Defence
The fact that the invasion of Iraq was based on parliament being told that Hussein had “Weapons of mass destruction”, which could be used at 45 minutes notice was a complete and utter lie.
The invasion of Afghanistan was based on Anthony Blair being so closely in bed with George Bush that there was talk about them.
Both Blair & Bush implied that Iraq had to be taken because it was part of the” axis of evil” linking Iraq with Al-Qaeda. Nothing could have been further from the truth. In fact Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with Bin Laden and his gang and had Al Qaida had only minimal presence in Iraq. Linking them together and then using that as an excuse was plainly stupid, although the powers that be, New Labour, the Tories, swallowed these stories hook line and sinker. For many years Hussein had been funded and armed by the west as he was seen as a stable influence in the Middle East.
Once 9-11 happened you can argue that there was justification in finding and destroying Bin Laden. If that was required then I am sure that, with the intelligence American have at their disposal, finding and destroying him and his close allies could have been achieved in a reasonably short time without mobilising thousands of troops and armour.
We are now told that all British troops will be removed from Iraq by July of this year. Hundreds of lives and billions of pounds wasted.
By invading Afghanistan we have allowed Bin Laden to disappear from view, which makes catching him very much more difficult. In any event, destroying him now would probably make things more volatile and cost more lives. He would become even more of a martyr to every fanatic who could, however tenuously, tie themselves to the Islamic Jihad.
History has a way of repeating itself. Many countries over hundreds of years have attempted to invade Afghanistan; all have failed. And so shall we. It’s an impossible situation; the Taleban’s supply lines come through Pakistan in some of the most inhospitable countryside in the world. Add to that the various factions in Pakistan who are quite happy to see the West spend millions of dollars on a war they can’t win and more than happy the PR benefits their organisations.
From the moment the invasions in both Iraq and Afghanistan were launched it became very clear very quickly that these wars were not going to be over quickly. In the case of Iraq there appeared only to be a plan to topple Saddam; no one knew what to do or what would happen once that relatively easy task had been completed.
Because of the lack of planning prior to the invasion, we allowed various factions to become extremely powerful.
Democratic elections have been held and a structure was put in place, which at the time was considered to be far more democratic than many western democracies. However the elections, whilst bringing a sense of fulfilment to many Iraqis, inevitably when the dust settled the violence continued with Sunnis fighting Shias.
In the end it became apparent that the only way to bring some sort of order to the country was do various deals with these factions. It is very likely that Iraq will end up being three countries. The name Iraq may well stay, but the Kurds will rule in the north, the Sadri army (Shiites) in the South and current government (Sunnis) in the middle.
The major problem in future for this type of arrangement is that there is no or very little oil in the south. If stability is to be maintained once the coalition leave then some sort of formula is going to be required to ensure that the people in the south share in wealth the oil wells will bring in abundance.
The new president of the USA is promising that his troops will be out of Iraq by the end of 2010.
It is likely that as troops leave Iraq they will be moved to Afghanistan. This has now become a reality with Barack Obama committing thousands more American troops to Afghanistan. Unfortunately Gordon Brown is the only NATO leader to accept Obama’s request for more troops to be sent to Afghanistan.
When Bush decided that the way to defeat Al-Qaeda was to invade Afghanistan, Bin Laden was operating from there in 2001, he made a massive rod for America’s back. It would be very difficult for an American president to pull out of Afghanistan without killing Bin Laden. The fact that Bin Laden, if he is still alive, is holed up in the most inhospitable land in the world on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan makes the task even harder.
However solutions are probably available; now that the US has put General Petraeus in charge it is more likely that a diplomatic solution of sorts will be found. He is mainly responsible for the reduction in violence in Iraq. He achieved this by turning the various factions against Al-Qaeda. This was achieved by paying them off.
For instance it is possible that we might start buying up all the poppies, which are still the main stay of the Afghan economy.
By doing that it would start to cut off funds to the Taliban and their fighters. It would also mean that the west could use the poppies for the production of legitimate medicines and it would also mean that a chunk of heroin would be removed from our streets.
It is unlikely that democracy as we know it will ever happen in Afghanistan. We need to get our troops out of there as soon as possible. Leaving aside the Taliban, much of Afghanistan is controlled by the so called “War Lords”. Within their own communities they have complete control and will never cede that control to either the government in Kabul or the Taliban. In the end a deal will have to be done. The NDP believes that Petraeus is the man to get that deal done.
In any event if the NDP was ever elected then not only would we remove our troops from Afghanistan immediately, but we would stop believing that we can be the policeman for world. In future we would only send troops to trouble spots if we were asked to contribute to a United Nations task force. It is time for realism to take over. As previously stated we can no longer act as a police force for the world.
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