So.. no withdrawal from Afghanistan any time soon then…
December 15th, 2009 Posted in UK Politics by Angela Harbutt
Today the Government has told us that it intends our forces to be in Afghanistan for some considerable time to come. OK it didnt say that exactly. What it did say was that “hard decisions” had to be made on what programmes to abandon in order to enhance frontline support by £900 million over the next three years.
Amongst other things it is committing to splashing out on 22 new Chinook helicopters….the first ten of which will not be ready til 2013 and the remaining dozen some time thereafter. So we are clearly planning to stay in Afghanistan for some considerable time then – or do we have some other sunny destination in mind?
December 18th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Here I agree with Liberal Vision.
Our troops are wasting their time in Helmond. They are doing more harm than good and should be pulled out.
There is a case that they can be usefully deployed in the North, the Tajik and Shia regiosns, maybe including Kabul. Even then you have to question whether that is a good use of limited resources.
However we now know that the budget for helicopters is being taken from elsewhere. So now our armed forces are being geared up to fight in Afghanistan, but who knows where they are needed next? Surely a defence review should consider the optimal use of resources wherever they are needed?
The truth is that this is a war we cannot afford. I know that Paddy Ashdown would point out that instability will have a knock on effect in Pakistan. Pakistan of course has nuclear weapons and is a far greater concern. However I question his assertion that Pakistan will “inevitably” fall to Jihadists if the Taliban take over in Afghanistan and I would suggest that if we want to stop that from happening, which of course we do, then we should attend to this matter directly and not through Afghanistan.