[A-List] Afghanistan: the blowhards continue

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

Were it not so serious, this stuff might be funny. Nevertheless, we can
look forward to super-concentrated doses of hubris as the blowback
unfolds.


Is it still a good idea?

Back in December they were celebrating a resounding victory - and
ridiculing the peaceniks. 'Well, ha ha ha, and yah, boo,' declared
Christopher Hitchens memorably. But now 1,700 British soldiers are
headed for the conflict, American troops are bogged down and Bin Laden
is nowhere to be found. So what do the hawks think now?

Leo Hickman, Esther Addley and Laura Barton
Wednesday March 20, 2002
The Guardian

Michael Gove

Every day since tragedy struck, evil has found its apologists in our
midst, drawn overwhelmingly from the ranks of the old left and published
overwhelmingly in the new Guardian ... The radical left may have learnt
from consumer culture the importance of subtle packaging, but underneath
the New Bond Street suit, the old left heartbeat quickens at the same
prejudices. The radical left retains an antipathy to our common western
values which still finds its expression in anti-Americanism,
anti-Zionism and the romanticism of revolutionary violence.

The Times, September 15 2001

People's attitudes have changed because the war on terror hasn't gone
quite according to anyone's script. The critics on the left and the
right exaggerated the difficulties that would be faced by the coalition,
and so the collapse of the Taliban surprised many people. There was a
period after that when some supporters of the war began to think that
this was all a breeze, and that the west could fix all the world's
problems in its spare time.

At present we're going through a critical period, when expectations are
having to be recalibrated, after a period when people thought it was
beginning to look too easy.

We are absolutely right to deploy the troops, and Blair and Hoon are
absolutely right to defend them. It's the case that, on both the right
and the left, there's a significant isolationist, anti-American strand
which is unhappy with the government's conduct over the war on terror.
But the first thing I say to critics of the war is: what's your
alternative? I was critical, initially, of the Kosovan campaign, but in
the end one had to conclude that the alternatives to intervention were
elusive.

The public mood is volatile at present, and there's a great degree of
isolationism and oppositionism to the war on terror, more than I
anticipated. But while one would, of course, hope and pray for a quick
resolution to this, without many casualties, it would be wrong to say
that it's got to be quick, and if it isn't quick we must get out.

It's incumbent on the political leaders to explain that it's not a quick
process; there's an understanding in the US that September 11 was not a
single event and that the nature of the threat we face may in certain
circumstances mean us having to make and follow through on difficult
decisions. I'm not sure that that understanding is so widespread in this
country.

David Aaronovitch

This Sunday, a lot of people are planning to come to London as part of
what organisers promise will be a "massive turnout" for their
demonstration. The slogan for that march is a simple one: Stop the War.
Here's a bit of well-intentioned advice for the most open-minded of
those with tickets for the coach, and it, too, is very simple. Don't go.
Have the flu. Stay at home. Do something constructive instead. You are
wasting your time.

The Independent, November 16 2001

As I've written, I wouldn't characterise myself either as a hawk or a
dove; I'm more of an owl. But what I have always said is that the
difficult battle is not to win the war, but to win the peace; that it
would require an enormous amount of money, effort and patience to make
this thing stick. There were always going to be incredible problems. I
thought that the notion that the Taliban would be easily vanquished in
one go was as ludicrous as the suggestion that they were invincible in
the first place. In terms of whether or not the war is justified, that's
a long-term question, not a short-term question, and I'm not prepared to
suddenly flounce out of the room now that things are difficult.

Nobody knows the level of risk - and why do people expect anyone to? I
put it to you that this is an incredibly complex scenario. The
government has been absolutely upfront about the fact that it's going to
be difficult. That fact may have been misrepresented by some of the
hawks who suggested that things would be much easier than they were, but
I always thought that was rubbish.

There's always been a strand of abstentionist, isolationist thinking:
the Mirror, for instance, used to be in favour of taking the troops out
of Northern Ireland. Can you imagine if we had taken the troops out of
Ulster in 1980, as they suggested? It's the individual thinking of the
braindead. But it's difficult, and we have to commit, and be committed
to robust peacekeeping - and that may mean engaging in battle.

Anne McElvoy

Terrible news from the front: we're winning the war. The capture of
Mazar and Kabul is deeply depressing. If the Taliban are depressed,
think how much worse it is for the anti-war lobby in the west. How can
something that was supposed to go so wrong go so right?

The Independent, November 14 2001

I welcome the deployment. I'm a liberal interventionist but the most
difficult part, if we believe that it isn't right to turn our backs on
these parts of the world, is to stay involved. I think the real danger,
and what people like me were quite concerned about, was that in the
immediate aftermath, when the Taliban were crushed, there did seem to be
a view on the American side that the work had been done and they could
leave the peacekeeping to others. This has been a historic failure by
the Americans and one we didn't want to see repeated in this situation.
In fact, when they realised the scale of the resistance remaining in
Afghanistan it forced the Americans back into being involved, and that
in turn has forced them to consider that the coalition is still
important.

I don't believe for us that the right thing do was to only be involved
in the bombing and then withdraw. America is slowly understanding the
importance of peacemaking as well of war waging. I'm pleased about that
and I'm pleased that we have a role there because I thought there was a
danger that in the immediate rush of victory the Americans weren't
thinking long term.

We can't begin to have a country emerge into a functioning state with
the dreadful recent history that it has had unless the territory is
secure. You have to finish the job militarily. My concern was that the
Americans thought the job was over and all they had to do was offer a
bit of air support while the British led the "security assistance
mission", as it is now known.

As long as there are dedicated al-Qaida fighters around, the war has to
continue. The difficult and really essential thing for liberal
interventionists is offering support to a state without it becoming a
protectorate in perpetuity. But let's have that argument when we think
we're that far down the line. We are winning the war, but we haven't won
it.

Charles Moore

The same siren voices who, almost as soon as the bombing campaign had
commenced, wrote it off as a failure, or who called for a ceasefire
during Ramadan, are now wringing their hands over the "power vacuum"
that the sheer speed of the Taliban collapse has supposedly created.
They are wrong again.

Leader, the Telegraph, November 17 2001

I think these troops are well suited to this type of operation and will
do the job well. It's a reasonable allocation of our resources and I
think it makes sense. In fact, they're probably better qualified and
experienced than most of the Americans.

The more worrying aspect is what is going to happen to the other British
presence in Afghanistan, namely the International Security and
Assistance Force (Isaf). I don't want to be gloomy about this, but it
seems to be somewhat unresolved about what will happen with ISAF. The
separate commands of Isaf and the marines could be of concern should
things go wrong.

Although Britain will not formally take the lead role any more, the
British presence is going to be very important, because nobody else
seems to sufficiently well qualified to do it. Therefore, there must be
a bit of anxiety - I wouldn't put it any stronger than that - about how
deeply we get stuck in. Turkey is supposed to be taking over as the lead
element, but is it actually going to do so? There must be a bit of a
worry that Britain will have to just go on and on committing.

We don't have enough armed forces: the army is under strength. We're
committed heavily all over the place, which is good in a way because
we've got things to do and it's a compliment to our skills, but there is
a possible problem here. We can't just go on putting people in
indefinitely and literally having to pay the consequences.

One of the things that is worrying is that the government's allocation
from the Treasury is inadequate. I think Gordon Brown said it could be
done with £100m and it has already exceeded that. I don't want to be
made out as a Cassandra because I think it's OK so far, but one just
wants to know a bit more: what the limits of our operation are and the
extent of commitment by our allies. We suffer from the fact that we're
good at it and also, politically, it's much easier for our government to
commit troops than it is for most other countries, and that means we get
a disproportionate number of duties on our shoulders. We just want to be
a bit careful, I think.

Christopher Hitchens

There's no pleasing some people, but as a charter supporter of CND I can
remember a time when the peace movement was not an auxiliary to
dictators and aggressors in trouble. Looking at some of the mind-rotting
tripe that comes my way from much of today's left, I get the impression
that they go to bed saying: what have I done for Saddam Hussein or good
old Slobodan or the Taliban today?

Well, ha ha ha, and yah, boo. It was obvious from the very start that
the United States had no alternative but to do what it has done. It was
also obvious that defeat was impossible.

The Guardian, November 14 2001

It's just as well for our troops to have experience in this kind of
warfare, because we'll be fighting these people for a long time. Not
necessarily in Afghanistan, but people like that. On the other hand,
this is mopping up after a rout. It's hardly classed as warfare at all.
But it's useful practice, because they will have to keep on killing
them.

I'm not surprised at criticism from the "Ramadanistas" - the ones who
said we should wait around until they decide to regroup. I don't care
what they think. It's another thing to add to the, oh dear, the winter,
oh dear, the famine, "Oh dear, Ramadan, oh dear, Kipling..." It's one
long bleat from these guys and gals.

Al-Qaida is obviously finished in Afghanistan, the Taliban can never
come back. But with al-Qaida, every one of them is potentially a
suicidal terrorist, so every one down is a real plus.

Documents that have come to light show they were more horrific than we
thought they were, but somewhat less effective. Most of their stuff was
amateurish. There is an interesting point about this, though I'm not
sure that it should be said in response to the bleaters. These people
were not taken seriously enough by some people, but too seriously by
others. Al-Qaida are incredibly unpleasant, they are a real danger to
civilisation, but they are not as strong as all that.

Henry Porter

Many think Blair has been far too hasty to join America's war on
terrorism and that he has become Bush's poodle. If there are serious
losses among British troops or Britain is attacked, I guess this will
become a common view. It is not mine.

The Guardian, October 17 2001

There hasn't been a clear victory and I don't remember many hawks
claiming it. In fact, most political and media hawks recognised that
Afghanistan's problem would go on for a long time.

What we did claim in December was that the Taliban had been defeated and
al-Qaida dispersed, if not disabled. We argued that the benefits for the
Afghan people were large and that the predictions of war sprawling from
Afghanistan into Pakistan were misguided.

Part of the problem with the past three months is that the US military
has controlled the information coming out of Afghanistan. It is still
not clear why well-armed, well-equipped American troops were removed 10
days ago from the Afghanistan mountains, only to be replaced by British
marines. At the time, a US spokesperson said that they were withdrawing
because the job had been done. This was clearly untrue.

The decision to allow British troops to be involved both with the
fighting and the peacekeeping operation is a bad one and is likely to
confuse the Afghan people.

Robert Harris

I'm surprised there wasn't a need for the British troops to go in
earlier. I was always prepared to accept that it could mean more
commitment for UK forces. It doesn't alter my belief that the cause was
right and that the Taliban and al-Qaida had to be dealt with. It would
be a standing affront to western civilisation to leave them at large. I
never thought it would be a quick job because of the nature of the
opponent. I still don't have much doubt that in the end the west will
prevail.

The more international cooperation in the war, the better. It seems to
me to be a good thing to stop the Americans going alone - it will help
to stop the things that perhaps we don't agree with. For instance, I
would be extremely dubious about an attack on Iraq without much more
provocation and evidence that we have been shown so far.

It's right that we should play our part in an international coalition.
Whatever decisions are taken, they are going to affect us, so we will be
in a stronger position politically and morally if we are involved on the
ground. I was always rather surprised and perturbed by the extent to
which it was just an American show.

I wish to God it had all ended in a week, but if it is going to drag on
we are going to have to grit our teeth, and I think it would be morally
despicable for anyone who supported action back in September to suddenly
now start running away. We have to see it through. We can't be seen to
fail.

I would hope that once the hard core of al-Qaida and the Taliban - who
never had much popular support in Afghanistan anyway - are destroyed it
would be a small peacekeeping job. It's not like trying to pacify
Ireland, for example, where the bulk of the civilian population is on
the side of a resistance group. I would not be too pessimistic as long
as the hard core are beaten.

And they will be beaten. They will run out of weapons. It's not like
before, when the superpowers were arming them. It's not going to be a
picnic, but it's not like Vietnam or anything like that. I would,
however, draw the line at military action with Iraq. It's a terrible
thing to say that we need to be attacked first, but something like
September 11 gave an overwhelming sense of unity for the need for
military action

Full article at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/comment/story/0,11447,670552,00.html

Michael Keaney
Mercuria Business School
Martinlaaksontie 36
01620 Vantaa
Finland

michael.keaney@xxxxxx