the Taliban, whether we liked the war or not, precludes our leaving now. Is containment a possible way in which to marry both Sunny and Salman’s views? Correct me if I’m wrong.

Carl, yes I think containment is right now the best we can hope for, while the Afghan army builds itself.

I’m not sure what Great Liberal Crusade I’m accused of being part of. I opposed Iraq vehemently.

You still haven’t answered the question what right you have to decide that a certain number of deaths are acceptable.

We’re there now – whether you like it or not. The question now is, will there be more deaths if we leave or stay? My point is clear. Also, you could also argue what right the Taliban had in trying to foster terrorism around the world?

Will respond to the other points later, I have to go out now..

So you really think that the Taliban would have killed and maimed more people than have experienced this since the NATO invasion? Seriously?

You also think that you have the right to determine that a certain number of deaths in the future in order to pursue a concept.

Also, you could also argue what right the Taliban had in trying to foster terrorism around the world?

They do? I thought it was Al Qaeda who did that.You learn something new everyday.

5. Claude.
Between 1979 and 1989, the CIA/USA, Saudi plus gulf countries, Pakistan /ISI and the UK supported various mujahadeen forces. The idea that beween 1979 and 1989 it was possible to predict that for Bin Laden would have produced al Qaeda is absurd. The rise of sunni jihadism was only an Egyptian problem after their defeat by Israel in 1973. The Muslim Bretheren opposed the secular arabic nationalism in Egypt and there support increased after 1973. The murder of the Sadat by the MB was in 1981, I expect was only considered an Egyptian problem. Bin Laden only became anti Saudi when the ruling family refused his support to fight Iraq, after the invasion of Kuwait . It would appear that it was Zawahari , formerly of the MB who changed bin Laden from taking an anti Saudi veiw to an anti western view.

The funding and propogation of Wahabi Islam in Pakistan from 1979, changed the nature of Islam to a far more intolerant and doctrinaire faith. The ISI funded and assisted the Taliban in order to take control of Afghanistan to given them depth in defence against India. Also, the control of Afghanistan by the Pushtun Taliban reduce India’s influence though it ‘s funding of the Northern Alliance .

It would interesting to know how many CIA officer were actually active in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989. Various comments have been along the lines that the ISI only allow their members to be active in Afghanistan and the CIA was largely confined to Peshawar. Apparently it was one of Sandy Galls cameramen who went into Afghanistan and saw anti western chants by mujahadeen members, who realised there was an anti western ethos present in addition to a resistance to the Soviets.

I would suggest that the ISI and Saudi Arabia have thoroughly hoodwinked the CIA /USA and the UK. Any permanent decline in the Taliban will only occur when the ISI turn on them and their funding from the arab countries is significantly reduced.

@Claude:

No, they don’t fail to arouse my interest, but I also don’t think that ‘killing to liberate’ is something I want to be involved in.

It also raises the issue of other places. Why not bomb them all?

Liberal interventionalism failed in Kosovo – morally and in real terms – and will continue to do so. It’s self-devouring and destructive.

olching – yes you do learn something new everyday.

Perhaps you weren’t aware of the impact the Taliban had in fostering and developing terrorist movements in South Asia which then moved over to Kashmir and started focusing their attention on India.

See, you learn something new every day.

So you really think that the Taliban would have killed and maimed more people than have experienced this since the NATO invasion? Seriously?

If they’d managed to provoke war between Pakistan and India, thanks to increased terrorism in the region (which is what was happening thanks to the training camps), yes.

I love how these anti-imperialists completely ignore what the hell was going on in the region before the NATO invasion.

Kind of what pagar said. Although I was amused to see him/her write: “Surely it’s only a matter of time before we are told that invading Afghanistan is a more cost effective method of training the military than running exercises at home- that’s why we’re there.” That’s pretty much what Christopher Hitchens said on Question Time a couple of years ago. Does he still think we’ll be fighting perpetual wars in Islamic countries? I forget where his opinion lies at the moment.

My problem is the hoary old chestnut – what does winning look like? And is it sustainable? Can we deliver women’s rights and democracy and border stability and eradicate the Taliban? Answer – probably not. Can we do it in (say) ten years? Definitely not. If we do deliver those things eventually and then leave, will they all be in place ten years after that? Maybe. But quite possibly not.

It’s not nice to surrender all those noble objectives. Especially not for the people who might benefit from their attainment. But having our army lurch around Helmand is not going to do the job, and has all manner of nasty side-effects.

Sunny,

First you say the Taliban fostered terrorism “across the globe” (thereby evoking the same images Brown, Blair, Bush and others have used to make a connection between the safety of the streets of Nuneaton and NATO bombings of Afghanistan…i.e. by bombing Afghanistan Nuneaton is safer), then you limit it to the region.

Of course I am aware of it. I am also aware of a bunch of other horrible goings-on across the globe, yet I don’t pray for NATO bombs to rain down on said countries. It was a mistake in Kosovo and it’s a disaster – a crime in fact – in Afghanistan.

If they’d managed to provoke war between Pakistan and India

Oh gawd. You are really stretching it now. Playing with ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ never looks good. Yes, if a crazed dictator took power in Malaysia and managed to acquire nuclear weapons with the only aim to nuke London, then London would be in danger. I think we better pre-empt that by nuking Malaysia.

But still, the central question: What moral right do you have to decide that certain deaths are acceptable and decide that certain people must die (for their own good of course!)?

I don’t know why, but the phrase ‘useful idiot’ is whirling around in my head.

<emFirst you say the Taliban fostered terrorism “across the globe”

No, I’m focusing on south asia here.

yet I don’t pray for NATO bombs to rain down on said countries.

No, I expect you were praying for peace between India and Pak to magically appear out of the hat, even though relations had started deteriorating since the Taliban became ascendant.

And anyway, the Taliban were a mercenary force funded by the Pakistani ISI – were you campaigning against that? I expect you weren’t.

what moral right do you have to decide that certain deaths are acceptable and decide that certain people must die (for their own good of course!)?

I didn’t say I did. But neither does the Pakistani intelligence. The choice is basically between a NATO force slowly giving up power, or a Pakistani funded Taliban gaining power. I’m stating a preference. You take it or you leave it.

Sunny is correct to raise the south east asia angle. The taliban have trained with jihadi forces undertaking acts of violence in Kashmir. Conflict over Kashmir have brought Pakistan and India to the brink of war. The taliban have enable terrorists from Indonesia , Phillipines and the various stans to be trained in camps of the Af/Pak border.
Sunny appears to be one of the few left wing/liberal commentators who realise the role of the ISI in the rise of the Taliban.

Charlie2 – Sunny isn’t one of a few to make the ISI link. Most people know that. Sunny is one of the few who thinks a British military presence in Afghanistan makes a blind bit of difference, long term, to either British or Afghan security.

So you really think that the Taliban would have killed and maimed more people than have experienced this since the NATO invasion? Seriously?

You don’t need to get into hypotheticals to argue this. It’s really a basic and uncontested fact amongst those who know anything about the country that the under the Taliban the violent death rate was about an order of magnitude higher than it is now. Remember, at the height of Taliban power, they never controlled as much of the afghan population as the Kabul government does. They always had groups fighting them that weren’t slipping about on motorbikes, but dug in with artillery.

War kills people, directly and indirectly, at a rate that has little correlation with what page, if any, it gets reported on in your daily newspaper.

Sunny is one of the few who thinks a British military presence in Afghanistan makes a blind bit of difference, long term, to either British or Afghan security.

I think we should stay there – but only so that it’s not just an American presence. I’d rather that more countries across the globe contributed to making Afghanistan safer.

My problem is the hoary old chestnut – what does winning look like? And is it sustainable? Can we deliver women’s rights and democracy and border stability and eradicate the Taliban?

Richard – I think any stability first requires the Pakistani intelligence to rid itself of the Taliban and stop supporting them. That will require a bit more time there and encouraging Pakistan to take a more pro-active role to secure its own borders and stop funding these groups.

Then the Taliban will immediately become a less potent force. The local Taliban groups, which are less affiliated with al-Qaeda and more Pashtun, and just want to get rid of the occupiers, can be co-opted as part of a federal govt looked over by Kabul. Not many of the Afghanis want to live under Taliban control either – we just need to kill off the funding for the latter. That requires forcing the Pakistani establishment to face up to their responsibility.

Sunny – I agree wholeheartedly that the big problem is the Pak forces that see value in keeping Afghanistan unstable and/or in control of client agencies. I’m really no expert on the region, but I can’t see how another foreign military presence will cause that policy to end (or do it any more effectively than diplomtic efforts directed at Pakistan).

I’d just like to know what event – which mission, which surgical strike, which battle – results in a “victory” that means we can end out military involvement confident that the situation won’t decay again within five years. My lack of expertise covers military matters as well as Asian politics, but I just can’t see how our existing activities will ever allow such a disengagement.

Sunny, – when you say ‘we’ presumably you don’t include yourself since most political commentators are a very long way from the sharp end?

Put another way – for those that have returned to the UK either dead or with horrific injuries would they (or their close family) say the cause was worth it?

At the present time I think we should set ourselves the more modest target of reducing the number of child torturers nearer to home.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/sep/03/doncaster-torture-case-brothers

@soru:

What you are saying is that NATO (or whoever acting in allegedly ‘good faith’) therefore has a certain number of deaths they can cause legitimately, since those people would have been killed anyway under the Taliban. In other words, no need to complain, since they’ve had a bigger bite at the cherry than they could have wished for.

Incredible. Absolutely incredible, and arrogant at that.

Sunny, – when you say ‘we’ presumably you don’t include yourself since most political commentators are a very long way from the sharp end?

We pay taxes don’t we? So we have a say on where our resources get allocated, yes? And I’m not completely oblivious to warfare – both my dad and my brother used to be in the army.

“In a thoughtful response to me, Salman Shaheen on Third Estate, argues essentially that the Afghanis will never accept foreign occupation. I agree. Which is why we need to develop an independent Afghani military and government, able to sustain itself in the face of the Taliban. Until that happens I’m happy to stay.”

The development of an independent Afghan military and government is important. But at the moment we’re achieving little more than propping up a puppet which will always be tarnished in the eyes of the Afghan people by its collaboration with Western occupation.

Opinion in Pakistan amongst people who have first-hand experience of Taliban imposed shari’ah and amongst the wider community, rightly tends towards the view that the militants and Islamists cannot be allowed to extend their influence. Sunny, you’re right to say that the Pakistani government has to deal with its own militant problem and this year’s push suggests they’re doing that. But were British or American forces to move into Pakistan to assist the government, popular opinion, I believe, would rapidly swing in favour of the Taliban against these new foreign aggressors. I think leaders in both the West and in Pakistan recognise that, which is why the Americans have restricted their efforts there to the odd missile attack, which itself has provoked a great deal of controversy.

Obviously we’re in Afghanistan now, and me sitting here saying ‘I told you this was a bad idea’ would be utterly pointless. Lasting solutions are needed. But as the occupation drags on year by year, at what point do you say this isn’t going to work? Are we really committed to 40 more years? What then? I may be wrong, but I really do believe, a few years down the line, we’ll be back here in this same position asking ourselves the same questions with an Afghan population every bit as resistant to foreign occupation and a puppet government which will crumble the moment we leave. I don’t relish the prospect of another civil war in the country, but I think it may be a matter of when, not if. If the Taliban is to be truly defeated, not just militarily but ideologically and structurally, it has to be defeated by the will of the Afghan people.

HELLMAND 2009

The air is thick with dust and flame, who started this? Who is to blame?
Shells and rockets rake the field yet neither side is like to yield
There’s no retreat, no going back, just blindly forward in attack
Men are wounded. Men lose limbs. And those who die we praise with hymns
Or stand to hear the lesson read, yet nothings changed, THESE MEN ARE DEAD

We strive to bring their bodies back in boxes draped in union jack
They’ve paid the price and given all but their pay is stopped from when they fall
These fathers’ lovers’ brothers sons have fallen to each other’s guns
Do politicians really care, they might if they were fighting there
They praise all those who serve our nation yet try to cut their compensation

It’s never those whom nations lead get stuck in hell to die or bleed
They just cajole our sons and brothers to go to war and murder others
Both sides’ young men fall for the trick. Greed, religion, politic
That foreign Johnny turban clad is really just an Afghan lad
Who with religious hatred filled joined the fray was quickly killed

Likewise the lad in kaki gear is just a lad from over here.
Courageous, patriotic, smart he volunteers to play his part
He leaves behind his child and wife and goes abroad to lose his life
The Commons reads his name aloud saying that we should be proud
Should we be proud when we’re to blame

NO WE SHOULD HANG OUR HEADS IN SHAME

[25] “We pay taxes don’t we? So we have a say on where our resources get allocated, yes?” – does this argument apply to Iraq as well, if so I fear it is a rather weak argument.

I have always tried to abide by the principle that I would not ask others to do what I would not do myself – I just wish our political leaders recognised how much shit goes down because they seldom get THEIR hands dirty, nor do they suffer the same consequences (such as a missing limb) when things go horribly wrong a la Iraq.

@27

No attribution Roy. Did you write this?

If so, well done mate.

Well said.

‘soru, What you are saying is’

No, what I am saying is what I said.

soru @ 20,

I disagreed with you enough to call you a complete utter idiot, or worse, on Pickled Politics. Over Iraq death tolls if I remember correctly.

You were obviously wrong about that, you are obviously right here.

This should worry both of us.

Sadly I think it will only worry me.

Yes, the real world is not a simple place that can be handled with quick, emotional political sloganeering. Asking if you are in favor of more soldiers and civilians deaths is like asking if you still beat your wife. Simple yes,no answers just don’t cut it.

We need to enlist the support of the major countries ( Pakistan, India, Russia, Iran, China ) in the area who have even more to lose than we do from a radical, terrorist state in Afghanistan. It is only our problem because we have made it our problem and these countries are very happy to sit on the sidelines and watch us struggle. As long as we seem oblivious to the mutual interests available, we don’t take advantage of the force and influence available which could provide a satisfactory outcome.