General Sir David Richards, recently said that the Army’s role in Afghanistan may need to go on for several decades. Yesterday Bob Ainsworth, the Defence Secretary on BBC's Andrew Marr Show explicitly referred to that professional assessment by the new head of army as ‘ludicrous’ and stated that British troops might begin to be pulled back from front line fighting…in the next 12 months. For the Defence Secretary to openly reject the best professional military advice at a time while we are fighting a major conflict is frankly alarming.
Even more concerning is the timing of this pull back of British troops – within the next 12 months, which just happens to be when the present government has to call an election. Let’s not forget that two years ago Gordon Brown announced a similar pull back of troops from Iraq…immediately before he decided to call off the general election.
For the Defence Secretary to make these comments on the weekend that the death toll of British troops passed the 200 mark is deeply offensive to the hundreds of British troops who have been wounded and the relatives of those who have died.
Instead of his extraordinary behaviour - going on television to publicly insult the head of the army and doing what many people could be forgiven for thinking was playing politics with soldiers lives; Instead of that, the Defence Secretary should be seeking to work with opposition parties to explain clearly to the public why fighting in Afghanistan is essential to our security. Generating that public support is the very least that soldiers on the front line should be able to expect from the Defence Secretary.
However,as the government is not making the case clearly – let’s just remind ourselves why we are fighting in Afghanistan:
1. We are fighting in Afghanistan because radical Islamists such as Bin laden are attempting to create a radical Islamist state from which they can launch jihad attacks on the West, with the ultimate aim of subjecting the whole world, Muslim and non Muslim alike to Islamic law and government. Bin Laden first tried to do this in Sudan, then when he was expelled, the Taliban were inspired by his vision to invite him and his followers to relocate to Afghanistan. The reality of that threat was demonstrated by detailed plans found in Afghanistan after 9/11, including the locations of all US nuclear power stations.
2. We are fighting in Afghanistan because there is clear evidence both that nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union have been trafficked through Afghanistan and that the Taliban have already gained access to some of these, thereby creating the potential for radical Islamists to create at least a dirty radioactive bomb (i.e. scattering radioactive material with means of a conventional explosive).
3. We are fighting in Afghanistan because a Taliban inspired movement is also seeking to take over neighbouring Pakistan. Should they succeed, we would be faced with the world’s first ever nuclear armed radical Islamist state, who would undoubtedly use at least nuclear blackmail in pursuit of their avowed aim of imposing their own version of Islamic law and government on the rest of the world.
4. We are fighting in Afghanistan because the overwhelming majority of all Islamist terrorist attacks planned against the UK and UK citizens either originate or their perpetrators receive training in either Afghanistan or the Afghanistan/Pakistan border region. So far nearly 150 British citizens have died in terrorist attacks linked to this region (9/11, Bali 2002 and London 7/7) and hundreds more have been seriously injured. That is why it is entirely in the British national interest that we do all we can help the governments of both Afghanistan and Pakistan create stable countries with strong law enforcement that will effectively crack down on these training camps.
There are admittedly other reasons that the government have given for our presence in Afghanistan – combating the drug trade and aid and reconstruction – as a former aid worker in Afghanistan I certainly am not decrying those efforts, but these must always be quite subordinate to the central purpose for which our armed services are fighting in Afghanistan. It is the job of the Defence Secretary to publicly explain to the British public why our servicemen are fighting in Afghanistan and to encourage full public support for them.
Not only has Bob Ainsworth clearly failed to do this, he has gone against the professional military advice of the head of the army, indicating that the government wants troops pulled back from the front line in the next 12 months i.e. in the lead up to the next general election and even gone on television to mock the head of the army's contrary advice as 'ludicrous'.
For a defence secretary to act in this way when British forces are paying the ultimate sacrifice - fighting, being disabled and dying in Afghanistan is a most serious dereliction of duty and misuse of his position. That is why Bob Ainsworth must resign as Defence Secretary immediately before his party political pantomime act puts British lives even further at risk in Afghanistan.
