Will Tories withdraw from “broken 13th century” Afghanistan or not?
Posted on 25. May, 2010 by Cllr Lewis Allsebrook in Uncategorized
The new Tory Defense Secretary Liam Fox has said to British Troops that Britain is not the world’s police force and that he would like to see a quick withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan. However Liam Fox also spoke to General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of US troops in Afghanistan, who after speaking to the new Defence Secretary was confident that we would continue to serve in Afghanistan. The US General said “British support is absolutely rock- solid”
The United Kingdom supplies the most troops of any European nation to the mission in Afghanistan and in fact provides more than the rest of Europe combined. British troops currently number about 10,000 and 285 British soldiers have died since 2001. Mr Hague has repeatedly refused to put a date on withdraw from the war.
A senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation Sally McNamara says “What Liam Fox actually said is, we want UK troops out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. That’s exactly what Barack Obama said, exactly what Chancellor Merkel says.” Of course we know that mainstream politicians say one thing and do another. Obama maintains the Afghan mission is primarily humanitarian but is sending another 30,000 troops in a months time.
Unlike Obama, Liam Fox says the Afghan conflict is primarily a military mission, not a humanitarian one. Fox said that there must be a distinction between military and humanitarian goals. “We are not in Afghanistan for the sake of the education policy in a broken 13th-century country.” Some common sense at last?
Liam Fox was under attack last night for damaging Britain’s relations with Kabul after he described Afghanistan as a “broken 13th-century country”.
A senior Afghan government source said: “His view appears to be that Afghanistan has not changed since the 13th century and it implies that Afghanistan is a tribal and medieval society.
The source went on by saying Afghanistan has no mutual respect for Britain and true to tribal fashion condemned our country and threatened to become more ‘difficult,’: “We see Britain as still a colonial, orientalist and racist country that they should have this view. Dr Fox really believes what he said, and he is not alone. London and Kabul must move on or things will be more difficult.”
The issue provoked furious editorials in the Afghan press, with the daily Arman-e Melli publishing a leading article yesterday with the headline: “We don’t need Britain in Afghanistan”.
So if we are not wanted or needed in Afghanistan, lets withdraw now, rather than linger in a “broken 13th-century country” that sees Britain as oppressive, “colonial, orientalist and racist.” Withdraw NOW and save huge sums of money and most importantly British troops lives.
That’s BNP policy, I’m not quite sure what ConDem will do, they send so many mixed messages out!? One minute they tell our troops we’re out, then they tell an American General we’re in, who knows what they will do, but they certainly have made a rod for their own back. ConDem have been ruling less than a month and clearly they are already lying to somebody!
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