The definition of insanity, it is said, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time.
We have invaded Afghanistan four times, and lost three of those four times. We are losing the fourth. Did we expect it to be any different? Every single nation or empire which has invaded Afghanistan has been defeated with the possible exception of Alexander the Great who simply passed through the north (leaving behind his army's genes) on his way to India. The Soviets tried it, and after ten years and much suffering, left - going home to a collapsing system and a vicious future. Then came September the 11th 2001, which, were it not for the fact that it was the US that was hit, was an unremarkable day in the scheme of things. 2,974 dead is not a large number as these atrocities go; 800,000 Rwandans were killed in the 1994 genocide; 8,000 murders a day, every day, for 100 days. With machetes and clubs, mostly.
However, Al Qaeda's holy warriors hit the US in a masterstroke of PR and military genius; attacking the economic and military centres of the worlds' only real superpower, inflicting casualties of the like not seen before in the 'developed' West (or at least not seen before in the US of A, we in Europe can point to places like Dresden, Lidice, Stalingrad, Leningrad, Warsaw, Verdun...). This, to paraphrase Admiral Yamamoto, awoke a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve. Which was exactly what the Wahhabi extremists of Al Qaeda and Chums wanted! So, because our leaders are stupid and their thoughts are in the short term, by and large, we fell for it.
The attack on Afghanistan in 2001 led to a war which has now dragged on into its sixth year; a war which shows no signs at all of letting up. Taliban and other insurgents attack the ANA and police, they attack the NATO troops supposedly 'keeping the peace' and they do so with such effectiveness that the British Army is awarding people the VC! Yet, at the same time, the British Army is giving its troops shit weapons, shit equipment1, not enough of either, and our glorious government is supporting them less than any dyed-in-the-wool Maoist supported the US Army in 'Nam.
Young men of 18 - 18, for christ's sake, he should be getting girls to swoon over his cap badge in the local - have died, ostensibly for us, but in reality for US, for the American desire for revenge in a backwater nation that has been at war with itself or invaders since, oh, 1979. That's coming up to 40 years of combat now. Afghanistan is a shattered shell, and in that shell, our army, our fantastic army, the best in the world, full to the brim with patriotic, heroic, irascible, racist, violent, drunken thugs who want to fight and die, is being wasted. I may be an anarchist, but I don't object to our having an army. I object to it being thrown needlessly away in situations like the 'Ghan and Iraq. I object to young men, boys, being killed for no reason other than to pander to the American desire for revenge.
We are in Helmand not to protect the ANG, not to get rid of opium poppies, not to bring peace and stability - we are there to kill, and kill, and kill again until the 2,974 dead of 9/11 are satisfied with the blood of tens of thousands of Afghans.
Afghans! And the hijackers were mostly bloody Saudis anyway!
So, while our army kills and dies in the 'Ghan, the Americans declare that the Surge has worked (which means that either they're lying, or they don't know what's going on) and prepare to pull the 30,000 extra troops out of Iraq because violence has dropped. Well, perhaps it has; yet there are figures (in the Independent and Guardian newspapers) which show that attacks on Coalition forces have gone up since the Surge began! Meanwhile, beauracrats have determined that if you are an Iraqi who is shot dead in the back of the head, you were killed in a sectarian manner. If you were shot in the front, it's just crime. So, the sectarian killings have gone down, the Surge is working, QED.
More madness! What is actually happening is that the Iraqi insurgents are turning on Al Qaeda, organsing themselves, ethnically cleansing their areas to cement their control, and carefully targeting attacks on the Coalition as opposed to Mr and Mrs Ahmed from number 56. Unless, of course, Mr and Mrs Ahmed happen to be Christian/Kurd/Sunni/Shia or indeed anyone we don't particularly like the look of.
In other words, the insurgency is mostly lying low until the new soldiers go home and jockeying for position for the inevitable short and bloody civil war that will erupt when the Coalition finally declares Mission: Really Accomplished, We Mean It This Time, Stop Sniggering At The Back and the last US Marine leaps onto a Blackhawk as it takes off from the roof of the embassy in the Green Zone.
In the meantime, the Secret Squirrels of the SAS, SBS, and the super-mysterious US Special Forces continue to try to infiltrate Iran - or at least that's what it feels like to me. Rumour has it that the RN bods who got nicked by the Revolutionary Guard a while back were party to an SBS job that went wrong (why two officers in 12, for one thing). Certainly, the SAS lost a man in Iraq last week during a "routine" operation, and I will bet pounds to pence that he was killed on the border with Iran. The SAS also had some men arrested by the Iraqi Police some time ago; and you may remember that this caused some ruckus amongst the Army to the extent that we attacked the police station to free them.
Why were they arrested? Because they had IEDs in their car, and were heading to Iran.
All of this is very scary, and that's just on the War Fronts! The Home Front saw our New Dear Leader telling Trade Unionists yesterday that "pay restraint" was necessary to prevent total economic collapse. Or, in reality, the workers can fuck off and die on 3p/hour while the CEOs can happily pull a Brattley K Twatt and award themselves quarter of a billion quid just because they can. Wage discipline is vital for the masses, but the Party can be as liberal as it likes, comrades!
Arrrgh! That's all for now, folks, more as and when I feel like it. Try and stay chilled; I find toy soldiers help...
1: Watch this. At about one minute in, it shows a 3PARA .50 HMG team trying to engage the enemy with suppressive fire... using dud rounds. Hurrah!
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