Afghanistan

[bobthebandit]

Why have we still got ground troops in Afghanistan? The few thousand brave soldiers we have there will probably never beat the Taliban, who can replenish there losses with ease from Pakistan and other countries.

[Lonnie]

I agree that we will never beat the Taliban, even if we beat the ones in Afghanistan, they keep getting reinforcements from nearly all the Middle Eastern countries, plus Pakistan, and if you like, this country.

Its a Terrorist war, and the only way to win this sort of war, is to have the support of the population, which we don't have, and never will.

As to why we are still there, I suggest ask America, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

[terambulan]

Seems a fruitless war till you think of the consequences of not beating the Taliban. Drugs will swamp the world.

This may help:

http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/fco-in-action/uk-in-a fghanistan/

[jno]

It still seems worth a try to me. We messed up because we could have won in Afghanistan; but we got overconfident and started a pointless war in Iraq instead, dividing our own forces. Now it's just a holding operation until, we hope, the Afghans themselves set up a functioning government. I wish I could sound more confident. But I don't think it would be right to hand the country over to the Taliban again and wait for Canary Wharf to be blown up.

[Lonnie]

I agree with jno. we could have won, in the beginning, same as Iraq, but no chance now, and the best thing I think now, is to suffer the humiliation, and pull out.

Russia survived it, and so can we.

[sandmaster]

We tried before and failed. The Russians tried fairly recently and failed. It is a tribal country and allegiances change on whim. We should get out. As for the drugs problem, the Taliban used to ban the growing of poppies but have changed their policy to raise funds to fight us. Get the troops out and bomb the poppy fields would be the logical , if unethical, answer.

[123everton]

This war is winnable, very winnable.
First things first if you look at it in a cold hearted military sense our rate of attrition for a long active war is very low, the Taleban etal say that we in the west are too soft and unable to endure. Capitulation will prove (to them) just that.
Taleban were awful, so they controlled the opium trade more stringently, so what, they'd have 14 year old boys beating women for wearing their burkha's incorrectly. They still grew opium and sold it, ironically our most likely ally back then was Iran who had troops massed on the border because of drugs traffickers.
We are not going to create Downing Street in Kabul, but we can produce a functioning country there, in time.
One solution would be to pay farmers to grow crops at more than the value of the opium crop, then sell it to local grain merchants cheaply and let the rest look after itself. In time the subsidy would be reduced but the peace dividend would bring tangible resuts to the region whilst maintaining a viable market infrastructure in the interim.
But then I'm just a bus driver, so what would I know?

[bobthebandit]

Thanks for all the previous replies which raise valid reasons for either staying or going.
In my opinion the reason for NATO to enter Afghanistan was to route out Osama Bin Laden. This has failed and now we end up fighting the Taleban.
The Taleban were never global terrorists in the first place, so why are we fighting them? This is the same with Iraq, where the US started a war against the Baathist government, who again were not global terrorists

[steven15]

I remember someone remarking that the US should pull out troops and let the Iraqis kill themselves.
Pulling the troops out is probably easier said than done.