Public support 'crucial' to Afghan success, says general
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Independent Minds
Public support is "crucially important" to the success of mission in Afghanistan, the senior British commander in the country warned today, as the death toll among British troops rose to 231.
Lieutenant General Jim Dutton, the deputy commander of the international forces in Afghanistan, spoke out as the MoD announced the death of a soldier who died in a blast near Sangin, Helmand Province, yesterday, on the eve of Remembrance Sunday.
Lt Gen Dutton said people needed to understand that British troops were not being sacrificed simply for the sake of the government of President Hamid Karzai.
"British soldiers are not dying simply to provide an electoral opportunity for Afghans," he said in an interview with the BBC1 Politics Show to be broadcast later today.
"There is much more to the provision of stability in this area of the world, which is a project for which I have to say, yes, it is worth some soldiers having to die for because the consequences of it going wrong are far greater."
The serviceman who was killed, from the 2nd Battalion, The Rifles, was praised by Task Force Helmand spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel David Wakefield, who said: "He died a soldier, doing his duty and among his fellow soldiers. He will not be forgotten."
The soldier's family have been informed.
On Friday, Gordon Brown issued a warning to the Afghan president that he must do more to tackle corruption and build good governance if he was to continue to receive the support of the international community.
Lt Gen Dutton said that he believed the public would continue to support the campaign in Afghanistan provided that they understood what it was trying to achieve and how it could be done.
"I think I can say without any doubt that support back home is crucially important but I don't sense any lack of support for soldiers back home," he said.
"I think the British people, and indeed all our populations back home, will put up with the cost of this sort of operation, and I mean the cost in human and financial terms, if they believe two things: one that we're right and two that we can win.
"We have to convince them of that - that we have a good plan, that we're right to be doing this. We have momentum along that path and they have to believe that we can win."
However, a ComRes opinion poll for the programme found that almost two thirds - 64 per cent - now believe that the war is "unwinnable", while a similar proportion - 63 per cent - wanted British troops to be withdrawn as soon as possible.
Lt Gen Dutton acknowledged the mission was not making as much progress as they would like and that the situation was, as the US commander General Stanley McChrystal had warned, "serious and deteriorating".
"It's not necessarily going backwards, it's certainly not going forwards and certainly not at the speed we would wish," he said.
He said that under Gen McChrystal's proposals - currently under review by the US administration - the international forces would "suppress" the Taliban insurgency over the next three to four years, while they trained up the Afghan security forces to take over from them.
While he said that it would be "extremely helpful" if more could be done in this area, it was important not to rush the process.
"We don't want to build an inefficient army," he said. "We want to build a good army and a good police force and that takes time and that's why we need international forces to cover that gap."
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Comments
It is not the war that is the problem it is the way that the war is being conducted by Labour whose half hearted efforts are just getting some of our lads killed needlessly. We need to go there and do it in a way that will get the job done and if that means 10,000 more troops then so be it. They also need to have the right equipment something this government has sadly denied them.
Yes I believe in this war because I believe in freedom and stopping the Islamists in their backyard and not on the streets of Britain. Unfortunately we have let these Islamists into this country so we need to hunt them down and root them out too otherwise Afghanistan would become pointless. So lets come together on this day of all days and once again say as the British people we will fight evil and fiercely defend our democracy.
What planet do you live on?
I support troops as human beings, not cannon fodder. You got children? If yes..you wanna send em over?
And yes, I do have children but I would not send my, or anybody else's children, to fight an immoral war.
"Lt Gen Dutton acknowledged the mission was not making as much progress as they would like"
If only the simple-minded dead and crippled suckers had worked it out for themselves that donkeys like this general had led them astray, they might just have had the guts to tell him to piss off.
The tipping point in Vietnam came when the troops refused orders and began killing their officers (fragging). When this news spread to fresh troops, they also refused order to go out and get themselves killed for no good reason. This was never reported as cowardice.
Rationality beats futile bravery any day of the week.
The second world war was fought in far less time than this conflict has been going on. How on earth given the training progress chart on the Afghan national forces did the huge armies of that time get trained, fight, win or lose that conflict? Those guys were taken from factory, school or field and turned into warriors. How come the Afghans can't be trained in multiples of the time taken to train those armies? Does one get the sense that it is just one huge pointless waste of time to try?
When Uri Geller says stuff like that, people say he is mad.
Altoughter now, touch the screen and bring the boys home.
Politicians are scrabbling for power and resources whilst the seat-polishing military heads are scrabbling for, er, power and resources.
They wish to Empire-build at the cost of lives on both sides of the conflict.
Shovel up the body parts whilst these despicable bastards swan from banquet to sumptuous banquet congratulating each other.
Powerful scum are still scum