AFGHANISTAN - Do We Never Take In The Lessons From History?
 

We botched the Afghan war a century ago. The Russians got suckered in long term and got a bloody nose without making a shred of difference [the RUSSIANS, for God's sake - with their endless quantities of troops and equipment]!

The Americans clearly don't want to be there on the ground [bombing from high level is ok, though].

And we send a small force, with questionable kit? What are we doing? And does anyone believe that we have a cat in hell's chance of making a difference?

I truly dispair...

Seconded! We should have got out and stayed out -now its a farce.

What? This govt failing to deliver? Surely not!

Need to be a bit wary now the economy is looking a bit pear-shaped and all these minor scandals at home. Might be a good idea to be a bit more adventurous abroad and take the electorate's mind off what's happening under their noses.

As if they are interested.

Do we never take in lessons from history??
 

No,

Never,

Worse than that, it appears that General Melchett :\ and his "unwillingness to stare facts in the face" now has a seat in the Cabinet................

:ugh:

Take care out there people.

Having recently recovered from a period of schooling at Shrivenham... I can now tell you that the Armed Forces no longer have a "Lessons Learnt" process after Operations or Exercises. We now have a "Lessons identified" The change came about a couple of years ago as it seemed that we never "Learnt" from lessons anyway so why bother with the process.



However, It is right and correct that we are in Afghanistan trying to help bring law and order to that country. The work that the British Armed Forces are doing is looked upon and admired by many countries. The work that has been completed by 216 Signals has been paramount to achieving succes for the ANA. Remember that the UK is commited to helping Afghanistan secure democracy. If the Armed Forces are not going to help them then who should we send....The Fire Service maybe?

A few years ago I saw footage (on the telly) of our troops . They came across a large wall type thingy in he desert. (It was in Iraq)

They approached it to find that writ upon it was the names of their regimental fellows from 1917.

Same regiment

same names!

At the bottom it said

'lest we forget'

They seemed to have forgotten.

it was not repeated.

How about we just leave them to it? After all its THEIR country, not ours, with very few British interests over there. So why shold we risk spilling British blood for a complete S**thole? I tell you why we are likely to fail in Afghanistan.

1) We are a warfighting force, not a low intensity conflict world police force. That is the fault of the SDR, and although we would like to think that the SDR was a golden bullet to solving all the worlds woes, it AINT. The last time we had a world police force, we had an empire.that is the whole idea behind NEC and scaling back our forces. NEC gives us absolutely NO advantage over this assymetric threat, just look what has happened to the yanks. We are affectively fighting a war of attrition. Look at how the yanks consider sucess. Body count. Didnt they teach you at Shriv about how considering body count as a measure of sucess? whell te last time they tried it was Vietnam. We have no easily identifiable centre of gravity to fight against to bring this one to a swift conclusion, what are we going after? The drugs? Tribal leaders? Who knows. I dont think anyone does. I think we have been foolishly placed in the desert by a political leadership that has us by the knackers who completely misunderstands the way we work.

2) The Kabul region may of been one thing. However, we all know Khandahar and the other southern regions are a different kettle of fish. They are highly tribal, something that is ingrained in them since the beginning of time, so how exactly are we going to get them to tag along to our neo western style democracy, teach them to be "nice taliban" pay your VAT on your heroin trade? Lunacy. We should just leave them to it.

And since our guys are being tasked to reduce the herion trade, the vacuum that is left behind will just increase the Afgahns motivation to get rid of the occupying forces.

VIETNAM-British style

How about securing a bit of democracy back home in the UK before we start preaching to the rest of the world?!

DEMOCRACY
 

The time to establish democracy was immediately after the Afghan conflict in 2002. The Afghan people were happy to see the back of the Taleban and we were accepted in the short term. What happened next? We threw away our golden opportunity by embarking on a ridiculous war in Iraq that sucked in all of our assets and energy. Whilst our backs were turned the Afghan people struggled and the Taleban crept back. 4 years on and we are facing the enemy again. I thought the Americans had learnt their lessons, obviously not. I fear for this mission. This is a strategic screw up that stems from the decision to invade Iraq, something we will live to regret.

mbga9pgf

The Americans have learnt a lesson.

They no longer count the dead.

It would be interesting to know whether any of our Strategic masters, both civilian and military, have bothered to read the Russian General Staff Report, The Soviet-Afghan War (How a Superpower Fought and Lost) translated and edited by Grau and Gress, 2002.

It pretty comprehensively sets out most of the pitfalls and problems associated with an invasion to prop up an unpopular (or irrelevant) regime in the area...a not dissimilar situation to the one UK PLC may well be facing within a year.

It makes very interesting and disturbing reading. On a lighter note Flashman (George MacDonald Fraser) seemed to have a good handle on the problems associated with Afghanistan, they mostly revolved around incompetent Civil Servants, Politicians, Policy and Generalship...

Mr R

Would like to read it. I read an account of first Afghan war. Same names even, extraordinary!

There no monopoly on the lessons of history
 

Just to balance the argument up a bit. A couple of other lessons of modern history.

Firstly, I recall visiting Bergen-Belsen Memorial a few years back and above an exhibit of photos is a quote along the lines of.."first they burn the books, next they burn the bodies.." What lessons can we learn from this dramatic, if not most dramatic, event of modern history? You may recall the Taleban was keen on book burning, religious monument destruction, persecution of minorities....

Secondly, perhaps there was merit in the idea of leaving the Taleban alone; out of sight, out of mind. However, the Taleban allowed, alternatively, actively encouraged, the establishment of Terrorist Training camps within its borders. We now know that persons trained at these camps had direct involvement in 911, perhaps the most dramatic event of the passed 10 years. Were the Taleban ever out of sight, out of mind??? Would they have been content to leave it at 911 or would they have moved on to even bigger and better things??

I am not saying the campaign in Afganistan has been a huge success, however what I am saying is there are many lessons in history and anyone can quote any lesson to support any argument

I am not arguing that it was wrong to go into Afg in the first instance. My argument is the opposite, we should never have turned our backs. The Americans turned their backs at the end of Russo/Afg war and look what happened as a result. We all know how fierce and proud Afg people are. The tragic mistake, in my view, was to largely ignore Afg after the Taleban had been overthrown. Afg was the centre of terror training, the country needed our help and support on a much wider scale. Instead we invaded another country! History has shown that Afghan people only tolerate foreigners for a finite amount of time. In the Last 4 years Karzai has been mayor of Kabul and that's about it. We took our eye off the ball and got sidetracked and bogged down with an unnecessary war in Iraq. That's my pennyworth anyway.......

Try and get a copy of the kite runner. Amazing book.

I think that you'll find that you live in a democracy...thats why you can come on this site and spout of utter tripe and why the people of this country voted in favour of the war in Iraq and of the conflict in Afghanistan when they voted in the Labour party into government.

that and we were told that there were Ws of MD pointed at us...:bored:

How many of those people would have voted for it if they actually had to attend?

A quick quote on what happened on one of the last occasions the British Army was in Kabul.

"On January 1, 1842, the British in Kabul and a number of Afghan chiefs reached an agreement that provided for the safe exodus of the entire British garrison and its dependents from Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the British would not wait for an Afghan escort to be assembled, and the Ghilzai and allied tribes had not been among the 18 chiefs who had signed the agreement. On January 6 the precipitate retreat by some 4,500 British and Indian troops with 12,000 camp followers began and, as they struggled through the snowbound passes, Ghilzai warriors attacked the British. A Dr. W. Brydon is usually cited as the only survivor of the march to Jalalabad,out of more than 15,000 who undertook the retreat."

1 man left (and his donkey) out the 16500 who started!

err, if I am correct his life was spared so he could tell the story....

.....And the donkey could breed and produce Prime Ministers and Politicians.

Seems the British have a long history in that part of the world beyond just the 1842 war.

http://www.afghan-web.com/history/chron/index4.html

Rafloo: You have been brainwashed into thinking we live in a democracy! We live in a Republic, and a poor one at that.

In a democracy all citizens have an equal say in the running of the country. Do you have an equal say in the running of the country as Tony Blair or any of his cabinet? No, of course not - democracy was discarded as being unworkable in a modern, large and complex society. The only way it could be achieved now if is all points of law were debated and voted on not in the commons but on the internet, with all British citizens voting and the majority winning.

In a Republic we elect representatives to make decisions on our behalf - this is the form of government we have now. But it is fatally flawed in this country for 2 reasons:

1. We do not have proportional representation, so despite the majority of British citizens voting for the Conservative party in the last general election, Labour still took power.

2. We have political parties. In an ideal republic the representatives that we elect would all be independant, that way they are free to vote in a manner that represents their constituents rather than being encouraged to vote in a way that benefits their party.

Descartes said of our system that we are only truely free when we are voting in the general election, and then we throw that freedom away by voting for a party.

When I say we should spread some democracy here in the UK, I mean that we need to change our system of government to better represent the desires of the people, and to stop people like Blair running roughshod over us all because he is in the 'ruling party' in the Commons.

Hmmm.... maybe this should be a separate thread!

Afghan national resistance?
 

Wished I could find better news, but this article suggests something is up in Afghanistan.

http://www.afghannews.net/index.php?...pe=news&id=653

Mead Pusher,

man after my own heart.

Now the next bit is serious.

A fantasy government. We have the election and we vote for the best man for the job, so Austin Mitchell gets in despite previously being a shade left.

Now who do we want as PM? Then HS, FM, MOD?

Lets leave Soames out of the MOD. We don't have any C17 on the Royal Sqn.

Also without parties we have Goverment and the Opposition. As the Opposition is not a party they will not have a Leader of the Opposition etc - save a fortune.

Written Again In British Blood
 

Interesting article in today's Times with a historical context.

There should be no surprise at Taleban resistance in Afghanistan. History is simply repeating itself

ON JANUARY 13, 1842, a lookout on the walls of Jalalabad fort spotted a lone horseman, weaving towards the British outpost, on a dying horse. Part of the rider’s skull had been removed by an Afghan sword; his life had been saved only by the copy of Blackwood’s Magazine stuffed into his hat to stave off the intense cold, which had blunted the blow. This was Dr William Brydon, the sole survivor of a 16,000-strong force that had left Kabul a week earlier, only to be massacred in the mountain passes by rebellious Afghan tribesmen.

FULL ARTICLE ON THIS LINK

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...259708,00.html

Mead Pusher, I´d suggest that we live in a represntative democracy, and a constitutional monarchy, none of which are mutually exclusive. The term democracy covers a broad church (sic) and your variant has it´s own problems.

Do a search on "the tyranny of the majority" to see what I mean and the checks and balances required.

ORAC

Shades of my favourite T shirt (bought in the USofA, of all places), it reads
"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups".
I do have to be careful when and where I wear it!

O96

1) Mead Pusher we do indeed elect REPRESENTATIVES to Parliament who immediately and miraculously decide they are then DELEGATES and have no real need to REPRESENT the people who voted for them. That in my mind is not very democratic.
2) IF (as we are told) part of the reason for being in Afghanistan is to stop the heroin trade why dont we just destroy the bloody poppy crops? What am I missing?
3) How much are the hand of our troops tied with idiotic rules of engagement? Can they not be given a free hand? (leave political correctness aside please)

A liberal scattering of agent orange, no more poppy crops, bring the boys and girls home. I reckon it would take about a week.

Tigs, and can we please shoot anyone that gets in the way, please, please, please?

Only if they look at you in a funny manner.

Couldn't we just buy up all their sodding poppies, then burn them?

Or, even better, contaminate them with poison and let all the druggies kill themselves.

Probably cheaper in the long run...

hate to say it but:

Why are we even really there?

Let them crack on!

If that is the seat of int terrorism then i'll eat my hat!

waste of time and guys!.

Ralph

Beags - exactly. Buy them out. It would probably end up cheaper than "eradication". Sell the product to the pharmas as a morphine substitute. The problem is that the guys attacking HM's Forces (UK and Canadian) are probably not the farmers but the exporters who would still be left out of that arrangement.

Then bring them into the arrangement. Identify the chain from grower to processer to distributer and pay them slightly more than the existing rates. Then supply the pharma houses with the raw material to make painkilling drugs that can be sold cheaply, especially to third world countries where there is a shortage [because they can't afford the existing brands].

If you acknowledge the hierarchy and work with them, rather than try to wipe them out, we might see less conflict and more cooperation [and therefore less casualties].

But then again, I'm guilty of thinking logically. Again.

This is the most sensible thing I have read for a while. It is a link to a feasibility study to license opiate production in Afghanistan

http://www.senliscouncil.net/modules...es/feasibility

The Afghanistan operation is war-fighting that was sold to the House of Commons and the UK population as peacekeeping and reconstruction.


Lies, incompetence, confusion and contradictions. Des Browne = General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett.

- John Reid's deceitful quote about hoping troops could leave with "no shots being fired."
- No clear statement of the mission - Melchett's latest statement about "facing down the Taliban" beggars belief. Poppy eradication perhaps, or perhaps not. Reconstruction perhaps, or perhaps not. Cluster-fcuk with mission creep - certainly.
- Lies about the Taliban strength - "fragmented remnants" and "not more than a thousand" spring to mind.
- Lies about troops in theatre - HMG were pretending that there were 3,000 troops in theatre, when in fact the teeth element comprised of four rifle companies or 600 troops, for an area the size of Wales.
- Who are British troops working for? NATO? The UN? The Kabul regime? The US? Not the UK taxpayer, that is for sure.
- Melchett could not even be bothered to speak in the House in person on Monday 3rd June on the Afghan situation, claiming constituency work, even though no change to his surgery dates was publicised on his website.
- Nowhere near enough air support, whether rotary transport or fixed wing.

No more troops should be committed without a debate and a vote in the House of Commons, and troops should be confined to self-protection operations until the mission and resources are identified. This operation must be accountable to Parliament and Melchett's statement that those questioning the operation are "almost criminally negligent" are the lowest and most self-serving attempt to suppress legitimate debate for reasons of political self-interest. Next he'll be smearing the dead by saying "we owe it to them" or such tripe...the man deserves beating to a pulp.

Max is very mad about it too;

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1787

Nigegilb
Thanks! that is a really good article you have linked to. Worth a read everyone.