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Helmand Province Mission

I welcome the ongoing interest that my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn) has shown in our mission in Afghanistan, especially in Helmand province. It is a subject of the utmost importance, which it is good to debate again today. However, the debate should take place openly and with an acceptance of all the facts, and it should not become skewed by perceptions of and assertions about particular elements of what is a truly multifaceted campaign. What our people are doing in Afghanistan is profoundly impressive—indeed humbling—to watch, and it must be viewed in the round with all its elements accounted for. I am afraid that my hon. Friend’s doom-laden contribution is a travesty of what is happening in Afghanistan and of our policy. The 2004 constitution of Afghanistan begins:"““We the people of Afghanistan realise the previous injustices and innumerable disasters which have befallen our country.””" Above all, our 7,800 people in that beautiful country are motivated by a determination to make a difference for the better, enable the Afghans to put right those injustices and avoid further disasters. It is difficult for us in this House to appreciate that often the more austere the conditions our soldiers work in, the more they relish the task—adversity and hardship breed camaraderie and satisfaction. That is precisely the kind of benevolent but hard soldiering that they joined the armed forces to do and that they have been trained for. Our people are providing the secure space for our partner organisations—whether British, international or Afghan—to spread development, reconstruction, stability, governance and the rule of law. Even the most cursory glance at history reveals that western ideals imposed upon Afghanistan do not work. Only solutions of Afghan provenance and with Afghans at their centre will endure, which is precisely what we are enabling. We have made progress. It might not look much like the Cotswolds, but there have been improvements in Afghanistan, which for so long has been one of the most lawless and troubled nations on earth. I have seen it myself. I was in Musa Qaleh last month, and the recent operations in that crucial town, which was previously characterised as hopeless, have confounded the most sceptical. Faced with measured and relentless pressure, with the Afghan national army in the vanguard having been mentored by us, the demoralised Taliban turned tail and fled in disarray. Despite the tragedy of a fatality on our side, it was a successful operation that maximised consent and minimised damage. The Musa Qaleh operation met all of its objectives in what is an infinitely complicated and ambiguous operating environment. We enabled the re-establishment of the Afghan Government’s mandate without providing those who seek to destabilise it the opportunity that they crave. Our role is not about military operations in isolation, and every soldier whom I have met knows that. It is about what comes next, what those operations enable and what follows in their wake. Seven weeks after operations concluded, a school opened in Musa Qaleh for the first time in years. That was quick by anyone’s standards, but doubly so against Afghan timelines. Every soldier knew that the job was not about killing the Taliban, but about winning the people. My hon. Friend has said that it was about kill lists. I have been the Minister for almost a year, and I have never seen a kill list or seen our troops present their progress in the way in which he suggested—it is simply not true. If he has any evidence that our troops present their victories as kill lists, he had better give it to us, because I certainly have not seen it.