| | Only a surge in fudging will tame Afghanistan The Sunday Times
03/15/2009
By John Witherow
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Twenty years ago I watched the Russians pull out of Afghanistan. They were a defeated, tetchy army whose soldiers were prone to shoot at journalists if they got too close. One Frenchman got a bullet in his backside for not backing off fast enough. The Russians believed the Americans had played a crucial part in their defeat by supplying the mujaheddin with weapons, especially surface-to-air missiles (think Charlie Wilson’s War). The Russian retreat, of course, soon got caught up in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Now the Russians are watching American, British and Nato forces embroiled in the same country with many of the same problems and are wishing us no good at all. They believe the West is making the same mistakes and that Afghanistan is an ungovernable, godforsaken place best left to its own devices. After I made another visit there last week, I think they may have a point.
The complexity of what Nato is trying to achieve struck home in the British hospital in Bastion, the giant military camp plonked in the middle of the desert in Helmand province. There are only four intensive care beds because serious British casualties are flown immediately to Selly Oak in Birmingham.
In one bed was a small boy of maybe eight years old. He had been blown up that morning by a Taliban improvised explosive device, or IED. He was heavily sedated and barely alive. Seven people had died in the explosion, including members of his family and perhaps his parents. When he finally awoke he would in all probability be an orphan. The doctors thought he would wake up “because their kids are tougher than our kids”. Why the Taliban should kill fellow Afghans was unclear. Presumably it was a mistake and the roadside bomb had been intended to blow up yet more Brits. Of the 150 British soldiers who have died in Afghanistan since 2002, more than 50 were killed by IEDs.
The only other patient in the room was a plump, middle-aged man lying almost unconscious on his back. He had been shot through the stomach by a British soldier. Doctors said he had been riding his motorbike towards a checkpoint and had refused to stop, despite warnings. Was he a suicide bomber or just a gormless biker? His motorbike passenger had driven off, so there was no sign of explosives. Medical staff thought he was not an Afghan and a nurse was talking to him loudly in English to see if he understood. He just groaned. Last year they discovered they were treating a Mancunian who had been fighting alongside the Taliban, so perhaps this tubby little chap was from Luton or Beeston.
These two random casualties of a war being fought in the poppy fields and mud villages of Helmand show what the West is up against. The Taliban may be a ragtag militia of indeterminate leadership, but they are heir to the mujaheddin who had seen off the Russian army. This lot have already won one civil war and plan to defeat Nato and its makeshift alliance of 41 nations (hilariously, Austria has two military representatives in Afghanistan and is thus part of the alliance). However much the British and Americans may outgun them when it comes to a firefight, it would be a fool who bet against an Afghan fighter.
Also present in the hospital was Sir Jock Stirrup, chief of the defence staff. A tough, no-nonsense air chief marshal, he has been visiting Afghanistan every couple of months for years. He is a glass-half-full man, but then he has to be an optimist. He acknowledges the huge hurdles faced by British troops but believes the alliance is slowly making progress.
We went with him to one of the Royal Marines’ forward bases, which a while ago was coming under daily attack. With sandbags on the roof and a rickety ladder, it has an exotic Beau Geste feel. The attacks are less frequent now, despite evidence that the Taliban are consolidating and bringing in more experienced fighters.
Stirrup was able to parade down the local bazaar, where a number of stalls were open. A few months ago it had been deserted. The Afghans stood around with blank expressions, showing neither hostility nor friendliness, although the children pointed and laughed at the few women soldiers who were present. The fact that Sir Jock could even appear there seemed like progress, although he had the kind of armed protection that would not have disgraced Barack Obama.
Britain is placing a lot of weight on the still narrow shoulders of the Afghan army. While its soldiers are undoubtedly brave men, when they lined up to be greeted by Stirrup they bore a striking resemblance to Dad’s Army. Much Whitehall effort and money is going into the army and also the police, schools, hospitals, irrigation, roads and what is known as “good governance”. Whatever happens, Afghanistan is going to be a lot better off thanks to western aid. Whether that is enough to make the Afghans spurn the Taliban is one of the great unknowns. The Talibs have a well deserved reputation for brutality and anyone seen to be collaborating is going to be dealt with summarily.
The British await the influx of 17,000 US troops, many of whom will be fighting in Helmand. America believes that as in Iraq, where the “surge” of troops helped to pacify Baghdad and other cities, the extra numbers will make all the difference. They may be right, at least for a while. Although Iraq is significantly different, success has been achieved there by protecting the locals from rival factions. US troops no longer appear like Star Wars storm-troopers leaping out of vehicles and kicking in doors. In Afghanistan the aim will be to convince the population that Nato will be around for a long time to protect them until the Afghan army and police can take over.
The size of the US commitment to Afghanistan is probably its best chance of success. Bastion is about to be transformed by the Americans at a cost of half a billion dollars to become a vast military citadel in the desert, home to perhaps 30,000 people. They are going to build a runway that will be large enough to fly in 747s. The fact that President Obama is turning his gaze on the country means the United States is committed and thus determined not to back down.
Yet no one thinks this war can be won in the conventional sense. It can be contained, curtailed and temporarily suppressed, but never won. The Taliban can always slip across the border to their havens in Pakistan, where they have rich recruiting grounds among exiles and in the madrasahs.
That means a political settlement, which means talking to the Taliban. The idea has been to lure rogue elements away and isolate the leadership in Quetta, but that has failed. Now it looks as if David Miliband, our foreign secretary, and perhaps the US administration are beginning to accept that reconciliation means talking to Mullah Omar, the one-eyed zealot, and other hardline Taliban leaders. The mullah is not one to compromise; it was his regime that banned kites, chess, cosmetics (women with painted nails had their fingers cut off), laughing in public, toothbrushes (too modern) and anything else that was fun or smacked of the post-medieval world.
Nothing can be ruled out in the arcane politics of Afghanistan, but it seems far-fetched for the Taliban to sit down with the government of President Karzai in Kabul. More to the point, would that amount to victory for the West? The Taliban gave succour to Osama Bin Laden. Who is to say they won’t do so again? That would make the past seven years of British and western involvement largely pointless. Realists believe there is no clear-cut end to this war. The best to hope for is a complex fudge. I fear there will be many more years of young British soldiers putting their lives at risk.
John Witherow is the editor of The Sunday Times
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