I think we said that

I think we said that

Referring to the daily stream of truck convoys that bring supplies into the landlocked nation, Hilary Clinton said to the Senate Armed Services Committee:"You know, when we are so dependent upon long supply lines - as we are in Afghanistan, where everything has to be imported -- it's much more difficult than it was in Iraq, where we had Kuwait as a staging ground. You offload a ship in Karachi. And by the time whatever it is - you know,...

FULL STORY

Failure in Iraq

In another valuable contribution to the remarkably sparse debate on the British occupation of Iraq, MP and former Grenadier Guard Adam Holloway has published a short paper headed, "The Failure of British Political and Military Leadership in Iraq."Holloway takes the view that the Labour Government has suborned the Armed Forces from the very top to half the way down, creating a system that often enforces what is politically convenient, not...

FULL STORY

Corrupt, untrained, underpaid, illiterate

The Sunday Times laments the poor state of the Afghan security forces, with a long piece headed: "Corrupt, untrained, underpaid, illiterate: the forces waiting to take over." This is by no means the first article to draw attention to the parlous state of the forces, on which the Coalition exit plan entirely depends.In fact – as you might expect – the problem is very far from new. In 1900, Afghan ruler Abdur Rahman was recalling the state...

FULL STORY

Drop the dead donkey

Taliban fighters are using donkeys as deadly four-legged bombs to attack British troops in Afghanistan, reports The Daily Telegraph. The paper adds that "the incident has alarmed military chiefs concerned that the Taliban are now using desperate methods to attack occupying forces." I sincerely hope that this is ill-informed rhetoric on the part of the paper. The use of a "donkey bomb" was reported by The Times in April this year, so it...

FULL STORY

The "nomad" war

In an attempt to unravel the mind-numbing complexity of the Afghan conflict, at the heart of the "war" is actually a relatively simple – although completely misunderstood – tribal issue, compounded by the tensions between modernity and conservatism.Simplifying this to the extent that it becomes understandable is perhaps to run the risk of over-simplification and thus distortion, but one has to start somewhere. And that "somewhere" is the...

FULL STORY

An absolute disaster

The time zone difference between the United States and the UK meant that the Obama speech yesterday was broadcast here in the wee small hours, allowing only the briefest of analysis (and a trans-Atlantic conference call) before Morpheus cast his spell.With the benefit of some hours of reflection, however, the "strategic review" announced by Obama looks no better than it did when he delivered it. The deployment of an extra 30,000 troops...

FULL STORY

Obama speaks

Yesterday (local time) president Obama spoke to cadets at West Point – and through them the nation and the world – to announce his "strategic review" which, his administration would "pursue to bring this war to a successful conclusion."Revisiting the history of the 9/11 attacks, the president then described al-Qaida as "a group of extremists who have distorted and defiled Islam, one of the world’s great religions, to justify the slaughter...

FULL STORY

The shadow of history

While the world awaits with bated breath the announcement tomorrow from president Obama on his intentions for Afghanistan, coverage of the campaign has been relatively muted – although the traditional scaling down of campaigning as winter approaches doubtless has had some influence on the flow of news.For my part, some little time ago I decided to step back from the day-to-day reporting and look at the history of the benighted land that...

FULL STORY

The forgotten country

Having briefly returned to the Iraqi war, we come back to our review of Afghan history. Before our diversion, we were exploring the US incursion into Helmand Province but, before that, we had left the general history in September 1953 when Lt-Gen Mohammad Daud Khan had just taken over the post of prime minister.In many ways, Daud's take-over was a classic part of the Afghan cycle which characterises the history of this nation. Not only...

In another valuable contribution to the remarkably sparse debate on the British occupation of Iraq, MP and former Grenadier Guard Adam Holloway has published a short paper headed, "The Failure of British Political and Military Leadership in Iraq."Holloway takes the view that the Labour Government has suborned the Armed Forces from the very top to half the way down, creating a system that often enforces what is politically convenient, not...

FULL STORY

Corrupt, untrained, underpaid, illiterate

The Sunday Times laments the poor state of the Afghan security forces, with a long piece headed: "Corrupt, untrained, underpaid, illiterate: the forces waiting to take over." This is by no means the first article to draw attention to the parlous state of the forces, on which the Coalition exit plan entirely depends.In fact – as you might expect – the problem is very far from new. In 1900, Afghan ruler Abdur Rahman was recalling the state...

FULL STORY

Drop the dead donkey

Taliban fighters are using donkeys as deadly four-legged bombs to attack British troops in Afghanistan, reports The Daily Telegraph. The paper adds that "the incident has alarmed military chiefs concerned that the Taliban are now using desperate methods to attack occupying forces." I sincerely hope that this is ill-informed rhetoric on the part of the paper. The use of a "donkey bomb" was reported by The Times in April this year, so it...

FULL STORY

The "nomad" war

In an attempt to unravel the mind-numbing complexity of the Afghan conflict, at the heart of the "war" is actually a relatively simple – although completely misunderstood – tribal issue, compounded by the tensions between modernity and conservatism.Simplifying this to the extent that it becomes understandable is perhaps to run the risk of over-simplification and thus distortion, but one has to start somewhere. And that "somewhere" is the...

FULL STORY

An absolute disaster

The time zone difference between the United States and the UK meant that the Obama speech yesterday was broadcast here in the wee small hours, allowing only the briefest of analysis (and a trans-Atlantic conference call) before Morpheus cast his spell.With the benefit of some hours of reflection, however, the "strategic review" announced by Obama looks no better than it did when he delivered it. The deployment of an extra 30,000 troops...

FULL STORY

Obama speaks

Yesterday (local time) president Obama spoke to cadets at West Point – and through them the nation and the world – to announce his "strategic review" which, his administration would "pursue to bring this war to a successful conclusion."Revisiting the history of the 9/11 attacks, the president then described al-Qaida as "a group of extremists who have distorted and defiled Islam, one of the world’s great religions, to justify the slaughter...

FULL STORY

The shadow of history

While the world awaits with bated breath the announcement tomorrow from president Obama on his intentions for Afghanistan, coverage of the campaign has been relatively muted – although the traditional scaling down of campaigning as winter approaches doubtless has had some influence on the flow of news.For my part, some little time ago I decided to step back from the day-to-day reporting and look at the history of the benighted land that...

FULL STORY

The forgotten country

Having briefly returned to the Iraqi war, we come back to our review of Afghan history. Before our diversion, we were exploring the US incursion into Helmand Province but, before that, we had left the general history in September 1953 when Lt-Gen Mohammad Daud Khan had just taken over the post of prime minister.In many ways, Daud's take-over was a classic part of the Afghan cycle which characterises the history of this nation. Not only...

FULL STORY

Obligations

The one thing that worried me about the emergence of more detail on the British occupation of Iraq was that the great labour in writing Ministry of Defeat would somehow be invalidated.But, with the release via The Daily Telegraph of the Army's review of operations, I need not have been concerned. So far, what I have written stands up well against the inside information now being revealed.What we have so far is a review of the earlier part...

Failure in Iraq

In another valuable contribution to the remarkably sparse debate on the British occupation of Iraq, MP and former Grenadier Guard Adam Holloway has published a short paper headed, "The Failure of British Political and Military Leadership in Iraq."Holloway takes the view that the Labour Government has suborned the Armed Forces from the very top to half the way down, creating a system that often enforces what is politically convenient, not...

FULL STORY

Corrupt, untrained, underpaid, illiterate

The Sunday Times laments the poor state of the Afghan security forces, with a long piece headed: "Corrupt, untrained, underpaid, illiterate: the forces waiting to take over." This is by no means the first article to draw attention to the parlous state of the forces, on which the Coalition exit plan entirely depends.In fact – as you might expect – the problem is very far from new. In 1900, Afghan ruler Abdur Rahman was recalling the state...

FULL STORY

Drop the dead donkey

Taliban fighters are using donkeys as deadly four-legged bombs to attack British troops in Afghanistan, reports The Daily Telegraph. The paper adds that "the incident has alarmed military chiefs concerned that the Taliban are now using desperate methods to attack occupying forces." I sincerely hope that this is ill-informed rhetoric on the part of the paper. The use of a "donkey bomb" was reported by The Times in April this year, so it...

FULL STORY

The "nomad" war

In an attempt to unravel the mind-numbing complexity of the Afghan conflict, at the heart of the "war" is actually a relatively simple – although completely misunderstood – tribal issue, compounded by the tensions between modernity and conservatism.Simplifying this to the extent that it becomes understandable is perhaps to run the risk of over-simplification and thus distortion, but one has to start somewhere. And that "somewhere" is the...

FULL STORY

An absolute disaster

The time zone difference between the United States and the UK meant that the Obama speech yesterday was broadcast here in the wee small hours, allowing only the briefest of analysis (and a trans-Atlantic conference call) before Morpheus cast his spell.With the benefit of some hours of reflection, however, the "strategic review" announced by Obama looks no better than it did when he delivered it. The deployment of an extra 30,000 troops...

FULL STORY

Obama speaks

Yesterday (local time) president Obama spoke to cadets at West Point – and through them the nation and the world – to announce his "strategic review" which, his administration would "pursue to bring this war to a successful conclusion."Revisiting the history of the 9/11 attacks, the president then described al-Qaida as "a group of extremists who have distorted and defiled Islam, one of the world’s great religions, to justify the slaughter...

FULL STORY

The shadow of history

While the world awaits with bated breath the announcement tomorrow from president Obama on his intentions for Afghanistan, coverage of the campaign has been relatively muted – although the traditional scaling down of campaigning as winter approaches doubtless has had some influence on the flow of news.For my part, some little time ago I decided to step back from the day-to-day reporting and look at the history of the benighted land that...

FULL STORY

The forgotten country

Having briefly returned to the Iraqi war, we come back to our review of Afghan history. Before our diversion, we were exploring the US incursion into Helmand Province but, before that, we had left the general history in September 1953 when Lt-Gen Mohammad Daud Khan had just taken over the post of prime minister.In many ways, Daud's take-over was a classic part of the Afghan cycle which characterises the history of this nation. Not only...

FULL STORY

Obligations

The one thing that worried me about the emergence of more detail on the British occupation of Iraq was that the great labour in writing Ministry of Defeat would somehow be invalidated.But, with the release via The Daily Telegraph of the Army's review of operations, I need not have been concerned. So far, what I have written stands up well against the inside information now being revealed.What we have so far is a review of the earlier part...

FULL STORY