afghanistan is lost

one year ago...

Afghanistan is lost, says Lord Ashdown

By Tom Coghlan
Last Updated: 12:14AM GMT 29 Oct 2007

Nato has "lost in Afghanistan" and its failure to bring stability there could provoke a regional sectarian war "on a grand scale", according to Lord Ashdown.

The former United Nations High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina delivered his dire prediction after being proposed as a new "super envoy" role in Afghanistan.

Lord Ashdown said: "We have lost, I think, and success is now unlikely."

The assessment will be considered extreme by some diplomats but timely by those pressing for more resources for Nato operations.

Lord Ashdown added: "I believe losing in Afghanistan is worse than losing in Iraq. It will mean that Pakistan will fall and it will have serious implications internally for the security of our own countries and will instigate a wider Shiite [Shia], Sunni regional war on a grand scale.

"Some people refer to the First and Second World Wars as European civil wars and I think a similar regional civil war could be initiated by this [failure] to match this magnitude."

Lord Ashdown, 66, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, was speaking in advance of a Nato summit in the Dutch town of Noordwijk yesterday.

Britain and the US infuriated by the lack of assistance granted by allies to those countries with forces operating in Afghanistan.

The tensions are particularly acute given that members pledged a year ago that they would do everything within their power to ensure "success" in the country.

one month ago...

October 2, 2008
British envoy says mission in Afghanistan is doomed, according to leaked memo

Charles Bremner in Paris and Michael Evans, Defence Editor

Britainâ??s Ambassador to Afghanistan has stoked opposition to the allied operation there by reportedly saying that the campaign against the Taleban insurgents would fail and that the best hope was to install an acceptable dictator in Kabul.

Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, a Foreign Office heavyweight with a reputation for blunt speaking, delivered his bleak assessment of the seven-year Nato campaign in Afghanistan in a briefing with a French diplomat, according to French leaks. However sources in Whitehall said the account was a parody of the British Ambassadorâ??s remarks.

François Fitou, the deputy French Ambassador to Kabul, told President Sarkozyâ??s office and the Foreign Ministry in a coded cable that Sir Sherard believed that â??the current situation is bad; the security situation is getting worse; so is corruption and the Government has lost all trustâ?�.

According to Mr Fitou, Sir Sherard told him on September 2 that the Nato-led military operation was making things worse. â??The foreign forces are ensuring the survival of a regime which would collapse without them . . . They are slowing down and complicating an eventual exit from the crisis, which will probably be dramatic,â?� the Ambassador was quoted as saying.

Britain had no alternative to supporting the United States in Afghanistan, â??but we should tell them that we want to be part of a winning strategy, not a losing oneâ?�, he was quoted as saying. â??In the short term we should dissuade the American presidential candidates from getting more bogged down in Afghanistan . . . The American strategy is doomed to fail.â?�

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that the cable did not accurately reflect the views of the Ambassador. It is understood that the meeting between Sir Sherard and the French envoy did take place, but that the French account of is regarded in Whitehall as a gross distortion. The French Foreign Ministry did not deny the existence of the cable but it deplored its publication by Le Canard Enchaîné, the investigative weekly. â??I am not alarmed because I know that this is not the official British position,â?� a spokesman told The Times.

Claude Angeli, the veteran Canard journalist who reported the cable, said that he had a copy of the two-page decoded text, which was partly printed in facsimile in his newspaper. â??It is quite explosive,â?� he told The Times.

â??What I did not say is that our French diplomats quite agree with the British.â?� Mr Angeli also reported that the French had been told that Britain aimed to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan by 2010.

The pessimistic view in the cable is common among French diplomats and military officers who are concerned by President Sarkozyâ??s strong support for the Nato operation in Afghanistan and his recent reinforcement of the French contingent. There was suspicion in Whitehall that the British position was exaggerated for French purposes.

Sir Sherard, 53, a former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia,was sent to Kabul last year to beef up Britainâ??s role in the campaign to secure the Government of President Karzai and combat the resurgent Taleban. In an interview last year he said that Britain could expect to stay in Afghanistan for decades.

According to the French cable, he said that the only realistic outlook for Afghanistan would be the installation of â??an acceptable dictatorâ?� within five or ten years and that public opinion should be primed for this. British insiders said that the Ambassador never uttered these words. â??The trouble with the British Ambassador is that he is always at the high end of gloom and doom when in fact itâ??s not that bad,â?� a diplomatic source said.

yesterday....


Afghan war unwinnable, says UK commander

Published Date: 05 October 2008
By Nicholas Christian

THE war against the Taliban cannot be won and the country should prepare for a deal, Britain's most senior military commander in Afghanistan warned last night.

Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade, said it was necessary to "lower our expectations". He added that the challenge was about reducing the conflict to a manageable level of insurgency that is not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army.

Carleton-Smith's bleak assessment followed the leak of a memo from a diplomat who claimed that the British ambassador in Kabul had told him the current strategy was "doomed to fail".

The Brigadier told a newspaper: "We may well leave with there still being a low but steady ebb of rural insurgencyâ?¦ I don't think we should expect that when we go there won't be roaming bands of armed men in this part of the world. That would be unrealistic and probably incredible."

Carleton-Smith said the sting had been taken out of the Taliban this year, but pointed out his brigade had suffered heavy losses with 32 dead and 170 injured.

He said: "We want to change the nature of the debate from one where disputes are settled through the barrel of the gun to one where it is done through negotiations.

"If the Taliban were prepared to sit on the other side of the table and talk about a political settlement, then that's precisely the sort of progress that concludes insurgencies like this."

Last week Gulab Mangal, the governor of Helmand, said the Taliban controlled more than half the province.

at least one hockey mom in lipstick and high heels has a slightly different interpretation of afghanistan's progress, and location



"They are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighboring country of Afghanistan."
-Governor Sarah Palin, October 5, 2008