Brave as lions but poorly led – the British heroes of Helmand
Leaving Afghanistan may mark the moment Britain lost her influence as a global military power
Britains 13-year stay in Afghanistan is almost over. Already, the British military presence is essentially confined to one base, Camp Bastion. Within a few weeks we will have gone for good. The courage and fighting spirit displayed by our servicemen and women has been beyond praise and a matter of permanent national pride. Some 453 soldiers have died, while many hundreds of others have lost limbs or been mutilated in other life-changing ways. They will always carry Afghanistan with them.
Maybe this heroism and blood sacrifice has held the rest of us back from analysing our Afghan engagement. By contrast, the Iraq war has already been the subject of four official investigations. The fifth and longest such study, the Chilcot Inquiry, now looks almost certain to be published early in the new year, and thus before the next general election.
There are some sound reasons for this contrast. The case for invasion in Iraq was quickly tainted by claims of lying and fabrication, augmented by doubts about the integrity of the government information machine. There have been far fewer accusations of bad faith in Afghanistan. In addition, voters have tended to see Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, as a relatively virtuous conflict.
Nevertheless there are important questions that now scream to be asked. These do not, as a whole, concern the original invasion of Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of the destruction of the twin towers in 2001. This was a brilliant and cleanly executed operation. The questions concern what followed.
LINK Telegraph UK