Just Great, Britain

Jules Crittenden takes apart a clueless Brit who thinks that the Brits should abandon Afghanistan because defeat beckons. In a few short generations you've gone from Churchill to sniveling. The title of this inane drivel? Fall Back, Men, Afghanistan is a Nasty War We Can Never Win. Here's what the Brit, Simon Jenkins, thinks:

Every independent report on the Nato-led operation in Afghanistan cries the same message: watch out, disaster beckons. Last week America’s Afghanistan Study Group, led by generals and diplomats of impeccable credentials, reported on “a weakening international resolve and a growing lack of confidence”. An Atlantic Council report was more curt: “Make no mistake, Nato is not winning in Afghanistan.” The country was in imminent danger of becoming a failed state.

A clearly exasperated Robert Gates, the American defence secretary, has broken ranks with the official optimism and committed an extra 3,000 marines to the field, while sending an “unusually stern” note to Germany demanding that its 3,200 troops meet enemy fire. Germany, like France, has rejected that plea. Yet it is urgent since the Canadians have threatened to withdraw from the south if not relieved. An equally desperate Britain is proposing to send half-trained territorials to the front, after its commanders ignored every warning that the Taliban were the toughest fighters on earth.

Meanwhile Nato is doing what it does best, squabbling. Gates has criticised Britain for not taking the war against the insurgents with sufficient vigour. Britain is furious at America’s obsession with spraying the Helmand poppy crop and thus destroying all hope of winning hearts and minds. Most of the 37,000 soldiers wandering round Kabul were sent on the understanding that they would do no fighting. No army was ever assembled on so daft a premise.

Nato’s much-vaunted 2006 strategy has not worked. It boasted that its forces would only be guarding reconstruction and training the Afghan police. There would be no more counterproductive airstrikes against Pashtun villages. The Taliban would be countered by American special forces, with the Pakistan army attacking their rear. Two years ago anyone expressing scepticism towards this rosy scenario was greeted at Nato headquarters in Kabul with guffaws of laughter. Today that laughter must be music in Taliban ears.

Let's see, the problem isn't that we're doing too much fighting there - it's that the NATO troops aren't doing enough. Every time NATO troops fight the Taliban, the Taliban lose big time. Hundreds at a time in fact.

The casualties suffered by the NATO forces in Afghanistan are bad - but not by any historical measure. Yet, some European sensitivities apparently do not seem to support even the worthwhile mission in Afghanistan.

They'd much rather cede the battlefield to head choppers and jihadists who are more than willing to force mentally deficient people to become bombs. The squabbles between the US and the other NATO allies is because the US allies like Germany are not willing to put even the slightest effort into the common defense. They'd much rather the US, Canada, and Britain shoulder the burden.

As Crittenden notes:

But first to facts. Contrary to Jenkins’ claim, the combat troops in Afghanistan have been taking the fight to the enemy. Overlooked by Jenkins is the inconvenient truth that the Taliban is getting its ass kicked; is despised by the locals in the areas it controls, as was seen in the fall of Musa Qala; and as with al-Qaeda, the Taliban’s “successes” are largely limited to the mass slaughter of civilians by suicide bomb. As the AP was unable to avoid mentioning when it bemoaned the violence of 2007, of an estimated 6,000 Afghans killed in the Taliban’s year of resurgence, about 5,000 were Taliban and most of the rest were innocents killed by Taliban terrorism. Jenkins also makes no mention of reports that the Afghan Army is growing in its numbers and effectiveness, or that Afghans, in those places where security has allowed development, are enthusiastic about the roads, schools and clinics that dramatically improve their lives.

We're about to head into the annual Taliban spring offensive, when we will hear reports of a coming Taliban army that will sweep NATO and Afghan forces from the field and take over the country. We've heard this every year since 2001, and yet the Taliban have yet to take and hold any territory - including Musa Qala (which was ceded in a deal that the Taliban promptly broke).