New Labour is sacrificing our Army in Afghanistan

British soldiers’ lives are being lost because our politicians still feel the urge to punch above their weight on the world stage

FIRST POSTED FEBRUARY 4, 2009

Speaking of the 143rd British soldier to die, in combat, in Afghanistan, the secretary for defence, John Hutton, said: "Corporal Nield was clearly an extremely professional Rifleman who was making a real difference in bringing stability to Afghanistan. My thoughts are with his family and his friends at this very sad time."

Setting to one side the ascription of 'professionalism' - a quality I've always found it difficult to associate with toiling in the killing fields - let's examine the rest of Hutton's statement.

I don't doubt that Corporal Nield, like the vast majority of British soldiers in theatre, did nothing but try as best he could to eliminate Taliban insurgents, without alienating Afghan civilians. The trouble is, that through no fault of Nield and his comrades, the Allied forces are failing in this objective.

Hamid Karzai presides over a corrupt administration that lives off drug money

There are 200,000 troops - US, NATO and Afghan combined - fighting the Taliban, and they're losing. The insurgents now control vast swathes of the hinterland, and even Kabul is coming under attack.

Bush's placeman, Hamid Karzai, presides over a wholly corrupt administration on the take from opium warlords, one of whom happens to be his brother. Elections have been postponed until mid-August because of war.

Forgive me, but under such circumstances, who could reasonably say that Corporal Nield was "making a real difference in bringing stability" to this benighted land? Surely only a cross between a parrot and placeman, who cares not what he says so long as he toes the official line. If Hutton's thoughts really are with Corporal Nield's family and friends, they should be feelings of acute shame for having pronounced such untruths.

Still, what can you expect from a Labour defence secretary? To a man, this administration's have been either lacklustre - like Robertson and Browne; or all bluster - like Reid and Hoon.

With the exception of the latter, who's still in the Cabinet making a cock up of the transport portfolio, the rest have been kicked sideways or upstairs, to live out their days on pensions, expenses and private sector emoluments. In truth 'Labour defence secretary' is an oxymoron, given that in that party, standing up for colours traditionally meant the Red Flag.

But you don't have to be Clausewitz to understand that this Afghan campaign is doomed, like all the attempts to subdue the country that have preceded it.

It remains business as usual at the White House with the ‘War on Terror’

Britain is putting 3,000 more troops in the field – and Obama looks like blooding himself by committing another 34,000 Americans. With Swat in Pakistan - not some lawless tribal area, but a province within striking distance of Islamabad - already under the de facto control of the Taliban, surely someone in the FO or the State Department has the gumption to realise that the line of defence no longer lies in Helmand province?

Probably, but what the foreign policy makers can't do is convince their political masters. Or mistresses, for as Hillary Clinton's remarks on Gaza made at the weekend so grimly illustrate, it's plus ca change at the White House, with Israel's 'right to self-defence' still the only cynosure in the global village - and by extension, while the shop’s under new management, it remains business as usual with the 'War on Terror'.

Really, when you observe the whole raddled progress of US foreign policy since 9/11, you have to marvel at the perverse 'success' of Bin Laden and al-Qaeda: so effectively have they imposed their own Manichean view of the world on the Western powers.

Of course, I shouldn't imagine that any of this is more comfort to Corporal Nield's family and friends than Hutton's weasel words; after all, who wants to face the unpalatable truth that British servicemen's lives are being lost because British politicians, despite all the evidence of Iraq, still feel the urge to punch above their weight on the world stage?

Very few, certainly, but I wager that those who do have the courage to face it, would probably also like to punch John Hutton, with great professionalism.

FIRST POSTED FEBRUARY 4, 2009

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How long will it take the likes of Brown and Hutton to realise that the loss of hundreds of brave British servicemen and Afgan civilians is going to make absolutely no difference to Afghanistan, it never has and never will.

Posted by firstdruid at 10:43am on February 4, 2009

A very fair & accurate article by Will Self : I agree with all the salient points : how many times have different nations in history tried the "military objective" in Afghanistan and failed. Corporal Nield was a professional soldier, paid by HM Government. He was killed in an indefensible 'war'. Very sad, but soldiers do put their lives on the line. But for what, exactly ? All that John Hutton is doing is defending the indefensible, like countless others before him. The Western nations must pull their troops out now - and try a different tack.

Posted by martin gowar at 11:04am on February 4, 2009

Will Self is so right. I am a firm supporter of President Obama except on two issues- his choice of Seceretary of State and his policy in the Middle East and Afghanistan. The Clintons (you get 2 for the price of 1, famous saying by subcontinental Indians during the primaries) are too involved to make the unbiased judgments and decisions needed to foster true peace in the ME. It is Israel right and the Palestinians wrong, forever and ever amen. I pray that Afghanistan would not be the new president's undoing, but I am not at all optimistic.

Posted by Yolande Agble at 3:59am on February 5, 2009

Is Will Self a complete idiot? I hope that his ludicrous and facile wiping of the facts is a "joke" piece, not to be taken seriously. He has written about Israel, the US, and every other country - I only hope that these writings are meant to be lighthearted jokes.

Posted by John Valentine at 5:00pm on February 25, 2009

They attacked us and first. It is not inherently silly to wish for a quiet life and many victims of the 'long war on the west' wished to live such lives. Indeed the Islamist frequently say that it is the indolence of the west which is their greatest weapon against it. The central question here is Modernism and the rise of modernist ideas throughout the world as a consequence of globalisation. Ironically, those who have most benefited from the spread of these ideas, artists such as Mr Self, have decided (DH Lawrence got their first) that another facet must be aligned to the canon of Modernist ideas about the individual the right to be a reactionary theist intent on subjecting reality to the precepts of a text and to impose these on the entire world - perhaps not so different to Modernist ambitions for the novel. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was hailed by many on the ultra left as a riposte to post 1945 'western domination' (i.e. American hegemony) and have since been peculiarly blind to the manifest failings of states providing these are sufficiently anti-imperialist (anti-western, anti-Modernist). It is an inversion similar to that of the left intellectuals who admired Stalin whilst ridiculing King George V; or 'rational socialists' like Wells and Huxley who strongly believed in Eugenics (i.e. murdering the weak) in partnership to 'free love'. Producing heaven on earth always somehow involves eliminating people and the Islamist' in Iran, Iraq and now Pakistan are hard at work. Buying off the people who are currently waging war against the west and Modernism is an old ploy from the days of the Empire. It may be that Old World weariness and a long tradition of sacrificing other people (here, Israel) for a bit of 'peace and quiet' will prevail. But the genii is out of the bottle and the ambitions which were once so modestly framed getting the Infidels off the land of the True Believers has transformed itself in to a much larger goal, one which goes beyond even the re-establishment of 'the' Caliphate. Today, even the United Nations is feeling the breath of clerical Islam down its neck to such an extent that every computer keyboard in the world may have to carry a warning about transgressing against the 'sensitivities' of Islam enshrined in a universal declaration along side and trumping those of 'human rights'. Mr Self carries the flag of conservative defeatism handed to him by Le Carre, Greene and Muggeridge and carries it well. 'Old Europe' may indeed be passing into history, ironically helped down the chute not by lacklustre political and military performance but by an enervating world-weariness that had its first expression in 'The Waste Land'. But I think Modernist China will order matters somewhat differently.

Posted by Barry Larking at 10:32am on March 16, 2009