Britain's part in Afghan War "disaster from the start"

As preface to the following analysis, this quote:
Downing Street was delighted with Barack Obama's ringing endorsement of the Anglo-American special relationship at the White House welcoming ceremony on Wednesday morning.
-- March 15, The Guardian

UK mission in Afghanistan - disaster from the start
March 13, 2012
The Guardian

A top priority for David Cameron and Barack Obama in their talks in Washington on Wednesday must be to convince the rest of the world that they really do want a political and strategic settlement in Afghanistan, and they want one soon. And it must be all-embracing and inclusive.

Senior Pakistani officials are correct when they say they have a special relationship with Afghanistan and no deal can be imposed on Kabul by the US. It is a legitimate argument, not only because of the activities of the Pakistan Taliban or Pakistan's role in exacerbating the insurgency in Afghanistan, but on the consequences of the Durand Line, that artificial boundary drawn up by a British official in the nineteenth century that cut through Pashtun tribal areas.

Serious talks must include all those who have a stake in Afghanistan's future. They should include Russia - increasingly concerned about the supply of heroin and a potential threat posed by Islamic militants in Afghanistan's northern neighbours, notably Uzbekistan - Iran, India, and China.

To demand as a matter of urgency a geopolitical and security settlement of the conflict in Afghanistan is in no way a kneejerk response to the killings of innocent killings by a US soldier of Afghan civilians, nine of them children.

It has been evident for a long time, whatever British and American generals say, that the presence of thousands of their troops in Afghanistan is contributing nothing to the national security of the UK or the US. On the contrary. Meanwhile, within Afghanistan, poverty and hunger abound.

Asked last month how he saw the situation in Afghanistan, Reto Stocker, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delgation in the country replied: "Many Afghans simply say they want to leave their homeland. And they are questioning what has really improved over the past 10 years of conflict. Of course a lot of things have changed. There have been improvements to infrastructure and communications, to name only two areas.".

Stocker added: "But for the vast majority of the population Afghanistan is still a country at war, and they see little hope of the situation getting better anytime soon. In many parts of the country, and across different social groups, from what we can judge, there is a widespread mood of desperation".

The highly respected commentator and author, Ahmed Rashid, wrote this week in the Financial Times: "Increasing numbers of Afghans would agree with what the Taliban have been arguing for almost a decade: that the western presence in Afghanistan is prolonging the war, causing misery and bloodshed."

Britain's military presence in Afghanistan was ill-conceived from the start. With ill-judged enthusiasm Tony Blair in 2001 said Britain would be responsible for eliminating the reliance on the opium poppy harvest.

Among the first serious problems British troops faced when they were deployed in their thousands to Helmand in 2006 was how to allay Afghan fears that their livelihood was about to be taken away from them. "We're not here to destroy the poppy harvest", assured the soldiers, anxious not to provoke further an Afghan population already deeply suspicious of the motives of those who sent in the foreign troops.

Opium poppy and heroin production in Afghanistan is now at record levels.

The troops were deployed to Helmand in 2006 at a time the British army and their commanders were desperate to make amends for the failure to establish law and order in Basra. Far from learning the lessons from Iraq, the mistakes were compounded.

British commanders sent to Afghanistan, like those before them in Iraq, were given no intelligence about what to expect. What intelligence was passed on to them was, if anything, misleading. Nato spokesmen, concerned about doubts expressed even then in parliaments and by public opinion in member states, downplayed the dangers. Ill-conceived though well-meant tactics were made up on the hoof by UK commanders, sometimes forced on them by local Afghan governors and warlords.

British commanders lacked no courage in the field, and their troops lacked no bravery - far from it. But they were reluctant to confront their political masters. To speak truth to power.