I log on this morning and the first post I read is @HYUFD talking about nuclear weapons
I just want to say to my fellow posters that HYUFD does not reflect my views as a conservative member and he is just embarrassing
Yes BigG, nuclear weapons which the UK government has to defend itself as a last resort and which if you had bothered to read my post I suggested Taiwan's government should get if they really want to protect themselves from Chinese invasion.
It is called the real world
You are talking dangerous tripe and making an utter fool of yourself
It would be dangerous if he had any power but fortunately Epping council does not yet possess nuclear weapons.
Oh? It's declared itself a nuclear-free zone? So HYUFD is against party policy then.
I am ashamed of western governments today, especially America, but Britain too
I wonder at what point western troops could have left to anything other than criticism.
Perhaps we are looking in the wrong place: after 20 years of western protection there are not enough people who want and are prepared to fight for a moderate and free society backed up by reasonably uncorrupt government and a loyal well armed army.
This is not entirely the fault of USA or the UK.
Correct - "Afghanistan" has been "conquered" by the "Taliban" in record time despite 20 years of western blood, sweat and money. As was the case long before we got there there is no coherent state of "Afghanistan" for us to modernise.
All we have done is spent 20 years ensuring that when the various local and regional warlords revert their allegiance back to the Taliban the "Afghan Army" is much better trained and equipped.
For all of the criticism being aimed at Biden (and hilariously not Johnson) our withdrawal was always going to result in this. If not immediately then very quickly.
You can. Not saying its necessarily right, but consider some of the reported problems such as low army morale - how does american cash address that issue, which is surely to a large degree driven by domestic issues? Is American occupation even capable of coalescing the anti Taliban forces into a stronger state? Do the warlords and tribal leaders even want that, even though they fought the Taliban?
Terrible decision or not I think making a sunk cost argument is not a persuasive one.
I think that a lesson from all this is that if you really want to intervene somewhere you need to do it in support of someone with substantial local popularity, even if lots of other people hate him for good reasons (Assad may be an example). When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, they left behind a regime (a nastily authoritarian communist one, but nonetheless coherent) with huge numbers of active supporters in the cities who then held out for 18 months despite active CIA support for their opponents.
Both here and in South Vietnam, the West has settled for a top-down solution, empowering whatever corrupt guys could be bought. That's not to say that there weren't and aren't plenty of Afghans who genuinely like western liberal democracy and would have been pleased to support it - I've met some, and for example the Education Minister being interviewed sounds very genuine. But rather than promote those, we seem to have routinely gone for the power-brokers, and they are only (perfectly understandably) interested so long as the money keeps flowing to them and they aren't at physical risk. Much the same seems to be happening in Iraq and Libya, with all the big powers supporting whichever thug seems pliable, at the expense of those who actually want a working government with popular backing.
As someone who voted for both Afghan and Iraqi interventions, I accept a share of blame for this. I've come to feel that intervention is only justifed if you can see that a genuinely popular local government with views that we like is being undermined. Otherwise, we should leave it to the local populations to sort out, the only condition being that they don't export hatred to us.
I don’t think you have anything to apologise for. MacArthur got a lot of criticism when he decided to retain a war criminal, Hirohito, as head of state but in retrospect keeping him and working with the remains of the Japanese central government helped the success of the American occupation of Japan, however hurtful it was to those who had suffered under Japanese militarism in the past.
The abolition of the Iraqi Army in 2003, instead of making use of it, and the complete failure to find any sort of locally acceptable leadership in Afghanistan were what doomed those operations. Back in 2003 I was quite active on the Slate message board. One particularly enthusiastic poster, when faced with the question of what happened after the fall of Baghdad, said “we go in armed with copies of the Federalist Papers and everything else follows”. It was that kind of naivety that doomed military action in both cases. A lack proper, albeit perhaps even more expensive, occupation and rebuilding was what doomed them.
Interesting Ben Wallace is on damage limitation today but the Tory spin will be this is the West's fault and little GB couldn't have prevented it. Absolute b*llocks of course.
What should GB have done differently?
Supposedly we have a special relationship with the USA. How much time do you think Boris Johnson invested in discussing the future of Afghanistan with Biden in the months ahead of this disaster?
Not Afghanistan, but I have come back to work this morning with an email from our logistics company with another price rise. They have now given their drivers a total of 25.5% pay rise since April, are still losing drivers, there are not enough drivers in the South West at any price.
At some point the companies will realise that pay rises aren't the solution to not enough drivers as the "winner" will end up with a wage bill +50% AND a shortage of drivers. The "market solution" proposed by Philip doesn't exist.
It absolutely exists, if truck driver wages go up to £80k per year there will be a queue of people who want to do it.
*sigh* It will take 18 - 24 months to train sufficient drivers. So say the Road Haulage Association who I imagine know more about this than we do. So you can pay £100k a year and still have a driver shortage.
Better pay and conditions will help recruit and retain drivers as a long term solution. It does not provide a short term solution as you are simply stealing drivers from one haulier to another. A huge cost increase without actually fixing the immediate driver shortage.
After my medical, my license was sent to Swansea in February to get the appropriate endorsements so I can proceed with my training. Nobody is answering phone email enquires have a 28 day target reply due to Covid. Just maybe you would think if we suffer such a shortage some kind of resources would be thrown at the situation?
According to a driving instructor of my squaitnace, everything to do with the DVLA has collapsed into a mess. Classic stuffed up management - the result is that Swansea is simply not working. The driving tests are backed up for months etc etc
Interestingly, Pearson, who run the theory tests, are doing fine....
Comments
All we have done is spent 20 years ensuring that when the various local and regional warlords revert their allegiance back to the Taliban the "Afghan Army" is much better trained and equipped.
For all of the criticism being aimed at Biden (and hilariously not Johnson) our withdrawal was always going to result in this. If not immediately then very quickly.
The abolition of the Iraqi Army in 2003, instead of making use of it, and the complete failure to find any sort of locally acceptable leadership in Afghanistan were what doomed those operations. Back in 2003 I was quite active on the Slate message board. One particularly enthusiastic poster, when faced with the question of what happened after the fall of Baghdad, said “we go in armed with copies of the Federalist Papers and everything else follows”. It was that kind of naivety that doomed military action in both cases. A lack proper, albeit perhaps even more expensive, occupation and rebuilding was what doomed them.
Interestingly, Pearson, who run the theory tests, are doing fine....