Failure in Iraq

In another valuable contribution to the remarkably sparse debate on the British occupation of Iraq, MP and former Grenadier Guard Adam Holloway has published a short paper headed, "The Failure of British Political and Military Leadership in Iraq."

Holloway takes the view that the Labour Government has suborned the Armed Forces from the very top to half the way down, creating a system that often enforces what is politically convenient, not what is militarily right. This systemic failure, he argues, began with the invasion of Iraq and continues to this day. This failure, he tells us, continues to prevent us from learning from our mistakes, and is condemning us to repeat them, as we are doing in Afghanistan.

In his pamphlet, we are taken through the early political stages which led to the invasion of Iraq, against the background that, from the moment British Forces crossed into Iraq, a process of back-pedalling had begun. They were put under increasing pressure to get out, by a political leader who had committed his country to war based on his political ambitions, not the considered military advice of his generals.

We are given a useful reminder that, in the run-up to the war, the original plan had been for Britain to invade through Turkey. It was not until 24 December 2002 that the planning was switched. This, undoubtedly, affected the degree of preparedness.

Holloway then explores the vagueness of the strategic objectives for the war and the confusion between the overt objective of neutralising a perceived threat of WMD and the Bush's real objective of regime change. Caught up in fabricating reasons to invade and occupy Iraq, our leaders never stopped to set a clear and achievable goal for Britain's involvement.

The confusion and dishonesty amongst our political leaders created the central problem for our military. Post-invasion, the goals started with grand ambitions of "rebuilding a nation" and bringing peace and democracy, and deteriorated to "holding the line" so there could be "an Iraqi solution to an Iraqi problem". When even that could not be achieved, our political and military leaders decided to withdraw the troops and let the Americans fill the gap, while claiming credit for this "success".

The trouble was, adds Holloway, our leaders at the top of the MoD, the Chiefs of Staff and senior civil servants became caught up in the opaque, politicised confusion. This had a knock-on effect on the ground, where officers had a very poor understanding of the political and social dynamics of Basra. Even as late as 2008 the British HQ in Iraq was still only able to define the focus as "the consent of the population".

Then, in perhaps the strongest part of his paper, Holloway describes a "failure of moral courage", invoking Field Marshall Alanbrooke, Churchill's senior general. He had said of the Prime Minister: "the first time I tell him that I agree with him when I don't will be the time to get rid of me, for then I can be no more use to him". The contrast with those inside the MoD building today is damning and pervades even operational theatres.

In the middle of the fiercest battles in Iraq, our soldiers stood their ground and fought bravely but many of those at the top of the MoD failed to provide the Government with hard facts and choices and confront them with the strategic implications of under-resourcing the Army. Our soldiers were expected to give their lives if necessary, but those at the very top shrank from committing "career suicide" by standing up to politicians and telling them the uncomfortable truth.

Nowhere was this military spinning more apparent than in the way the campaign was directed. "The Chiefs of Staff realised that, for political reasons, the Government was never going to commit the resources needed to deal with the Shiite militias. Thus the Chiefs reasoned that if they couldn't fight and beat an insurgency, they had to redefine the problem. The politically driven Shiite insurgency was simply redefined as mass criminality and therefore a problem for the local police, not soldiers. Military spokesmen were keen to explain that Basra was similar to "Palermo, not Beirut".

Whilst this may have been temporarily convenient for the political-military leadership, the long-term consequence was that no coherent campaign was ever developed for Basra until 2008 and the political causes and objectives of the insurgency were never addressed. As an officer from the Basra Consulate put it in 2006 "what's the point in providing intelligence on the insurgency when the Government won’t accept that there is an insurgency".

There was also an aspect of pride. British officers had talked at such length about their expertise in counterinsurgency, after decades of experience in Northern Ireland and Malaya, that they could not be seen to have got it wrong.

The combination of self-delusion, hubris and ignorance was behind the disastrous decisions that were taken in Basra. Military commanders could not take a long-term view as they only spent six months in the job and no significant intelligence database was built. The result was that key knowledge was lost in the biannual handover and short-termism took over, a mentality that drove the most disastrous decision of the Iraq conflict – abandoning al-Amarah.

Over the period of Britain's involvement in Iraq, the graph - as it were - moved steadily downwards. But every six months there was a little spike of hope upwards. This reflected the departures of senior officers out of Basra at the end of their six month tours, as it had been left on a high note - as they presented the place in better condition at the end of their tour than at the beginning.

Short-termism coloured most decisions, The decisions to hand over provinces in Iraq were progressively driven by commanders who were being judged not by how well the job was done, but by how quickly. Corners were cut in other areas too. The decision was taken not to embed British military advisors into the Iraqi Army despite a clear history of this being advisable.

Thus does Holloway ask why those at the top did not stand up for what they knew was right? His answer is that, in the "super-politicised" environment that the MOD had become, a "good news only" culture began to emerge within the military – the culture of politically aware military advice. Pliant and conformist civil servants in uniform were systematically promoted at the expense of capable independent-minded officers. No one would get promoted for saying things are going badly. As a result, few were prepared to tell the Emperor that he was naked.

When some were extended in post, they were not being rewarded for military success, but for toeing the line and keeping mouths shut. As one senior and very well informed person put it: "when the most senior in the military stand up and says this is what happened, which of us can say otherwise?"

Matching military advice to the prevailing political wind is one thing, though, but when the heads of the Armed Forces start actively parroting political propaganda and burying inconvenient truths on behalf of the Government, a serious line has been crossed, says Holloway.

What remains troubling though is that commanders and political leaders seem determined not to learn from their mistakes. Commanders seem threatened by the idea of admitting failure and learning from mistakes. Thus, no one from the UK armed forces had ever thought to contact the retired Afghan Communist General who had managed to hold Helmand province for a full year after the Soviets left and who had been the great expert on running tribal militias to provide local security across the area.

When a serving TA officer published an extremely well researched and persuasive paper in The British Army Review (the Army's professional journal) called "A Comprehensive Failure: British Civil-Military Strategy in Helmand Province", which was damning of official attempts to spin failures into PR successes, the Assistant Chief of the General Staff intervened.

He issued written instructions effectively removing full editorial control of the journal from its editor and stipulated that political clearance must be sought before the publication of any such articles in the future, due to the embarrassment caused to politicians.

What is more worrying was his further direction that in the run-up to the Iraq Inquiry there must be no publication of "lessons-learned" from Iraq by serving officers, including those who were actually there. In effect, British officers are no longer free to propose critical and reflective ideas - fresh-thinking that is essential for success, if those proposals might embarrass the Labour Government.

This ghastly culture continues, concludes Holloway, endangering our national security. By continuing to bury the truth, we greatly reduce or even kill the chances of hard fought-for success.

Our troops need to be adequately funded and equipped. We must look again at how we structure our national defence. But most importantly, we need to relearn the lessons of Churchill and Alanbrooke. We need a culture that encourages a system with integrity, independence and a robust relationship with whichever Minister happens to be in the MoD this season - and the rather more able ones next.

COMMENT THREAD

Obligations

The one thing that worried me about the emergence of more detail on the British occupation of Iraq was that the great labour in writing Ministry of Defeat would somehow be invalidated.

But, with the release via The Daily Telegraph of the Army's review of operations, I need not have been concerned. So far, what I have written stands up well against the inside information now being revealed.

What we have so far is a review of the earlier part of the occupation, under the title: "Stability operations in Iraq (OP Telic 2-5) – An analysis from a land perspective", which effectively covers the first two years of operations, up to mid-2005.

However, while we have been treated to some tantalising glimpses of the conduct of operations, this is no comprehensive evaluation. There is no great heart-searching and no recognition of the broader failure, which even then was becoming apparent.

In fact, what comes over is precisely the proposition which we have been at pains to portray – that the Army was (and still is) dangerously complacent about its own role and its failings, admitting only minor and incidental problems. That much we are told in the opening passage of the document, which tells us:

Some of the analysis ... may look critical when set against the achievements. Professionally, however, the Army has a duty, enshrined in doctrine, to learn from experience so that it can maintain and build on its success.

That itself confirms the thesis but, with much material to trawl, in 105 closely printed pages, we are going to have to look at the offerings piece by piece, in order to demonstrate just how accurately I managed to identify some of the key failings.

In that context, leaping out of the pages is an observation covering the very start of the occupation, where it is noted that government departments and some officials in MoD:

... took some persuading that they would have obligations under the Geneva Conventions (1949) if or when the UK became an Occupying Power: the implied tasks or responsibilities were very significant in size, range and complexity.

We then read a dissertation about how planning was not in place, and then another observation, that "The lack of planning ran counter to Geneva Convention obligations and the principles of contingency planning."

Whatever else the Chilcot Inquiry does, it most home in on these observations, which are quite staggering in their implications. But what the Inquiry must also do is pick up on a statement made by General Sir Richard Dannatt in 2008 after the all-but final withdrawal of British Forces from Iraq had been announced. It was then that he sought to defend the performance of "his" Army and the military generally. Speaking specifically of Basra, he said:

It's a city of huge size, however many British troops or coalition troops have been there we would never have been able to impose a regime and we had no intention of doing that. It was always going to be an Iraqi solution to an Iraqi problem, and what we had to do was to enable that to happen …

Now, the point here – as I wrote in the book, is that the occupation brought obligations under international law, specifically the Hague Regulations of 1907 and the fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. They set out the responsibilities of the occupying power, which Britain now was.

Amongst those was the requirement "to restore and ensure as far as possible public order and safety," and there can be no misunderstanding on this point. These are absolute obligations and, furthermore, they are ones to which the UN Security Council resolution of 21 May 2003 referred, when the Council – of which the UK is a member – called upon all concerned" to comply fully with their obligations under international law including in particular the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Hague Regulations of 1907."

And therein was the genesis of the failure for, if Tony Blair took these obligations seriously, he made no mention of them and there was no attempt made to ensure that the resources were available to honour them.

That much was clearly a political failure, and it is one for which Blair must be held accountable. But, as Dannatt's statement indicates, the Army cannot be absolved from responsibility. In the world of May 2003, nothing said or written at that time suggested that the military was simply "holding the line" to buy time for an Iraqi solution.

Crucially, though, what Dannatt then had to say complete ignored the obligations under the Hague Regulations and the Geneva Convention. Thus, even to this day, there is quite evidently a mismatch between what was expected of the Army and what it could actually do. It may have seen its role as to "hold the line" but its legal duty was very much more.

Where the Army then needs to look at itself very closely comes with another passage in the analysis, which tells us:

In the event, the rapid fall of the Saddam regime led to an unexpected and precipitate breakdown in law and order. Lack of planning and resources resulted in delays before reconstruction of essential services could start, and before new government and security structures in Iraq could be established. 1st (UK) Armoured Division's declarations that essential services could be restored quickly proved hopelessly optimistic ...

One can argue as to whether the breakdown in law and order should have been "unexpected" but the crucial issue that that the Army Command in theatre was "hopelessly optimistic" about what was needed to remedy the situation.

That, in fact, is the defining characteristic of the first stage of the occupation where the Army, basking in the afterglow of an easy victory, completely missed the signs of an emerging insurgency, insisting on interpreting the increasing violence as a public order issue, and failing to take the steps needed to prevent an escalation.

Whether it had the resources to do so is moot. In all probability, it did not, but in the analysis, there is a further clue as to what was going on, with the bland admission that: "Planning was not done in sufficient depth and at the outset of Phase IV little finance was requested (and approved) for reconstruction purposes."

Here, one needs to home in on the key point, that little finance was requested. Whatever the culpability of the politicians, what was also evident at the time was a false optimism, where the Army was glossing over the problems and under-estimating their severity. In many cases, it did not get the resources it needed because it did not ask for them. To a very great extent, therefore, the politicians did not react to the deterioration in security because they were being given false signals.

That simple point, though, cannot be left without further exploration. We have seen this dynamic before, where the politicians are told what they want to hear, by people who knew different but lacked the moral courage to insist that they heard the truth. If we look to the service chiefs at that time, we see no warnings from them that the situation was so badly amiss.

With that, though, even this relatively anodyne analysis points to a problem which should, undoubtedly, have been flagged up urgently and remedied. During OP Telic 2-5, we are told,

... the Divisional Headquarters evolved onto a trickle posting basis. The evidence suggests that it was not always manned by the appropriate quality of British Officers (and one stage it contained very few Officers with formal staff training) and one GOC took remedial action through the Military Secretary. One Chief of Staff ... commented: "We had no British staff-trained SO2s in the headquarters when I arrived and it was more like a Volksturm headquarters, manned by people with the weakest penalty statements".

This is a crucial finding, the importance of which cannot be exaggerated. Right at the heart of the Army's command structure, we see – for reasons not of their own making – substandard and thus inadequate staff. Far from furnishing the best and the brightest, to run a complex and demanding operation, the Army failed to supply the people it needed to make the system work.

Whatever thus emerges from the Chilcot Inquiry, therefore, what we must see is the conclusion that there were multiple failures in Iraq. The fault, of course, must lie with the politicians – and in particular Tony Blair. But the Army cannot and must not escape its share of the responsibility.

IRAQ THREAD

Recriminations

The Sunday Telegraph is carrying reports of leaked documents, attesting to the lack of preparation for the "nation-building" phase of the Iraqi conflict in 2003.

In particular, we have Maj-Gen Andrew Stewart writing: "The pessimist in me says that Iraq is a missed opportunity … at the strategic level we had poor judgment, thinking there was time ... My greatest fear is that, should the political and development process fail, we may become the focus of hostility and resentment from the whole spectrum of Iraqis."

Even two years into the occupation, however, Gen Stewart thought, "we and the Iraqis will somehow muddle through." But it was not to be. By 2007, the Army had lost control and was hunkered down in Basra, virtually under siege.

The point is, of course, it was never going to be. The invasion had removed the lid from a pressure cooker and before even the occupation had formally started, on 1 May 2003, there was the makings of an insurgency under-way. Within six months, the Army had effectively lost control and never regained it.

The interesting thing is that, now the Chilcot Inquiry has started, and evidence is coming out in the open, the "leaks" are starting, the players quite obviously aiming to get their disclaimers in quick, before they are caught in the glare of publicity.

But if the truth is starting to come out in the media, those of us with longer memories will recall how, in early 2003 the Army was accepting plaudits for its "skill" in dealing with the post-war situation – unlike the clumsy Americans. Thus we had USA Today telling us how the "British postwar approach provides model for US", with the military lapping up the praise for its "soft-hat" approach.

Then, even in August 2007 – long after Basra had gone belly-up - we were hearing how Maj-Gen Jonathan Shaw was lecturing the Americans on how best to conduct counter-insurgency operations, citing the fabled Northern Ireland experience.

And at the end of last year, just before we had been told to get out of Iraq, we had the likes of Gen Jackson claiming that everybody else was to blame, except him and his Army – right down to the Iraqis having "unrealistic expectations" and the "security vacuum" caused by "appalling decisions" in Washington.

In the New Year, this was followed by a brace of generals claiming that the military task had been achieved and: "We have created a secure and stable environment for social and political development to take place."

The current protestations might be a little more credible if there had been some earlier acknowledgement of the problems. Almost to this day though, the official view has been that Iraq was a "success".

But, if the Chilcot Inquiry is now calling "time" on the delusions, a certain book, which no one wants to talk about, got there first. And a little bird tells us that the Chilcot staff are avid readers.

COMMENT THREAD

Then as now

In October 2009, we saw a survey of more than 50 servicemen who had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. It concluded that the 5.56mm calibre rounds used by British soldiers "tailed off" after 300 metres yet half of all Helmand firefights are fought between 300 and 900 metres.

We were told that the British soldier couldn't attack the Taliban "with any certainty that if he hits the enemy he will kill or incapacitate him." The study thus claimed that, for want of a rifle with a longer range, Javelin anti-tank missiles, costing £100,000 each, were often fired at lone gunmen.

If we now go back to 1844, we find a "narrative of the late victorious campaign in Affghanistan" by Lt Greenwood, retailing the account of the British punitive expedition under Gen Pollock, in the wake of the slaughter of Elphinstone' army during its retreat from Kabul in 1842.

Amongst the other things Lt Greenwood had to say, he passed comment on the accuracy and range of the rifle fire from the tribesmen, remarking:

It is astonishing at what an enormous distance the fire from their long rifles is effective. Our men were continually struck with the Affghan bullets, when we could reach the enemy with nothing under a six-pounder. Our muskets were useless when playing long bowls.

The fact is, our muskets are as bad specimens of fire-arms as can be manufactured. The triggers are so stiff, that pulling them completely destroys any aim a soldier may take; and, when the machine does go off, the recoil is almost enough to knock a man backwards. Again, the ball is so much smaller than the bore of the barrel that accuracy in its flight, at any considerable distance is impossible. The clumsy flintlocks, also, are constantly missing fire.

At times, it seems, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

COMMENT THREAD

A missed opportunity

See also the update here.

Our romp through Afghan history now brings us to the reign of the last king, Mohammad Ẓahir Shah (pictured). As Nadir Shah's only surviving son, he took the throne in 1933 on the assassination of his father, thus continuing the Barakzai Durrani dynasty.

Then only nineteen years old, Ẓahir was not in a position to exert his will and the real power was held by two of Nadir's brothers, Mohammad Hasem Khan and Shah Maḥmud, who held the position of prime minister from 1929-46 and 1946-53 respectively. In fact, Zahir Shah was not able to govern on his own in 1963.

Under Hasem Kahn's rule, a man who, during a period as the country's ambassador to the USSR, had developed an "intense dislike" for all things Soviet, relationships with Britain improved substantially, with Hasem agreeing to coordinate action on the borders to prevent tribesmen participating in hostile acts towards the British. There was even talk of Indian assistance to help Afghanistan set up a border police force.

This was certainly needed as the border area with India was plagued by a series of uprisings from 1932 to 1935, including a group known as the "Red Shirts", which became so troublesome to the British that it prompted a punitive expedition of 30,000 troops in 1935. In 1938, the British then had to deal with another uprising in Waziristan, fomented by the Fakir of Ipi,

During this early period, Afghanistan sought to take a greater part in the affairs of the "international community" and had joined the League of Nations in 1934, also in that year settling a long-standing frontier dispute with Iran, assisted by Turkey as the mediator. Three years later, Kabul concluded the Saadabad Pact, a non-aggression treaty with Iran, Iraq, and Turkey.

A preoccupation of the Zahir government during this time was the modernisation of its armed forces, primarily to defend its territories against Soviet incursions, for which purpose it looked to the UK for assistance.

Already, in 1931, Nadir Shah had looked to Britain for protection in the event of a Soviet attack. But military authorities considered the northern borders as "absolutely indefensible" and a cash-strapped British government, in the throes of the Great Depression, refused to give the Kabul government any firm assurances or assistance.

Increasingly, therefore, the Afghan government turned to a new player on the block, Nazi Germany, for economic and military modernization. As a relationship built, by 1936 Hitler's Germany was not only hosting the Afghan hockey team and officials as special guests at the Berlin Olympics, it had also massively increased trade and weapons deliveries to Afghanistan.

In 1938, a weekly air service, the first of its kind, was established between Kabul and Berlin. The Organization Todt provided plans and supervision for major infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges, airfields, and industrial plants while German officers undertook a programme designed to equip and train the Afghan armed forces to Western standards. In two years German trade with Afghanistan increased tenfold.

In August 1939, Afghanistan and Germany signed a ten-year comprehensive economic agreement, in which the German government became Afghanistan's chief supplier of economic and military assistance. Later, some attempts – largely unsuccessful – were made by the Germans to exploit the tribal conflicts, in order to keep British troops tied up in the frontier area.

Despite German agitation, on the outbreak of war, Afghanistan maintained a policy of strict neutrality. With the Nazi-Soviet pact in place, however, Hasem briefly entertained allowing British troops to be stationed in Herat and Kabul. The British authorities, considering a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and India a distinct possibility, secretly considered integrating Afghan forces into the Indian defence plans.

Interestingly, about that time, two British officers, Brigadier GN Molesworth and Major AS Lancaster, conducted an evaluation of the Afghan Army, concluding that leadership was in "short supply". Molesworth claimed that the officers were afflicted with "oriental chicanery, indolence, ignorance and incapacity".

Their "idiotic" war plans, he said, seemed to have been composed overnight and were wholly inadequate. Their armament requests seemed but "a stupendous and fantastic list of war material" and their attraction for modern equipment amounted to "children playing with expensive and half-comprehended toys". He dismissed the army as "little more than a facade and of little value off the barrack square", declaring that, "to expend time, energy and money on such a concern ... is sheer waste".

Following the fall of France, however, Stalin withdrew most of his forces from central Asia and, with it the threat of a Soviet invasion. Hasem renewed his enthusiasm for German assistance, which soured Anglo-Afghan relations. The Nazi and other Axis links caused some nervousness and, for a short time, the British feared a German invasion of India, through Afghanistan – even mining the Khyber Pass as a precaution

After the launch of Operation Barbarossa, though, October 1941, the British and Soviets, acting together, insisted on the expulsion of non-official Axis nationals from Afghanistan. Despite continued attempts to foment trouble, the German threat was to come to nothing. During the war period, the northwest frontier was remarkably peaceful, with the Pashtuns on the Indian side of the Durand line expressing support for the war, and even offering gifts to stricken Londoners during the Blitz.

The war left Afghan development programmes in a shambles. Most German-sponsored development programmes had been terminated shortly after ground-breaking. With popular discontent rising, the ruling family recognised the necessity for modernisation, without which their very hold on power would be threatened.

Military weakness further necessitated cooperation with the West. In 1945, an uprising of the Safi tribe, caused by government attempts to enforce conscription, erupted in southern Afghanistan. Though a minor revolt by most standards, the army experienced great difficulty in containing it. Ultimately, the government had to arm other tribes and abandon the idea of conscription in order to supress the rebellion.

The aftermath of the war saw strengthened US involvement in South Asia, while the Cold War in Europe heightened in Europe. The Soviets, perturbed over Anglo-American inroads into Afghanistan – with Afghanistan having appointed its first ambassador to the USA in 1943 - thus stepped up pressure on the Afghan government to make economic concessions, at the same time increasing border tensions and espionage, seeking also to foment tribal uprisings in the border areas.

In response to the renewed Soviet threat, the Afghan government again sought closer military relations with British India, to which Britain – this time - responded positively. Even then, it was acknowledged that the Afghan Army was inadequate, and would not be able to meet a Soviet invasion head on.

Contemporary reports noted a lack of the technical and administrative skills necessary to wage a modern war. Officers lacked professionalism, the logistics system was rudimentary, most equipment was obsolescent and the illiterate and poorly disciplined Afghan conscripts were largely ignorant of modern warfare techniques.

Nevertheless, through what was known as the "Lancaster Plan", the Afghan government was offered substantial quantities of military equipment, discounted by 50 percent, sold on easy credit terms. By early 1947, Afghanistan was largely dependent on Britain for supplies, instructors and technical assistance. The entire Afghan air force was equipped with British aircraft and all the pilots were British-trained.

This was to prove the pinnacle of British – and indeed Western relations - in the immediate post-war period and for some many decades. On the near horizon, though, was Indian independence, partition and the creation of Pakistan.

With partition, Britain was no longer able or willing to assist Afghanistan, or even interested in so doing. The successor states of Pakistan and India were equally disinterested, leaving the US as Afghanistan's only potential Western sponsor. Britain lost its only opportunity to bring order to a chaotic post-war settlement.

In 1946, however, a project was launched in Helmand, initially as a commercial venture by a US firm, which was later to become part of an increasingly elaborate and expensive US government aid programme, which lasted until 1979, in competition with the Soviets in the North. Aghanistan became a surrogate battlefield in the Cold War, the weapon civil aid rather than military might. This, we will explore in a future post.

COMMENT THREAD

End game

From "Snatch Land Rovers" to Grand Strategy, we have been on a five-year virtual journey, from the deserts of Iraq to the hills of Waziristan, following two "wars" which have cost the lives of thousands of soldiers, injured many more, and cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Broadly, we were supportive of the war in Iraq, and felt the counter-insurgency there "winnable". Having invaded the country and deposed its ruler and destroyed its government – rightly or wrongly – we had in any case a moral and legal obligation to restore law and order, and to re-establish the semblance of a working government.

We had and have no such moral – or legal – obligations in Afghanistan. We went there in 2001, after the 9/11 outrage, in support of the United States, an act of solidarity for an old and valuable ally which had been attacked by a vicious terrorist organisation which had gained sanctuary from a corrupt, barbaric, fundamentalist regime in Afghanistan.

We went in to help clear this nest of vipers and, largely, we succeeded. Our actions also brought down the government of Afghanistan, which would have toppled anyway. Had we left then, the country would doubtless have reverted to its barbaric, anarchic state, with small islands of something approaching urban civilisation, in appearance if not fact.

But, in a moment of collective hubris, we – the "international community" -thought we could impose on this wild, ungovernable land the semblance of our governmental system, which we laughingly call a democracy, even though – in this country and the rest of the European Union – we enjoy no such state ourselves.

Bribed by billions of dollars and the promise of many more, the peoples of Afghanistan went through the motions of an election, which resembled but was not a democratic process, and selected a corrupt tribal leader, from a choice of other corrupt tribal leaders and warlords. He then did what any self-respecting, corrupt tribal leader would do – milked the system to enrich himself, his tribe members, his allies, enemies and cronies.

Not even attempting governance or development, this allowed the country to revert to its usual state of anarchy and tribal warfare, compounded by a low-grade civil war which has been ongoing for so many decades that no one can rightly work out when it started, or even care enough to find out.

Faced with what we took to be the progressive collapse of the system we thought we had installed – but had not – in another moment, this one of supreme folly, our then prime minister, soon to be Emperor of Europe – decided to reinforce failure, by deploying a small, ill-equipped contingent of troops, charged with undertaking a task for which they were physically and temperamentally ill-prepared and which, in any case was impossible to achieve.

In so doing, we made a bad situation worse and, at every stage where we have sought further to reinforce failure, we have made it even worse. What was, when we intervened in 2006 a low-grade civil war, has now escalated into a high-level insurgency – of which we are the proximate cause. And now the generals want to break the most fundamental rule of warfare – yet again. They want to reinforce failure, and keep doing so until the cost and the casualties break us.

Thus must stop. And, in the most powerful message we have seen to date, a now former US Foreign Service officer, Matthew Hoh, explains why. As recounted in the British Independent newspaper, in the Washington Post and many more, Hoh's message is summarised. But you can read it in full here.

The document is Hoh's resignation letter, telling us that he has "... lost understanding of, and confidence in, the strategic purposes of the United States presence in Afghanistan." To put it simply, he writes, "I fail to see the value or worth in continued US casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year-old civil war."

Like the Soviets, he adds, "we continue to secure and bolster a failing state, while encouraging an ideology and system of government unknown and unwanted by its people." Hoh continues:

If the history of Afghanistan is one great stage play, the United States is no more than a supporting actor, among several previously, in a tragedy that not only pits tribes, valleys, clans, villages and families against one another, but, from at least the end of King Zahir Shah's rein, has violently and savagely pitted the urban, secular, educated and modern of Afghanistan against the rural, religious, illiterate and traditional. It is this latter group that composes and support the Pashtun insurgency. The Pashtun insurgency, which is composed of multiple, seemingly infinite local groups, is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, their culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies. The US and NATO presence and operations in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified ... I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taleban, but rather against the foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul.

The United States military presence in Afghanistan greatly contributes to the legitimacy and strategic message of the Pashtun insurgency. In like manner our backing of the Afghan government in its current form continues to distance the government from the people.

Towards the end of his four-page letter, Hoh cites a "very talented and intelligent commander" who briefs every visitor, staff delegation and officer with the words, "We are spending ourselves into oblivion".

Hoh adds that "We are mortgaging our nation's economy on a war which, even with increased commitment, will remain a draw for years to come. Success and victory, whatever they may be, will be realised not in years, after billions more spend, but in decades and generations. The United States does not enjoy a national treasury for such success and victory."

What applies to the United States applies, in spades, to the United Kingdom. This might be a "war" we can win, but it is not a war we can afford to win – much less to carry out a grand, decades-long experiment to see if there is a possibility that we might be able to win.

There is only one conclusion to be drawn from Hoh's letter. We were coming to that conclusion anyway ... we have been veering to and fro, but there is no other answer. We need to get out, as soon as possible, causing as little damage as possible.

But, as we indicated in our earlier piece, there are huge geopolitical implications. But the problems are a matter of high politics, and they need to be solved at that level. They cannot be solved with more "boots on the ground", or "grunts with guns".

Soldiers cannot buy us time with their lives – no amount of lives could buy us the time we need. No longer should it be a question of when, but how we extract ourselves, with the minimum possible delay.

COMMENT THREAD

Lock up your Mullahs

The art of analysis is collecting disparate strands of information, pulling them together and drawing from them conclusions which may not be apparent from any one source, however good that might be.

Leaping into the frame is an outwardly anodyne piece from the Russian RIA Novosti agency, but which adds a couple of invaluable "nuggets" to our growing collection, confirming and clarifying two important aspects of the situation in Afghanistan.

The first is about the opium/heroin trade, which builds on some of our recent pieces, particularly this one where we looked at how the structure of the drugs industry was changing in Afghanistan. Growing is moving down to the fertile south, where productivity has increased from 10kg/ha to 56kg/ha (at best), while the traditional growing areas in the north have given up low-value cultivation and moved into "added value" processing, as well as the lucrative export trade.

This, of course, makes a mockery of the pretensions and "hype" from the UN and other bodies about clearing areas of poppy growing. What has been happening is that the industry is restructuring of its own accord, with the north adapting to the competitive pressure from more productive southern growers.

What Novosti now tells us confirms that which we have been asserting for some time – that this "added value" business has very little to do with the "Taleban", and most likely contributes very little to its coffers (a point which is gaining some currency).

We thus learn from this source that the processing sector is largely controlled by the Northern Alliance, which accounts for 90 percent of the heroin consumed in Russia and the vast majority sent to Europe. The most modern and the best equipped laboratories are located in the northern provinces of Afghanistan near the Tajik, Turkmen and Uzbek borders, which are its areas of influence.

The route is then up into these former Soviet republics, where – as we recorded in our earlier piece (link above) – it is traded for weapons which are then taken south and sold to local fighters.

What complicates matters, says Viktor Ivanov, director of the Russian Federal Drugs Control Service, is that the US used the Northern Alliance forces in the fight against the Taleban, and is still supporting. Unwittingly, in their attempts to control the rebellion in the south, the US (and undoubtedly other nations) are assisting the "drug barons", but the real (drugs) threat comes from them, not the Taleban. "The coalition forces are not conducting an effective fight against them," adds Ivanov.

As to the Taleban, Ivanov raises the second point of very great interest. He describes the Taleban as "a religious component in Afghan society, which consolidates various forces to combat a foreign invasion". It does not pose a direct threat to Russia.

This "nugget" melds with our previous piece, in which a comparison is drawn between the Pashtun uprisings of over a hundred years ago, and the current situation. What we see now carrying the "brand name" of "Taleban" were then exactly the same sort of people as they were then – a loose network of Mullahs, acting to protect their own power and interests.

They are, in effect, doing exactly that which they have been doing for centuries, agitating and organising local populations, capitalising on their inherent distrust of "infidel foreign invaders", in order to mount an opposition against them.

This may seem at odds with the view of NYT reporter David Rohde, who recently spent seven months as a captive of the "Taleban". His experiences, expanded in the Christian Science Monitor, have convinced him that many Taleban fighters and commanders are deeply intertwined with al Qaeda and its vision of global jihad, so much so that they must be considered inseparable.

That view certainly contradicts the model being promulgated by McChrystal and many strategic theorists, who argue that, as with Iraq and the "Sunni Awakening", the local fighters can be peeled away from al Qaeda, leaving this group exposed and allowing it to be defeated in detail.

However, a factor in many of the major Pasthun uprisings down the ages has always been the presence of "foreign agitators", preaching distorted versions of Islam, seeking to provoke a global jihad against the current occupying power. Whether they are "Mullahs," "Sahibzadas," "Akhundzadas," "Fakirs," or one of the host of wandering Talib-ul-ilms, wrote Churchill, the largely illiterate tribal populations, prey to "miserable superstitions", are exposed to "the rapacity and tyranny of a numerous priesthood."

In 1898, it was the "Mad Mullah" Saidullah, who declared a global jihad against the Queen Empress and the British Empire. In 1938, it was the Fakir of Ipi, with similar ambitions. And in 2001, it was Osama bin Laden and, with him currently, Mullah Omar of Quetta Shura fame, plus other members of the rapacious and tyrannical "priesthood", some of whom are affiliated to the will o' the wisp al Qaeda.

The response, in the past, has been to defeat the uprisings, by punitive expeditions, and by bribing the cooperative and peaceful tribes – tactics which buy temporary peace until the next demagogue emerges, when the whole cycle starts all over again.

Longer term, the answer has to be a combination of prosperity and, especially, secular education – it was that, after all which broke the power of the Catholic Church in backward Ireland, which for nearly a century maintained a monopoly over university education. Not for nothing, therefore, do the local Mullahs, invoking the "Taleban" brand, target schools and, where they can, the universities.

These issues we must explore in future posts but, for the time being, with what we have from Novosti, we can veer towards two tentative conclusions. Firstly, opium/heroin control is irrelevant to the battle against the Taleban, while efforts to control the Taleban are making the drug problem worse.

Secondly, the presence and/or influence of al Qaeda does not seem to be the issue in Afghanistan. The real problems are the local Mullahs and their grip on an illiterate and superstitious population. In the name of Islam, they create their havoc. Break their power and the rebellions fade away. In the name of Islam, the population will have to be told to "lock up your Mullahs".

We could, incidentally, start that process in the UK.

COMMENT THREAD

The limits of power

"The war to end Pakistan's woes?" is the offering from Mustafa Qadri, one of the many commentaries on the current Pakistani expedition into South Waziristan.

"Still the question remains, once the guns have been silenced will Pakistan take steps to cleanse the tribal areas of the extremist poison?" Qadri asks. In so doing, he posits a suggestion that has become current, that the Pakistan government should move in, once and for all, take control of the tribal regions and fully integrate them with the rest of the country.

The idea of a "war to end wars" is certainly being promulgated by the Pakistanis, their prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, claiming that the army is poised to deliver a "decisive blow" against the "Islamist insurgents".

History, however, should tell us that this rugged land is never going to be subdued, and certainly not by the relatively modest force at the disposal of the Pakistani government, a mere 30,000 or so being one of the smaller "armies" that have sought to subdue even a fraction of the territory being currently assailed.

What, in effect, the Pakistanis are attempting – or being expected – to do is revisit the "Forward Policy " adopted by the British in 1849, one of active intervention in the region with an aim permanently of subduing the warring tribes.

This resulted in a series of costly military expeditions which met with very little success, leading to a more laissez faire revision, known as the "Close Border system" – one of containment, where the tribes were bribed to secure their good behaviour, and punished by punitive expeditions when they caused trouble – a policy known by its critics as "Butcher and Bolt", so-called because there was no attempt to maintain a permanent military presence.

By the mid-1890s, in a virtual replication of current event, a strategic debate was raging about the best line to take, summed up in a contemporary book written by H Woosnam Mills. On the one hand, he wrote, was the "masterly inactivity" party, which maintained:

Is it wise to deprive tribes of the independence which they value above all things and to impose an authority which can only be maintained by a large addition both in men and money? Their rugged country is of no strategic value to us ... is it expedient to advance from India on Central Asia and so increase our responsibilities?

On the other, there was the interventionist faction, which upheld the then existing policy. "What we are doing on the North-West Frontier is necessary," they said. "Anarchy and civilisation cannot march peacefully side by side. We are establishing our civilising influence gradually all along the Afghan border, and both from strategic reasons and to prevent our territory from being raided we are bound to continue in the course now taken."

The immediate debate was resolved – effectively as it is now – by a massive uprising of the Pathan tribes in 1897, with "the entire frontier line ablaze with armed men". It was of that period that Mills wrote, in respect of one of the tribes, the Mamunds, who had been left alone by British troops during an earlier campaign, "although they did much to merit severe punishment"

... they simply joined in the present disturbances from that pure love of a fight which is second nature to the Pathan and becomes additionally attractive when the feringhee or infidel foe is the objective.

Mills also wrote:

These tribesmen, it should be remembered, are all Muhammadans and fanatical in their faith and hatred of the infidel. Excepting in Baluchistan our government has never succeeded in taming them and to-day they are almost as irreconcilable as when we first mixed in frontier matters.

And, continued Mills, of the general uprising, with ominous implications for "hearts and minds":

... tribes with whom we had no possible quarrel, and whom we have treated with the greatest possible deference were among those who joined in the revolt.

At great cost, this revolt was suppressed – and only after savage fighting – but the Mashud tribe – focus of the current Pakistani action - was again in revolt in the summer of 1917 while British forces were otherwise engaged fighting in the First World War. This, however, was but a prelude to a further uprising by the Wazirs and the Mahsuds who in November 1919 launched a series of large scale raids in the administered areas, killing over 200 people and wounding a further 200.

Notably, in the subsequent British campaign, aircraft – having first been used in 1917 - were used on a number of occasions to suppress the tribesmen. Supplementing the ground war, the RAF systematically bombed Mahsud villages, actions which were claimed to have been instrumental in "temporarily subduing the Mahsuds".

However, it is also recorded that the RAF was surprised not only by how quickly the Mahsud tribesmen adapted to aerial attacks, but by the effectiveness of their rifle fire against the low-flying aircraft. One flying officer wrote that "their rifle fire … was uncomfortably like that of a machine-gun, and almost as effective."

Nevertheless, when the Wana Wazirs rose up in November 1920, driving out Brtish forces, they appealed for help from the Mahsuds, but still recovering from their earlier defeat, no support was forthcoming and the Wazir opposition faded away. On 22 December 1920, Wana was re-occupied.

From there, the RAF developed their doctrine of "air control", refined and honed in Iraq in 1921, when the principles were established as:

One objective must be selected–preferably the most inaccessible village of the most prominent tribe which it is desired to punish. All available aircraft must be collected at a base from which they can function with all their maintenance and repair facilities at hand. The attack with bombs and machine guns must be relentless and unremitting and carried on continuously by day and night, on houses, inhabitants, crops and cattle…. The objective may be changed if it does not spread quickly enough…. This sounds brutal, but it must be made brutal to start with. The threat alone in the future will prove officious if the lesson is once properly learnt.

This early use of airpower led to one of the most remarkable campaigns in the the Northwest Frontier, standing as the first (and only) time in history when air power alone was used to put down a rebellion.

Known as Pink's War after Wing Commander RCM Pink who commanded the operation which started on 9 March 1925 , Bristol Fighters and de Havilland DH9s from 5, 27 and 60 squadrons were deployed to the airstrips at Miranshah and Tank systematically to bomb and strafe mountain strongholds. So successful was the tactic that, on 1 May 1925, the tribal leaders sought an "honourable peace" bringing the short campaign to a close with the loss of just 2 men.

The action firmly entrenched the use of air power as a major weapon in controlling tribesmen in the frontier regions and, in September 1937, 5 and 20 Squadrons were again conducting operations in North Waziristan, this time in Westland Wapitis (pictured), flying 333 operational hours with four aircraft in eight weeks.

Between February 1941 and June 1943, it was the turn of Squadrons of the Indian Air Force, flying antiquated Lysanders (pictured), in a fully fledged combat role against the tribes in Waziristan. Offensive operations started on 1 May 1942 onwards, against the Faqir of Ipi's tribal warriors in what came to be known as the Datta Khel Operations.

By then, it appears, even the pilots of the Squadron were sceptical of the effectiveness of their sorties. During a temporary lull in the operations, one was instructed to receive and entertain to tea one of the tribal leaders and his entourage. The tribal leader, he said, appeared very confident and did not appear to be cowed downed by our air attacks. In fact he invited one of the young fresh looking pilots to his village.

However, on 21 May, the Lysanders beat back a major attack on a patrol at Miranshah, dropping 66 bombs, followed by 54 more two days later. On the 27th, a major action occurred when the 500-600 tribesmen besieged Datta Khel. Aircraft from Nos. 3, 4 and 28 (RAF) Squadrons attacked the tribesmen.

The dangers of the proscription sorties in the frontier were illustrated that day when a Lysander from No.28 Squadron force landed in the battle area and both the crew members were lynched by the frontiersmen, their bodies being recovered the next day by a ground party. On that day No.4 Squadron flew twelve sorties.

The Datta Khel sorties lasted till 19 August. Every day, aircraft from the Indian and RAF squadrons relentlessly flew sorties to attack the tribals. In the final reckoning, the detachment of No.4 Squadron at Miranshah flew over 170 hours in support missions in this short period.

In a lament that would be recognisable The Sun of today, it was noted that "the serviceability of the Lysanders was not good. There was a shortage of tyres for the Lysanders and No.4 Squadron was forced to improvise by using borrowed Audax tyres.

There were other technical problems as well. The bomb racks and stub wings used by the Lysanders were liable to fracture at root, and sometimes the 20lb bombs would fall off in a hard landing. The Station Commander complained that Lysander spares were very difficult to procure and that the aircraft was reaching "the end of its tether in India". Nevertheless, No.4 would continue to operate this aircraft for another nine months.

Eventually, the ageing Lysanders were replaced with Hurricanes and then Tempests, these then being operated from 1947 onwards by the newly formed Pakistani Air Force, which adopted an operational pattern very similar to that of the RAF and the IAF.

Now, over 60 years later, it is newly supplied F-16s of the Pakistani Air Force which are pounding tribesmen in Waziristan, augmented by helicopter gunships.

The technology may be more advanced, but the tactics would have been recognisable to the airmen of 1917 – not far short of a hundred years ago. And while Wing Commander Pink's sorties in 1925 may have been temporarily successful, there are no indications that airpower now is any more decisive than it was then. Similarly though, there are very real fears that the Pakistan government is playing with fire.

Says Roedad Khan, a former federal secretary of the Pakistani government, "We must also recognize the limitations of modern, high technology, military equipment in confronting highly motivated guerrilla movement in a treacherous terrain."

He adds that "We must also recognize that the consequences of large-scale military operations – against our own people – particularly in this age of highly sophisticated and destructive weapons – are inherently difficult to predict and control. Therefore, they must be avoided, excepting only when our nation's security is clearly and directly threatened. These are the lessons of history. Pray God we learn them."

Back in the early 1900s, a crusty British general, Andrew Skeen, wrote a guide to military operations in Waziristan. His first piece of advice: "When planning a military expedition into Pashtun tribal areas, the first thing you must plan is your retreat. All expeditions into this area sooner or later end in retreat under fire". It took us a century to understand the limits of our own power. It looks as if those same lessons are being re-learned.

Thus does Khan conclude by citing George Bernard Shaw, who said: "We learn from history that we learn nothing from history."

COMMENT THREAD

The generals must share the blame

It says something for the media – and the general commentariat - that, years after we have been ploughing the solitary furrow, pointing out that the military should bear some of the blame for the current parlous state of our Armed Forces, and their lacklustre performance in first Iraq and now Afghanistan, only now does The Spectator pop up with an article headed: "The generals must share the blame".

The piece is written by Paul Robinson is a professor in the Graduate School of International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. Giving the Spectator the comfort blanket it needs, Robinson has also been a military intelligence officer in both the British army, as a regular officer, and the Canadian forces, as a reservist. Thus, he has the right credentials to say the words and get a hearing.

Says Robinson, while it is fashionable for the military top brass to attack politicians when things go wrong, many of the army's problems are of their own making. This, of course, we have said many times, with a particularly trenchant piece in April 2009, when we described the military, as currently constituted, as "a deeply dysfunctional organisation, not least evidenced by its state of denial over its performance in Iraq."

But while this blog has been a voice in the wilderness, alternately attacked and ignored, the professor is allowed to note that, while in recent years, failure to "support the troops" has become the ultimate political sin, reminding us that the Conservatives' soon-to-be defence adviser, Gen Dannatt, blasted Brown a few weeks ago, letting it slip that his brave plea for 2,000 extra troops had been ignored by our callous PM.

But, he asks, has Gordon Brown really "betrayed" the troops in the field? A good degree of cynicism is in order, he asserts, then coming up with an interesting thesis of his own.

In reality, Robinson says, both as chancellor and as prime minister, Mr Brown has given Britain’s armed forces a lease of life which they had no reason to expect, while the country's military leaders, including and especially Dannatt, must share the blame for the difficulties their troops have faced in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Of course, while it is fashionable for the general to attack politicians, it is deeply unfashionable even to think of blaming soldiers for anything. But a McGonagall-like desire to help the ordinary serviceman or woman on the front line, says Robinson, should not serve as cover for the senior officers who lead them.

Nor, he says, should it prevent us from criticising the institutional culture in which they serve. One element of this culture is that professional soldiers tend to look at themselves as part of a select order, upholding the highest moral and professional standards, while seeing politicians as self-serving hypocrites. He adds:

As a result, when things go wrong, the natural tendency of many in uniform, especially the generals, is to blame the politicians rather than to look in the mirror. The combination of this self-satisfied culture and the moral elevation of the soldier in the popular imagination has led to a modern version of the infamous dolchstosslegende, the stab-in-the-back theory which encouraged Germans to believe that they had not really been defeated in the First World War.

Robinson recalls that the "sharks" at the Daily Mail led the way. "A shameful betrayal of our servicemen"; "Treachery, politicians, and the shameful betrayal of this man of honour [Richard Dannatt]", its headlines have screamed. Sensing blood, the rest of the press have joined the frenzy, not least The Sun in its current and ongoing campaign.

Thus, it is held, the army's humiliation in Iraq and its failure to bring peace to Helmand, are not its fault. Rather, the Labour party, and in particular Gordon Brown, "coldheartedly sent the troops off to die without the proper equipment and without the reinforcements which might have enabled them to achieve victory." If only they'd had the tools to do the job, our fine 'boys and girls' would have dispatched the Taleban long ago."

For the past two years, elements of the British press and the British army (with General Dannatt to the fore) have worked all out to propagate a similar myth. This is, of course, says Robinson, perfect nonsense. He adds:

One of the more galling sounds of the past two years, he says, has been that of Americans smugly observing that the British have been slow to learn the lessons of modern counter-insurgency. The criticism has been especially hard to bear because it is true. Many of the British army's problems have been of its own making.

As one officer participant has eloquently put it, the decision in 2006 "to scatter small groups of soldiers across the north of Helmand, in isolation, in an intelligence vacuum and with complete disregard for the most basic tenets of counter-insurgency was, quite simply, a gross military blunder." And even if it is true that this decision was the result of "political pressure" from London (which it was not), it was the responsibility of the generals to resist such pressure and to insist that the troops be used sensibly.

In the Second World War, Robinson notes, General Alan Brooke would argue all night with Churchill when he thought the prime minister was making absurd military judgments. In the same way, while politicians make the decisions on whether to deploy troops overseas, senior officers have a duty not only to ensure that troops are used in sensible ways, but to tell the politicians what those would and would not be. Alas, Britain's military leaders have failed to restrain the Labour government from its strategic follies.

According to Robinson, the reason why this situation came to pass stem from the late 1980s, when the British armed forces were orientated almost entirely towards the Soviet threat. The collapse of communism left them without a raison d'être but, rather than destroying Britain’s military, the Labour party saved it. The 1997 strategic defence review provided a new mission — expeditionary warfare to be a "force for good" around the world – which the top brass embraced with zeal. Their existence depends on it.

From there, however, the man then seems to go astray. He argues that these factors together mean that the armed forces are institutionally averse to recognising a fundamental truth - that the problems they have faced in Iraq and Afghanistan derive not from a lack of resources but from the very nature of the missions themselves.

Recognising, he says, this "would mean admitting that expeditionary warfare is not a good idea, and admitting that would cast the whole defence budget into doubt." Blaming Mr Brown provides a convenient way out of this impasse.

More specifically, the strategic defence review – and subsequent white papers – reconfigured the military for the rapid reaction concept, dedicated to early intervention with decisive force, enabling speedy task completion and short-duration deployments. Thus, the military was never equipped for the low-intensity, long wars which it has had to fight.

Nonetheless, Robinson's overall premise is not wrong when he asserts that, in 1997, the Labour government gave the country a new strategic direction, which has not worked out well. He thus concludes that if the Conservatives take power next year, they will inherit and complete the latest defence review. In the process, future defence ministers, including possibly General Dannatt, need to do more than merely juggle resources.

They need to re-examine fundamental strategic assumptions. The stab-in-the-back myth stands in the way. It maintains the pretence that the basic direction was all right, and merely the implementation went wrong, so that all can be solved with the application of additional funds. While this story may serve some narrow bureaucratic interests, says Robinson, it does the people of Britain no service at all.

COMMENT THREAD

The chain of command

Some of the more strident rhetoric associated with the fate of Iraqi civilians during the occupation of southern Iraq by British Forces is so closely associated with the anti-war movement that one tends to discount many of the claims of ill-treatment - although some are clearly well-founded, particularly the death of Baha Musa, the Iraqi hotel receptionist who died in British military custody after 36 hours of mistreatment in September 2003.

However, according to Michael Evans of The Times, picking up on a BBC Radio 5 Live programme, new allegations have emerged. They were made by a former member of the RMP in an interview with Donal MacIntyre. The RMP investigator says that the force had been out of its depth in Iraq.

"I've seen documentary evidence that there were incidents running into the hundreds involving death and serious injury to Iraqis in the last six or seven years where the chain of command of the Army had decided that the circumstances did not warrant a Royal Military Police investigation ... and it's of great concern that among those there will have been undoubtedly suspicious deaths and serious injuries that were never properly investigated," he said.

In November 2006, we ran a piece about Dutch MPs torturing Iraqi prisoners, with the complicity of the British – and even under their instruction – but did not follow it through. And neither was there any follow-up in the British press. But it was a disturbing report.

Now, this unnamed former RMP alleges that the military chain of command made it difficult for the RMP to operate independently by not providing resources or denying access to prevent investigations. Investigators who failed to toe the party line would be overlooked for promotion and receive an "adverse report".

Referring to Mr Musa's case, he said: "It was a murder investigation on a plate ... and amazingly this investigation was closed down or put in the waiting tray for a whole year." He continues: "The whole system of military justice is flawed ... and there is a very high risk there are other Baha Musas out there because of the number of incidents not investigated at all by the Royal Military Police, let alone an ineffective investigation."

The former RMP then claimed: "There's a catalogue of blunders, mistakes, ineptitude and the course of investigations being bent to serve the real or perceived interests of the chain of command of the Army." It is that last sentence that worries me most. My own investigations into the campaign in southern Iraq also detailed "a catalogue of blunders, mistakes" and "ineptitude" ... albeit not of a criminal nature.

Furthermore, I have spent too much time talking to parents and relatives of dead soldiers, trawling through coroners' inquest transcripts and other official documents not to realise that in many other areas, "the course of investigations" are "being bent to serve the real or perceived interests of the chain of command of the Army."

Overall, I gain the impression that the Army is a sick organisation. Its response to its "defeat" in Iraq has not been healthy – I have seen no serious attempt to identify and deal with the many mistakes and failings that were made, and neither does one see any attempt to deal with tactical and operational failings that are occurring in Afghanistan.

What is thus deeply troubling is the popular "lionisation" of the military, the uncritical acceptance that the military are beyond reproach and that any ills besetting the Armed Forces are entirely political in origin.

While there are indeed many and serious political failings, I have been in this game long enough, and spent enough time researching the issue to know that there are serious flaws in military system which remain untouched, not least because "the course of investigations" are "being bent to serve the real or perceived interests of the chain of command of the Army."

The concern is that what happened in Iraq is set to happen again in Afghanistan. I am by no means alone (although the sentiment is heard more widely across the Atlantic than here) in suspecting that the constant refrain by the military for more resources and more manpower has very little to do with operational need. Rather, it is an elaborate – if intuitive – ploy to set up an alibi for the failure that is inevitably to come.

On the basis that, when (rather than if) the campaign goes belly-up, the military can be exonerated from any blame, simply on the grounds that it has been denied resources by the evil, heartless politicians. And, if the collapse occurs on the Tories' watch, they will be as much in the frame as would have been the Labour government.

It would be easy to dismiss such a view as cynical, but it is also necessary occasionally to stop and think for a moment, and then reach beyond the current political personalities and the dramas attendant on them. If we are poised on the edge of failure in Afghanistan – and I believe we are – then the effect on us as a nation, all of us, will be extreme in ways that we can only begin to imagine.

We cannot really allow or afford for this to happen. But if there is any chance of stopping it, then the scrutiny and the debate is going to have to be considerably more sophisticated and searching than it has been. Our unnamed RMP may be a "canary down the mine", in which case we have more serious problems than we thought.

COMMENT THREAD

Where angels fear to tread

How easy it is, when dealing with the "war" Afghanistan, to reduce it to the level of The Sun and depict it as a biff-bam contest between "Our Brave Boys" and "Terry Taleban".

Such a child-like pastiche then makes it obvious that, to prevail against this perfidious "enemy", all we need is more "boots on the ground", more kit ... and more "bangs". Aided, no doubt, by heroic bayonet charges from "Our Brave Boys", the Taleban can be driven from their last redoubts, freeing the peasants from the yoke of their oppressors.

The Afghan security forces – dutifully trained by our skilled and dedicated forces - can then be trucked in to guard the liberated Afghans as they applaud "Our Brave Boys" for their bravery and sacrifice. With yet another "job well done", they can climb on board their aeroplanes to jet off home to a tumultuous reception - medals all round and tea and crumpets with the Queen.

At a more elevated level, our Great War Leaders talk profoundly of their "counter-insurgency", and – in the manner of Gen McChrystal – of "protecting the people" and then of winning their "hearts and minds". Others talk knowingly of "force projection", and the need to "dominate the ground", all in the hope of bringing that elusive "security", from which all other blessings will flow.

Then there is the chimera of "Afghanisation" where, miraculously, concerned citizens will line up at the recruiting stations in their hundreds of thousands – as they did in Iraq, presumably – ready to become loyal foot soldiers of the Karzai government, taking on the "Taleban" after being taught their soldiering and tactics from Western soldiers – the same who are being comprehensively outmanoeuvred by ... the "Taleban".

Equally miraculously, Hamid Karzai will suddenly see the error of his way, fire his cabinet and ministers and appoint staunch, upright servants of the people. Eschewing corruption, they will spread their benign rule throughout the land, bringing peace, prosperity and the Afghan equivalent of apple pie.

Amid the tranquillity and happiness that thus ensues, the Afghan peoples, their ancient rivalries forgotten, will stand behind their president and bring the country leaping into the 21st Century to stand proudly alongside the "international community", co-equal with the best, ready to take on such pressing issues as climate change, universal gender equality, gay rights and the destruction of Israel.

There may, however, be an alternative scenario. It has taken us a long time to get there but we have come to the conclusion that we are not dealing with a classic counter-insurgency at all, but with a Pashtun nationalist movement that has as its agenda the reunification of their fractured territories split by the historical Durand line between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

That, at least, is one of the agendas that motivate some of the factions. But nothing is that simple. Pashtuns are divided into four major groups dominated by the two largest tribes, the Durrani and the Ghilzai – the latter from which most of the Taleban are drawn. But, at different levels on the family tree, there may be as many as 405 distinct tribes, depending on how they are classified – with 60 being a generally accepted figure.

Additionally, there is a tribe known as the Urmars that is not Pashtun and claims to be of older stock. They speak a different language while residing in the midst of the Pashtuns in the Waziristan Mountains, the Logar Valley, and districts of Peshawar.

Getting to grips with staggering complexity of the different groups, their varied and shifting loyalties and aspirations, political and otherwise, is not to be taken on lightly. This is a road down which we did not really wish to venture, although many have done so, in diverse newspapers and magazines. Many more will follow and, despite our reluctance, we are being forced down this path ourselves.

We are helped on our way by a response to our earlier piece - a lengthy e-mail from a military officer attached to the Special Forces. He had worked in Peshawar in the Autumn of 1988 at the end of the Russian occupation and, more recently, in Helmand had spent much time talking to Afghan interpreters of various ethnic backgrounds and, through them to many Afghanis, including "Taleban" foot soldiers.

Having also spent time in India, looking towards the North West Frontier through Indian eyes, he concurred "entirely" with our point that we have found ourselves at war with the "Pathan nation", for whom "Taliban" is a very clumsy epithet. There are no hearts and minds now to be won, only rented, he tells us.

Our correspondent's view is that, until we start looking at our intervention in Afghanistan in this way, there is no prospect of a "win"; or of comprehending the Pashtun mindset; or in realising that a "one nation" solution to Afghanistan is unworkable.

Indeed, he says, it may well be that we need to redraw the maps, erase the Durand line, and finally create an autonomous, legitimised Pathanistan out of Eastern Afghanistan, the Frontier badlands and North West Frontier Province, working with the governments of Pakistan and India in a regional solution akin to the great European political settlements of the past century.

The payback, of course, would be that in return for nation building support, the Pathans purge the "Arabs" from their hospitality list.

This then addresses the issue of partition, splitting off the south leaving a rump nation of Afghanistan, where the dominant ethnic groups are the Tajiks and Uzbeks. Attractive though this is, it could have far-reaching implications which could impact not only on Afghanistan but the whole region.

Not least, it could energise the peoples in the southernmost districts of Afghanistan, the Baluchis, who would likely be ill-disposed to Pashtun rule, and claim to be "natural allies" of ISAF in helping defeat the Taleban. It could, therefore, intensify the long-standing campaign for a Baluchi homeland.

This, at the moment spans the three countries of Iran (which was given a large part of Baluchistan by the British), Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pressure to restore an independent Baluchistan (something the Pakistanis accuse India of fomenting), is already strong, especially as the Baluchis deeply resent Pakistani repression.

On top of a separate "Pathanistan", this could threaten the territorial integrity of the Pakistani state, as the Kashmiris would not be far behind in demanding full independence. It could even bring into play tensions in the Sindh province of Pakistan, leading to the complete breakup of the nation.

A "local" solution, to resolve a specific problem in Afghanistan, could thus throw the whole region into turmoil (although some argue that the longer-term solution would come from that). By any reckoning, therefore, Afghanistan has to be part of a much bigger regional solution, taking into account a wide range of factors. For the moment though, all our troops can do (at best) is keep the cork in the bottle.

At worse, they are making the situation inestimably more instable - and the more they do the greater the damage done. As they expand their territorial coverage, it simply puts them into contact with even more disaffected peoples, increasing rather than reducing the risk and thereby increasing casualties.

All of this also renders the talk of "counter-insurgency" and "nation-building" child-like in its simplicity. We are creating a situation where young men and women are being poured into a geopolitical cauldron, the nature of which they understand not, and which they themselves have no means of resolving.

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Dabbling in politics

A particularly appropriate observation found its way into the Small Wars Journal forum recently. "Never ask the guy in the fight what the most important objective is, because it will invariably be the guy he is fighting," it said. "Strategy must be derived by those removed from the current fight, otherwise it will likely be skewed more by 'urgency' rather than 'importance'."

The truth of that observation was never better demonstrated than by a flurry of media interest today – by The Times, amongst others – in the views of Staff Sergeant Kim Hughes, a 30-year-old bomb disposal specialist.

He had been asked by defence secretary Bob Ainsworth - who was visiting Afghanistan with home secretary Alan Johnson - what he needed most. "More troops on the ground," Hughes had replied. He said later: "We have lost two guys. More troops are needed on the ground but the same could be said for equipment."

This considered strategic perspective of course mirrors the "opinion" of Gen Stanley McChrystal and, if the Staff Sergeant's comments – or the media's treatment of them – triggered a certain weary irritation in the portals of Whitehall, this is nothing compared with the reaction McChrystal's politicking seems to have triggered in Washington.

According to The Daily Telegraph, the relationship between Obama and his errant general "has been put under severe strain", with the presidential advisors "shocked and angered" by the bluntness of McChrystal's speech in London. Some commentators regarded the general's London comments as verging on insubordination.

Bruce Ackerman, an expert on constitutional law at Yale University, said in the Washington Post: "As commanding general, McChrystal has no business making such public pronouncements." One adviser to the administration, however, said: "People aren't sure whether McChrystal is being naïve or an upstart. To my mind he doesn't seem ready for this." He added that it was highly unusual for a senior military officer to "pressure the president in public to adopt his strategy".

The general is certainly taking more than a little flak in Washington, with Eugene Robinson, an op-ed writer for The Washington Post taking him to task. He is entitled to his opinion about the best way forward, says Robinson. But he has no business conducting a public campaign to build support for his preferred option.

McChrystal's view, Robinson continues - that a strategy employing fewer resources, in pursuit of more limited goals, would be "short-sighted" - is something the White House needs to hear. He is, after all, the man Obama put in charge in Afghanistan, and it would be absurd not to take his analysis of the situation into account. But McChrystal is out of line in trying to sell his position publicly, as he did last week in a speech in London.

McChrystal, in his public advocacy for more troops, seemed to be trying to limit Obama's options. But what we want to achieve in Afghanistan is a political question, and we don't pay our generals to do politics. That's the job of the president and the Congress - and whether our elected leaders decide to pull out tomorrow or stay for 100 years, the generals' job is to make it happen.

For the record, adds Robinson, this would be my position even if McChrystal were arguing for an immediate pullout - or even if George W. Bush, rather than Obama, were the president whose authority was being undermined.

He then tells that, in October 2006, when the chief of staff of the British army said publicly that Britain should pull out of Iraq because the presence of foreign troops was fueling the insurgency - a view with which he wholeheartedly shared - he argued that he ought to be fired. Robinson wrote that he didn't like "active-duty generals dabbling in politics," even if he agreed with them. "If military officers want to devise and implement geopolitical strategy, they should leave their jobs and run for office."

In Britain, though, we not only seem to have Generals and Flight Lieutenants but now Staff Sergeants.

Privately, says Robinson, Obama needs to hear McChrystal's advice. Publicly, he needs to hear one simple phrase from the general: "Yes, Mr. President." US defence secretary Gates (pictured), it seems, also agrees, declaring that US military officers and civilians advising Obama on Afghanistan should keep their views private. "It is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations, civilians and military alike, provide our best advice to the president, candidly but privately," he says.

The same nostrum would not go amiss this side of the Atlantic.

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