Tuesday, July 21, 2009

We Americans Can’t Face the Truth about Afghanistan - Yet

The English, however, are always ahead of the curve.

"Hell is truth seen too late...duty neglected in its season."
- Tryon Edwards
I hate to be negative. It would be quite irresponsible of me to be deliberately negative. Every time I write about foreign lands, far from my quiet central California coast, I say to myself,
"Why me?
What presumptions do I exercise,
that I can sally forth and cast
sarcasm, skepticism and pessimism
against the wind?
Especially now
when the White House is occupied
by arguably its smartest or second
smartest resident in my life time?"

Well, I will tell you. I am seven decades old this month, and I have seen all this shit go down before.I do not think I am shouting against the wind. Denial is a peculiar American trait. We not see geopolitical hurricanes before they arrive - long after they've appeared on others' radar screens.
Lately, I've been looking over the shoulders of some Brits and observing their CRTs'. What I see squares completely with what I've been feeling
for some time in my old bones.

The The U.K.’s conservative Daily Express declares the Afghanistan war lost:
….. After the losses of the past few days, this half-hearted approach has become utterly unsustainable. Britain and indeed the whole of NATO must now decide whether this fiendishly difficult bid to tame a hitherto untamable land is worth all the blood that is being spilt.

This newspaper’s assessment is that the chance of outright victory in Afghanistan vanished the moment US and British forces went into Iraq. The focus on Afghanistan was lost and the coalition against terror broke up. There is now little prospect of the rest of NATO committing wholeheartedly to the fight against the Taliban. In a war of attrition, such as is presently being fought, victory will not be achieved, but heavy losses will certainly be sustained. Our brave soldiers deserve far better than that.

….. when a military entanglement has no plan, no metrics for success and no end in sight. The Tories are just getting out ahead of the curve.

….. renowned British military historian Correlli Barnett ….. that Britain must unilaterally withdraw from Afghanistan.

Why won't an American journalist confront the Obama administration and simply ask them, "How will we know when we've won?" Unless they can answer that in tangible terms, all we're doing is condemning more troops to death…..
The obvious answer is that we do not have a Cronkite to take full measure of this Afghanistan project of Obama's and tell us what the score is.

Correlli Barnet of the Daily Mail asks another question,
Who has the guts to pull out?

We should remember, they say, that thanks to the Western occupation, five million Afghan children now go to primary school, compared with one million in 2001. Surely that makes our servicemen's sacrifice worthwhile?

Yet many of us, especially those who have worn the King's or Queen's uniform, or know about our military history, believe it is not the role of the British Armed Forces to fight and die so that foreign children can go to school. Their proper role is, or ought to be, to safeguard the wealth and security of the British people - in short, to defend the British realm.

…. The toppling of the Taliban regime in 2001 has not prevented a string of Al-Qaeda outrages, including Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005.

….. the London bombings were perpetrated by British-born Muslims with no direct connection either to the Taliban or Al-Qaeda. The truth is that Al-Qaeda is no longer an organization centered on Afghanistan, but a global franchise.

….. The Duke of Wellington once said that the real test of a general was to know when to retreat and dare to do it. A cool-headed and objective examination of the military and political evidence about the state of play in Afghanistan ought to convince HM Government that Britain must retreat from Afghanistan, and that they must now dare to announce a future date for this.

…..It would take more moral courage on the Government's part to distance Britain from President Obama's positively Bushite pursuit of 'victory' in Afghanistan, and announce a firm date for the final evacuation of British forces.

….. But without such a brave decision, British servicemen and women will go on pointlessly dying, while a more and more disillusioned nation simply wants our troops home - - not in coffins draped with the Union Flag, but marching through cheering crowds.
Simon Jenkins of the Guardian, has an answer:
Britain must tell Obama: the alliance of denial has to end.

..... Diplomacy, your hour has come. There is no way soldiers will find an exit from Afghanistan. They can deliver defeat or they can deliver bloody stalemate. They cannot deliver victory and every observer knows it. This conflict will end only when the courage being daily demanded of soldiers is also shown by politicians.

..... Obama made a serious error on coming to power. To honour his pledge to disown Iraq he felt obliged to "adopt" Afghanistan. What had begun as a punitive raid on the Taliban for harbouring Osama bin Laden morphed into a neocon campaign of regime change, counter-insurgency and nation-building. Obama rashly identified himself with this crusade and leapt from the frying pan of Iraq into the fire of the Hindu Kush.

..... Terrorism does not need bases. The 9/11 attacks were planned in Germany. The safety of Britain's streets is secured not by boys dying in poppy fields, but by sound intelligence and domestic policing. We learned last week that MI5's former head, Eliza Manningham-Buller, specifically warned the government that British security would be harmed by intervention abroad. Ministers know this. Why do they lie?

..... as it suited Bush to identify the Taliban with al-Qaida, so it should now suit Obama to do the opposite. The Taliban has never shown any interest in international terrorism, only in ridding their country of foreigners. On this truth should some eventual deal be built.

The idea of establishing a western-style democracy is dead. The dreams of Kabul's NGO groupies, to install technocrats or elevate women or eradicate poppies, have vanished in a morass of corruption and aid extravagance.

..... Only colonialists build nations, and the will for empire was never present.

..... The Canadians, who have suffered terrible losses, have shown their sovereignty by signalling their intention to leave in 2011. Why not Britain?

The denouement will come only from negotiation. For British generals and politicians to talk of fighting in Helmand "for decades" is absurd, not least as neither the British public nor the Taliban believe it. Like the Canadians, they should give a date for withdrawal, to stop wasting British lives and to isolate Obama in his wrong-headed policy.

..... Tony Blair's failure to influence Bush over Iraq was humiliating. The mix of political obsequiousness and diplomatic smugness Washington detected in Britain then is being replicated today over Afghanistan .....
Dear readers, depending on your age, here's the truth without jokes: we are ensnared in the 2nd costly military quagmire in your lifetime, and the 3rd in my lifetime.

23 comments:

  1. Top graph and caption is happily credited to Fearguth at Bildungblog. I cannot match the man's art.

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  2. Good post. Very important. This is Obama's war; and we're losing higher number of soldiers each month now. Funding that could have been saved for rescuing our economy is being shifted fro Iraq to Afghanistan. Soldiers that would have died in Iraq would are now going to die in Afghanistan. And for what? A war that is unwinnable.

    The Soviet Union showed us this. The people have been fighting for centuries. War and poppy are all they know.

    The terrain is perfect for them. To kill them, you have to march high up in the mountains with multiple levels. At each level, there are caves within which to hide. So, when places come to kill, they can't see.

    There are many secret routes in and out of Afghanistan, too many for soldiers to even fathom. So, the Taliban can slip in and out of Afghanistan easily. And they can live on the border with little resistance from Pakistan. So, militarily, the war is unwinnable.

    Obama is putting a lot of money and getting inreasingly a higher number of American soldiers killed trying to build up an infrastructure in Afghanistan. But corruption from Karzai's people and the Afghanistan's people's lack of interest or understanding of an infrastructure works against Obama.

    The bottom line? Not only is Afghanistan militarily unwinnable, socio-politically, socio-politically, it is unwinnable, at least in the short term, that is, within the next 10 years.

    This is what the Brits already acknowledge and what the Obama administration refuses to accept. We can't drive people out of caves or win hearts and minds. We need to get out.

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  3. Vig: The Soviet Union, Russia and Britain all tried in centuries past to "conquer" Afghanistan. (I feel uncomfortable with the word conquer, BTW, as it carries such disregard and insensitivity toward the dignity of other peoples.) All were unsuccessful, largely due to the geographic features you, Mac and the British press noted.

    I can't see how the U.S.-led forces there today could be more successful.

    The saddest part in all of this, to me, is not the loss of Western soldiers' lives, though my own country has now lost 125 in the conflict (third in the alliance, after the US and UK). It's not even the larger death toll among Afghans. No, saddest of all is that withdrawing, which the west must do, will have awful consequences for Afghan women and girls - not to mention secular-minded Afghans of either gender who want no part of the Taliban's brutal religious fanaticism.

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  4. There. Now I'm feeling really, really depressed.

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  5. One of the reasons I voted for Obama was because I thought that he was smart enough to learn from the mistakes of his predecessors (from McKinley to LBJ to GWB). It's sad to say that I may have been incorrect in this assessment. Two little words, folks; mission creep.

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  6. Even though its now Obama's war I really have to thank that bastard Bush for screwing the pooch on Afghanistan and lighting the fuse on an even bigger nightmare, a Taliban controlled Pakistan.

    This newspaper’s assessment is that the chance of outright victory in Afghanistan vanished the moment US and British forces went into Iraq.

    What little I have heard from the various media pundits and experts on who controls Pakistan's nukes does not give me any warm fuzzies.

    That Pakistan's intelligence agencies appears to be at least sympathetic to the Taliban and maybe even have members of the Taliban inside the organizations should scare the Hell out of everyone from New Delhi to Washington DC.

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  7. We had a chance there, but a moronic monkey decided to go start a war we didn't need to fight and sucked away too many resources that would have done us a lot of good in Afghanistan.

    It's too late now. The Taliban will not only emerge as the dominant force in Afghanistan, they may well wind up with a nice hunk of Pakistan before it's all over.

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  8. About Pakistan: That's where the true battle for security is going on. That's where the struggle hearts and minds really counts.

    In Pakistan, there is a failed state that's capable of succeeding. In Afghanistan, there is nothing to build on. In fact, in so many ways, Afghanistan isn't a country at all: think five major ethnic groups, six major languages, and dozens of local district tongues; think an agglomeration of city states and fiefdoms that remind you of Europe's hundred years' war

    There's no "indefinite" hope left around Afghanistan for Nato troops now. The crucial mistake, made almost unthinkingly by both Brown and Obama, is to conflate that infinitely porous border, with its caves, ravines and hiding holes, into the heart of the problem. It's not. It is merely an area of extreme military difficulty, a reason why "search and destroy" doesn't find much to destroy. The real problem lies far deeper than that. The world is full of places where al-Qaida can hide and operate. Somalia, Sudan, twisting back streets from Jakarta to Casablanca. You don't need the full military monty to wreak death and destruction.

    If Taliban land is cordoned off, isolated, consigned to its own devices, then it won't survive for long. And if the Pakistani army, without constant western intervention, is left to do what it has to do, then Islamabad opinion will stay focused on its own future, under so much threat from within. That is happening already inside Pakistan as the army finally abandons its reservations and moves wholeheartedly into action after the recapture of Swat. The people of Pakistan overwhelmingly know now who their enemy is. They want the bombings and killings that target them, in their streets and homes, stopped.

    Our soldiers are fighting and dying in the wrong country - and that's the idiocy that has got to stop. The true war on terror, as we glimpsed on the streets of Tehran a couple of weeks ago, is about hearts and minds, not soldiers dead in a ditch. The hearts and the minds that matter here are Pakistani ones. And the bloodiest delusion of the lot is to think that small surges in Helmand far away can win anything but yet more blood.

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  9. There's an article in Truthdig about the war in Afghanistan by Chris Hedges, who used to be a reporter for the New York Times. I put it on the sidebar of my blog:

    ""The war will not halt the attacks of Islamic radicals. Terrorist and insurgent groups are not conventional forces. They do not play by the rules of warfare our commanders have drilled into them in war colleges and service academies. And these underground groups are protean, changing shape and color as they drift from one failed state to the next, plan a terrorist attack and then fade back into the shadows. We are fighting with the wrong tools. We are fighting the wrong people. We are on the wrong side of history. And we will be defeated in Afghanistan as we will be in Iraq."

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  10. The facts are these:

    If we pull out of Afghanistan the Taliban will once again rule the country. Let's forget the brutal regime with regards to the way they treat their people. It is about a home base, once again, for terrorist groups. It was precisely this home base that served al Qaeda for the 9/11 attacks.

    Secondly, and more importantly, if the Taliban takes the country they will then take Pakistan and Pakistan has nukes. If the terrorists get nukes they will uses them against America. Don't be naive here. I promise they will.

    Finally, I hate war. I have been in war and it is horrific beyond all imaginings. Regardless, it is sometimes necessary to engage in it to protect the Homeland. Make no mistake this is not Iraq which was NEVER a threat to the Homeland. This is al Qaeda and they are not some rag tag band of "rag-heads," they are an organized. huge and extremely dangerous organization. Giving them back Afghanistan will be the equivalent of giving them a big loaded nuclear gun that they will be free to shoot at the free world.

    In conclusion, one cannot compare Vietnam to any of these Middle East wars. The terrain is completely different as are the cultures and the motives for conflict. The technology is not even close. The United States and its allies have the ability to penetrate the enemies defenses in those mountain passes and we do it regularly. We have to stay there and we have to win. It is not Russia's war of old or of Britain's. This is a war that must be waged to keep the world safe and the world's powers must be engaged with us and I hate to say these things but sometimes they just have to be said. It all makes me very sad....

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  11. P.S. There is no such thing as winning "the hearts and minds of those in the Middle East." They have their own culture, their own God (the real issue) and their own definition of "hearts and minds." This is not to say that we cannot be the driving force in community oriented programs. Of course we must be. It is not about "hearts and minds." It is about what can you do for me that the Taliban cannot...?

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  12. There is so much to say against what Mike has pasted up. If I didn't know Mike better, I would think he didn't read or, at best just skimmed, the text above his comment. I'll just address his P.S., in which he says,

    There is no such thing as winning "the hearts and minds of those in the Middle East (sic!)." They have their own culture, their own God (the real issue) and their own definition of "hearts and minds."

    A basic tenet in Counter Insurgent (COIN) theory and practice is winning hearts and minds. If it's no such thing in Afghanistan, then what are we doing there, there?

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  13. I stand by every word I have written Vigil, and as a former Counter Intelligence agent I can tell you all kinds of stories about winning hearts and minds. The war in Afghanistan has little to do with that despite the hyperbole coming from Washington. It is about depriving al Qaeda of a stable base from which to operate. Of course if we can do it without firing a shot (impossible) we would do it but that is not realistic. Keep in mind simply because I see reason for war does not mean that I like war, or that I am a hawk. I am not. I am a realist who happens to have a lot of knowledge on this particular subject. I actually teach a class on Middle East politics. I get the same challenges from several of my students:-)

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  14. ... as it suited Bush to identify the Taliban with al-Qaida, so it should now suit Obama to do the opposite.

    Not too long ago I asked someone I know very well if he thought the attack on the U.S. back in 2001, demonstrated why we must bomb the Taliban off the face of the earth. He looked at me and said, "...they deserve to be destroyed." Well, I told him...the Taliban didn't attack the U.S. on 9-11. He looked at me like I was an idiot (I have been called worse). I told him it was Al Qaeda and the Bin Laden group who attacked the U.S. and not the Taliban. They are both fruits, but one is an orange and the other is an apple. I will bet that the average American, Brit or Aussie doesn't know the difference either. Al Qaeda has a global agenda and had its roots in Afghanistan when it was fighting the Russians as they occupied the country in the 1980's. But here is the key point...they (Al Qaeda) are made up mostly of Arabs or Islamic militants from countries other than Afghanistan. By comparison, much of the Taliban and its leadership are made up of ethnic Pashtun Afghans, who grew up in refugee camps or religious boarding schools called madrasses. This happened when the Russians were occupying Afghanistan. The Taliban are indigenous Afghan or Afghan-Pakistanis. The Taliban, while they may be allowing al Qaeda operatives sanctuary in their part of the world are "NOT" involved in a global jihadist movement to conquer the world. Their "distant cousins" many of whom come from the academic fortresses of Western Europe and some Middle East institutions are the true culprits. It's like a global anti-imperialist movement (Al Qaeda) with Islam as its main ideology.

    Now, let me address the U.S. policy in Afghanistan, as I understand it. The U.S. believes that it has a vital national security interest in addressing the current and potential security threats posed by extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Al Qaeda continues to plan global destruction on key targets and are hell-bent on attacking targets of opportunity. We have done quite well in "hardening targets" on airliners and embassies, but we have been slow in the uptake when it comes to convincing hotel managers that they too need to take action to improve their ability to ward off future attacks. A perfect example is to review "what" happend and "how" the attacks were carried out in Jakarta (Marriott/Ritz Carlton Hotels) a few weeks ago. Disrupting terrorist networks in Afghhanistan and Pakistan is no easy task. Ask Alexander the Great and other nations that have tried unsuccessfully to tame this land and its leadership. But, there is a legitimate reason to rid this part of the world of extremists who want to destroy our western way of life. We are being required to use our national treasure (military) and limited resources to battle a "global...Al Qaeda" and a "Parochial...Taliban." People will continue to defend or attack the U.S. policy and that of the Brits and Aussies, but in the long run, I firmly hold that there are some bad people out there, who couldn't give a tinker's damn if we in the West die a slow or quick death. When is the last time you stopped a returning vet at the airport and said, "...thank you for your service." I did just that a few days ago. The soldier looked at me and simply said, "That was kind of you...thanks." I will stop here because I sense that minds are already made up on whether or not we should or should not be in Afghanistan. I cherish the freedom of dissent and I welcome a continuing dialogue with those who think otherwise. I don't claim to be omniscient, but I do believe that both sides of the case needs to be presented and defended.

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  15. I see the problem. I don't think Mad Mike gets it that Afghanistan is not part of the Middle East. Marie certainly does. Listen to what she writes:

    .... the Taliban didn't attack the U.S. on 9-11. . . it was Al Qaeda and the Bin Laden group who attacked the U.S. and not the Taliban. They are both fruits, but one is an orange and the other is an apple. I will bet that the average American, Brit or Aussie doesn't know the difference either. Al Qaeda has a global agenda and had its roots in Afghanistan when it was fighting the Russians as they occupied the country in the 1980's. But here is the key point. . . they (Al Qaeda) are made up mostly of Arabs or Islamic militants from countries other than Afghanistan. By comparison, much of the Taliban and its leadership are made up of ethnic Pashtun Afghans, who grew up in refugee camps or religious boarding schools called madrasses.

    . . . . . The Taliban are indigenous Afghan or Afghan-Pakistanis. The Taliban, while they may be allowing al Qaeda operatives sanctuary in their part of the world are "NOT" involved in a global jihadist movement to conquer the world.


    The Taliban's "distant cousins" [Al Qaeda],

    many of whom come from the academic fortresses of Western Europe and some Middle East institutions, are the true culprits. It's like a global anti-imperialist movement (Al Qaeda) with Islam as its main ideology.

    .... We are being required to use our national treasure (military) and limited resources to battle a "global...Al Qaeda" and a "Parochial...Taliban."


    Well written, Marie! Where do you go to school? Let's enroll Mike!

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  16. In fairness ... MadMike is recognizing the danger the Taliban poses with respect to Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal. The possibility of those nutjobs getting anywhere near the nukes is scary, and something I hadn't given any thought to when I wrote my modest contribution to this thread.

    He's absolutely right in contending that this is a real danger that has to be addressed. But I don't think staying in Afghanistan is the answer.

    It seems to me that the Pakistan nuke situation is better addressed by helping Pakistan deal with its Taliban problem. That'll involve the west holding its collective nose, I suppose, since Pakistan doesn't seem to have any very palatable choices among its dominant political players -- they're all Islamist or elitist or both. But that's realpolitik for ya.

    The Taliban ruled Afghanistan before without ruling Pakistan. I see no reason to believe that, if they were to gain power in Kabul again (which is not a given), they would wield governing power in Pakistan this time either.

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  17. I fear that it is slowly brewing into another 'quagmire' situation also... the 'who hit who' in what seems a 'my god is better than your god', global war mentality is striping us of our sanity because of our huge fear of what could actually happen visa ve...nukes or bio threats. This is a fine post. The edge of destruction seems to be right there like heat wave vapors on the road... just barely tangible for us to discern and begin wondering where our President is headed in 'his war'.

    So soon after W, it's just hard to trust...and we should bring this very kind of due diligent awareness to our opinions and the difference they DO MAKE.

    Good post!

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  18. Stimpson you make a valid point. In fact it is one that I had not considered. At first blush I thought it was just a matter of semantics until I reread your comment and I realized it is a matter of tactics. Thanks for making me think.

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  19. Aw shucks, MadMike, you're making me feel smart and all. :-)

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  20. Okay, so I'm ashamed that I haven't been aware of the bombing campaign and troop issues in Afghanistan at all. I shouldn't be shocked that I've been so out of the loop, even though I look at the L.A. Times every day. Without pessimism I do hope that this will not become, for it is not yet, a quagmire. That our Commander In Chief will quickly observe that if it is happening and will replace this "battlefield" situation with a more targeted and effectual intelligence campaign.

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  21. Soros Proxy I was just rereading some of these great comments when I ran across your insult. Perhaps you are the one that might benefit from attending school. The country of Afghanistan is a part of the Greater Middle East, known as the Persian Plateau.

    Source: Middle East

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  22. More truth on Afghanistan from Simon Jenkins:

    ..... Anyway, Afghanistan is not Ireland. Britain is not the sovereign power in Kabul, nor is the Taliban a single political entity. Its disparate warlords and commanders owe allegiance to different factions under the Pashtunwali umbrella. The one thing that unites them is anger at the British ending their tolerated domination of southern Afghanistan in 2006 and a desire to rid the country of westerners. That is not negotiable.

    Any reader of Ahmed Rashid's study of the Taliban will attest that the movement is little more than a religious banditry, motivated by tribe, war, pride, money and Allah, roughly in that order. After Mullah Omar took power in Kabul in the mid-1990s, the one moderating force was the exigences of that power. Taliban leaders were forced to co-operate with the Northern Alliance, treat with the CIA on drugs, and appease its Pakistani and Saudi sponsors. Younger bloods were also unhappy at hosting Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida Arabs.

    All scope to manipulate that leverage after 9/11 was swept away by the foolish 2001 invasion. Lines that might have been put out to "moderates", even after the invasion, were abandoned in favour of what amounted to an Anglo-American war of eternal occupation. The drone bombing of Pashtun villages is said by intelligence reports to have wiped out roughly half the established Taliban leadership, mostly those with whom the west might now be "talking".

    Each assassination brings a hothead to command, eager to prove his anti-Nato spurs and less inclined to negotiate. Each recruits dozens of fighters and provokes a furious revenge. The drone killings are directly counter-productive to Miliband's stated policy, yet he supports them. It makes no more sense than Gordon Brown's belief they have something to do with "terror on Britain's streets".

    Any dispassionate observer returning from Afghanistan reports the same message. This is not working. People do not want their hearts and minds bribed or their infrastructure rebuilt. The money just gets stolen. They want their poppy crop left in peace and they want to know which sheikh or Taliban warlord will rule their lives a year from now. After years of being bombed, bankrupted and betrayed, they wonder who can offer them security. The answer is neither the British nor the regime in Kabul.

    When Britain ruled the adjacent Punjab, its power was based on a large land army and the belief that it would never leave. It sent out its brightest and best. They stayed, and those who collaborated with them prospered. Today those who collaborate are murdered and night letters are pinned to their doors.

    Everyone knows that the British will go but the Taliban will stay. That is why the strategy of take, hold and build is mere pastiche imperialism. It relies on the palpable nonsense that the Afghan army, a drugged militia of little competence and less loyalty, will fight and defeat its Pashtun cousins. It will not.

    All wars end in talking, even if the conversation is usually brief and one-sided. Such will be any deal with the Taliban, good or bad. As the Canadians and most Europeans have realised, Afghanistan is essentially a war of American vendetta, and the more stupid for it. Yes, it will end in talk, but how many more must die first?

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