Skipper

I've always felt a bit foolish about my views on the war in Afghanistan. Back in October 2001, on the eve of the US-UK attempt to avenge 9-11 by wiping out the Taliban in general and Bin Laden in particular I was opposed to the whole enterprise. I was appalled by the attack on the twin towers and expected the US to indulge in retaliatory actions but I was very worried at the decision to target the land of the Khyber Pass.

The local radio, GMR, asked me to do an interview on the issue of the day and I duly sat in the studio warning of the dire dangers of intervention; the breaching of the normal rule that nation states hold back from intervening in the internal affairs of others. Warming to my theme I pointed out that every invader of this mountainous, inhospitable country- Aryans, Macedonians, Greeks,Russians, Britons, the USSR- had found after a few years that they had to withdraw with ignominy. The Great Game fought by Russia and Britain to dominate this crossroads country produced no winner(on this see here). On balance, I confidently asserted, this was a bad move which we would come bitterly to regret. Then came the invasion and the deceptively easy victory over the Taliban forces by western forces in alliance with the Northern Alliance culminating in the enthonement of that nice Mr Karzai with his fashionable green cape and I began to think I was out of touch with the modern world.

I was pleased so few listen to GMR and was even mildly optimistic at the outset that the invasion of Iraq would prove similarily successful. But now I feel my doubts were all too well founded. It is generally better to stay out of other peoples' fights, especially Middle Eastern ones. And the curse of Afghanistan appears to be returning. Our 3000 plus troops, recently sent in to help fight the resurgent Taliban, may find they are faced with a slow death by bleeding over an indefinite period. William Hague is quite right to question the rationale for our troops deployed in this unhappy region. His questions focus on how self defeating is our effort to win hearts and minds when we propose at the same time to curtail their chief source of income: poppy cultivation for the production of opium.

Des Browne and Margaret Beckett insist we are merely 'peace-keeping' in response to the government in Kabul but we all know it is Washington from where the real invitation came. Like US-UK troops in Iraq our boys are now trapped in a fearsome place with little hope of any early return ticket. Nobody is talking about exit strategies yet but I wager it will only take a few more deaths and as many months before this issue tops the 'permanent crisis' agenda along with Iraq.