A new book by Frank Ledwidge, a former military intelligence officer, shows that since 2001 444 British soldiers have died and more than 2,600 have been wounded, in a war that will have cost us at least £40bn by 2020. And to what end? The task was to flush out al-Qa’eda, but Qa’eda has long gone: for the past decade we’ve been fighting the Taliban, who’ve “never shown the slightest interest in attacking Western streets”. Far from enhancing our security, the presence of British troops in Afghanistan has led jihadis to cast us as “infidel occupiers”. It’s not as if our efforts have helped transform Afghanistan. After eight years, our troops have “stabilised” three of the 14 districts in Helmand, itself one of 34 Afghan provinces – the equivalent, as Ledwidge puts it, “of three large market towns in Lincolnshire”. And if we can’t help Kabul broker a workable power-sharing deal before our departure next year, even those modest gains will evaporate.
(Adapted from an article by James Fergusson in The Independent on Sunday)
Those who know any history desperately tried to warn the ill-advised powers that be not to invade Afghanistan. Sadly, we have been proved correct. Actually, this is the third time the British will have left Afghanistan with their tails between their legs. Think what could have been done with £40 billion!
444 people have been killed and 2,146 wounded. It has cost the UKfour times what Iraq cost. Al Queda is weakened, but the Taliban are on a roll, opium production is soaring, and so is violence. The invasion was accompanied by grandiosity about military capability, naivete, misinformation about the Afghans and preoccupation with maintaining the so-called “special relationship”, a term that seems little known in Washington. The question should not be “should the British have done it”. The question should be “in what way is it in the British national interest to follow the US like a blind puppy dog into every damn fool escapade led by the ignorant”.