Afghanistan- why were the public not given the choices?

By Anthony Webber:

It is well known that the UK was involved in Afghanistan from 2001 and that alongside other NATO countries, decided to end combat operations in 2014.

This is reflected in the fact that in the twenty year of operations, the bulk of the 457 deaths of British service personal were in the period 2006-2012, and there were 3 deaths in 2015 and one in 2020. Sadly, there were also thousands of casualties, many serious, and these too dramatically reduced after 2015.

British troops had been withdrawn to Kabul and were engaged in valuable protection, training and support work for the Afghan Armed services and Police. They were also engaged in improving education, healthcare, economic growth and local governance. At the same time, the newly won right to have a democratic government saw a number of elections and great improvements in women’s rights and opportunities.

Other NATO forces, especially the Americans, were also engaged in worthwhile tasks.

This all was providing the Afghan military with the infrastructure support they needed in order to hold the country securely against Taliban attacks.

The Afghan Security services in fact suffered 69,000 deaths, the Taliban 51,000 and 47,000 civilians.

The coalition lost 3500 lives and contractors 4,000.

It is worth mentioning that back in December 2009, when the Taliban were starting to make some progress, that President Obama ordered a Surge of an extra 33,000 US troops into Afghanistan. This had the effect of putting the Taliban into retreat and a number of Tribes, who saw the strength of resolve, decided to support the Afghan government.

The turning point came when the then American President Donald Trump decided to have a “peace” deal with the Taliban, which was nothing short of a surrender. It was signed at the end of February 2020 and committed all the NATO forces to leave Afghanistan by 1^st May 2021. The Taliban agreed to not attack any NATO forces, but were amazingly free to attack the Afghan government forces. The Taliban did this because they knew those forces would receive no air or other support from NATO, which was obviously a demoralising blow to them.  This was supposed to put pressure on the Afghan government to engage in talks with the Taliban. These, unsurprisingly got nowhere, because there was no incentive to the Taliban to reach any form of agreement.

Essentially all this capitulation was a major strategic blunder. It was apparent from the start that it was a disaster as the Taliban played lip service to the “agreement,” whilst continuing to try to capture key provinces.

When newly elected President Jo Biden took over, there was an opportunity for him to throw out the Trump “deal,” as he had with other international agreements the former had made. However, all he did was to move the departure date to August 31^st ( having intended it to be a symbolic September 11^th).

This would still have given ample time to review intelligence assessments about what would happen if America and its Allies left Afghanistan then.

Despite many politicians denying that the intelligence predicted such a fast fall of the Afghan government in Kabul, ( the latest being Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, taking no notice of one of the latest assessments dated 22^nd July), it perhaps suited their agendas of retreat to blame others and not themselves.

As the fall of the Afghan government was predicted many months ago and certainly at least weeks before the Taliban entered Kabul unopposed, there was ample opportunity to fly in forces to hold the city, but a policy of retreat and surrender was chosen instead.

Kabul could have been at the very least a humanitarian corridor and could also have been used as a springboard to liberate other parts of the country. There was and still are resistance forces opposing the Taliban.

All the Afghan military needed was their Allies standing by them, but they deserted them in their time of need.

It is not surprising that their morale collapsed.

The coalition Allies were also aware of the major corruption in the Afghan government and thousands of Afghan security forces had not been paid for months, yet did nothing about these major issues which affected morale.

( The Taliban were worse with corruption and protection money and acted like a Mexican drug cartel).

It is well known that when the Taliban were in power previously, there were 6 million Afghan refugees in 2000 who fled their country.

This refugee problem greatly diminished in the period of relative stability after 2001, when the country was liberated from the Taliban, and many returned.

One of the advantages of having a  safe and secure country where there is seen to be an economic future, is that their people want to be part of it, not exit it.

It was therefore never in the interests of Afghanistan, the NATO countries, or the world, for the country to be returned to the dark ages, and for the refugee situation to be massively worsened.

This could all be seen coming. At the end of 2020 there were 2.9 million Afghans displaced in their own country because of the Taliban. By mid- July it was up to 3.5 million. There are now 2.6 million Afghan refugees, with 2.2 million in Pakistan and Iran. This situation is worsening by the day. The Afghan economy is in tatters, there is little work available and there are food shortages. It is a major humanitarian crisis, all of which would have been foreseen.

There are 29 NATO countries, some with some very sophisticated intelligence services.

For the politicians in charge in the UK, the USA and other countries to pretend they did not know what was happening and would happen, was the height of political hypocrisy, deceit and incompetence.

So there was a choice before our withdrawal and that choice is still there now.

The legitimate Afghan Vice President is in the country with the resistance movement.

A stable Afghanistan means stopping the humanitarian disaster, making the area safe from international terrorism both there, and further afield.

It also means that millions of extra refugees will not be heading to Europe and elsewhere if they know they will be safe at home.

The public in the UK were never told that abandoning Afghanistan would mean creating a disaster and millions more refugees.

This policy adopted by the UK government of committing to take 20,000 plus Afghan refugees is just the tip of the iceberg. There will be many more claiming asylum. They will be supplemented by  many more from the Middle East and Africa as both the USA and the UK have sent out a clear message that they cannot be relied on as allies.

The British Prime Minister, the Home, Defence and Foreign Secretaries, are all responsible and should resign.

This is one of the biggest political errors in British history.

They have put the Sunni  Islamist fundamentalist agendas of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, other Gulf States and Pakistan, (who have played a double game, and without whom the Taliban would have got nowhere), ahead of the interests of world peace and freedoms.

The British public have not been told the truth about Afghanistan and the fact that this disaster could easily have been avoided.

The focus has not been on the fate of the Afghan people and world security, but on getting our translators out, a defeatist message in propagated in our media for months, which did nothing to help morale in Afghanistan.

Our politicians have blamed the USA Presidents, conveniently ignoring the fact that they went along with the American abandon Afghanistan “deal.”

Of the two Presidents who are to blame, Biden was labelled “Sleepy Jo” by Trump, who in turn was called “the Clown” by Biden. In reality our politicians have earned the label “Sleepy Clowns,” the worst of both those Presidents.

The UK cannot continue with such failings on the international arena when they have so much effect on our domestic situation- an Island nation overcrowded which has no more room for its own population, let alone the world’s refugees.

We need a new Foreign policy of helping countries in difficulties so they can develop to their full potential giving their populations hope for the future and not despair.

We also need to bear in mind when politicians complain about “forever wars,”  that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”