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Afghanistan Strategy

It is certainly true that our presence in both Iraq, where a million Iraqis died, and in Afghanistan, where 100,000 Afghans have died, has increased the threat of terrorism on our own soil. Our terrorist threats have come from Yorkshire and Pakistan, not from the Taliban and not from Afghanistan at all. That threat is an utter myth and a scare story that has been put out. The latest scare story, which is similar to what happened when they ran out of excuses for going to war in Iraq, is the nuclear threat, yet the Americans say they are quite comfortable with the situation in Pakistan. The Afghan army is another one of those platforms on which we build our hopes for success in the future. Virtually all the Ministers who have had responsibility for Helmand have gone to spend more time with their financial interests and are not here to answer on the matter, but my right hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells), who answered many of the debates here as a Minister, has now gone to the Back Benches, where he speaks the truth intelligently. He said in an intervention in a debate on Afghanistan a few days ago that one group of the Afghan army changed sides three times in one 24-hour battle, depending on who was paying the bribes. That is the Afghan army that we plan to build up and leave so that the country is secure and everyone will live happily ever after. One of the old Afghan generals from Soviet times, Jabbar Karaman, described a section of the Afghan army several weeks ago, saying that seven Taliban attacked a convoy in Helmand that was being guarded by 300 Afghan soldiers, and the soldiers fled. That is the reality of the Afghan army. Jabbar Karaman said:""The Afghan soldiers do not believe in the government, they do not believe in the system and they don't believe in the international community."" Why should they? If they do not believe in the project, why on earth should we send our soldiers to die there? The idea that we are sending our people there for success or stability, based on the new strategy, is an utter fiction. It is impossible to have a victory using the Afghan army and police and the corrupt bunch of people now running the country.