Mick Hartley

4 responses to “A very, very shameful betrayal of Afghans”

1. 

   Dom

   August 14, 2021

   The feeling around here is that — if the afghans can’t win their own battles at this late date then they (and we) have lost.

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2. 

   Hugh Mann

   August 15, 2021

   Is this the same Rory Stewart who in 2009 was writing “Afghanistan is a war we cannot win”?
   https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/5797197/Afghanistan-a-war-we-cannot-win.html
   “Sir John Lawrence, the new viceroy, persuaded Lord Derby’s government that Afghanistan was less important than it appeared, that our resources were limited, and that we had other more pressing priorities. Here, in a civil service minute of 1867, he imagines what would happen if the Russians tried to invade: “In that case let them undergo the long and tiresome marches which lie between the Oxus and the Indus; let them wend their way through poor and difficult countries, among a fanatic and courageous population, where, in many places, every mile can be converted into a defensible position; then they will come to the conflict on which the fate of India will depend, toil-worn, with an exhausted infantry, a broken-down cavalry, and a defective artillery.”
   He concludes: “I am firmly of opinion that our proper course is not to advance our troops beyond our present border, not to send English officers into the different states of Central Asia; but to put our own house in order …”
   Lawrence might have been expected to have a more confident or arrogant view of British power than policy-makers today. But he believed that the British government lacked power, lacked knowledge (even though he and his colleagues had spent decades on the Afghan frontier) and lacked legitimacy (“the Afghans do not want us; they dread our appearance in the country… will not tolerate foreign rule”).
   The argument is contingent, cautious, empirical and local, rooted in a very specific landscape and time. It expresses a belief not only in the limits of Russian and Afghan threats but also in the limits of British power and capacity.”
   We should have left in 2002/3. A punitive expedition is one thing, nation building is another. Given the US/UK failures in nation building at home, where both US and UK are divided and depressed (real male median wages falling for 20 years in the UK, 40 in the US), it was an insane project.

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3. 

   Hugh Mann

   August 15, 2021

   More from 2009-flavour Rory Stewart:
   The new UK strategy for Afghanistan is described as: “International… regional… joint civilian-military… co-ordinated… long-term…focused on developing capacity… an approach that combines respect for sovereignty and local values with respect for international standards of democracy, legitimate and accountable government, and human rights; a hard-headed approach: setting clear and realistic objectives with clear metrics of success.”
   This is not a plan: it is a description of what we have not got. Why do we believe that describing what we do not have should constitute a plan on how to get it? In part, it is because the language is comfortingly opaque. A bewildering range of different logical connections and identities can be concealed in a specialised language derived from development theory and overlaid with management consultancy. What is concealed is our underlying assumption that when we want to make other societies resemble our (often fantastical) ideas of our own society, we can.

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4. 

   Mick H

   August 15, 2021

   I don’t think Stewart’s position then and his position now are necessarily incompatible. It’s possible to have had all sorts of doubts about the possibility of a successful occupation of Afghanistan, and still believe that the sudden current withdrawal is a betrayal of the Afghans.

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