War In Afghanistan: It Has Nothing To Do With Common Sense.

July 4, 2009

I often meet people who tell me that they have no idea what is it exactly that U.S. and British troops are doing in Afghanistan. (Nobody ever mentions the other NATO countries’ forces as they seem to be in the background all the time.) Recently one man told me that he could not understand the direction in which the whole military campaign in Afghanistan was moving. ‘So what is it exactly,’ he said, sounding rather confused and bewildered, ‘that our boys (he is British) are supposed to achieve over there? It all just makes no sense.’ I am actually quite surprised that so many people do not get it. I mean, why are they trying to put some sense into the war in Afghanistan? Did they not learn from the war in Iraq that has achieved absolutely nothing, apart from costing the...

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Category: Point Of View
Tags: Afghanistan, NATO, Taleban, US troops

Time To Start Learning About Afghanistan. Especially About That First Afghan War of 1838.

October 7, 2008

(By Christopher Lee.) So, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Brown, the senior British commander in southern Afghanistan, says Taleban cannot be beaten militarily. There isn’t a British commander who hasn’t known this for some time and few who haven’t said it in private. Meanwhile, the Americans are sending another brigade to do what the brigadier says can’t be done. Maybe the Americans should remind themselves that this year marks the 170th anniversary of the start of the First Afghan War (1838-1842). This is very briefly what had happened then: as part of the Great Game of who controlled that region and the troublesome tribal leaders, the British went into Afghanistan, installed a puppet leader and then found that they could not beat the tribesman by military means. The puppet...

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Category: Around The World
Tags: Afghanistan, Taleban