AFTER 9/11 I supported Bush when he sent American forces into Afghanistan, and I also supported Tony Blair for sending British soldiers. After 9/11, not only America but the West generally could not allow al-Qaeda to have such a victory without any kind of retaliation. If the West had chosen not to respond, then imagine, if you can, the scale of the response in the Muslim World to Osama bin-Laden. He would never have had to face a recruitment drive again; Muslims, particularly the youth, would have swam to Afghanistan if need be, to become associated with al-Qaeda and court the martyrdom it offered them; and Osama would have become another Suleman ‘The Magnificent’, the great 16th century Ottoman general who very nearly conquered Europe.
Not only would the youth from Muslim nations have set forth; but as many again from the West would have either taken the same journey, or, as some of them did, stay at home and mount terrorist attacks in the countries where they lived.
Something had to be done militarily, and if it were argued (as it was at the time) that such action would only provoke further attacks; then, if such as those who believed this, had had a mind’s eye to consider what no action would have brought about, then they would have very quickly seen what the lesser of the two evils was. But as such people had a history of anti-Americanism, their reflex at the time would have been to oppose anything America in general, and George Bush in particular, did on anything whatsoever.
What I hoped to see was a military advance into Afghanistan in order to, if possible, eliminate al-Qaeda or at least remove them, as well as its foster parent, the Taliban from Afghanistan soil. This would be followed up by the removal of all ground forces, and relying upon the continued pursuance of these groups from the air.
The technology the West now has would have kept the Taliban at bay over the Pakistan border. Today, American drones have eliminated hundreds of high ranking Taliban officers. While ground forces, having as they are, to fight with one arm tied behind their backs, makes them of limited worth. On top of which, they are sitting targets for the Taliban with their improvised explosives.
WHAT HAPPENED I BELIEVE, is the following. George Bush and his advisers had planned for a limited police action described above. But somehow the president was persuaded by a very persuasive politician. So persuasive was this politician, that the British people elected him no fewer than three times to lead them.
It was Tony Blair who either came up with this idea of ‘liberal interventionism’ or read about it somewhere; which included as a prerequisite, nation building. He had had a measure of success with this ‘philosophy’ in the Balkans and thought the formula eminently desirable for Afghanistan.
Nation building would require (in the case of Afghanistan) many decades and billions of dollars. Afghan history as we all know is littered with such good intentions. The building of nations can only be accomplished by the people themselves, anything else is either empire building, or, colonialism; both of which are outdated concepts and are guaranteed sooner or later to drive the indigenous people into the very arms of the people you are trying to get rid of.
Tony Blair, like many other Western leaders, believe that democracy is a one suit fits all system regardless of history, custom, and culture.
The president of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai and his fellow ‘parliamentarians’ are a nest of thieves. They are corrupt and worship only one other faith outside of Islam… that of the large brown envelope. Sadly this trait extends throughout Afghanistan society where history has taught its people to accommodate all comers either through fear (like the Taliban) or through a venal streak that helps them survive as a people: and who can blame them.
The important thing is as far as the West is concerned, is that we now depart these Afghan shores, leaving behind an air capability that has proved to be the most successful component in the allied presence in Afghanistan, as well as a limited ground force of special forces to oversee the air attacks and guide them where necessary .
TWO DAYS AGO, an American sergeant unleashed his demented rage upon innocent civilians killing 16 including women and children. Hopefully, he will be brought to trial in America and face the maximum penalty. However Hamid Karzai is requesting that he should be brought to trial in the new ‘democratic’ Afghanistan where his fate will not be determined by evidence, but by the political needs of Karzai himself.
I do not support president Obama (I am nowadays inclined toward the GOP), but he is right when he insists that Osama –bin Laden’s assassination brings to an end any American involvement on the ground. As the mastermind of 9/11, bin-Laden’s death draws a line under the West’s involvement on the ground in Afghanistan. But we still need to keep the Taliban at bay after we leave this country and we will still need a foot on the ground.
The numbers of such would amount to no more than a few thousand, but they must be exempt from Afghan law. This is the current sticking point between America and Hamid Karzai before the Americans are due to leave in 2014; and this renegade sergeants’ killings has made it even harder to come to an arrangement with the Afghan government over this essential issue.
The Afghan people have smelt the Western coffee, but, it seems, prefer their own ancient way of life that existed for centuries before the Taliban and the West sought to ring their noses and lead them in their different directions.
LEAVE AFGHANISTAN TO its own devices and if the Taliban returns, Western intelligence can target their leaders and eliminate them from the air, requiring the bare minimum of American feet on the ground.
If we, the West, had from the beginning been able to untie the hands of our fighting men and women, as they were allowed to do during the Second World War; then Afghanistan would have fallen into Tony Blair’s nation building hands. But it was not to be, for, unlike the Second World War, we were never prepared to be as ruthless as our enemies, for fear of becoming like them.
If the West can never match the ruthlessness of its enemies because the liberal establishment forbids it, then what hope is there when confronted by a medieval civilisation under the command of a ruthless and corrupt leader to whom we are obliged to take notice of. Better do you not think, that we withdraw from such a ramshackle society that has defeated the good intentions of all occupiers since Alexander the Great?
We should only do what is needed to defend our own people in the West. This after all is what they expect us to do. We drove out of Afghanistan, the Taliban as well as al-Qaeda. But we remained afterwards to try and create a democratic state in compliance with Tony Blair’s liberal interventionism. This unworkable piece of fiction when applied to Afghanistan has led to countless of our own dead in the West. In the UK alone 400 of our young men have sacrificed their lives in the cause of ‘liberal interventionism’ as deemed an essential part of Blair’s ascendency to the throne of world statesman.
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