Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Apart from killing more British soldiers, what IS the mission?

Timed to accord with the visit of President Bush, the British Government has announced that 280 more British troops will be sent to Afghanistan bringing the 'mission' strength to 8300 British troops, the highest total yet...and I'm wondering why?

More than 100 British lives have been lost in the seven years we have been involved in Afghanistan and it is becomingly increasingly difficult to see what is being achieved by the loss of even one. Were I the parent of a young soldier killed in action there, I would be bitterly angry. The world has changed from the unquestioning servility of years ago when nobody queried the rationale behind military actions. Now Governments are having to face their critics and answer tough questions about the purpose behind political decisions and whether such decisions are worth the cost in lives.



Afghanistan ought to be at the front of that agenda. Originally we went into Afghanistan, on the coat-tails of the Americans after 911, to support the fight against Al-Queda. That was the aim of the American led invasion - to find and bring to justice Osama Bin Laden and his men for the atrocity against the United States. But that failed. Despite the Americans blowing half of Afghanistan to bits, Al Queda survived to fight another day. It was considered that the Taliban - extremist Islamic rulers of Afghanistan - were the protectors of Al Queda and so the first step was to dispose of them.

So the Taliban was forcibly removed from power by the invading forces and they fled to the hills. The US installed Hamed Karzai as a puppet but his government has never had any influence outside Kabul and has never looked secure or free from corruption. Now the Taliban has regrouped and is fighting back strongly with considerable support in the countryside.

Without doubt, by western standards, the Taliban is a harsh and unrelenting force which practises Islam in its most basic form. Summary justice according to Sharia law, executions, amputations, women forced to be veiled, girls kicked out of school. It is savage and unacceptable to western sensitivities.



But I ask the question - and not for the first time - why are we interfering militarily in the administration of a nation which poses no military threat to us? The British and American governments claim that if the Taliban is allowed to return, Afghanistan either directly or through alliances will become a military threat. I have some grave doubts about this, though I concede that such an outcome is possible.

However we seem to have lost sight of the original plot which was to get rid of Al Queda, not to run Afghanistan on western lines. How long can it be justified to keep a weak 'puppet' government in power - which clearly commands little support from the populace- only through military occupation....an occupation which is costing the lives of British troops dearly.

What is the end game? What is the purpose? What are the timescales? Does the government seriously believe that Afghanistan can be 'won'? It seems to me that we are simply playing the role of Canute trying to push back the waves - and British soldiers are dying in this vain exercise. The government needs to be forced into answering some tough questions.

Friday, June 13, 2008

A true champion of liberty or a shameless opportunist?

Yesterday, British politics was stunned by the resignation of the Conservative Shadow Foreign Secretary, David Davis....in order to trigger a by-election and fight his own seat! This decision, unparalleled in modern times, comes as the result of the British government winning a very close vote this week, supporting the introduction of a 42 day detention period for terrorist suspects.




I find myself in the invidious position of supporting the stand of a politician whose party I cannot stomach against a Labour government which seems to have lost the plot as far as human rights are concerned, but the decision is an amazing and controversial one for many reasons, regardless of his motives.

First off he could lose if anyone of substance stands against him. The popular feeling in the country is in favour of longer detention for terror suspects, so its not exactly a popular issue on which he has chosen to throw down the gauntlet. It has clearly provided some relief for the Labour Party who have been on the end of some pretty vitriolic abuse from their political opponents and the media alike. Now the focus has to be on Conservative leader David Cameron.




Cameron was starting to make headway in local elections and public support when, suddenly, the rug is pulled from under his feet. What he must be thinking of Davis this morning does not bear public utterance. He must be embarrassed and angry. It looks as if he has little control over his own party when a senior spokesman takes an action like this.

There was clearly no consultation before Davis took this unilateral stance and, weird and ironic that it may be, a Conservative shadow minister who has 'resigned on principle in order to trigger a debate' is the darling of the liberals. This is clearly not a decision designed to endear Davis to his leader and the ultimate scenario seems to lead in one of two directions. When (as seems inevitable) Davis is returned to Parliament, he will either a) be shunned by his leader and shuffle off to the obscurity of the back benches for ever or b) Will be an ever greater thorn in Cameron's side, eventually provoking a new leadership contest.

Why did he REALLY do it? Will we ever find out? On first sight there has to be more to this beneath the surface. It's not as if he was at odds with his party in that they opposed the 42 day detention pretty much en bloc. One would ask why he felt the need to take such an extreme step. Davis did fight Cameron for the leadership of the Conservative Party when Michael Howard resigned, and the two men are hardly bosom pals, but it would be foolhardy to seize on the first opportunity to cause trouble for his leader, especially when the Tories are riding high in the polls. All that would do is paint Davis as a shallow, immature opportunist and a bad loser.

I think he is too bright a politician to be unaware of all these things and so there has to be something else behind it. Maybe what you see IS what you get. Maybe he really is sick of the catalogue of abuses of civil liberties which Labour has perpetrated over the last few months and seen terrorism as an easier medium for his stance than the various new pornography laws for example.

Anyway, whether Labour puts up a candidate is yet to be decided (more Gordon Brown dithering) but it looks as if he might get some kind of a challenge from former Sun editor Kelvin McKenzie. I hope he does. At least if there is a real by election and a candidate who has to explain why he took this extraordinary step to the consternation of his party and its leader, we might get some answers.

In the meantime the Labour Party can bask in a rare week when the guns were not turned on them!

Monday, June 02, 2008

Should Hillary stop plodding on?

I must admit that the vagaries of United States politics sometimes confuse me when Hillary Clinton wins a primary in a place which isn't even a state and which I understand cannot vote in the November elections. Kooky or what? Anyway Hillary is using her overwhelming victory in the Puerto Rico Democratic primary to justify her fighting on in a race in which she cannot possibly achieve the requisite number of delegates to pass the winning post.

Neither, it must be said, can Barack Obama, but he is overwhelmingly ahead on delegate count and it would take some amazing logic for the super-delegates to throw their weight behind Mrs Clinton now. But amazing logic is what Hillary keeps pushing in their faces. She is ahead in the popular vote, she says, and how can they throw her over with that as a statistic? Well, even if that is true, one has to look at the demographics before taking that too much at face value. Hillary, when she has won primaries, has done so by overwhelming majorities and they are in states where the Democratic blue collar vote has been decisive. Hillary is the gal for the working class, of that there is little doubt.



But Obama has not only taken votes from a wider spectrum across the electorate, he has taken them in more states. Hillary claims that she leads McCain in all opinion polls comparing the two but, if Obama was once behind on that score, I don't believe that to be the case now.

What will help the Democratic Party to win the next Presidential election -as I sincerely hope they will - is if this close, exciting but surely now counter-productive in- fighting comes to an end. It is pretty clear that by all the mechanisms through which the Democratic Party anoints its chosen one, Barack Obama is the clear winner. In my opinion, it would now be in the Party's, and the country's , interest if some considerable pressure was exerted on Mrs. Clinton to call it a day and to step away from the fray with dignity and an awful lot of respect for a gallant fight.

If she continues much longer it is surely to the detriment of the Democratic Party and simply lessens the amount of time the Democrats have to pull together around one banner to fight their Republican opponent. What's more Hillary Clinton, rather than looking like a gallant politician who fought and lost gallantly, will look like a selfish woman who puts her own prospects ahead of the interests of her party and her country.

If that happens and the Democrats lose in November she may not be very quickly forgiven.