afghanistan
10 Aug 2009
The War Britain Doesn't Want
More UK soldiers are dying in Afghanistan, but while most of Britain has turned against the war, the country can't seem to profit from its past mistakes, writes Alex Mitchell in London
The funeral of 111-year-old Harry Patch in Somerset on 6 August provided one of those moments that the British love: pomp, patriotism, ceremony, nostalgia, national mourning and thousands of Union Jacks at half-mast.Media coverage on radio, television and in newspapers gave a thunderous farewell to "The Last Tommy", for Mr Patch was the final British survivor of the trench slaughter of World War I.
But the deafening noise of choirs, brass bands, bagpipes, fly-pasts, gun salutes and speeches by politicians, generals and prelates served only to obliterate the voice of Patch himself, and he is worth listening to.
This is Harry Patch on war: "War is organised murder and nothing else ... It was not worth it. It was not worth one life, let alone all the millions."
He also said: "I met someone from the German side and we both shared the same opinion: we fought, we finished and we were friends. It wasn't worth it."
On the battlefield near Ypres in 1917 a Cornish soldier who was horribly wounded pleaded to be shot to end his misery. Harry, who saw him die before he could pull the trigger, recalled: "I was with him for the last 60 seconds of his life. He gasped one word — Mother. That one word has run through my brain for 88 years. I will never forget it. I think it is the most sacred word in the English language. It wasn't a cry of distress or pain; it was one of surprise and joy."
The interviewer recalled: "Harry said that from the way the lad said it, he knew his mother was there waiting for him." (Perhaps some of Harry's quotations could be read out to Australian troops ordered to Afghanistan or relayed to those returning home. But on second thoughts, I don't think the Ministry of Defence or the RSL would allow it.)
In Britain, the Government's war adventure in Afghanistan is under increasing public criticism, and this is reflected in the opinion polls. According to the ComRes poll published in the Independent, a majority of the British public now believes that the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable and that troops should be pulled out immediately.
The poll found that more than half of the adult population (52 per cent) want troops withdrawn now while 43 per cent don't. Asked if they thought the war was unwinnable, 58 per cent said "yes" and only 31 per cent disagreed. Anti-war feeling is even higher among women who have swung from overall support for the war to outright antipathy.
One factor driving public opinion is the rising death and injury toll from Helmand province where British troops are stationed.
Under enormous pressure from soldiers and their families, figures have just been released showing that there have been 2650 casualties among UK personnel in Afghanistan since 2001, including 196 deaths. In July alone, 22 soldiers were killed and 57 seriously wounded in action, while five were killed in the first week of August.
A recent Harris Poll has found that one in 20 people has had a friend or family member killed or injured in Afghanistan and just 13 per cent agreed with Prime Minister Brown's risible assessment that the military operation is showing "signs of success".
Public support is being sapped by the mission's lack of credibility on the political, military or moral grounds. The moth-eaten justification for the war — "we are wiping them out in Afghanistan so they don't attack us at home" — has been undermined by the lack of any evidence of any terror operations by Afghanistan groups in the UK.
Meanwhile, the Government has been unable to present the pre-conditions that are fundamental to waging a foreign war: a clear statement of war aims, a rough time frame for the length of the commitment, an affordable budget, a casualty tolerance level and an exit strategy.
What's contributing to the evaporation of public support are the bizarre and contradictory messages from the Government. At the end of July, Brown declared the latest UK-led "hold and build" battle in Helmand Valley, known as Operation Panther's Claw, had been brought to a successful conclusion.
But simultaneously the deputy chief of the Defence staff, Lieutenant-General Simon Mayall, said the current war was "not against the Taliban", while the eternally youthful Foreign Secretary David Miliband said it was time to start talking to the Taliban who, we now learn, come in "three tiers" — good Taliban, bad Taliban and moderate Taliban.
How curious. Less than two years ago two Western diplomats were summarily deported by the Karzai Government for engaging in informal contacts with Taliban leaders, yet now the same Taliban is being sought for talks by the British Foreign Secretary and the US President Barack Obama. The shifting sands of Afghan politics are perilous for both conventional and flat-earth thinkers.
To add to the public's anger and confusion, General Sir David Richards, the incoming head of the British Army, said on 8 August that the British military commitment to Afghanistan could last another 40 years. It's the kind of idiocy which will fuel anti-war sentiment.
Unkind UK researchers have now produced figures showing the cost of the war — $25 billion since 2002 — and the number of Afghan civilians killed — an estimated 30,000. They then calculated that the money could have built 23 new hospitals and trained 60,000 new teachers and 77,000 new nurses.
With the UK economy slipping inexorably into basket case territory, the argument for talking in place of fighting is becoming unstoppable. Sadly, before the parties reach the negotiating table more British, American, Australian and other NATO soldiers will be killed — as well as hundreds more of the people of Afghanistan, including militia fighters, Taliban (good, bad and indifferent), young people, old people and villagers who have never heard of the World Trade Centre.
This callous indifference to soldiers' lives of prolonging a flawed conflict was highlighted by Senator John Kerry in 1971 when, as a highly decorated Vietnam veteran, he condemned the Nixon-Kissinger administration for perpetuating the war. "Each day, to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam, someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn't have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can't say we have made a mistake. How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
But don't mention such things around the Sydney and Canberra "think tanks", or in earshot of the self-interested warmongers who write columns for News Ltd and Fairfax. These people are making a very nice living out of war and Islamophobia, and they'll be hoping they can help drag the conflict out long enough to pay off their mortgages and put their kids through expensive private schools.
Harry Patch had experienced the horror and futility of war, and knew better than desk-warriors like these. As he once put it: "At the end, the peace was settled round a table, so why the hell couldn't they do that at the start without losing millions of men?"
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Interesting article,we will continue to pay a premium,in lives, on our "insurance policy" with the US,we paid a very large premium to the Britsh in WW1,however they decided to not honour the policy in 1942,there’s a lesson there perhaps.
There is one issue where Republican Roman politicians were morally superior to their modern counterparts, all Roman citizens of military age were liable for army service,including Senators,only they could command a legion,so,they put themselves in harm’s way when they voted for war. Many members of Rome’s political elite died on the battlefield,in contrast the casualty rate for modern democratic politicians is vanishingly small. I think the Roman model is a constitutional arrangement that could be usefully revived,imagine all our MPs in battle gear leading our troops into combat
Most conflicts globally are being driven by initiatives of the CFR. They are increasingly finding themselves and their hard conflict & insurrection campaign promotion opposed to the soft diplomacy mercantile efforts of the Chinese, Indians, and now even the Russians on its near borders.
Afghanistan can be replaced at whim by Nigeria, Angola, Venezuela or Cuba or full on wars with China or Russia. It can move from Oil and Gas to Lithium for batteries from Bolivia in a blink.
You may think you have the veracity of the totalitarian narrative on the Burmese Military or the Zimbabwean ZANU side but most don’t know the Chatham House deals and Maggie’s double crosses whenrefusing to come up with the agreed cash, cash that was to fund programmes to take poor rural ZANU supporters and give them an urban based future, so the populist narrative is written for economically illiterate unionists and their brit supporting public servant cohort combined with the old lot that thought their kafirs should have been more gratefull. And the financial and trade sanctions in a centralist global economy are, when effected against key individuals or states are hidden while behind an inoccuous narrative veil, effect the same devastation as hard warfare.
In Australia, never do we hear of the hypcrisy of pursuing AWB for its breaches of the oil for food programme when the war and its antecedent sanctions were found to be illegal. Why is the hypocrisy so vivid, well Saddam’s babies perished for one, and a country that had every right to protect itself and purchase munitions or whatever was sanctioned on false premises and then invaded illegally. But Richard Butler did get to be Governor of Tasmania and even though UN security councils still can’t write law Rockefeller demonstrates his power to kill the grunts of disenfranchised democratic nations and any resident of a pipeline or resource rich state that obstructs his CFR clients path.
Logistically you look at US base openings etc to use a a usefull predictor and that is why Chavez is doing flipouts over the US base leases push into Colombia. If you want to clarify the activities of a US base in terms of discounting the narrative of providing security or internal stabiolity to the host then look no further than KBR built Camp Bondsteek in Kosovo. It has nothing to with Kosovo and remains only as a citadel supporting resource corridors and prescious metals
The tool employed is the liberal facist narrative and its authors who are not held to account as the terrorists that they are. Australia’s foreign p;olicy elite and their scribbler cohort are amongst the worst of them, Oxford Don’s and Yale Law Faculty heads like Paul Gewirtz are warriors for the narrative actively promoting strategic internal conflict in opposing countries and crafting the narrative to carry Joe public’s worst prejudices in the push to take lower class professional grunts to the battlefield while they have their middle and upper class kids sit quietly around the fireside.
One thing you can say for the Brits however is that the upper class at least knows to carry the rapier. And when Lizzie II hosts Sarkozy to welcome Total & Republican France back into the CFR fold with BP and Shell you do find William and Harry wanting to get into the fray even if the officer cohort casualties pale in comparison to that of the grunts.
rd001,
"One thing you can say for the Brits however is that the upper class at least knows to carry the rapier",this is certainly true historically.However I have no idea as to whether or not the old "upper classes" still run Britain(or Australia) anymore,I suspect they don’t. I agree that those making foreign policy,or expressing bellicose opinions, never seem to find themselves at the sharp end.
By insurance policy, does Rocky refer to the terrrs. who attacked US. H would either be a Govt. misiformer, or be one of only a few a sheeple who still believe the Govt conspiracy theory. that one about an Araba in a cave in Afghan who shut down the half trillion dollar US air defenses with his laptop, then had his incompetents free-fall 3 buildings, including unstruck WTC7. This after carrying out perfect high speed descents, their first time in 130 ton Boeings, without the necassary continuous radar talkdown for height. Who alsso disappeared two more Boeings, one into a ten foot hole in the Penta. and one into a bomb crater in PA. Now, I wonder what steel microspheres that require 3000 deg C to form and nano-thermite was doing in the WTC dust. Yeah, you have to die, for another lie. Insurance, my foot!
Unfortunately, until the dysfunctional thinking of seeing war as a problem solving mechanism is gone and until the arms dealers lose their power by coming up against politicians with integrity and intelligence, there will never be an end to war. That probably means there will never be an end to war. Unless of course ordinary people demand an end to war.
The barbarity, savagery, backwardness and sheer inhumanity of tackling any problem with a gun, a missile or a bomb… not to mention knives, torture, starvation, threats, harassment and thuggish soldiers… beggars belief given how far people like to think we have come.
We fantasise that war is ‘honourable’ and while honourable acts may take place in war, as they do anywhere and anytime, there is absolutely no link between them. War is misery, murder and gore. It is appalling death and suffering inflicted on other human beings in order to ‘prove a point.’ Most people swallow the ludicrous fantasy that there is something noble about a soldier. Soldiers are trained to kill. There is no other reason for their existence. They are licensed murderers. Anyone who carries a gun intends to use it. The farce of course is that many believe it is okay for our soldiers to murder and maim in order to control another nation … or to prop up a ‘friendly government’ but it is not okay for the other side to do it! Our killing is ‘good,’ and your killing is ‘evil.’ No, killing is killing and anyone who resorts to it is uncivilized.
Any member of any free democracy is responsible for everything done by their government in their nation’s name. The British are no worse or better than we are although they have certainly done their fair share of slaughter, occupation and colonisation throughout history.
Of course the British have learned nothing. We have learned nothing. The Americans have learned even less. We aid, abett, support and encourage the military machines to murder and maim across the world either by omission or commission.
War works for the simple reason that most of humanity lives in a state of primitive fear and when you create an enemy you project that fear and sense of powerlessness out ‘there’ in a way in which it can be ‘controlled’ by murdering and maiming the other. It doesn’t work of course but fear makes human beings even more vengeful and the perceived ‘payback’ gives some satisfaction, while, of course, subconsciously adding to the fear so more ‘action’ needs to be taken to assuage the sense of fear and powerlessness. And on it goes.
There is not a war in history which has ever been fought between a side of complete ‘good’…. read innocent … and a side of complete ‘evil’…. read guilty.
Pick a war, any war and study the history and you can see the part played by both sides, by all involved…. and by the war machine. One of the reasons why war has been so enduring is that it enables governments to play ‘goodcop-badcop’ and to create a deluge of propaganda which encourages the demonisation of the ‘other.’ Whether that ‘other’ be German, Japanese, Russian, Iraqi, Afghan, Boer or Arab, to name a very few… or whether the ‘other’ is Christian, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Hindu, Jew, Parsee, Buddhist, Cathar, Hugeunot or whatever.
Only a fool keeps doing the same thing and expecting a different result. What fools we all are!
Are they still looking for Osama Bin Laden? (the original stated casus belli)
Or are we expected to have forgotten all about him by now - leaving us free to concentrate on quelling the insurgency? (which was an entirely predictable consequence of another unwelcome foreign invasion)
When the incoming British Army Chief speaks of up to 40 years more war in Afghanistan, is that based on an estimate of the maximum theoretical lifespan of a 50-something man with severe kidney disease and an enormous bounty on his head?
Or it is based on an estimate of how long it will take to completely knock the fighting spirit out of Afghanis using all the tricks of modern technology?
How Bin Laden and his associates put nano-thermitic explosives into the three buildings that collapsed in NYC on 9-11 that has recently been identified in the dust?
Have the leaseholders of the WTC complex, which includes Larry Silverstein (the principal leaseholders) and his business associates at the time, been interviewed by police about this new evidence - and all the other evidence that the three steel-framed skyscrapers were subjected to controlled demolition, which must have been pre-planned with inside assistance? If not, why not?
Does ANYONE in Australia’s Federal Parliament ask serious questions any more about this major, protracted war in which the Howard Government first got Australia entangled?
So many questions…