Matthew Parris: The Taleban can't win in Afghanistan - but nor can we
[Matthew Parris's diary appears in The Times on Thursdays, and his Opinion column on Saturdays.]
It has been hard over the past fortnight to avert our eyes for long from Helmand, and from the task facing the British Forces in Afghanistan. As I write there have been nine deaths in the past nine days, and - although perhaps it shouldn't - the fact that one was a woman has only sharpened the media spotlight. Sadly, the battle for Helmand is a good story. The plot is simple, the human tragedies poignant, the pride in victories real, and the photography amazing.
And yet an insistent voice within whispers that we needn't bother about Helmand. I mean this literally: not that Helmand doesn't matter but that we can be fairly confident of holding the line there. We can hold Helmand for as long as we try hard to. As an issue we can forget the ebb and flow of military fortune in southern Afghanistan because, though military fortune will always ebb and flow, there is no way our troops are going to sink.
British commanders in the field are right to say that the Taleban's resort to crude terrorism marks a retreat of a kind: an acknowledgement that it cannot gain victory in set-piece battle. And nor can we. And nor can the Taleban gain victory by terrorism. And nor can we gain victory over terrorism. And nor need the cost in blood deter us: the Boer War took a much crueller toll. And nor need the cost in treasure dismay us; it's a hefty whack we're paying for this but it isn't going to ruin the British economy.
It isn't, in the end, the way each day's skirmish goes that should preoccupy British policymakers. It's what the skirmishing is for, and whether this is achievable, that should trouble British minds, even as we mourn each loss and celebrate each victory.
I'm only 58 years old but I remember through boyhood six huge and sustained campaigns against local insurgencies that have dominated the news in my lifetime, four of them British. They are Cyprus, Kenya, Malaya, Aden, Algeria and Vietnam. And as I prepared to write this column I seemed to remember that in not one of them did military defeat occur; and nor was the fear of military defeat what caused (in every case but one) our withdrawal or that of our allies. The exception was Malaya, which we won, but a key difference there was that most of the insurgents belonged to a minority race...
Read entire article at The Times (UK)
It has been hard over the past fortnight to avert our eyes for long from Helmand, and from the task facing the British Forces in Afghanistan. As I write there have been nine deaths in the past nine days, and - although perhaps it shouldn't - the fact that one was a woman has only sharpened the media spotlight. Sadly, the battle for Helmand is a good story. The plot is simple, the human tragedies poignant, the pride in victories real, and the photography amazing.
And yet an insistent voice within whispers that we needn't bother about Helmand. I mean this literally: not that Helmand doesn't matter but that we can be fairly confident of holding the line there. We can hold Helmand for as long as we try hard to. As an issue we can forget the ebb and flow of military fortune in southern Afghanistan because, though military fortune will always ebb and flow, there is no way our troops are going to sink.
British commanders in the field are right to say that the Taleban's resort to crude terrorism marks a retreat of a kind: an acknowledgement that it cannot gain victory in set-piece battle. And nor can we. And nor can the Taleban gain victory by terrorism. And nor can we gain victory over terrorism. And nor need the cost in blood deter us: the Boer War took a much crueller toll. And nor need the cost in treasure dismay us; it's a hefty whack we're paying for this but it isn't going to ruin the British economy.
It isn't, in the end, the way each day's skirmish goes that should preoccupy British policymakers. It's what the skirmishing is for, and whether this is achievable, that should trouble British minds, even as we mourn each loss and celebrate each victory.
I'm only 58 years old but I remember through boyhood six huge and sustained campaigns against local insurgencies that have dominated the news in my lifetime, four of them British. They are Cyprus, Kenya, Malaya, Aden, Algeria and Vietnam. And as I prepared to write this column I seemed to remember that in not one of them did military defeat occur; and nor was the fear of military defeat what caused (in every case but one) our withdrawal or that of our allies. The exception was Malaya, which we won, but a key difference there was that most of the insurgents belonged to a minority race...