History speaks

“Don’t advance on Moscow”, is the first rule of warfare, according to the late Bernard Montgomery, a British Field Marshal and victory of the Battle of El Alamein. The second is don’t go fighting with your land army on the mainland of Asia. The time has come, I think, to reverse the order here: history has only two examples of failure before Moscow compared with the many examples of disaster in Asia; of disasters, in particular, in Afghanistan, the charnel house of empire.

I once wrote that it should be compulsory for ever new incumbent of the White House to read The Quiet American, the novel by Graham Greene set in Vietnam during the last days of the French occupation. Now another book has been published which should be compulsory reading for every western leader, every neo-con and every moral imperialist – Afgantsy: the Russians in Afghanistan, 1979-1989 by Rodric Braithwaite. Sadly it has come ten years too late. Actually I have a slight qualification here, a point I will come to a little later on.

There are few better qualified to tell the story of the tragic involvement of the old Soviet Union in Afghanistan than Sir Rodric Braithwaite, once British ambassador to Moscow. He begins with an intimate knowledge of Russia, the Russian people and the Russian sources. He also writes with understanding and sympathy for the veterans of this hopeless conflict, the Afgantsy of the title, who fought and suffered under the most appalling circumstances, often caught between the ruthlessness of the enemy and the negligent indifference of their own commanders. Put out of your mind the Red Army of 1943 to 1945. Think, rather, of the Imperial Army of 1914 to 1917.

Braithwaite’s has a tale to unfold whose lightest word harrows up the blood. It’s a story of suffering: the suffering of the ordinary Russian soldiers, mostly ill-educated conscripts, some 15,000 of whom lost their lives; the suffering of the ordinary people of Afghanistan, over a million of whom lost theirs, often in the most dreadful circumstances. It’s also a story of incompetence: the political incompetence of the Kremlin, sinking into geriatric senescence, and the military incompetence of the Russian central command.

The political and strategic incompetence goes wider, goes so far as Washington, to an administration so anxious to avenge the humiliation of Vietnam that it was willing to offer support to the most antediluvian and obscurantist forces, - the mujahideen that was to morph into al-Qaeda and the Taliban. As late as 1998, ten years after the conflict ended, Zbigniew Bzrezinski, former security advisor to President Jimmy Carter, continued to justify American support for the insurgents;

What is more important in the history of the world? The Taliban, or the collapse of the Soviet Empire? Some stirred up Muslims, or the liberation of central Europe and the end of the Cold War?

Here we have the same kind of blindness that led Francis Fukuyama to announce the ‘end of history’, just before history leapt up and bit him, and Bzrezinski, on the arse. It’s the blindness that caused Congressman Charles Wilson to describe Jalaluddin Haqqani, the mujahideen commander, as “goodness personified.” This incarnation of goodness is now number three on America’s most wanted list.

The Soviet road to hell was paved with good intentions. Although reluctant to intervene in the affairs of the country – contrary to Western perceptions at the time – they came hoping to make a difference, to bring this medieval society into the modern age. But the Afghans, in the main, have only ever wanted one thing: to be left alone. The British know this, or should know this, after some fairly disastrous interventions in the nineteenth century. In fact soon after the Soviet invasion the Foreign Office helpfully provided the deputy Soviet foreign minister with an account of past involvements, only to be told that this time it will be different.

But it wasn’t; it never could be. Afghanistan is easy to occupy but impossible to hold, a lesson that needs to be repeated time and again; the lesson that the Soviets ignored, the lesson that George Bush and Tony Blair also ignored. There might be some excuse for Bush, smarting in the aftermath of 9/11; there is none for Blair, given the Foreign Office warning, given our history. So, hence my qualification above: even if Afgantsy had been published years earlier it is doubtful if it would have made any difference to the strategic blindness of this stupid man.

We are now where we are, where the Soviets once were: the wolf is being held by the ears…just. How to let go, that’s the problem. The Russians wanted out years before their final exit. The problem was always to do so while retaining a degree of credibility, the nightmare bequeathed to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985. Barack Obama and David Cameron would do well to pay heed to this brilliant and superbly researched account of a multi-faceted tragedy. In the end Afghanistan will be left to its own devices at a waste of so many lives and so much effort. History speaks; it’s such a pity that we fail to listen.

Tales from the Kabul Café

There they all were, the not so great and the far from good of the international community, sitting in the Kabul Café discussing the future of Afghan ‘democracy.’ It’s a month now since the gathering, an achievement in itself, I suppose, that the diplomats and the politicians were able to come to this place at all, a sign of just how much ‘progress’ has been made in the struggle against the Taliban.

But what were they there for; what did they want? More to the point, what exactly has been achieved in nine years? Little is the simple answer, little that is not immediately undone. Let me be brutally frank: I simply do not care about ‘progress’ and ‘human rights’ in Afghanistan, terms that are absurdly out of place in a country like this, a tribal society like this. It’s almost as if we had packed our soldiers into a time machine and sent them back to the Bronze Age, there to implement democracy and guarantee human rights. Meanwhile the Iceni and the Brigantes continue to watch from the forest.

There seems to have been a sense of complete unreality in the Kabul Café in those July days. Hamid Karzai apparently gave an upbeat speech, making reference to the country’s mineral wealth (what mineral wealth?), hoping that it would become the “Asian Roundabout”, an important stopping point on the “new Silk Road.” All I can say that he is more than usually self-deluded. It was a speech, as one former diplomat put it, “written for a country without a war.”

Never mind; it will all be better by 2014. Our soldiers will be home and there will be no more war. Afghanistan will be back on the Silk Road. No it won’t; it will be back on the Poppy Trail; it’s never really left the Poppy Trail. “I can’t think of a single reason to die for Afghanistan”, one diplomat in the Café rather indiscreetly remarked. No matter; I absolutely agree. Time to start up the Tardis.

The Song of Cassandra

Channel Four, one of the terrestrial television companies in Britain, broadcast a brief series of historical documentaries last week under the title Bloody Foreigners, detailing the involvement of outsiders in certain key events in our history.

The last of the series focused on the Emperor Septimus Severus’ futile attempt to subdue the tribes north of Hadrian’s Wall in the early third century AD. This was the last try by the Romans to conquer the whole island of Britain, a task which had frustrated emperors and generals all the way back to Agricola in the first century.

The narrative was generally good- though some of the dramatic recreations verged on the naff- completely spoiled by an ending that managed to get the facts of the subsequent fate of the Severan dynasty wildly wrong! Honestly, why don’t these TV companies get some decent advice? :-)

Sorry, that’s a wholly unnecessary diversion, just a small irritation that manages to get the hornets of my intellect buzzing like mad. The essential point the programme made was sound: that the Romans came mob-handed into a complex tribal society, hoping for a pitch-battle, hoping to for a single knock out blow against the ‘barbarians’ which would bring their ‘kingdom’ into final tutelage.

The whole thing was a disaster in men, money and materials. There was no pitch battle. Instead the tribes nibbled away at the Roman army in a series of guerrilla attacks that wore it down. There was no head of a ‘king’ to claim because the political structure of the Caledonian tribes allowed for as many ‘kings’ as there were communities. Severus retreated having achieved nothing, covering his failure in an issue of coins proclaiming a famous victory, the kind of misleading propaganda that Romans went in for.

The point is the Romans were victims of their own preconceptions about ‘barbarians.’ They came, they saw but they did not conquer, they could not conquer. They simply made matters worse, creating ever more enemies with every step. Severus’ army, forty-thousand strong, might as well have been chasing the wind.

Here is another thing that irritates me, the stupid incomprehension of politicians, their inability to read the runes of history. Yes, history does have a message if only one has the intelligence and the patience to take heed. As Septimus Severus marched into Scotland so did George Bush and Tony Blair march into Afghanistan two thousand years later. They found a bad situation and they made it worse. I could tell you exactly what the outcome is going to be, could tell you right now, but you probably already know.

It’s happened time and time again, this blindness in the face of history, this tendency to base strategy on the worst, most stupid preconceptions. And it’s not as if the two Bs had to look all the way back to the Romans in Britain; they had a more immediate example at hand, the example of British involvement in Afghanistan in the nineteenth century.

I would like to be there, in the corridors of power, saying stop! wait! look! think! every time some foreign adventure is being considered, every time a new campaign is being planned. But I know, like all historians, all those who understand the past and the lessons it brings to the present, my fate would be that of Cassandra.

The Valley of Death

I have before me the words of the Reverend G. R. Grieg, an army chaplain writing about his experiences in Afghanistan. Of our presence in that benighted country he says;

A war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and stupidity, brought to a close with after a suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government, which directed, or the great body of troops, which waged it. Not one benefit, political or military, has Britain acquired with this war. Our eventual evacuation of the country resembled the retreat of an army defeated.

Wait just a moment; there is something odd about this. Reverend Grieg seems to be writing from a future perspective when our troops are still there, dying by slow and awful degrees. Ah, but the thing is, you see, the Reverend Green’s future is long passed; he is writing here in 1843, writing of the first Anglo-Afghan War.

Still, the elements are there, the elements of a possible future. Why are we there, what are we doing, why are our soldiers dying? Do you know the answers to these questions, because I most certainly do not? I no longer believe the lies we were told about this operation being vital for our national security. If anything it has made matters worse.

Although he was out of step with official government policy, I completely agree with the sentiments of Liam Fox, the British Defence Secretary, that Afghanistan is a broken thirteenth century country; it will always be a broken thirteenth century country. The only thing it’s good for is opium and fanaticism.

I don’t think most people in Britain and the United States realise how bad things are, worse, even, than the later stages of the Vietnam War. I described the conflict once as the war of the Elephant and the Ant: the Elephant kills in great quantities but is overwhelmed by the Ant’s multitudes.

We don’t hear so much now about General McChrystal’s much vaunted ‘surge’ for the simple reason that no sooner had he ceased surging than the Taliban ants regrouped. Now, according to Pentagon reports, the government of the corrupt Mohammed Karzai controls only 29 out of 121 key strategic districts. We have been here so many times before: most of the countryside is controlled by the enemy while heavily-armed western troops are restricted to large towns and other strongpoints. Our soldiers are dying to prop up a puppet in Kabul, not even a particularly grateful puppet.

Yes, I feel sorry for the women who will have to live under the rule of the appalling Taliban, feel sorry for the girls who will have to grow up illiterate and ignorant, feel sorry for all of those who will have to descend back into darkness and obscurantism. But that is not our business. Afghanistan belongs in the thirteenth century, a time from which it will never emerge. This place is the anus mundi; it always has been.

Anus Mundi

Those of us who believe that our soldiers' lives are being put at risk to uphold the fraudulent Karzai regime in Afghanistan could wish for no better confirmation of this unsettling truth than from the man himself. He is now blaming the UN for what he has called the “vast fraud” in last August’s presidential poll. It was an attempt, he says, to deny him victory or discredit his win.

He did not stop there. Clearly singing to the gallery, he has said that the NATO forces fighting the Taliban, fighting on this man’s behalf, I might add, are at risk of being seen as a ‘occupiers’. Because of this, he continued, the Taliban-led insurgency “could become a national resistance.”

These remarks were made on national TV, following soon after parliament rejected his attempt to take direct control of the country’s electoral institutions. It’s a slur on British, American and other coalition forces. More than that, he has, in his hubris and his vanity, his annoyance at his recent ticking-off by Obama, effectively undermined the morale and credibility of his own military by implying that the country was under foreign occupation. All of this is worth remembering when we hear that yet another of our service personnel has died in that impossible country, that anus mundi.

I’ve long since stopped believing that our presence there is essential to our security at home. It’s nothing of the kind. The Taliban are far less danger to us than our own Karzai-style government, which in its neglect of national security has allowed hostile elements to flow across our borders in ever increasing numbers.

I look forward to the day when our soldiers come home. I look forward to the day when Karzai is left to deal with his resurgent nation, free from the interference of hostile occupation forces.

Bribing the Barbarians

In the hundred years or so leading up to the final collapse of the Western Roman Empire one favoured way of dealing with barbarian incursions was to pay off the chiefs. It worked, up to a point, but they almost invariably came back for more; and when more was no longer enough they eventually took the treasury itself. This form of bribery was a signal to all, to the Huns, the Goths and the Vandals, that while the Empire was still economically strong it was politically and militarily weak.

History invariably moves in great cycles, with patterns repeating themselves time and again. Now the Western Empire is preparing to pay off another set of barbarians, preparing to pay off the Taliban. A Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund has been established after the recent London conference on Afghanistan. This is an initiative long favoured by Hamid Karzai, who believes that he can ‘buy off’ the more moderate members of the Taliban, those who fight not because of any great belief in the message of al-Qaeda but because we are there.

How much of the money allocated for ‘peace and reintegration’ actually gets into the hands of the insurgents and how much into the pockets of the officialdom of Karzai’s corrupt government is really a matter of guesswork. My question is what is to stop a sudden upsurge in Taliban recruitment, as people look for a share of the loot? What is to stop the barbarians coming back for more and more and more?

So far this conflict has cost my country £4 billion pounds alone. It’s also cost the lives of 251 British service personnel to date. For what, I ask, so we can pay off their killers; so we can bribe terrorists? This is the moral abyss, the depths to which we have sunk under this present government, under Dismal Gordon Brown, a man who as Chancellor and Prime Minister starved our army of funds, a man who is now prepared to channel funds from British taxpayers into the hands of an enemy army.

Another question arises here. What happened to the message, so recently presented, that victory in Afghanistan was so vital to our own national security; that failure to stop attacks today in Helmand would lead to attacks tomorrow in London? I long stopped believing that this war was vital to our security. That has been compromised in a far more immediate way by a government that neglected our borders in a criminally incompetent manner.

Beyond this al-Qaeda is essentially a guerrilla organisation, and as such it does not need and it should not have a single and static base, a place where it can be pinned down and eliminated. It’s a movement that can and does move with ease; Afghanistan today, Yemen tomorrow, Somalia the day after. Are we to launch invasions and fight battles in all of the midden heaps of the earth? The truth is, of course, that we have been told lie after lie after lie. Our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, coupled with the encouragement of virtually unrestricted immigration, has made this country infinitely less secure than it was when the wretched Labour administration came to power.

Now we are set to bribe our enemies. Oh, yes, the Goths may strike camp-temporarily - but the Vandals and the Huns are waiting just over the horizon.

Grand Old President Obama

So, he’s done it at last, Obama has ‘surged.’ Why am I reminded of a certain Grand old Duke of York? Is it because when he is up he is up; when he is down he is down; and when he is only half way up he is neither up nor down? So let’s hear it:

Grand old President Obama,
He had thirty thousand men;
He marched them in to Afghanistan,
And he marched them out again.

Well, that’s what he wants to do; that’s what he said he is going to do. The trouble is he is neither up nor down, in nor out. In his usual muddle-headed and decisively indecisive fashion he is trying to reconcile contradictory aims: he wants to win the war but he does not want to get bogged down in another Vietnam. He has to convince America, he has to convince his own party, largely made up of pacifists and peaceniks of various shades of pink, that his commitment is not ‘open-ended’, that the boys will be coming home not next year but the year after. He also has to convince the Taliban that America is in to win, no matter how long it takes. Do you see; do you see how this man ties himself in impossible knots?

Look at it from the Taliban point of view; just imagine what a boost they have received to their morale. They did not need spies and interceptors: they’ve been able to see inside this man’s mind for months. His inexcusable delay in making up his mind shows that he has no stomach for this fight and that he really does wish to depart. He’s now made a vague promise about departure, one he is almost bound to hold to in some fashion or other, because by 2011 America will already be looking towards the next presidential election. Without firing another shot, or exploding another bomb, the Taliban has already won an important tactical victory. All they have to do is hang on, an army of ants pursued by an elephant, waiting for Obama’s contradictions to mature.

Here is a President, possibly the worst ever, possibly just another James Buchanan, who does not speak and act like a commander-in-chief; he speaks like a politician, forever minding his back, forever looking over his shoulder; mid-terms in 2010, the big one in 2012. America is now in a kind of limbo, not knowing exactly where it is going, or even why it wants to be there. The war is either necessary or it is not. It is either vital to America’s security, to the security of the west, or it is not. Obama does not give a clear lead in one direction or the other.

As I have said now on a number of occasions he is still on the campaign trail, not an executive just a rather edgy candidate. Yes, he has been given the tools but he has not the stamina, he has not the will, he has not the energy to finish the job. Please do remember that you read this unhappy prediction here first. Oh, and if you don’t know who James Buchanan is he was another prevaricator, the one who saw America drift towards the Civil War.

Let Karzai Sink; Let our Soldiers Come Home

Five more of our soldiers have come home in coffins, five more in this pointless war, five more on the eve of armistice day.

I come from a family with a long military tradition. I grew up with the belief that it was wrong to voice any criticism when one’s nation was at war, because such criticism, justified or not, would inevitably be bad for morale, bad for the morale of our service people, who need every sign of support from home in the difficult tasks they are so often faced with. I was always deeply hostile to the war in Iraq because I saw the invasion of 2003 as a dangerous adventure, one that simply had not been thought through, one based on lies and dissimulation, though my criticisms were always political and historical in nature and direction.

I thought Afghanistan was different; I thought this was a war we had to fight, for all sorts of strategic reasons; I’ve argued this very point on other blogs. Not any more; my contributions on this subject have been growing increasingly hostile. Our troops are there to uphold the worthless Karzai government, to prop up a man recently ‘elected’ by ‘acclamation’. This is a fraud, no matter if he was congratulated by Brown and Obama on his ‘victory’; one would have to be blind not to recognise this process for what it is. Who, in the quietness of reflection, wants this murderous carnival to continue, to see more and more bodies return in a chain without end?

Those who read Christina Lamb’s article in The Spectator the week before will have noted that the various European powers-whose contributions have been largely worthless, anyway-are looking for an early exit. The Canadians intend to go by 2011. In the end perhaps only Britain and the United States will be left.

General McChrystal wants another 40,000 troops, and he may now get them, since Obama has deluded himself that the ends of democracy have been served. Reinforcement on that scale will take the total NATO strength to about the same levels as the Soviets at their peak. No matter. Double that number again and I am still convinced that ‘success’, however defined, will still be just beyond reach; the faster one runs, the faster it retreats. We would simply have the usual situation in guerrilla warfare, demonstrated time and again, from the Peninsular War to Indochina: heavily armed foreign troops isolated in cities and garrisons, islands in a sea of hostility.

Success; think about that very point, think about what it means, exactly what it means. When our soldiers took the district of Nad Ali last year, suffering casualties in the process, they promptly handed control over to the Afghan police. These same police at once set about raping local boys, a situation so bad that the people asked the Taliban to come back and protect them. Corruption at the periphery, corruption at the centre; this is the reality of ‘democratic’ Afghanistan, a country where even Ahmed Wali Karzai, the President’s brother, receives subsidies from the CIA, despite his involvement in the opium trade.

Let Karzai sink; let our soldiers come home. We must look to our immediate defences; it’s as simple as that.