---

Afghanistan Strategy

The contrivance is that the Government conflate al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and they must understand—I hope the Minister is listening—that they are not the same thing. Al-Qaeda were guests in Afghanistan, and the Afghans do not want to get them out because they have a pronounced sense of hospitality. They would probably treat us as guests as well if we had not gone there with bombs and bullets. There is a great difference between al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The Taliban has no interest in terrorism, yet we are fighting the Taliban. If we want to have a debate on Pakistan, let us have a debate on it, but the Government also contrive to conflate Afghanistan and Pakistan. They have invented a new country which they refer to as the region, as everything is put down to the Afghan-Pakistan border. In fact, they are two separate countries. The threat of terrorism comes from Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, but not from the Taliban, who have an entirely different agenda. James Fergusson, in his book, tells a story about a time he talked to a Taliban leader, which is more than any of our politicians have done. That Taliban leader said that he did not want to learn to love his children, who were aged eight, six and three, and that he had made them live in another village. He said that if they loved him and he loved them it would be worse when he was killed. James Fergusson asked, "You do not want to be killed, do you?" The Taliban leader replied, "Of course I want to be killed. It is my dearest wish, as my father was killed fighting the Russians, as my great- grandfather was killed and as my great-great-grandfather was killed. It is my sacred, religious duty, because these Ferengi"— foreigners—"are in my country and I have to expel them." Can we not get this simple message across: our soldiers are being killed because they are present? The answer is not to send more soldiers to act as more targets for Taliban bombs, but to bring our soldiers out of Afghanistan. That is the only solution we have and we will do it eventually. In the meantime, we are dilly-dallying for reasons of political expediency here and in the United States. That is the heart of the position we are in. Five hundred additional soldiers are going to Afghanistan, and we were told on the radio this morning that we should expect more deaths and put up with that, but we should not put up with it. The war in Afghanistan is probably an illegal war. International law states that a country may go to war when there is a threat against it from the local population of a country. There is no threat to Britain from Afghans and there was no threat to Britain from Iraqis, but we went to war in both countries. I believe that history will judge both to have been illegal wars. On the terrorism threat, we have seen the terrible event that took place in this country, but I believe that that had no connection whatever with the Taliban. I was interested this morning to read a poem that has been published by our new poet laureate. At last we have a poet laureate who does not write poems about royal anniversaries, church bells ringing and Christmas bells at Christmas time. She writes about reality—the dirty, evil, horrible reality of life in Britain now. One verse states:""In Afghanistan,""no partridge, pear tree;""but my true love sent to me""a card from home.""I sat alone,""crouched in yellow dust,""and traced the grins of my kids""with my thumb.""Somewhere down the line,""for another father, husband,""brother, son, a bullet""with his name on."" In this House, in 1917, there was a parallel to the position that we are in now. The first world war was still going on, men on both sides were dying like cattle in huge numbers and a point of near stalemate had been reached. Siegfried Sassoon came to the House of Commons and gave his view of the situation. His comments then were entirely accurate in respect of our position now. He stated, as a serving soldier:""I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it"." That is exactly true now. This war could come to an end. We could leave, but we cannot do so because we have to protect the reputations of politicians. Our mouths are bandaged by the fear that the incompetence of the invasion of Helmand and the stupidity of our unattainable policies ever since would be exposed. If we left, the dying of our soldiers and the Afghans would end. There is no easy deal, but there will be a deal eventually.