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Post by fretslider on Apr 24, 2010 5:33:21 GMT -5
The US wants British troops to leave Helmand.... No, they won't be coming home.
Discussions have taken place between Gen Petraeus and British Army officers following months of pressure from the American military. The USs top commanders have been pushing hard for UK troops to move from Helmand province to the Kandahar region. The move would be highly controversial as more than 252 of the 281 British troops to die in Afghanistan have been killed in Helmand.
Senior British figures have resisted the idea for some time but generals and senior diplomats are increasingly warming to the idea that they should "declare victory" in Helmand and move west to the city of Kandahar. Sounds like 'Mission Accomplished' all over again to me. A switch to Kandahar could well risk undermining what public support for the war there is, but a refusal to do so would risk alienating the US.
Gen Petraeus and Gen McChrystal are strongly in favour. Lt Gen Nick Parker, deputy commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, and Maj Gen Nick Carter, commander of Nato forces in southern Afghanistan, are understood to have advocated the switch on the grounds of coherence of command and in the interests of maintaining relations with the Marine Expeditionary Force. What on earth does this mean? I think we know.
Some 20,000 US Marines will be in Helmand by this summer, more than twice the number of British troops there. Meanwhile, more than 2,500 Canadian forces are due to pull out of Helmand next year, following the withdrawal of 2,000 Dutch troops from neighbouring Uruzgan in August. American officers at Nato's International Security Assistance Force headquarters in Kabul have been pushing for the British brigade of 9,500 troops, which is commanded from Lashkar Gah, the Helmand provincial capital, to move to Kandahar to fill the gap.
British forces would face a tough urban fight in Kandahar and many fear casualty rates could exceed those in Helmand. An Army planner warned: "It is a far more complex area. If we think the problems in Helmand are difficult then they are horribly magnified in Kandahar." But a senior British official said a fight in the heart of the city would give British troops a chance to prove their battle credentials. Sound like the good burghers of Wooton Bassett will have lots to turn out for.
Moving to Kandahar will mean British troops remaining in Afghanistan indefinitely whereas the deployment in Helmand leaves open the possibility of an "exit strategy" being developed at relatively short notice should the situation in the country deteriorate. The issue is likely to be one of the first and most difficult decisions to be taken by the next Prime Minister following the May 6 election.
Will they opt to please the people, or the US? I don't know why I'm even putting that question, see you all in Kandahar
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Post by beth on Apr 24, 2010 9:00:36 GMT -5
Quote:
Will they opt to please the people, or the US? I don't know why I'm even putting that question, see you all in Kandahar
A pull-out would be the big surprise and, like you, I can't see that happening. Bet the morale among the troops to be moved is in the basement. War sucks.
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Post by biglin on Apr 24, 2010 11:25:52 GMT -5
I feel very strongly on this issue as I have a friend who's serving in the British Army and has done three tours of duty in Afghanistan.
I support the war against the Taliban but that doesn't mean that every time I hear about another British casualty I don't feel a pang (awful, I know) that it isn't him.
The people of Wootton Bassett regularly (far too often) show their solidarity with our brave troops fighting to try to stop the nutters in Afghanistan.
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Post by fretslider on Apr 24, 2010 12:44:52 GMT -5
I feel very strongly on this issue as I have a friend who's serving in the British Army and has done three tours of duty in Afghanistan. I support the war against the Taliban but that doesn't mean that every time I hear about another British casualty I don't feel a pang (awful, I know) that it isn't him. The people of Wootton Bassett regularly (far too often) show their solidarity with our brave troops fighting to try to stop the nutters in Afghanistan. I note the strength of your feelings Lin, my family has military connections that go back several generations. We all support the troops. Your support for the war in Afghanistan, however, is misplaced. The record for subjugating the peoples (plural) of Afghanistan is littered with futile attempts, and extremely dirty politics. Could the Viet Cong be overcome or defeated...... well, neither can the Taliban. This war is about freedom, democracy and womens' rights? Its about terrorism and our national security? Well that's what they tell you, but you don't really believe all that froth do you? Z Magazine, 2001 [ Oil and gas are not the reason the US has attacked Afghanistan, but Afghanistan has long had a key place in US plans to secure control of the vast but landlocked oil and gas reserves of Central Asia. Though the primary US motivation is to destroy Osama bin Laden’s sanctuary in Afghanistan, another, rather more pecuniary objective is also on the agenda, particularly in the search for an alternative government in Kabul. With the Taliban out of Kabul and the search for a new Afghan government on center stage, one criterion on Washington’s mind will be how best to make Afghanistan safe for a couple of billion-dollar pipeline investments. In the case of the great natural gas and oil fields of Turkmenistan, immediately north of Afghanistan, the US government has for a decade strongly supported plans by US-led business groups for both an oil pipeline from Turkmenistan to the Arabian sea via Afghanistan and a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan. Such pipelines would serve important US interests in a number of ways: l drawing the Central Asian oil states away from the Russian sphere of influence and establishing the foundation for a strong US position l thwarting the development of Iranian regional influence by limiting Turkmenistan-Iranian gas links and thwarting a plan for a Turkmenistan-Iran oil pipeline to the Arabian Sea. l diversify US sources of oil and gas, and, by increasing production sources, help keep prices low l benefiting US oil and construction companies with growing interests in the region l providing a basis for much-needed economic prosperity in the region, which might provide a basis for political stability. For much of the 1990s the United States supported the Taliban’s rise to power, both by encouraging the involvement of US oil companies, and by implicitly tolerating Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, two of its key regional allies, in their direct financial and military support for the Taliban. The Taliban, which is committed to a particularly primitive vision of Sunni Islam, had the added advantage for the US of being deeply hostile to Shia Muslims in neighboring Iran (as well as within Afghanistan). A crucial condition for building the pipelines is political stability in Afghanistan, and for a time the US believed the Taliban could provide just that. Had it not been for the Taliban’s apparent tolerance of the former US-supported Osama bin Laden, and the Taliban’s highly visible extremely repressive attitude to women and other social issues, the US would most likely have continued its support for the Taliban, and the construction of the pipelines would have got underway in the late 90s. Certainly Iran believed that the US was behind Pakistani and Saudi support for the Taliban as part of a long-term plan to contain Iran. But as so often before, US foreign policy based on the principle of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” helped generate the conditions that allowed the New York and Washington atrocities to be conceived. The key to Central Asian politics is economic development in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, all of which are amongst the poorest parts of the former Soviet Union. Most are authoritarian dictatorships of the most dismal kind. For the past ten years the US has been wooing the governments of these countries, and opening the doors for profitable investment by US companies. Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan make up the eastern side of the Caspian Sea Basin, beneath which lie oil reserves to rival those of Saudi Arabia and the world’s richest reserves of natural gas. If you read the trade newspapers and websites of the world oil industry, words like “fabulous”, “huge”, “enormous” flow across the pages describing the Caspian Sea Basin gas and oil fields. But more importantly, these words go together with “undeveloped”, “isolated” and “politically unstable”. There are billions of dollars to be made there, but the possibility of realizing these fabulous profits hinges on one crucial issue: how is the gas and oil to get to its potential markets? While the countries of Central Asia may be floating on a sea of hydrocarbon, they are far from both actual seas and centres of industry. – and deep in the heart of Islam Oil and gas are not the direct causes of the war in Afghanistan, but understanding the motives of long-term US policy towards that country is important. The pursuit of hydrocarbon interests has been a constant of US policy in the region for more than half a century. Having created the mujahadin resistance to fight the Soviets during the Cold War, the US then lost interest in the country, and allowed its former clients to destroy it. In order to gain the stability necessary for oil and gas operations, it flirted with the Taliban, until finally the whirlwind its earlier support for the mujahadin had created came blowing back home as a terrorist horror.] Pipeline Politics: Oil, gas and the US interest in Afghanistan, Richard Tanter, Z MagazineI doff my cap to the people of Wootton Bassett, they shouldn't have to turn out at all. |
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Post by biglin on Apr 24, 2010 13:07:49 GMT -5
I don't go along with the Marxist idea that every war has economic causes. I firmly believe that we HAD to go into Afghanistan and that we HAVE to destroy the Taliban.
The trouble is that we are civilised and they are brutal and callous; we also have to fight with one hand tied behind our back because our government hasn't given British troops enough of the resources and equipment we need.
It would also help if it wasn't basically just us and the Americans. We could use a lot more foreign assistance in winning this war.
Losing it would be a disaster.
I think we need to go all out to smash the Taliban.
Sorry, Fret.
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Post by fretslider on Apr 24, 2010 13:23:16 GMT -5
I don't go along with the Marxist idea that every war has economic causes. I firmly believe that we HAD to go into Afghanistan and that we HAVE to destroy the Taliban. The trouble is that we are civilised and they are brutal and callous; we also have to fight with one hand tied behind our back because our government hasn't given British troops enough of the resources and equipment we need. It would also help if it wasn't basically just us and the Americans. We could use a lot more foreign assistance in winning this war. Losing it would be a disaster. I think we need to go all out to smash the Taliban. Sorry, Fret. Marxist? Come now, its reality. If you read that right you'll know that gas and oil were not the reason for the invasion, but now that we're there..... Al Qaeda left Afghanistan years ago they're in Yemen, Somalia etc, they have been for quite some time. The Taliban is no different to the Mujahideen the Russians tried to smash. These days they call it asymmetrical war, years ago it was a guerilla war. Whatever you call it it can't be won. Will you be disappointed when the talks with the Taliban on a settlement start? |
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Post by michiganmagpie on Apr 24, 2010 13:30:53 GMT -5
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Post by fretslider on Apr 24, 2010 15:38:03 GMT -5
The truth and nothing but the truth?
Gordon Brown declared last year: "I believe this [UK troop withdrawal] can begin next year in a number of districts including one or two in Helmand province itself. We need to be transferring at least five provinces by the end of 2010."
At the London conference on Afghanistan a few months ago, the PM stressed that "transferring, district by district, to full Afghan control" should start in 2010. Downing Street officials had talked about the handover process beginning in up to five provinces in the north and west of the country.
Senior figures in the Coalition say they are "puzzled" by the deadlines being set by Brown. The first Nato meeting to decide which districts to hand over to the Afghan government will now not take place until the end of the year and the alliance will demand that a specific framework is in place before the transfer of security begins.
Speaking at a Nato foreign ministers' meeting in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, where the discussion on that handover plan begins with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in attendance, the alliance's secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, acknowledged that Afghans taking over security was "the light at the end of the tunnel".
Rasmussen stressed: "We must be absolutely clear that this is conditions based and not calendar driven.
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alanseago
Apprentice
I believe in Gosh the father.
Posts: 187
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Post by alanseago on Apr 28, 2010 5:37:10 GMT -5
The Russians should have been left to occupy Afghanistan instead of arming the Taliban or training and financing Osama Bin Laden.
Well done Silly Ron and his Moll.
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Alpha 
