MZUBAIR
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Even the senior US general knows the war in Afghanistan is lost, so let's get out now
When the senior US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, says that without additional troops and a new strategy the Afghan war will likely result in failure, we should recognise we are entering the endgame. McChrystal made his revealing remarks last month, but they failed to inject any realism into Labours conference, nor is it likely the Tories will do any better. It really is time that public opinion asserted itself and insisted we withdraw from this insane conflict. The run-up to a general election is the one time when the public can exert some pressure on politicians.
McChrystals analysis was as close as a serving general can come to saying: We have been defeated. Of course we have. There was never any other prospect. More German troops? Theyre having a laugh, surely. Nato officials recently reported that German troops in Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan, had been so traumatised by suffering their first battlefield fatality since the Second World War that it was doubtful they had the mental strength to constitute an effective combat force.
One shudders to think what the Great Elector, Frederick the Great, Bismarck, Clausewitz and Hindenburg not to mention the Führer would have thought of this display of wimpishness by the Waffen Hairnets. If that is their morale level, Angela Merkels contemplation of sending reinforcements sounds more like a threat than a promise. One fatality: what about Britains 219 lives lost and many more hideously mutilated? Could one ask for a better encapsulation of relations between Britain and our Nato and EU allies?
It will be left, as usual, to the Americans and Brits to shovel the ordure to the last moment, constantly stabbed in the back by their politicians. McChrystal, who renewed his strictures in an address to the International Institute of Strategic Studies yesterday, frankly acknowledges the complete lack of confidence of Afghans in the corrupt Karzai government we foisted upon them. McChrystal wants 30,000-40,000 more troops: he has as much hope of reinforcements from Saudi Arabia. There is no alternative strategy, otherwise we would already have resorted to it.
The war is lost. The Taliban are returning to power. Karzai is bound for the gallows or, more likely, a heavily fortified villa in South America. The poppy trade is flourishing. The warlords and politicians are bloated with billions of pounds and dollars of Western taxpayers money. Instead of feeding more young British lives to the killing machine, to protect the egos of Gordon Brown and Bob Ainsworth, whose natural vocation was playing a grocer in an H G Wells adaptation, we should cut our losses and get out now.
When the senior US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, says that without additional troops and a new strategy the Afghan war will likely result in failure, we should recognise we are entering the endgame. McChrystal made his revealing remarks last month, but they failed to inject any realism into Labours conference, nor is it likely the Tories will do any better. It really is time that public opinion asserted itself and insisted we withdraw from this insane conflict. The run-up to a general election is the one time when the public can exert some pressure on politicians.
McChrystals analysis was as close as a serving general can come to saying: We have been defeated. Of course we have. There was never any other prospect. More German troops? Theyre having a laugh, surely. Nato officials recently reported that German troops in Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan, had been so traumatised by suffering their first battlefield fatality since the Second World War that it was doubtful they had the mental strength to constitute an effective combat force.
One shudders to think what the Great Elector, Frederick the Great, Bismarck, Clausewitz and Hindenburg not to mention the Führer would have thought of this display of wimpishness by the Waffen Hairnets. If that is their morale level, Angela Merkels contemplation of sending reinforcements sounds more like a threat than a promise. One fatality: what about Britains 219 lives lost and many more hideously mutilated? Could one ask for a better encapsulation of relations between Britain and our Nato and EU allies?
It will be left, as usual, to the Americans and Brits to shovel the ordure to the last moment, constantly stabbed in the back by their politicians. McChrystal, who renewed his strictures in an address to the International Institute of Strategic Studies yesterday, frankly acknowledges the complete lack of confidence of Afghans in the corrupt Karzai government we foisted upon them. McChrystal wants 30,000-40,000 more troops: he has as much hope of reinforcements from Saudi Arabia. There is no alternative strategy, otherwise we would already have resorted to it.
The war is lost. The Taliban are returning to power. Karzai is bound for the gallows or, more likely, a heavily fortified villa in South America. The poppy trade is flourishing. The warlords and politicians are bloated with billions of pounds and dollars of Western taxpayers money. Instead of feeding more young British lives to the killing machine, to protect the egos of Gordon Brown and Bob Ainsworth, whose natural vocation was playing a grocer in an H G Wells adaptation, we should cut our losses and get out now.
