Dennis Benson

Posts Tagged ‘Helmand’

The allotments looked very like a scene from the Blitz this morning. The gale that roared had done its worst, and the storage areas looked like one of those Woollies sites in the days after their still lamented closure. As we set to work I noticed that Harry appeared to be in a particularly venomous mood and, in an attempt to pour oil on troubled waters, made a fatuous comment about global warming. But our havoc had nothing to do with his mood, he was fuming about Afghanistan. His grandson is out there on his second tour of duty and the family lives in a constant state of tension. This week has brought several more announcements of fatalities and, not surprisingly, those waiting at home continue to ask themselves what the war is actually about, and why we continue to gamble young lives on what is clearly mission impossible. Harry told me that often, in the dead of night, he asks himself over and over how the mindless slaughter can be brought to an end.

Now he has the answer and he is enraged. Some of today’s papers have told us what the government has failed to reveal. Millions of pounds of taxpayer’s money is being spent on paying the most violent of the Taliban killers £100 per month to stop fighting. All they have to do is complete a questionnaire explaining their reasons for joining the insurgency. They are then granted amnesty, allowed to keep their weapons, and encouraged to return to their local communities.

Of those already pardoned in exchange for a promise that they will undoubtedly keep only for as long as the pay continues to arrive, are at least 100 of the bomb-layers of Helmand, where nearly 400 Britsh troops have been killed and more than 5000 seriously injured and permanently disabled. Maj Gen David Hook is in charge of the programme of reconciliation. He previously served in southern Afghanistan and admits that he saw many horrendous examples of Taliban brutality which, he said, he would “personally find it difficult to forgive”. He goes on to remark that the programme will be difficult “for many British families to accept”. Some understatement!

The general has gone on to say that even if the insurgents who murdered members of the Grenadier Guards battlegroup at a checkpoint in Nad e’Ali in November 2009 come forward they will not be prosecuted. The idea of forgiveness is important, insists the general, and the UK has given £6.5 million to deliver peace in this way. In his interview the general draws an analogy with Northern Ireland and the policy of forgiveness applied there. It is a strange comparison for in Ireland British troops were protecting British soil, although even there forgiveness looked suspiciously like betrayal of those murdered.

Amongst the ‘great successes’ of the scheme previously hidden from us is the arrival in the Afghan governmnet of Maulawi Noor ul Aziz who proudly estimates that he ordered or took part in hundreds of attacks on Afghan and Nato forces. As a senior Taliban leader in the Nad-e Ali district of Helmand many of his targets were likely to have been British troops. Yet he too has been granted amnesty. In an interview he talks as one might of a computer war game. He and his men had sown a field in Nad-e Ali with improvised explosive devices, planning to ambush patrols. In fact a Chinook helicopter landed nearby and he and his band detonated their bombs. He recalls that; “All the bombs went off and some of the foreigners were blown to bits and some were wounded. We were very happy with the result”. He sounds just the sort of man we should be paying wages to whilst he rests from his campaign!

To add insult to the injury that this scheme will cause to many a family’s spirits, we learn from Hanif Atmar, a former interior minsiter, that so far many of those being “forgiven and paid” are not genuine insurgents, and the scheme is “failing to undermine the rebels in their southern heartlands”. So not only are we paying leading murderers, but we are also giving rewards to people who have no influence on Taliban activities.

The truth of the matter is that, like the Russians before us, we are indulging in a lethal fantasy. The idea that the Taliban is a seperate entity opposed by the rest of the population is unreal. In many areas it is the community. Hard though it may be we have to accept we were wrong to become engaged there. Nothing we do will reduce the security threat to our island, indeed it is doing the absolute opposite.

There seem to be no depths to which our politicians will sink in their futile efforts to prove “victory” in Afghanistan. They continue to regard our young men as pawns in a game. But this is no game, almost 6000 families have already been sacificed to a greater or lesser extent. Generations will grow up and live their lives without the fathers they loved.

When the defence of our country is at stake our servicemen know that it is their duty to stand and, if necessary, die. The situation in Afghanistan is not in that category. Our troops should not be there and every month adds more blood to the hands of those that keep them there. And now we are handing over fool’s gold to those who delight in their murder! 

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ANSWERS TO YESTERDAY’S WEEKEND QUIZ;  1.  Alan Shearer   2.  Play it   3.  Judy Garland   4.  Girls Aloud   5.  Bart Simpson   6.  Jose Morinho ( about Spurs v Arsenal)    7.  Sydney    8.  Terry Wogan    9.  Lady   10.  Radio Channels

 SOME MEMORABLE QUOTES!!!!!!!!!!!!    “Games are the kast resort of those who do not know how to idle”……Robert Lynd   “Serious sport is war minus the shooting”…….George Orwell    “The English football team – brilliant on paper, shite on grass”…….Arthur Smith      “Well, either side could win, or it could be a draw”……Ron Atkinson    “The manager still has a fresh pair of legs up his sleeve”……John Greig      “Steve McCahill has limped off with a badly cut forehead”……Tom Ferrie     “The sending off? Well, Jason McAteer would annoy anyone”…….Dave Jones    “You’d think that if any team could put up a decent wall it would be China”……Terry Venables     “Skiing? I don’t participate in any sport that has ambulances at the bottom of the hill”…..Erma Bombeck   “I went to a fight the other night and a ice-hockey match broke out”….Rodney Dangerfield    “It has been announced that Northern Rock has been sold to Virgin Mary”……Peter Allen on Radio 5 Live    “We have to reduce our expectations and we have the players to do it”…….Steve McClaren on Radio 5 Live

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Most of us suspect that the decision to go into Afghanistan was a bad one, and that successive governments have exposed our young men and women to grave danger in support of a war that cannot be won. But we stay silent out of respect for all the families who have lost loved ones, 382 of them plus large numbers of seriously wounded. But yesterday the father of the first British soldier to be killed did an incredibly brave thing, He spoke frankly about the war that destroyed his family.

Tony Philippson is the father of Capt Jim Philippson, 29, who was killed when he volunteered to join a quick-reaction force sent to rescue colleagues. The equipment shortages of the early Helmand campaign meant he went into battle in darkness without night-vision goggles. He was shot in the head as his patrol moved through ditches surrounding the volatile town of Sangin in June 2006. The failure of the then British government to properly equip our troops undoubtedly led to the disaster and, not surprisingly, Tony Philippson condemns politiocans for sending young men to war without the proper resources. It was, he says, “inexcusable”.

Yesterday Mr Philippson went on to describe the war as having been “totally, utterly a waste of time”. Those who perished “died in vain” is the bereaved father’s verdict who recalls that when the government went into Afghanistan it claimed that it was in Britain’s interests. He believes that the whole thing was “a lie..they were hooked into something that they should have checked out”. And Mr Philippson draws no comfort from the proposed exit strategy. He believes that “Afghanistan deserves something better than what we are leaving them with”.

It takes a great deal of courage to speak out in this way. I confess that were I in Tony Philippson’s place I would desperately want to rationalise the terrible loss, I would feel the need to believe that my son did not die in vain. But thanks to his courage we can perhaps now more openly examine the deception and incompetence of so-called ministers, most of whom have never seen a shot fired in anger and whose only interest is in seeking self-glorification at the expense of brave servicemen and women.

As if on cue, today’s Daily Telegraph carries an interview with a street restaurant owner in Kabul, Ghulam Rabbani Ahmadzai. A decade ago he welcomed the promise of freedom, democracy and aid to modernise their neglected, backward country. Today he says that nothing has changed. Aid has been misused. There has been a “huge allocation of funds but ordinary people have seen nothing as a result. Only a voracious elite, many of whom are linked to President Karzai’s government, have benefited.

Mr Ahmadzai reports also that the crime and immunity from punishment which plagued Afghanistan during the notorious warlord years of the 1990s are back. Security has now deteriorated to such an extent that Mr Ahmadzai now has fond memories of the strict Taliban regime. “You didn’t have to worry about whether you left your door open or shut” he recalls. Now there is anarchy. Kidnapping, bomb blasts, and general lawlessness mean that few venture to the bazaar and trade has all but vanished.

The only people that find jobs are relatives of corrupt government officials says Mr Ahmadzai, who concludes by saying that the people are “tired of the war and simply desire peace irrespective of who the rulers are”.

The hard facts bear out what this typical resident of Kabul says. Afghan civilians are dying every day because a decade of war has led to inadequate helath services. The quality of education is low with so few teachers that older children attempt the teaching. Paul Valentin, international director of Christian Aid, says that ten years of engagement has “not brought about the results that both we and the Afghans want to see”.

Experts confirm that time is “running out” to create a stable Afghan government that can prevent the country falling back into the clutches of the Taliban and its terrorist allies. For a final word one can rely upon Jane’s, the defence publishers. In its latest report it confirms that the stablility of the region ” remains fragile” and the suppression of terrorism has been “limited”. It questions whether the Afghan security forces and government will ever be strong enough to resist a resurgent Taliban.

The war has cost America £254 billion and the UK £14 billion. Tens of thousands of Afghans have died, and 2,700 Nato troops including 382 British have died. The country is now more politically unstable than at any time since the conflict began. Only this week Afghan intelligence officials said that they had discovered a plot to kill President Karzai. Most observers expect the eventual withdrawal of Nato to trigger civil war.

Sadly Tony Philippson is right. Politicians in search of glory created a war that cannot be won. Others are now perpetuating it and one wonders how many more will die before they recognise that it is all “an utter waste of time and, more importantly, brave souls.

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JOIN ME TOMORROW FOR THE WEEKEND QUIZ AND ‘THE MYSTERY SURROUNDING DR FOX’ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!