UK Independent's front page Remembrance Day call for Afghanistan withdrawal

By Steve Hynd

It was inevitable that Remembrance Sunday would mean a lot of British soul-searching over continued military involvement in Afghanistan. That introspection was evident in national newspapers today, including in the London Times, where foreign correspondent Christina Lamb had a long and thoughtful article about the ongoing occupation which weighed the pros and cons of various possible courses. Among her revalations, that the policeman known only as Gulbuddin who shot and killed five British soldiers last week was a victim of sexual abuse by his commander.

According to two Afghans who knew him, Gulbuddin had complained of being brutally beaten, sodomised and sexually abused by a senior Afghan officer. A policeman named Ajmal, a friend of the gunman, said Gulbuddin had been constantly tortured. �He was being used for sexual purposes,� said Ajmal.

Another policeman, Kharullah, who was injured in the shooting, said: �Gulbuddin was beaten many times and that�s why he got angry. One day when he was patrolling with British soldiers, he swore he was going to kill him.�

When Gulbuddin opened fire with a machinegun, his target was his alleged abuser. According to the Afghan sources, the five British soldiers were killed simply because they were present and considered to be the man�s protectors.

That directly contradicts P.M. Gordon Brown's claim that Gulbuddin was a Taliban infiltrator, and the Taliban's subsequent propaganda coup in accepting him as a hero - but it doesn't leave British plans in any better place. If such abuse can go on, and have this effect, then what chance of "they'll stand up as we stand down"?

That's just one of the many areas of uncertainty about Western hopes and plans for Afghanistan that Lamb addresses. But her piece is just a taster for the Independent newspapers editorial calling for withdrawal: front-paged in the print edition on this day, of all days.

...we asked: "What is this war for?" Although we never received a satisfactory answer, we welcomed the fall of the Taliban and reluctantly accepted Mr Blair's argument, made with his trademark persuasiveness, that the best protection against their return was to help rebuild the country. Thus the mission crept from bringing mass murderers to book to fostering democracy, female emancipation and winning the battle against drugs. Those are worthy aims, but eight years on we have made limited progress. In the meantime, British forces, which had borne few casualties until then, were deployed in 2006 to Helmand province.

It is not so much the casualty rate, however, but the lack of progress that should demand a re-examination of our policy. Gordon Brown's speech last week did not deliver the review needed. It contained the glaring contradiction between the claim that our troops are needed in Afghanistan "to keep the British people safe" and the warning that, if Mr Karzai's government fails to clean up its act, it will have "forfeited its right to international support". If you believe that our mission in Afghanistan makes British streets safer, then its continuation should not depend on Mr Karzai. If, on the other hand, you believe, as Kim Howells, the former Foreign Office minister, said last week, that any remote or long-term effect on British streets is outweighed by the propaganda gain to jihadist ideology of our "occupying" a Muslim country, then Mr Karzai's shortcomings give us another reason to get out.

There are, of course, still good reasons to stay, although they are secondary. The Afghan people do not want foreign troops to leave until security is better. But the longer we are there the more our forces provide target practice for jihadists and grievances for nationalists to turn to jihadism, as Patrick Cockburn argues so forcefully today.

A second reason for staying is that our withdrawal could undermine Barack Obama, whose leadership is needed in the world. But we have left Iraq while the US stayed. In any case, as we report today, the US is keen to move British forces away from being a political target.

Ultimately, we should make a British decision in the British interest. And that decision should be to wind down combat operations over a period � say, by Remembrance Sunday next year � and to restrict the mission to training the Afghan army and police force. Special forces operations should continue, especially on the Pakistan border, to disrupt any attempt by al-Qa'ida to return. But beyond that it is time to act on the observation of David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, that there can be no military solution in Afghanistan.

It is time, on this solemn day on which we remember the sacrifice of those who gave their lives for our freedom and security, for a change in policy. It is time to say that this war is ill conceived, unwinnable and counterproductive. It is time to start planning a phased withdrawal of British troops.

The British public are in broad agreement. A new poll by ComRes for the BBC shows just how strongly:

I feel I have a good understanding of the purpose of Britain's mission in Afghanistan
Agree 54%, disagree 42%, don't know 4%

 

All British forces should be withdrawn from Afghanistan as quickly as possible
Agree 63%, disagree 31%, don't know 6%

 

The war in Afghanistan is unwinnable
Agree 64%, disagree 27%, don't know 10%

 

The levels of corruption involved in the recent Presidential election show the war in Afghanistan is not worth fighting for
Agree 52%, disagree 36%, don't know 12%

The percentage of people polled calling for withdrawal- a massive 63 percent - is up from 34% two weeks ago, and 25% two weeks before that. With a general election looming, victory is likely to go to the party that most meets British voters' wishes for the nation's soldiers to leave Afghanistan.