I assumed, wrongly, that a desire among ordinary Afghans for peace would prevail over the prospect of continued war

I love this sort of construction – it’s as if anyone who opposes our presence there must, by definition, not be an “ordinary Afghan”. Presumably he thinks the Afghan Taliban come from Mars or something. Who the hell does he think we’re fighting?

@Dunc

We’re fighting radical Islamism. Do you believe that ordinary Afghans are all radical Islamists? That would put you in the Mad Mel camp.

No, of course I don’t believe all “ordinary Afghans” are radical Islamsists. Equally, I do not believe that all “ordinary Afghans” are opposed to the radical Islamists. I believe that “ordinary Afghans” are about as diverse in their social, political and religious opinions as any other similarly sized population. Some are radical Islamists. Some are not, but oppose our presence there for other reasons. Some want us there. Some desire peace above all, others are willing to fight and die to advance whatever they believe their interests to be.

It’s all really quite easy provided you remember that we’re talking about people.

Lucky for the Welsh that OBL was not thought to be hiding out in Snowdonia post 9/11. Or maybe after 7/7 we should have invaded Leeds?

If Afghanistan sent troops to the UK with the intention of getting rid of our liberal democracy and replacing it with a tribal system of government would it be legitimate to resist?

This is the most stupid phoney war in history.

Can anybody even give me the name of one Afghan terrorist?

@2 “We’re fighting radical Islamism”

Do you really believe all the people fighting the British Army in Afghanistan are “radical Islamists”? What an absurd mistake to make – believing your own propaganda.

We never went in Afghanistan to fight terrorists per se. We went in as retaliation for the Taliban’s support for terrorism and for 9/11. That is just fact.

As I recall it, we didn’t exactly “go in” to overthrow the Taliban – we simply gave large amounts of guns, money, and support (both military and diplomatic) to a faction of absolute bastards who just happened to be opposed to the faction of absolute bastards currently in power, then moved on to invading Iraq. It’s only more recently (i.e. since the fall of the Taliban “government”, and more particularly since we started moving troops out of Iraq) that we’ve become significantly involved in the actual fighting.

Do correct me if that’s not the case.

“We went in as retaliation for the Taliban’s support for terrorism and for 9/11.”

Yes, except the Taliban had precious little to do with 9/11 – http://www.gregpalast.com/taliban-911-afghanistan-by-hypnosis/#more-3012

There’s quite a good spat going on between Craig Murray and a mid-level banker from the Daily Kos over the role of Central Asian gas in the decision to keep on hanging in there in Afghanistan http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/11/the_sinister_di.html#comments

Can anybody even give me the name of one Afghan terrorist?

No takers. OK I’ll ask an easier one.

Can anybody give me the name of a terrorist who has ever been trained in Afghanistan?

If not, can someone please explain to me how fighting this war will prevent terrorism?

Sometimes, I feel as if I am looking at a naked emperor and everyone around me is admiring his clothes.

Paddy Ashdown (is he Liberal enough for you?) says that if the Taliban take control of Afghanistan again it will be ‘inevitable’ (repeated twice) that Pakistan will also fall to the Taliban. That means the Taliban will have the Islamic Bomb, so you can say goodbye to a few Indian cities at a stroke, then World War III kicks off. Worth fighting to prevent? Yup.

Interesting angle Tony and worthy of debate.

But not a rationale I’ve heard from Brown or Obama.

Why?

So much for the Afghan National Army.

“There are almost no recruits from the south,” said Gen. Ali Ahmed to the Observer in July, noting that when villagers do come in contact with ANA, the Pashtuns see them as an “army of occupation” primarily composed of ethnic Tajiks. Indeed, the majority of ANA officers are Tajik …..

http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2009/10/26/afghan-army-mia/

As for the idea of scrutinising the muslim population ever closer, I don’t think there’s too much need for alarm (unless the security services are totally incompetent).
If they get information about some individuals being suspect, it shouldn’t take too much to decide what level of risk (or none) they pose.
If they turn out to be benign Islamists, and they get a security file because of that, then tough really. MI5 will hardly want to bother looking into the lives of ordinary muslims who are just going about their everyday lives.