I’M WORRIED AGAIN!

I’m watching the latest news from Helmand Province in Afghanistan. The spike in troop deaths seems to be being accepted as a given. There are repeated complaints from the people doing the fighting that they are under-equipped, particularly in helicopter capability which would avoid many of the deaths which are caused by what they charmingly refer to as ‘Improvised Explosive Devices’. This suggests they are constructed by amateurs which is obviously not the case, the Taliban are learning fast. I keep hearing news items which suggest surprise that the Taliban are using more sophisticated fighting measures. Of course they are! Freedom fighters and guerrillas always learn fast, they have to in order to survive!

Coupled with this news and what looks like a disparity between US deaths and UK ones which could suggest the US forces have more armour we get an ICM poll which suggests that public support for the action in Helmand is rising, roughly 50% for and 50% against. We have a new minister of defence, Bob Ainsworth who is very active making what sound on tha face of it to be informed announcements but when you look closely he has no military background, has visited Helmand once and yet, because of the briefings he is given by his staff, is trying to sound like an ‘expert’. Add Gordon Brown to this equation using weasel phrases like, ‘this is under review’ or ‘we will look at that’ every time the question of equipment and troop numbers is raised and I think you can see why I am worried.

The biggest problem to my mind is that everyone keeps talking about Afghanistan as though it is an established state. Look back at the history and you find that it isn’t and never has been, it is an area occupied by a variety of local groupings by tribe, ethnic origin, religion and allegiances. Everyone from Alexander the Great onwards who has tried to ‘conquer’, ‘subdue’ or unify the region has failed and yet we are repeating the mistake.

I often wonder what the Russians are thinking as they watch us repeating their mistakes with the added difficulty that in an effort to disrupt the Russian campaign we nurtured the Taliban as our allies. Read Baer, ‘See No Evil’ or Bob Woodward’s three books on the G W Bush presidency. All the evidence is that we are on a hiding to nothing and yet we see the Vietnam syndrome reappearing where every body is Taliban and therefore counts on the scorecard. Body count wasn’t a reliable way of estimating progress then and it isn’t now.

So what can be done? There is only one way to a degree of peace in the area, attack the economic problem and start talking to the opposition. One area where I believe we could make a difference is to buy the poppy crop at guaranteed prices, use what we need for western medicine and incinerate the rest. This puts a bottom in the agricultural economy, attacks the illegal drug trade, saves the cost of interdiction of the drug supply routes and solves the supply problem there is in the base materials for legitimate drug production. Oh and by the way, it will hit the drug problem we have at home. Suppose we used the poppy production to supply addicts through a regulated market and perhaps even supplied registered addicts free. The death toll from impure drugs on the street would vanish, the crime rate fuelled by the necessity to steal to service addiction would decrease and there is no evidence to suggest we would have more addicts.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if a strategy similar to this was cheaper, more efficient and resulted in less deaths amongst the young than the present policies.

SCG/13 July 2009


Stanley Challenger Graham




Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk

My uncle Bill, a surgeon, president of his state medical association, and quite a conservative man politically, long supported legalized addiction for most of the soft and hard drugs. The reason the drug trade generates so much violence is that prices are so high, and a major reason for high prices (in the US and Europe, certainly) is that drug law enforcement is sporadically effective, raising the risk factor for those who engage in both the wholesale and retail trade.  You could also argue that enforcement against cocaine and heroin has effectively made rural Missouri the epicentre of meths production.   

Legalize the stuff, register the addicts, set up state-owned drug stores, clean up the streets.  Of course, there would then be an unemployment problem, especially of the enforcers (variously called) that now discipline the traders and purchasers. Perhaps they could be sent to Afghanistan to help the poppy growers diversify..

 


Stanley Challenger Graham




Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk