The Killing Fields

Among the many reports that I have read about the late former US Defence Secretary, Robert McNamara, was one that told us that he was familiar figure walking to his office in Washington, even as an old man. He always had a vacant thousand yard stare in his eyes, which was thought to have been a result of his being haunted by the ghosts of the 58,000 Americans who died there. By 1967, Robert McNamara had realised that the Vietnam War was un-winnable and that American policy had been wrong. In retirement he questioned many aspects of America's defence policies and he suggested, in an attempt to persuade Americans to learn from history, that foreign interventions should be considered only when all else had failed. We have not yet reached in Afghanistan the Vietnam levels of slaughter but we should not carry on down the same pointless road with no sight of a termination. American and Canadian as well as British governments and citizens need to examine the objectives of the war and decide whether a successful outcome is a practical possibility. I will concentrate only on the British position.

The good citizens of Wootton Bassett are going to be lining their main street on an almost daily basis in the coming weeks as the British death toll in Afghanistan continues to rise and the killing rate accelerates. We have had 15 deaths in the last week - 8 in the last twenty four hours - and we get more platitudinous nonsense from the unimpressive foreign secretary. More men have now been killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq and our soldiers are dying at a rate not seen since the Korean War.

Yet the objectives remain obscure. Does the foreign secretary truly believe that the security of the British Isles in the matter of terrorism depends on our success in Afghanistan? There are many who will take the contrary view that the situation in the UK is made worse by our involvement in that country. The current alleged objective is, I think, to allow new presidential elections to take place; an exercise that will probably - by one means or another - result in the continuation of the government of President Karzai. A senior US Commander in the area around Kabul has told the Guardian newspaper about just how bad the situation is and four more years of a corrupt regime is not going to help. People will, as Colonel David Haight put it, believe that all they have to look forward to is "Four more years of this crap." Britain needs to take decisions and to have in place a Defence Secretary who has experience, competence and stature to ensure that a viable policy is pursued. The current incumbent, Bob Ainsworth, may be a decent enough man but he has been plucked from a minor role and placed in a position that is critical - probably because Gordon Brown does not think that Afghanistan is going to be a critical part of the British election campaign. With killing at the rate of fifteen every week, soon he will be much mistaken. I hope that not many more young men have to die before this war moves up the political agenda.
I have said before that far too many politicians these days have no knowledge of history and they plough along making the same old mistakes again and again. That should not be true of Gordon Brown and I hope he proves to be the exception.

[the picture above was from The Sun newspaper]
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