Who listens ... - by Richard... Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Who listens ... - by Richard... Wednesday, October 28, 2009

... to The New York Times? The quote about Woodstock is rather funny.

COMMENT THREAD

Print ready

On the streets of England? - by Richard...

There is an interesting analysis byJeremy Page in The Times, on theKabul attack on the UN hostel.

Page thinks the Haqqani Network is the most likely culprit, and the operation certainly seems to have their fingerprints. This, of course, is the organisation based in Miranshah, in North Waziristan, slated as "good Taleban" by the Pakistanis (a ridiculous description), meaning that their efforts are focused on Afghanistan rather than on creating mayhem in Pakistan.

What Page notes, though, is that the attackers in Kabul used similar tactics to their Pakistani counterparts, apparently disguising today's attackers with police uniforms, and using a combination of gunmen and suicide bombers. This points to a closer association between the "Afghan" and the "Pakistani" Taleban than rhetoric would have it.

This is precisely what we were asserting in our earlier piece, suggesting that the distinction was more apparent than real – a convenient artefact, which enable the Pakistani Army to go hunting Taleban in South Waziristan, leaving the northern agency untouched for the time being.

Interestingly, after writing yesterday that experts were suggesting that the operation in South Waziristan was too thinly resourced to achieve any lasting effect and, therefore, that it was "aiming to fail", we picked up and agency piece today, rehearsing the same issue.

It cites Sameer Lalwani, author of a new report for the New America Foundation, who says there are not enough Pakistani troops to challenge the extremists and building up such a strong force would require huge efforts. His estimate is that anything between 370,000 and 430,000 troops would be needed to take on the tribes and carry out an effective counterinsurgency operation in the region.

Yet The Christian Science Monitor quotes Lalwani, as saying "The most Pakistan could free up from its border with India would be 152,000 more. Cobbling together a force of the needed size would take two to five years." Thus, the growing suspicion is that the Pakistani action is largely "cosmetic".

With the massive bombing in Peshawar (pictured), on top of the recent spate of terrorist attacks in Pakistan, Max Fisher over at AtlanticWire blog pulls together a compendium of commentary from the region. One commentator puts the case for the fighting in the tribal areas spilling over into the rest of Pakistan, leading to a full-scale civil war and the demise of Pakistan as a state.

The instability in Pakistan, and the scale of the violence, somewhat relegates Afghanistan to the level of a second-order problem, but it raises the interesting question as to whether our attempts at "nation building" in Afghanistan are actually responsible for triggering the even bigger problem in Pakistan, where we could be witnessing the collapse of a nation.

From a domestic (UK) point of view, the growing instability in Pakistan has massive implications. Already under strain from Moslem immigration, much of it from Pakistan, with a growing and highly voluble fundamentalist faction, civil war – or something approaching it – this could trigger another wave of immigration, which would be hard to contain. Current EU rules would prevent us from excluding members of extended families, which collectively could number hundreds of thousands.

And, with regional passions high, we could see the various factions fight out their battles on British turf, the violence spilling over into the streets of England. Kabul and Peshawar may seem distant but this is the "global village" in practice, with faraway events, and policies of which we take little notice, coming back to haunt us in unpleasant and dangerous ways.

COMMENT THREAD

Print ready

End game - by Richard...

From "Snatch Land Rovers" to Grand Strategy, we have been on a five-year virtual journey, from the deserts of Iraq to the hills of Waziristan, following two "wars" which have cost the lives of thousands of soldiers, injured many more, and cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Broadly, we were supportive of the war in Iraq, and felt the counter-insurgency there "winnable". Having invaded the country and deposed its ruler and destroyed its government – rightly or wrongly – we had in any case a moral and legal obligation to restore law and order, and to re-establish the semblance of a working government.

We had and have no such moral – or legal – obligations in Afghanistan. We went there in 2001, after the 9/11 outrage, in support of the United States, an act of solidarity for an old and valuable ally which had been attacked by a vicious terrorist organisation which had gained sanctuary from a corrupt, barbaric, fundamentalist regime in Afghanistan.

We went in to help clear this nest of vipers and, largely, we succeeded. Our actions also brought down the government of Afghanistan, which would have toppled anyway. Had we left then, the country would doubtless have reverted to its barbaric, anarchic state, with small islands of something approaching urban civilisation, in appearance if not fact.

But, in a moment of collective hubris, we – the "international community" -thought we could impose on this wild, ungovernable land the semblance of our governmental system, which we laughingly call a democracy, even though – in this country and the rest of the European Union – we enjoy no such state ourselves.

Bribed by billions of dollars and the promise of many more, the peoples of Afghanistan went through the motions of an election, which resembled but was not a democratic process, and selected a corrupt tribal leader, from a choice of other corrupt tribal leaders and warlords. He then did what any self-respecting, corrupt tribal leader would do – milked the system to enrich himself, his tribe members, his allies, enemies and cronies.

Not even attempting governance or development, this allowed the country to revert to its usual state of anarchy and tribal warfare, compounded by a low-grade civil war which has been ongoing for so many decades that no one can rightly work out when it started, or even care enough to find out.

Faced with what we took to be the progressive collapse of the system we thought we had installed – but had not – in am moment of supreme folly, our then prime minister, soon to be Emperor of Europe – decided to reinforce failure, by deploying a small, ill-equipped contingent of troops, charged with undertaking a task for which they were physically and temperamentally ill-prepared and which, in any case was impossible to achieve.

In so doing, we made a bad situation worse and, at every stage where we have sought further to reinforce failure, we have made it even worse. What was, when we intervened in 2006 a low-grade civil war, has now escalated into a high-level insurgency – of which we are the proximate cause. And now the generals want to break the most fundamental rule of warfare – yet again. They want to reinforce failure, and keep doing so until the cost and the casualties break us.

Thus must stop. And, in the most powerful message we have seen to date, a now former US Foreign Service officer, Matthew Hoh, explains why. As recounted in the British Independentnewspaper, in the Washington Post and many more, Hoh's message is summarised. But you can read it in full here. 

The document is Hoh's resignation letter, telling us that he has "... lost understanding of, and confidence in, the strategic purposes of the United States presence in Afghanistan." To put it simply, he writes, "I fail to see the value or worth in continued US casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year-old civil war."

Like the Soviets, he adds, "we continue to secure and bolster a failing state, while encouraging an ideology and system of government unknown and unwanted by its people." Hoh continues:

If the history of Afghanistan is one great stage play, the United States is no more than a supporting actor, among several previously, in a tragedy that not only pits tribes, valleys, clans, villages and families against one another, but, from at least the end of King Zahir Shah's rein, has violently and savagely pitted the urban, secular, educated and modern of Afghanistan against the rural, religious, illiterate and traditional. It is this latter group that composes and support the Pashtun insurgency. The Pashtun insurgency, which is composed of multiple, seemingly infinite local groups, is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, their culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies. The US and NATO presence and operations in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified ... I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taleban, but rather against the foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul.

The United States military presence in Afghanistan greatly contributes to the legitimacy and strategic message of the Pashtun insurgency. In like manner our backing of the Afghan government in its current form continues to distance the government from the people.

Towards the end of his four-page letter, Hoh cites a "very talented and intelligent commander" who briefs every visitor, staff delegation and officer with the words, "We are spending ourselves into oblivion". 

Hoh adds that "We are mortgaging our nation's economy on a war which, even with increased commitment, will remain a draw for years to come. Success and victory, whatever they may be, will be realised not in years, after billions more spend, but in decades and generations. The United States does not enjoy a national treasury for such success and victory."

What applies to the United States applies, in spades, to the United Kingdom. This might be a "war" we can win, but it is not a war we can afford to win – much less to carry out a grand, decades-long experiment to see if there is a possibility that we might be able to win.

There is only one conclusion to be drawn from Hoh's letter. We were coming to that conclusion anyway ... we have been veering to and fro, but there is no other answer. We need to get out, as soon as possible, causing as little damage as possible. 

But, as we indicated in our earlier piece, there are huge geopolitical implications. But the problems are a matter of high politics, and they need to be solved at that level. They cannot be solved with more "boots on the ground", or "grunts with guns". 

Soldiers cannot buy us time with their lives – no amount of lives could buy us the time we need. No longer should it be a question of when, but how we extract ourselves, with the minimum possible delay.

COMMENT THREAD

Print ready

An Indian elephant - by Richard... Tuesday, October 27, 2009

The high-profile attack on its embassy in Kabul earlier this month briefly brought to the attention of the Western media the Indian presence in the Afghan capital. 

Yet, apart from when Indian assets are attacked, very little notice is taken of what is a major factor in the Afghan "insurgency". India stands accused of using the Afghan conflict to destabilise its old enemy, Pakistan, part of a wider regional effort that includes supporting the independence movement in Baluchistan, and even paying the Taleban to mount attacks on installations in Pakistan.

And we can rely on EU "diplomacy" to sort this out? 

More on Defence of the Realm.

Print ready

We should fear cooling - by Richard...

In a new scientific paper, the Russian head of the Space Research Laboratory of the Pulkovo Observatory, Dr Habibullo Abdussamatov, is telling us not to be concerned about "catastrophic global warming". What we should be worried out, he warns, is a deep temperature drop.

Yesterday, Ambrose Evans-Pritchardwarned about the parlous state of global food stocks, telling us: "Food will never be so cheap again". Ambrose did not factor in the effects of a prolonged cooling cycle, but if you add that, as we have done, then the global picture is very bleak indeed.

These are not fictional issues – the outpourings of a fevered imagination. There is a lot of hard evidence that says we are going to have serious problems. Yet, the scientific establishment and the political claque are still blathering on about their fantasy warming, oblivious to the real impending disaster.

Not since the 1930s, when some we seeking to disarm further our Armed Forces in the face of German rearmament, have our political classes got it so wrong. But at least then we had the "warmonger" Churchill, warning us of the folly of it all. Where now is that person of similar stature now, to warn us that we are being driven to disaster by baying fools, of the likes of Lord Stern?

COMMENT THREAD

Print ready

The final betrayal - by Richard...

An extraordinary op-ed by Mary Riddell inThe Daily Telegraph today bears the headline: "Britain's on the wane, and the EU is our only hope of influence." 

If this was just the vapourings of an airhead columnist, it could be dismissed but, unfortunately, it follows on from Miliband's speech yesterday, which said much the same thing. Look also to what Lord Heseltine is saying in The Times - the man whom is likely to join a Cameron administration – and there can be no doubt that Riddell's defeatist diatribe represents the received view of the political establishment.

Essentially, they have given up, sold the pass, and are ready to surrender our place in the international community as an active "player", handing over the initiative on foreign affairs to the EU, while our vassal administration deals only with internal matters. Decoded, these statements confirm our final retreat as a nation, the point where we formally cease to become an independent state and assume the role of a local authority, one province within the greater European empire.

As we pointed out yesterday, one of the defining attributes of an independent state is its control over its own foreign policy. For our establishment to sell the pass, whining about this once great country being "on the wane", and casting our lot in with "Europe" is indeed the final surrender, the acknowledgement that we are no longer an independent state.

That we should be doing this, without – it would seem – a squeak of protest from the media, or the opposition, demonstrates just how far the political process in this country has degraded. As we pointed out, in 1919, a country went to war to recover its control of foreign policy. 

Those were the days when people understood the nature of statehood, and the real meaning of independence. Today, it slips from our grasp with the bulk of the population not even realising what has happened – or caring. But, whether they know or care, we are now a second-rate vassal state. We are a province of the European Empire, shortly – if the media has it right – to be ruled by the new Emperor Blair. 

Thus, the EU will have achieved something neither Napoleon nor Hitler could achieve – the subjugation of the British Isles. And all without a shot being fired.

Nevertheless, the idea that, by surrendering our independence, we shall thus gain more "influence" is preposterous. The world is changing – as it always does – but the centre of power is moving away from its Eurocentric base, to the Pacific and Asia, where we see the economic dynamism and the potential for conflict that once typified Europe.

And, as the former major colonial power in the region, and the one with more troops on active duty there, other than the United States, we have in our own name, enormous influence. Furthermore, as that former colonial power, we have an institutional memory – one shared by states such as India and Pakistan – that gives us a unique status and capability.

The rest of the member states that comprise the EU are, by comparison, losers, incompetents and lightweights. None of them, as history so readily illustrates, have the capacity or understanding to become serious players in the region. We did not become "players" by accident. We had the temperament and the skills, inherent in our Anglo-Saxon heritage.

This is not unimportant. In fact, it is of vital interest. With our troops committed to Afghanistan, we are in the epicentre of a region on the brink of war. Serious commentators in both India and Pakistan are predicting that these two nations will be at war within two years. And two nuclear-armed nations at war is not a prospect any of us can regard lightly.

The EU's incompetence in this region, its lack of weight and gravitas, renders it a bit-player of very little consequence. Yet, just at the time when British skills and diplomacy are most needed, to head off a conflagration of appalling potential consequences – with knock-on effects of global proportions – we have sold our birthright to Brussels.

It sounds so melodramatic to say that we have been betrayed by our political classes. But that is exactly what has happened. We have been betrayed. But we betray ourselves by allowing it to happen – and by not caring. And there is a price to pay. The bill will shortly be presented. We will pay, most of us not even realising why.