David Miliband gave a speech to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Edinburgh yesterday. The PA is a warm feelings body. It has no power or responsibility, but “fosters mutual understanding among Alliance parliamentarians” by meeting twice a year. It has 248 delegates from 26 NATO members. It seems to have a subsidiary role as jollies for the boys, because it also holds 38 other smaller meetings, such as “Mediterranean Seminars”.
Presumably the attraction for Miliband is that plenty of UK journalists were present, so he had an opportunity to give us his latest and deepest thoughts. These turned out to be on Afghanistan. He started with some context.
I don’t need to remind this audience that total ISAF casualties this year alone stand at 472.
For those not up on such arcana, ISAF = International Security Assistance Force, which is the umbrella term for the US and UK troops in Afghanistan. Well, that is somewhat unfair to Canada.
To be more precise, there are 68,000 “NATO” troops in Afghanistan, 35,000 from the US, 9,000 from the UK, 10,000 from Canada, France, and Germany, 6,000 from Netherlands, Poland and Spain, 5,000 from Romania, Turkey, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, Bulgaria, Czech and Norway, and 3,000 from another 26 countries.
The smaller contingents are either too small to fight or come with strings that prevent them fighting. The last figures for ISAF deaths to date show: US 848; UK 234; Canada 132; Germany, France, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, each 20-40; three others over 10, rest under 10 each.
For the UK, we have suffered the bloodiest year since the Falklands war.
Now we turn to the new, deep thoughts. Well fairly new, they were trailed four months ago:
I want to return to a theme that I outlined in a speech at NATO headquarters in July, and set out what the UK government believes to be the essential counterpart of a coherent military strategy – namely a political strategy, of strength because it is comprehensive, and depth because it is rooted in the life and history of the Afghan people.
Amazing! What a good idea! Maybe we need a political strategy. A good deal of guff followed in his speech about what such a strategy “would” be. So clearly it is not in place yet. But then the troops have only been there for eight years. You can hardly blame Miliband etc. One needs time to work these things out.
The woulds and shoulds roll on through the speech and it gradually becomes clear that he has got to first base. Yes, a strategy would be a good idea. But no, he has not quite managed to formulate it yet. Finally, we reach the peroration:
This is not a war without end. But success must be based on aligning our military and civilian resources behind a clear political strategy. A strategy that … [does various good things] … That is what the British Government is determined to promote.
So just to be clear. He believes our generals are wrong to think we are going to be there for decades to come. It is not a war without end. But it is currently a war without a strategy. Don’t worry! EIGHT YEARS after invading Afghanistan, the great thinker and persuader Miliband is finally turning his attention to this point. He may not have figured out yet why he went there or how to get out again. But fear not! Watch this space! He will let us know Real Soon Now.
You could not make this stuff up.
{ 2 } Comments
It’s transparently simple. The British armed forces were committed to Afghanistan – as they were to Iraq – purely and simply to keep Washington happy. The US administration does not like casualties among its armed forces personnel, and it seeks to minimise casualties by limiting their numbers and (as far as possible) keeping them at arm’s length where they can kill without being killed.
The more British (and other foreign) troops, the fewer Americans are needed. Moreover, they can quietly give the most dangerous roles (such as fighting in Helmand) to the stupid foreigners, who thus take the brunt of the casualties.
Finally, the involvement of lots of nations – whether their troops actually accomplish anything or not – is politically useful, because it lends colour to the fantasy of the “international community”, and makes it less dramatically obvious that the USA is pulling all the strings.
Miliband and his like would never even have had to bother thinking about strategies if the war had not turned sour, with the deaths of a few hundred soldiers and airmen. I am still waiting to hear anyone in this country so much as mention the tens of thousands of Afghans who have died because of the unprovoked attack our nations launched on them.
I cannot totally go along with that. The intelligence services believed that 9/11 was organized by Osama, who was apparently a guest of the government of Afghanistan (headed by Mullah Omar together with a large group of fighters. Omar refused to cooperate, so the US decided to attack. We as a loyal ally agreed to help.
Now you can say that was an overreaction, that an attack by a small group of a dozen or two individuals is not the same as a declaration of war. But it was understandable. Although Third World countries fairly routinely suffered far worst attacks than 9/11 during the twentieth century, it was totally unexpected, and devastating, for the US to suffer such a serious attack.
The problems seems to me to have come later, when (A) for reasons that are still unclear, insufficient resources were available at the critical moment when there was a chance of capturing or killing Osama at Tora Bora in December 2001, and (B) there was then drift – it was clear that Osama had escaped so the original mission had failed, and the UK/US drifted into a long-term war without being clear what it was for.
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