Saying goodbye to Camp Bastion

[Devil Soul]

17 March 2014 Last updated at 05:07 GMT

Saying goodbye to Camp Bastion

By Jonathan BealeDefence correspondent, BBC News

After eight years in Afghanistan's Helmand province, British forces are packing up to go home

At one of the shops serving the troops in Camp Bastion there are plenty of reminders that this war is nearly over, at least for those who have travelled from Britain and America.

There are fewer goods on sale. Some of the items still in stock are on special offer. The souvenirs on display are still full price, but they too make clear that the end is now in sight.

There are drinks glasses with the message "Been there; Done that", while a mug reads "Happiness is Helmand in the rear view mirror".

Bastion was once a bustling military metropolis, in its sheer scale comparable to Reading. But it is now slowly becoming more of a ghost town.

Compounds that were once filled with tents or military vehicles lie empty. There are fewer men and women walking around in uniform, and the constant chopping of the air by helicopter blades has become more intermittent.

There are now 4,000 UK personnel in Afghanistan, down from 10,000 at the height of the conflict
While Bastion is gradually shrinking, most other British bases in Helmand have already disappeared.

At the height of the war, about 10,000 British military personnel occupied 137 bases across the province in southern Afghanistan.

As of today there are about 4,000 UK personnel occupying just two: The main operating base at Bastion and an observation post called Sterga 2, which provides a useful vantage point over the Helmand valley.

In the coming months Sterga will be handed over to Nato command with the British-led "Task Force Helmand" swallowed up into Regional Command South West with a US Marine Corps brigadier general in overall charge.

Lashkar Gah, a main operating base and the old British headquarters, has been handed over to the Afghans.

The buildings that until recently housed a British provincial reconstruction team are to become a health centre. Not that there will be any UK presence to witness the transformation when it happens.

Make no mistake: this is a complete withdrawal by the British from one of the most violent areas of Afghanistan.

"We have been sending out 20 or 30 containers a day and it is a nightmare, waking up thinking 'did this container go?'"
Camp Price was once home to 2,000 troops. Over the last few weeks it has been flattened. Chainsaws and diggers are the new weapons for British soldiers.

The saws are used to tear down the "Hesco" walls that once protected them, while the diggers level the ground. From dust to dust. Even the concrete barriers which became makeshift memorials, with graffiti honouring fallen comrades, have been taken away.

Capt David Goodman watches as the last shipping containers are lifted onto lorries. A total of 600 containers have left Price since October.

He says: "I am now dreaming of ISO containers. We have been sending out 20 or 30 a day and it is a nightmare, waking up thinking 'did this container go?'"

Legacy
Hardly anything has been left behind. Which raises questions about what will be the lasting legacy of British forces after eight years in Helmand and 448 British military deaths.

It is certainly not peace. As the last containers are loaded onto lorries at Camp Price you can still hear gunfire in the distance.

Lt Col Mike Caldicott of the Royal Logistic Corps led the last military convoy out of Price and it was probably one of the last logistic patrols in Helmand.

He is convinced they have made a difference. "I only wish that people at home could see the changes I have seen through my eyes," he says. "I think they would feel a lot better about the investment we have made."

That view contrasts with some of the soldiers we talked to who appear keener to dwell on going home than on what they leave behind.

One puts it simply: "Job done, get home". Another comments: "I will miss the sun, that is probably about it."

There is still a lot to be done, says the most senior British general in Afghanistan
Most of the soldiers we speak to believe they have made a difference. But you will not find many in uniform repeating the claim made by David Cameron last year that it is already "mission accomplished".

The most senior British general in Afghanistan, Lt Gen John Lorimer, says "extraordinary things have been achieved across the country". But when I ask him if it is "mission accomplished" he carefully avoids repeating the phrase.

Instead he says: "There is still a lot to be done." One senior British officer tells me that if Iraq was the A-level exam, Afghanistan is the PhD.

Back home, the assessment is probably more stark.

The current reticence over military intervention reflects the public's weariness of war.

More stable?
Margaret Evison lost her only son, Mark, in Helmand in 2009. She says she has had time to adjust to her loss but adds: "There is nothing in my mind that would justify my son's death."

On the wider question of what has been achieved she says she is not sure the British withdrawal comes at a time when Afghanistan is more stable.

As for David Cameron's assertion that it is "mission accomplished", her response is "Well he has to say that!"

Brig James Woodham will be the last commander of Task Force Helmand. He too says there is still a lot of work to do.

He believes there has been progress but admits that "ultimately history will be the judge of what has been achieved".

What seems strange is that after investing so much here for the past eight years there will soon be no British military presence at all to help write the final chapter.

 

[viper46]

fought for nothing, retarded since 13 years .... at last they will go back home and take rest with their family

 

[nangyale]

Imperial Exit
Britain’s Departure from Afghanistan
by BINOY KAMPMARK
Farewell to the British, as they leave the country that took their soldiers, and more than a sense of dignity. Forces are being withdraw (the popular term is drawn down, as if they were blinds) and it is hard to see the mission in Afghanistan as anything but another intervention that did not quite pan out well for the invader. At one point, 137 bases dotted Helmand province. In an operational sense, only two bases remain: Camp Bastion, the main base for UK personnel, and Observation Post Sterga 2. Lashkar Gah and Patrol Base Lashkar Gah Durai now find themselves in Afghan control, while MOB Price in southern Helmand province has been closed.

In the age of clumsy American hegemony, it is easy to forget that Britain has been involved in more wars than most countries, showing an insatiable appetite for meddling. Authors such as Philip Towle in his Going to War (2009) have pointed out how Britain’s culture has been one of interference, featuring noisy debates about whether one military action or the other could be justified. He rightly notes that the election of Tony Blair’s government in 1997 saw the adoption of the most interventionist stance by a Britain since the Boer War.

Even now, the language used by the UK Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, is one of distant interference for local interests. “Those service personnel who have served in Lashkar Gah and Lashkar Gah Durai and at MOB Price as part of successive UK brigades have made a huge contribution to the campaign which has safeguarded our national security at home” (PakTribune, Mar 18). This certainly stretches the idea of the national interest, but few were noticing.

The years of involvement of the British forces in Afghanistan, and to this can be added Iraq, revealed a series of failings that were imperfectly dealt with. Despite priding themselves on the art of counter-insurgency, British forces were found wanting. Their rotation policy was criticised. The battalion strengths were down. In January 2009, The Economist would argue that, “British forces are overstretched and have struggled to adapt to modern counter-insurgency campaigns.” And, just to add a stinging note, “The country’s most important allies, the Americans, are questioning Britain’s commitment and military performance.”

The latter point is particularly bruising, given the deep desire by British governments to keep company with their American counterparts in disastrous military missions. There is no shame in allowing Washington to bloody its imperial boots alone, but the very idea of allowing the US forces to wage war in single company was too much to stomach. Damn it, if Uncle Sam is spreading the good word through missile and faux humanitarianism, Britain should at least have a stake in how it could be done.

Throughout the campaign, the cloying language of humanitarianism couched military efforts. We live in an age of the protective principle, that ghastly expression of insincerity which masks violence. The Afghan people became the infants and adolescents of the enterprise. The language of the coalition presence was that of the powerful and noble helping the cripplingly weak. There can be no genuine sense of independence where inequality, both actual and imagined, is so acute.

It has therefore been imperative to praise the ability of the inept Afghan forces to assume command and take the battle to the Taliban. Most expect they will be outmatched and, eventually, outdone. What has been put in place will be torn up and torn down. Military officialdom is, however, keen to give a different picture. The invaders are still attempting to shape the narrative. For Britain’s Defence Secretary Philip Hammond, “The handover and closure of our bases across Helmand underlines the progress UK forces have made to increase security and stability across the province but also to build up the capability of the Afghan forces who will carry that work forward” (PakTribune, Mar 18).

The military enthusiasts would be rather peeved at the idea that the British forces are leaving Afghanistan as “combat ready”, a reversal of uses if ever there was one. Conventional wisdom dictates that a military force, in taking to battle, should be well equipped to begin with. As a report on the BBC (Jan 20) by the defence correspondent Jonathan Beale asserted, “It’s still unclear as to what they’ll have achieved, but one thing is certain – they leave much better equipped than when they first arrived.” The war satirists will be getting their scripts ready.

Through the Middle Eastern campaigns, the penny pinchers were operating, keen to keep Britain in war, but distinctly under-resourced. The recession was biting, the financial crisis cutting – but war was, well, war. The British soldier might well be able to stand up to anything – or so claimed George Bernard Shaw – “except the British War Office.” Bureaucrats at home wielding pen and signatures over budgets, and the Taliban in the battlefield saw Britain’s soldiers squeezed with merciless enthusiasm. Expensive military kit was being consistently overlooked in favour of the big killer toys, none of which were of particular use in Afghanistan. A submarine might thrill the nobs of White Hall, but it rarely gets you far in the desert.

Brigadier James Woodham, Commander Task Force Helmand, sees the handover as “a historic moment in the UK’s military campaign in Afghanistan.” In truth, it is merely another historical addition to the annals an Afghan incursion that lasted too long and cost too much. Afghanistan remains a siren for empires, calling them, then consuming their resources. Of all the forces, Britain should have known that the best. The dead from Major General Elphinstone’s Kabul retreat of 1842 were not consulted, let alone heeded.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

 

[Nishan_101]

17 March 2014 Last updated at 05:07 GMT

Saying goodbye to Camp Bastion

By Jonathan BealeDefence correspondent, BBC News

After eight years in Afghanistan's Helmand province, British forces are packing up to go home

At one of the shops serving the troops in Camp Bastion there are plenty of reminders that this war is nearly over, at least for those who have travelled from Britain and America.

There are fewer goods on sale. Some of the items still in stock are on special offer. The souvenirs on display are still full price, but they too make clear that the end is now in sight.

There are drinks glasses with the message "Been there; Done that", while a mug reads "Happiness is Helmand in the rear view mirror".

Bastion was once a bustling military metropolis, in its sheer scale comparable to Reading. But it is now slowly becoming more of a ghost town.

Compounds that were once filled with tents or military vehicles lie empty. There are fewer men and women walking around in uniform, and the constant chopping of the air by helicopter blades has become more intermittent.

There are now 4,000 UK personnel in Afghanistan, down from 10,000 at the height of the conflict
While Bastion is gradually shrinking, most other British bases in Helmand have already disappeared.

At the height of the war, about 10,000 British military personnel occupied 137 bases across the province in southern Afghanistan.

As of today there are about 4,000 UK personnel occupying just two: The main operating base at Bastion and an observation post called Sterga 2, which provides a useful vantage point over the Helmand valley.

In the coming months Sterga will be handed over to Nato command with the British-led "Task Force Helmand" swallowed up into Regional Command South West with a US Marine Corps brigadier general in overall charge.

Lashkar Gah, a main operating base and the old British headquarters, has been handed over to the Afghans.

The buildings that until recently housed a British provincial reconstruction team are to become a health centre. Not that there will be any UK presence to witness the transformation when it happens.

Make no mistake: this is a complete withdrawal by the British from one of the most violent areas of Afghanistan.

"We have been sending out 20 or 30 containers a day and it is a nightmare, waking up thinking 'did this container go?'"
Camp Price was once home to 2,000 troops. Over the last few weeks it has been flattened. Chainsaws and diggers are the new weapons for British soldiers.

The saws are used to tear down the "Hesco" walls that once protected them, while the diggers level the ground. From dust to dust. Even the concrete barriers which became makeshift memorials, with graffiti honouring fallen comrades, have been taken away.

Capt David Goodman watches as the last shipping containers are lifted onto lorries. A total of 600 containers have left Price since October.

He says: "I am now dreaming of ISO containers. We have been sending out 20 or 30 a day and it is a nightmare, waking up thinking 'did this container go?'"

Legacy
Hardly anything has been left behind. Which raises questions about what will be the lasting legacy of British forces after eight years in Helmand and 448 British military deaths.

It is certainly not peace. As the last containers are loaded onto lorries at Camp Price you can still hear gunfire in the distance.

Lt Col Mike Caldicott of the Royal Logistic Corps led the last military convoy out of Price and it was probably one of the last logistic patrols in Helmand.

He is convinced they have made a difference. "I only wish that people at home could see the changes I have seen through my eyes," he says. "I think they would feel a lot better about the investment we have made."

That view contrasts with some of the soldiers we talked to who appear keener to dwell on going home than on what they leave behind.

One puts it simply: "Job done, get home". Another comments: "I will miss the sun, that is probably about it."

There is still a lot to be done, says the most senior British general in Afghanistan
Most of the soldiers we speak to believe they have made a difference. But you will not find many in uniform repeating the claim made by David Cameron last year that it is already "mission accomplished".

The most senior British general in Afghanistan, Lt Gen John Lorimer, says "extraordinary things have been achieved across the country". But when I ask him if it is "mission accomplished" he carefully avoids repeating the phrase.

Instead he says: "There is still a lot to be done." One senior British officer tells me that if Iraq was the A-level exam, Afghanistan is the PhD.

Back home, the assessment is probably more stark.

The current reticence over military intervention reflects the public's weariness of war.

More stable?
Margaret Evison lost her only son, Mark, in Helmand in 2009. She says she has had time to adjust to her loss but adds: "There is nothing in my mind that would justify my son's death."

On the wider question of what has been achieved she says she is not sure the British withdrawal comes at a time when Afghanistan is more stable.

As for David Cameron's assertion that it is "mission accomplished", her response is "Well he has to say that!"

Brig James Woodham will be the last commander of Task Force Helmand. He too says there is still a lot of work to do.

He believes there has been progress but admits that "ultimately history will be the judge of what has been achieved".

What seems strange is that after investing so much here for the past eight years there will soon be no British military presence at all to help write the final chapter.

US should give away 5000-7000 Humvees to Afghan Force as 13000 MRAPs are going in Pakistan.