During a much-bally-hooed two-day June visit to British troops in Afghanistan, new British prime minister David Cameron claimed that he could “sum up this mission in two words”: “It is about our national security back in the UK. Clearing al-Qa’eda out of Afghanistan, damaging them in Pakistan, making sure this country is safe and secure – it will make us safe and secure back home in the UK.”
A major mistake?
According to the Guardian, Cameron believes that one of the two “…
The Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Omar, “has given his approval for talks aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan and allowed his representatives to attend Saudi-sponsored peace negotiations” (Sunday Times, 15 March).
In April, two of the Taliban’s senior Islamic scholars told the Sunday Times “that their military campaign has only three objectives: the return of sharia (Islamic law), the expulsion of foreigners and the restoration of security”, and that the Taliban’s supreme…
British troops could be moved from Helmand to Kandahar, locking in a British presence in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future.
According to media reports, the RAF’s ground fighting force and UK special forces will both take part in the forthcoming Kandahar offensive.
However, the Telegraph has also speculated that British troops could be moved wholesale from Helmand – where they are now outnumbered by US forces – to Kandahar, “where they could run their own show”.…
British forces sent to Afghanistan and Iraq are 20% more likely to drink “hazardous levels of alcohol” than troops who are not deployed, researchers from Kings College London have learned. In a study of almost 10,000 army personnel they also found that almost one in five report a common mental health disorder, such as depression or anxiety. Perhaps relatedly, just one third of British troops feel themselves to be valued and merely one in five believe morale is high in their branch of the…
Public opposition to the war in Afghanistan had grown in Britain in the run-up to the election, according to an Angus Reid Public Opinion poll published on 22 April. Only 32% of respondents (down six points since February) said they supported the war, while 59% were opposed (up seven points). Only 12% of Britons foresaw a clear victory by US-led forces; 32% expected a negotiated settlement from a position of US and allied strength that gives the Taliban a small role in the Afghan government…
The British government policy of transferring prisoners in Afghanistan into the custody of the Afghan security forces was put to a judicial review in the high court (see PN 2521). The case, brought by PN columnist Maya Evans (see p13), concluded on 28 April. The high court was told of nine prisoners who the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) had tortured using electric shocks and severe beatings. Public Interest Lawyers argued that torture was “endemic” in the NDS “even at a high…
In mid-April, it was reported that the anti-war British soldier Joe Glenton was being subjected to “cruel and degrading treatment” in military prison. Glenton was jailed on 5 March for nine months for refusing to return to fight in Afghanistan.
The Colchester prison authorities are allegedly requiring Glenton to sleep under an unwashed or dirty blanket and to wear boots despite having a broken toe.
Allegations of British complicity in the torture and abuse of detainees in Afghanistan are being scrutinised at a judicial review in the high court, as PN goes to press. The review, brought on behalf of PN columnist Maya Evans, is challenging the policy of transferring persons captured by UK forces in Afghanistan into Afghan custody. The ten-day case is scheduled to last until 29 April.
Detainees transferred from UK custody have allegedly suffered a wide range of abuses at the…
If the US public looked long and hard into a mirror reflecting the civilian atrocities that have occurred in Afghanistan, over the past ten months, we would see ourselves as people who have collaborated with and paid for war crimes committed against innocent civilians who meant us no harm. Two reporters, Jerome Starkey of the London Times, and David Lindorff of the radical US magazine Counterpunch, have persistently drawn attention to US war crimes committed in Afghanistan. Makers of the…
Talks with the Taliban leadership are “long overdue”, the UN’s former envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, told the BBC World Service in mid-March. Also in March, the Washington Post claimed that the British government had “taken the lead in promoting a negotiated settlement” in Afghanistan in the face of “overwhelming domestic opposition” to the presence of British troops there.
Further evidence that London may be taking negotiations more seriously, despite continued American…
The CIA is worried that “a spike in French or German casualties or in Afghan civilian casualties could become a tipping point in converting passive opposition into active calls for immediate withdrawal”, according to a confidential document leaked to the Swedish-based online organisation Wikileaks.
According to the “Red Cell Memorandum”, dated 11 March 2010 and marked NOFORN (“no foreign nationals”), the CIA has privately recommended a “strategic communication program across…
On 31 March, four Christian peace activists broke into a secret Australian military base in a protest against the war in Afghanistan. The four swam to Swan Island off the south coat of Australia at 5.30am, climbed the fence and spent several hours on the base shutting down the switchboard, a satellite and causing a lockdown on the base, effectively disrupting the Australian war effort in Afghanistan.
“Both Swan Island and the war on Afghanistan are out of sight, out of mind. It’…
Official statistics of British forces fatalities in Afghanistan obscure the fact that it is younger people from poorer backgrounds who are suffering most from the increasing intensity of the fighting there.
Those facing the greatest risks in Afghanistan are in the infantry. In 2009, there were 107 British forces deaths, of which 71 (66%) were infantry personnel, despite the fact that the infantry account for only 13.3% of the armed forces as a whole. Infantry recruits tend to be…
“Rubbish!” cried a man in the audience. The scene was a public meeting against the war in Afghanistan. What prompted his outburst was a reference to the results of an opinion poll conducted there last December.
According to the ABC News poll, 68% of Afghans “strongly” or “somewhat” support the presence of US military forces in Afghanistan. This was unpalatable to our heckler, and so it had to be wrong. A complex picture He is not alone. Last year, in the teeth of similar poll…
Plans to erect two mock Afghan villages in northwest Germany have been placed on hold after a court ruled that tests were necessary to assess the potential impact on (among other things) a rare sand lizard and a blue-winged grasshopper. Senior army commanders are apparently furious, as this could severely hamper training plans for 5,000 British troops.
