I agree with the war in Afghanistan. However, Peter Hitchens doesn't.
With British deaths in Afghanistan now having reached the 100 mark - and the total death toll is now 102 - Peter Hitchens says the war in Afghanistan is just pointless.
The British Army is probably doing more fighting in Afghanistan than the US Army at the moment, and some countries such as France and Germany just aren't pulling their weight.
The Global Constable who's just a pitiful Plod at home...
14th June 2008
Daily Mail
Peter Hitchens
British soldiers in Afghanistan: The British Army is probably the world's only remaining proper combat army
British soldiers should leave Afghanistan now. No member of the Government has ever explained why they are there. This is because they do not know, and also because they don’t have the courage to admit they have made a foolish mistake.
All the arguments they put forward are false or absurd. It is not about stamping out terrorist bases. Even if we had the troops to do this, such bases might just as easily be in Pakistan, where we cannot send soldiers. Or they could be in West Yorkshire, thanks to our immigration policies, where our vaunted ‘security’ services probably couldn’t find them.
It is not about ‘defeating the Taliban’. The men we make deals with as tribal elders one week are ‘the Taliban’ a few days later when they ambush our troops.
It is not about ‘bringing democracy and freedom’ to Afghanistan. This noble objective is a joke in a country run by tribal chieftains, whose ‘elected’ President barely has control over his own bedroom, let alone his capital, and certainly not his country.
Private Jeff Doherty and Lance Corporal James Bateman were two of five British soldiers killed in Afghanistan this week
It is not about saving Afghan women from wearing the burka. They still wear the burka, in sight of our troops, and an army of half a million could not free them from it.
Finally, it is pitiful beyond the point of embarrassment that a country which cannot control disorder on its own streets should be posing as a Global Constable in a part of the world from which we have already been violently expelled twice, and where we have no business.
Nobody can fail to be proud of the way our troops have behaved in Helmand. We have, in many ways, the last proper combat army in the world. But that does not justify the 102 deaths we have suffered there, or the many more that will follow as long as we continue this pointless, vainglorious adventure.
They will die to save some-one else’s face. It will be inexcusable.
dailymail.co.uk
With British deaths in Afghanistan now having reached the 100 mark - and the total death toll is now 102 - Peter Hitchens says the war in Afghanistan is just pointless.
The British Army is probably doing more fighting in Afghanistan than the US Army at the moment, and some countries such as France and Germany just aren't pulling their weight.
The Global Constable who's just a pitiful Plod at home...
14th June 2008
Daily Mail
Peter Hitchens
British soldiers in Afghanistan: The British Army is probably the world's only remaining proper combat army
British soldiers should leave Afghanistan now. No member of the Government has ever explained why they are there. This is because they do not know, and also because they don’t have the courage to admit they have made a foolish mistake.
All the arguments they put forward are false or absurd. It is not about stamping out terrorist bases. Even if we had the troops to do this, such bases might just as easily be in Pakistan, where we cannot send soldiers. Or they could be in West Yorkshire, thanks to our immigration policies, where our vaunted ‘security’ services probably couldn’t find them.
It is not about ‘defeating the Taliban’. The men we make deals with as tribal elders one week are ‘the Taliban’ a few days later when they ambush our troops.
It is not about ‘bringing democracy and freedom’ to Afghanistan. This noble objective is a joke in a country run by tribal chieftains, whose ‘elected’ President barely has control over his own bedroom, let alone his capital, and certainly not his country.
Private Jeff Doherty and Lance Corporal James Bateman were two of five British soldiers killed in Afghanistan this week
It is not about saving Afghan women from wearing the burka. They still wear the burka, in sight of our troops, and an army of half a million could not free them from it.
Finally, it is pitiful beyond the point of embarrassment that a country which cannot control disorder on its own streets should be posing as a Global Constable in a part of the world from which we have already been violently expelled twice, and where we have no business.
Nobody can fail to be proud of the way our troops have behaved in Helmand. We have, in many ways, the last proper combat army in the world. But that does not justify the 102 deaths we have suffered there, or the many more that will follow as long as we continue this pointless, vainglorious adventure.
They will die to save some-one else’s face. It will be inexcusable.
dailymail.co.uk
