In my experience, you generally know the game is up when the United Nations orders its employees to start packing their bags and head for the nearest functioning airport. In any conflict, it falls to the UN to occupy the moral high ground and concentrate its efforts on alleviating the suffering of the victims of war, rather than siding with the combatants. But the moment security becomes so perilous that it is no longer safe to offer basic humanitarian aid, you know things are getting pretty serious.
We can all remember what happened in Darfur when the UN was powerless to protect millions of Sudanese refugees from the genocidal attentions of the Janjaweed militia. And looking back at the post-Saddam implosion of Iraq, it now seems abundantly clear that the tipping point in the coalition's disastrous attempts to maintain some semblance of order came when the UN ordered its staff to withdraw after a devastating suicide bomb attack on its Baghdad headquarters in August 2003, in which 22 people were killed.
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Yesterday's decision by the UN to undertake a similar withdrawal from Afghanistan, following an attack on the accommodation used by its employees, certainly does not bode well for the Nato-led mission to establish some form of credible governance in this benighted country.
The UN says it will still be able to function, as the withdrawal only affects foreign nationals, and not the Afghan employees who actually do the lion's share of the aid work. But the signal the withdrawal sends to those determined to wreck the Nato effort is still not encouraging.
Nor is the UN's withdrawal the only potential turning point in the fortunes of the Afghan mission during the past week. The cold-blooded murder of five young British soldiers by an Afghan policeman they were helping to train has eroded even further the rapidly dwindling support for a military campaign whose overa
By Con Coughlin Published: 6:33AM GMT 06 Nov 2009
Comments 10 | Comment on this article
In my experience, you generally know the game is up when the United Nations orders its employees to start packing their bags and head for the nearest functioning airport. In any conflict, it falls to the UN to occupy the moral high ground and concentrate its efforts on alleviating the suffering of the victims of war, rather than siding with the combatants. But the moment security becomes so perilous that it is no longer safe to offer basic humanitarian aid, you know things are getting pretty serious.
We can all remember what happened in Darfur when the UN was powerless to protect millions of Sudanese refugees from the genocidal attentions of the Janjaweed militia. And looking back at the post-Saddam implosion of Iraq, it now seems abundantly clear that the tipping point in the coalition's disastrous attempts to maintain some semblance of order came when the UN ordered its staff to withdraw after a devastating suicide bomb attack on its Baghdad headquarters in August 2003, in which 22 people were killed.
Yesterday's decision by the UN to undertake a similar withdrawal from Afghanistan, following an attack on the accommodation used by its employees, certainly does not bode well for the Nato-led mission to establish some form of credible governance in this benighted country.
The UN says it will still be able to function, as the withdrawal only affects foreign nationals, and not the Afghan employees who actually do the lion's share of the aid work. But the signal the withdrawal sends to those determined to wreck the Nato effort is still not encouraging.
Nor is the UN's withdrawal the only potential turning point in the fortunes of the Afghan mission during the past week. The cold-blooded murder of five young British soldiers by an Afghan policeman they were helping to train has eroded even further the rapidly dwindling support for a military campaign whose overall objectives few now comprehend. Given that the attack came just days after Hamid Karzai was re-elected in a campaign marred by widespread fraud, it is hardly surprising that people now question why it is necessary for our soldiers to sacrifice their lives to maintain a corrupt politician in power.
We've even had our first New Labour apparatchik break ranks and call for the Government to focus its attention on developing an exit strategy, rather than sending more of our young servicemen and women to an uncertain fate. Kim Howells may have been a nonentity during his time as a Foreign Office minister, where I'm reminded that he had responsibility for the Middle East and Afghanistan. But at least he now has the distinction of being the first Labour politician of rank to put his name publicly to what could become our terms of surrender.
In Washington, meanwhile, President Obama and his senior aides are so traumatised by the thought that the Afghan campaign might become their Vietnam that they seem to have totally lost the will to lead. While Mr Obama, by all accounts, spends his evenings poring over improving tomes such as Lessons in Disaster – Gordon Goldstein's sobering study of the appalling decision-making process in the Kennedy and Johnson White Houses – his administration appears incapable of making any decisions of its own, particularly concerning the controversial issue of whether or not to send more troops to Afghanistan.
This endless dithering prompted General Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, the former head of Britain's Armed Forces, to accuse the president of being responsible for the crisis of confidence that threatens to jeopardise the success of the entire Afghan mission. "We've reached a tipping point in Afghanistan because of President Obama's delayed decision to send more troops," he bluntly declared.
Rather than the tragic loss of lives, it is this failure of leadership, in Britain as well as in America, that poses the greatest threat to our long-term aims. Casualties are an inevitable consequence of any conflict, but the loss of service personnel does not necessarily diminish support for a military campaign, so long as people know what they are fighting for, and support the objectives.
Yet in Britain, the public has been left utterly bewildered by the Government's baffling range of explanations as to why our continued presence is Afghanistan is so essential, from poppy eradication to the annihilation of the Taliban. In Washington, the confusion has reached the point where Mr Obama is still trying to work out whether American troops are fighting to protect the Afghan government, or to protect Americans from attack by Islamist terrorists.
It was the existential threat posed by the latter, rather than the institutional weakness of the former, that was the casus belli eight years ago. It remains so today. The fundamental justification for our continued involvement in Afghanistan is to protect the West from the type of terrorist plots that resulted in the September 11 attacks against the US and the July 7 bombings in London.
If, as the faint-hearted Mr Howells proposes, Britain was to undertake a gradual withdrawal from southern Afghanistan – which, one assumes, would be done in conjunction with other Nato forces – then the territory would immediately be reoccupied by the malign Islamist forces that provoked this deeply distasteful conflict in the first place.
To prevent that from happening, two things need to occur, both of which require a stronger military footprint than is currently at the disposal of Nato commanders. First, the Taliban must be destroyed as an effective paramilitary force. One of the reasons General Stanley McChrystal, the head of Nato forces in Afghanistan, is pressing for an extra 40,000 troops is that he wants to launch an offensive to clear out the last remaining Taliban strongholds in the Nad-e-Ali region of Helmand province, where the five British soldiers died this week.
The second priority, despite this week's tragedy, is to continue training the Afghan army and police force to a level where they can take responsibility for their country's security, as was eventually, and after much hard work, the case in Iraq. Only then can we have a serious discussion about scaling down our military commitment.
To achieve both these goals, the Nato mission desperately needs more resources. If they are not forthcoming soon, Mr Obama will experience the same fate in Afghanistan as his Democratic predecessors endured in Vietnam.
Comments: 10
"A well-connected source said there were more than 100,000 people in Britain from "completely militarised" regions, including Somalia and its neighbours in the Horn of Africa...... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/intelligence-chiefs-warn-blair-of-homegrown-insurgency-501835.html "Europe, including Britain, could be undermined by large immigrant groups with little allegiance to their host countries � a "reverse colonisation" as Parry described it." http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article673612.ece This cannot be addressed from a trench in Helmand. Or indeed by giving money that we are borrowing or printing to Pakistan, which is in receipt of hundreds of millions from the UK.
Just been watching Brown and his "we are staying in Afghanistan" speech. Why is it that this man, for the life of him, is unable to sound and appear sincere, even when reading a speech someone else has written for him?
At one point Iraq seemed a lost cause but Bush bit the bullet and finally put in place the resources that had been needed in the first place. Combined with an intelligent and comprehensive new strategy it was enough to turn it around. Iraq is not out of the woods yet and it is unlikely ever to become a liberal democracy but the chances of it becoming a relatively (please note the caveat) free, stable and prosperous country are good. In all other respects Bush was in my opinion a disasterous president. It would be ironic if Obama who had so much more promise flunks this test. Speaking as an ex-soldier I feel the options are simple - do it properly or get out. Any "middle way" or political placebos like "anti-terrorist operations" will only make a bad situation worse. The same applies to our government in spades but ultimately it all hinges on the US getting it right.
Mr Coughlin, you have been an avid advocate of these wars and even wanted to go beyond where we are in now, perhaps Iran and Syria. Yes, Mr Obama is a failure - a man who can eloquently talk. We had Mr Bush who was hailed as a fighter - a man who can't talk sensibly. The fact is neither did the trick and both British and American lives are thrown away for nothing. If politicians are to be held to account, so are the columnists who habitually instigate the former on these missions without a clue about long-term consequences. It is grossly unfair to pick on just the politicians.
Mr Coughlin, you seem to be attempting to re-write recent history, and I find that quite disingenious, to say the least. Disingenious because thanks to you and your ideological soulmates (the neo-cons, that is), the Bush/Cheney regime chose to ABANDON the real terrorists who had attacked America from Afghanistan, in order to fight non-existent ones in Iraq. That was a policy you not only supported but were a strong advocate of on these pages and elsewhere. Is it any surprise that the real terrorists (who, btw, were once our much-valued freedom fighters against the Soviets) were able to regroup and adapt - which has made them more effective than ever before? And isn't this the very point that Mr Obama himself had been making since about 2004, to much derision by the neo-cons, when he opposed the war in Iraq? As for Mr Obama's policies as president, his real error of judgement (which you've consciously avoided - unsurprisingly) happens to be his over-indulgence of the atrocious Zionist regime in Israel, of which you also happen to be a staunch supporter. And when that policy comes back to haunt America someday, I hope you will be objective enough to acknowledge that it was very wrong indeed.
Well said, Con. There could be much more public support for this campaign if only Brown would state his case. I still question whether our action there can eradicate "home grown" terrorism here in the UK but, if I am wrong, let's hear the case. Instead, we just have tired old "stay the course" and "'til the job is done" phrases coming from the government.
"This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands,� This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England." The regime has well and truly scuppered our England. Brown and Ainsworth have implicitly admitted that by stating the obvious, that the threat comes from Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is a consequence of mass immigration. But we will get nowhere in Afghanistan, our soldiers are still being killed and injured near Sangin where they where first deployed 3 years ago. Our so-called allies are a drugged militia, the Afghan government worthless and sunk in corruption. It is nonsensical to try and fight so far forward in such unpropitious circumstances. What Howells has bravely said is the begining of wisdom. But the consequences of the Brown and Coughlin doctrine are of course not confined to Af-Pak. We could well, on the same "logic", be mired in Somalia, or indeed other of the homelands of the various diasporas which the regime has supinely allowed to be created in our country. And to say that they have been supine or "maladroit" is the most charitable explanation. Some might say malevolent.
We all know how this is going to end. So, lets get out now and save lives. What really is the point of staying a couple more years?
What you would call 'faint hearts', others would call 'common sense'.
Unfortunately Afghanistan will become another vietnam and simply because Obama cannot or will not make any decisions. Its been three months since the commander asked for more troops and he still has,nt made a decision, in war decisions have to be made quickly to keep the campain moving forward. Obama,s lack of of a decision has meant that Afghanistan has now become a stalemate, which will cost more lives in the long run. He has to deside whether he is in this or not, if he is he should give it everything needed, if he,s not then he should bring the troops home as fast as possible.
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