Afghan campaign
Army fury at refusal to bolster Afghan campaign
Senior commanders warn British strategic alliance with United States is being put at risk
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Independent Minds
Britain's most senior military commanders have warned Gordon Brown that unless he sends more troops to Afghanistan Britain will lose credibility with its American allies, The Independent has learnt.
Senior generals are bemused that the Prime Minister has turned down the advice of his own Defence Secretary, John Hutton, that a larger force should be sent to Afghanistan following the withdrawal from Iraq. Now they have warned Number 10 that the reputation of the armed forces will suffer in the eyes of senior American commanders unless Mr Brown authorises an autumn surge in troop numbers. Such a surge, they say, would signal Britain's intent to "pull its weight" in the Afghan conflict by plugging the shortfall in the multinational force.
On Saturday, two more British troops died in Helmand, bringing to 165 the total number killed in the conflict so far – just 14 fewer than the total number of British soldiers who died in Iraq.
Mr Brown has until now turned down, on cost grounds, the generals' proposal to send 2,500 extra troops in support of the projected US-led "surge" against the Taliban. Instead, he has authorised a deployment of 700 temporary troops to cover the period of the forthcoming elections in that country. But The Independent has learnt that defence chiefs have persuaded the Government to review the situation in the autumn. Even then, any increase is likely to be in the hundreds rather than in the numbers that the Army believes are needed.
In a sign of the private concern felt by senior military personnel over the Government's stance, General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the Army, has publicly warned that Britain's strategic alliance with US is at risk unless British forces are seen to be pulling their weight in Afghanistan.
In a speech to the international relations think-tank Chatham House he said: "Britain's calculation has long been that maintaining military strategic 'partner-of-choice' status with the United States offers a degree of influence and security that has been pivotal to our foreign and defence policy. But this relationship can only be sustained if it is founded on a certain 'military credibility threshold'.
"Credibility with the US is earned by being an ally that can be relied on to state clearly what it will do and then does it effectively. And credibility is also linked to the vital currency of reputation." General Dannatt added that "unfairly or not" British performance in Iraq and Afghanistan has already been called into question by some in the US administration.
"In this respect there is recognition that our national and military reputation and credibility, unfairly or not, have been called into question at several levels in the eyes of our most important ally as a result of some aspects of the Iraq campaign," he said.
"Taking steps to restore this credibility will be pivotal, and Afghanistan provides an opportunity."
This view has been backed up Col David Kilcullen, a former Australian army officer who helped plan General Petraeus's surge in Iraq and acted as an advisor to Condoleezza Rice.
He told The Independent: "It is true that the British have received some criticism in the US, and some of it has been unwarranted. The Americans too made mistakes in Iraq, but they subsequently tried to rectify that.
"The British have a great opportunity to win back the credibility they have lost with the Americans and enhance it in Afghanistan."
Col Kilcullen, who remains close to senior figures in the US military, said that in his opinion the British General Sir David Richards, who is due to take over from General Dannatt as head of the Army, was "one of the best ever" head of Nato forces in Afghanistan.
He added: "No one doubts the professionalism and bravery of the British, and we accept that they already have a large force in Afghanistan. But we are coming to a crucial time in the campaign there, and I am sure more British help will be welcome."
The US is dispatching up to 17,000 troops to southern Afghanistan, with many of them going to Helmand, which is the centre of UK operations in the war. British commanders are convinced that after three years of committing resources and lives to the mission, reinforcements are essential to maintain the British footprint on the ground.
President Barack Obama is believed to have discussed additional troops for Afghanistan with Mr Brown. US commanders have also expressed disappointment at the shortfall in the troops being sent, especially after redeploying 4,000 troops from Baghdad to Basra to make up for the UK withdrawal from Iraq.
The Afghan campaign
8,300 British troops in Afghanistan
700 extra British troops deployed temporarily for election
610 British troops hurt from 1 January 2006 to 15 March 2009
175 British troops seriously injured between 1 January 2006 and 15 March 2009
165 British troops have lost their lives
39 British troops died in 2006 after taking over in Helmand
28 British troops killed in 2009
10 British troops seriously injured between 7 October 2001 and 31 December 2005
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They have been there for years and achieved nothing. Eventually, they will be forced to run squealing like pigs all the way home to an ungrateful public.
They don't even know what they are supposed to be doing there - apart from killing little kids and women and then labelling the dead as insurgents.
They are a disgrace to humanity.ReplyIn a "strategic alliance between" 'Murka and an ill-equipped poodle's armed 'defence' force prostituted in a coprorate welfare war by bloodstained snouts pursuant to securing their places and the trough and generating fat personal pension plans like Blair's
http://news.independentminds.livejourna
Whether one agrees or disagrees with the presence of British troops on the ground, the one thing that is certain is that the present equivocal policy of the British government is unsustainable. Either we go in whole-heartedly, with the far greater number of troops and upgraded materiel required to win this war, or we withdraw completely. It is all too clear that the British government has not got the political will to do the job properly, and is just muddling fearfully and short-sightedly along, not wanting to incur the wrath of the Americans but not willing to increase the size of the army (an absolute prerequisite for long-term engagement in Afghanistan, let alone other minor conflicts and peacekeeping the UK either is or will be engaged in) and commit fully to winning the Afghan War.
The implications of the present British government policy are disastrous in military, economic and political terms.ReplyAll so very true, jaded63!
Harold Wilson was strong and brave enough to stand up to US pressure and keep the British military out of Vietnam. Like him or loathe him, his example exposes Blair and Brown for the political pygmies that they really are!
The current government have not tactics, let alone a strategy, for the current engagement in Afghanistan. The UK a century ago, the Russians and now the US experience illustrates how hard it is to control the country by armed occupation. The US withdrawal is only a matter of time, and the UK will join them in leaving with their tail between their legs.ReplyFighting for that gas pipeline, thats what he's talking about, is getting a share British interest in the pipeline that the US is killing women and children over and fighting what are suppose terrorists.
Do you want your women and children to go fight for a gas pipeline?
The west is the only terrorists in Afghanistan.
Reply
What's that again? Unless we send more young lads to die fighting for US oil, then the US may spit its dummy?
Who cares? "Britain" (i.e. Blair) backed the US publicly when they needed us and then Blair got screwed in Iraq, why should anyone trust (never mind pander to) the Americans?
The killing has to stop. Enough innocent blood has been spilled.
"The British have a great opportunity to win back the credibility they have lost with the Americans and enhance it in Afghanistan."
LOST CREDIBILITY? That's a very black pot trying to pass judgement on the colour of a kettle.
ReplyI agree. Why should the UK send more troops to help the US pretend this is an international response rather than Bush's daft idea.Reply... only its not very funny when our people are dying for a lie, to save American "face" and "prestige", to protect opium supplies and oil pipe transit routes whilst supporting the ongoing power grab by the politicians and corporations under the faux "War on Terror".
Even if we sent 25,000 troops it would never be enough, the Russians could hardly control little more than islands of security with half a million troops, the Americans brashly are seeking to do the same with a third of that number and are failing especially when they bomb indiscriminately whole towns and then wonder why for every death caused by them, it recruits 50 more to fight the US.
And now, after stiffing us over credit ratings and leaning on us to buy their crappy debt, the Americans want us to pour more of our people and money into their lost causes and illegal wars?
We simply cannot afford it, we have more pressing things to pay for right now, repairing the damage of the Blair years is far more important than supporting a lost war that is nothing to do with us.
And would someone like to explain how we can lose credibility with a nation that has no credibility or moral authority left and has become the joke of the planet?
If the Americans want to walk away, fine by me, we got Europe, we don't need America...ReplyExcellent comment!
Your point about Europe is so fitting, since the EEC/Common Market/EU was founded ut has been responsible for removing military dictatorships in Greece, Spain, Portugal and bringing peace to Northern Ireland, all without firing a shot. The dictators stepped down because they knew that only a democracy can be an EU member state.
As for the United States, they have spent billions of dollars on their military since 1945 and they lost in;
-Korea
-Vietnam
-Somailia
-Lebanon
-Haiti
Their client states in China, Iran, Venezuela and so on have all fallen.
You are so right, we don't need America...
ReplyI didn't know the British army's job was to impress the Americans!ReplyWhat 'special relationship' exists between the UK and the US?
The 'strategic alliance' consists of the UK providing cannon fodder and political coverage to further US interests at the expense of the best interests of the UK. British political leaders get to pose and preen in front of the tv camera's on visits to the White House and obtain lucrative book deals, lectures tours and corporate directorships and consultancies when they retire;
-Margaret Thatcher
-John Major
-Tony Blair
and no doubt Gordon Brown in return for doing what they were told while in office.
How has engagement in two Gulf Wars, the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and so forth helped protect British citizens, made the UK more secure or the world a better place?
Anyone remember US support during the Suez Crisis?ReplyCouldn't have said it better. Precisely right. I would also mention Lend Lease during the Second World War. And who can forget the great American sacrifices in 1939 and 1940?ReplyUnlike America, the British industrial military complex doesn't run the Government and, besides, America, unlike Britain, can still borrow Asian money to finance its illegal foreign wars - for the time being anyway. America is conducting these protracted wars to enrich itself and maintain the supremacy of the dollar as the world's reserve currency and doesn't give a damn about the credibility or security of its moronic allies. This reality is slowly sinking in. Even the servile Poles are beginning to wonder whether the American missile defence shield is all it's cracked up to be. Britain's most senior military commanders ought to go back to school to learn rudimentary economics and study geopolitics. ReplyThere is no strategic alliance with the Americans. The British sacrifice, the Americans laugh. Does anyone in Britain except for toadying, delusional idiots like Tony Blair or Gordon Brown actually believe that the United States would lift a finger to aid Britain were Britain in need? Lend Lease is the model of American generosity. "Give" some shoddy second-hand rundown junk and demand a king's ransom in return. The Americans are friends only to their wealthy nationals (not even their common people) and to Israel. That's it.ReplyReluctant to send more troops overseas because I fancy he may well need them here to defend the Palace of Westminster from the angry mobs; should our wayward dignitaries fail to get their collective acts together and get this once proud and serlf supporting country out of the deep shit it now finds itself in and all down to them!!!!!!ReplySurely one of the current governments aims is to break the British Army something it sems to be doing quite well.ReplyBliar, Brown and the rest of the YANKEE COCKSUCKERS have turned Britain into a nation of spineless warmongering bootlickers.
Time to send Uncle Sam and his Bush-clone Barracks O'Bomber the ONE-FINGER SALUTE.
Who runs Britain?? The Brits, or some stetson-wearing cowboy SCUM? This has gone far enough!! Time General Dannatt was relieved of his command and locked-up in the nut-house where he belongs. Time "Sir" John Scarlett was arrested and tried for falsifying the evidence that took Britain to war.
Time Bliar and Brown were tried as traitors - the Romanians got it right when they dealt with Ceausescu.
And if the planned statue of Ronnie Raygun is built in Grosvenor Square, it will be the patriotic duty of every Brit to TEAR IT DOWN.ReplyThe US/British alliance save Europe from Hitler's Nazi; and South-East Asia from the Japanese Imperial Army - it's time they be thanked again, for saving the world from the brutally global Dark-Age grip of Islamic fascism and neo-Nazism! Those commenters here, who feel so good about themselves for sniggering at such bravery of the soldiers, I suggest, have some compassion (if there is any) and feel the pain of the victims of global Islamic terrorism, including in the west!ReplyQ: What has Adolf Hitler, Al Qaida and the Taleban all got in common...?
A: They were all funded into their positions by the US.
Hitler was financed by the American "power" elite into office, the same elite that also tried in 1933 to overthrow the US government and install a fascist dictatorship in its stead, notable figures involved were Henry Ford, the Rockefellers, George Bush's grandfather and great-grandfather.
The Taleban and Al Qaida... created by the CIA, funded and armed by the CIA to fight the Russians by proxy, trained by Pakistans ISI...
Hmm, I think you need to think carefully on what you think you know mate.ReplyIf you sympathize with the young men out there killing and dying, support the call to bring them home. The Afghans will not be worse off without us.ReplyMost of the comments apply to other toadying governments such as the Australian under Howard, and although it has made some changes to US war involvement in a limited modified hangout way, also to the current Australian government, ready to send more troops to Afghanistan at Uncle's call, and planning to buy a lot of military hardware to be readily available for Uncle's use as he can't afford to buy it himself. New Zealand it is good to say is still preserving national dignity, continuing with barring Uncle's warships from her ports. ReplyAfter WWII, America created NATO, which gave them full control of their Allies, which they still control,
then they were screaming We are policing the world, just look at their record it was a discussing way of policing.
Now, top senior officers have criticize the government since Gulf War II, to such a state that they want to bring charges against the then Prime Minister, now Brown only consideration is to save his ass.
The top brass aim is to save the life of our troops, this is the first priority, who cares about what America think of our credibility, it is better for them to think of their credibility of the blood shed they have cause world wide.
There is not one military force who has ever won a war in Agfhistan.
ReplyWe are committed in Afganistan why should we leave our forces out on a limb. If the military commanders say they need more men then they do. Give them the choppers they need and also get those basic Chelsea Tractors (landrovers) out of there and give the troops protection. The USA is our ally and we should support them as they have done us I find some of the comments here absolutely digusting about the war against terror, obviously these comments are made by the nulabour islam loving liberal lunatics who are full of glee at the mess that multiculteral socio engineered disaster that they have brought upon usReplyWell, why don't you go over there and do some soldiering, you little warmongering prick?ReplyGo and dare against North Korea now loosers!Replythat those holding the power of life or death over various third world populations aspire to the highest moral standards.ReplyThis Army officer, another public servant too big for his boots, should be told in no uncertain terms that Britain should never have been involved in the invasion, military occupation and propping up a puppet governments in Afghanistan. The British Empire and the days when Britain forced its so called "democracy" on other people are happily long gone. If America wishes to kill thousands of people and at the same time lecture them on civilised values that is entirely up to them. I suspect the American people would, given the opportunity, put a stop to it all as well.ReplyBy repeatedly engaging in military operations with expensive, sophisticated equipment against second or third world forces and being soundly beaten, the US, the UK and Israel have all followed the same pattern.
The potent mixture of aggression and incompetence has revealed that the emperor has no clothes, that there is nothing to fear but fear itself! With only minimal fighters and very little resources, asymmetrical warfare means that the aggressors can be engaged and defeated in repeated engagements until their morale collapses and they withdraw.
The modern technology that came from the west has been effectively adopted by supposedly 'primitive' people who are able to turn it against their opponents. With only small arms. limited amounts of explosives and a communications network that consists of word of mouth and mobile phones, Iraqi, Afghan and Somali irregulars have trounced the mightiest military power in the world. Those with longer memories will recall the withdrawal of the US Marines from Lebanon in 1983.ReplyWhile i don't agree with the Wars, your comments about being engaged and defeated in repeated engagements shows that you dont know what your talking about. US and UK forces will prevail in 99% of engagements due to the technology and skills they have. What they can't do is take over a country where they are not wanted. If you can find a US or UK soldier whos morale has collapsed i would be surprised! To state they have been trounced as you put it is just silly.
The soldiers don't give up, the idiots who sent them there in the first place do.ReplyBoth Brown and Obama have inherited the mess of the Bush Administration's unfathomed foreign policy (unfortunately but somewhat inevitably endorsed by Blair), which wanted a pipe line through Afghanistan, to pipe oil and gas out of the Caspian. Obama sacrificed withdrawal from Afghanistan on the altar of electoral compromises, to try to stay true to his opposition to the war in Iraq and still get elected. Brown has slightly more latitude and appears to be using it... for once he seems to be on the right side of History if he can stay with it - and it seems hard to fault him for angling towards an exit strategy. I'd be extremely surprised if Obama will fault him either, whatever the mutterings of generals who think they can maim and kill for peace there. As with Vietnam, the West alone, simply cannot forge a solution in Afghanistan, neither Russia nor the US made headway militarily... the new occupiers did however achieve the laying of a powerful pipeline to the West and not to Russia- now I imagine replanted with poppies and patrolled for free by war lords protecting their crop... as Bush might have said... mission accomplished. Obama being a pragmatist willing to sell out his principles to the GITMO detainees on the altar of Republican Fox News style hysteria, is not going to get all ideological with Brown or his soon to be successor unless they start in on Brown... but I doubt they even know who he is and care even less. His visit to the US wasn't even reported over there. ReplyRobak1952 clearly lives in a fantasy world. The US may, at some times in our history, have been an ally, but at other times definitely not. The ill-considered Suez campaign comes immediately to mind. If he refers to the Second World War then the USA did nothing that was not in its interests, all US aid was paid for by Britain - a debt only recently paid off. Happily Harold Wilson refused to become involved in that other ill-cconsidered folly Vietnam. And as for the anti-war faction being what this individual describes as "nu labour Islam loving liberal lunatics" I would remind him that it was the Labour Party which got Britain involved in this unwinnable war, a political party I personally have never supported. I have, however, an atheist who has served in the Armed Forces and have probably come much closer to the wrong end of a hostile firearm than he has ever done - and got two campaign medals to prove it. Because one is an "ally" of a country does not mean one should support everything it does, particularly when any actions are ill-considered follies. Just as the USA didn't support Britain at Suez.ReplyMy 'brave little soldier', aka victim of army propaganda, has recently returned from Helmand. Whatever Gordon Brown may or may not have got wrong, his decision against sending more troops there is right. Let the Americans fight their own wars please.ReplyI thought that we went into Afghanistan to try to capture Osama. Osama has long fled. Credibility with the Americans; punching above our weight; is that the reason that maybe 100's more of our soldiers will be killed?
3 million refugees in Swat! Thtas is how histrory will judge that creap Tony Blair, or TB as he likes to be called. I though that that was a highly infectious disease.ReplyOsama is long dead, the reason Bhutto was assassinated a week after revealing on the David Frost interview that she knew he was dead.
It doesn't take a genius to work out "I know Bin Laden is dead and I'll prove it to you" equates to a short time later dying in highly questionable circumstances... The Bhutto assassination was not some random gunman chancing his arm, it was a highly sophisticated operation.
Even Seymour Hersch has hinted heavily that the order may have come from Cheney, directly or indirectly we will never know. The Bush administration needed OBL to wave at the people and the revelation that he was long dead would have caused some very awkward questions.Reply
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