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Afghanistan Strategy

I will beg to disagree. Both my grandfathers served in the first world war, and they had no doubt as to why they had volunteered and served. The peoples of Belgium and northern France were only too well aware of the reasons why they were fighting in the war. Siegfried Sassoon was never going to be tried because the Army would never have been stupid enough to do that, particularly following the intervention of his good friend and regimental comrade, Robert Graves. Perhaps we can debate that at another time. This debate is about the strategy in Afghanistan. However one likes to define it, in simple terms, a strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. There is no doubt that we can wind the film back, and say that over the past eight years we have seen a series of failures by the United States of America, the United Kingdom and NATO to have a clear policy and strategy from which everything else flowed. There are reasons why we should be in Afghanistan, and I am not going to repeat all of them. Many hon. Members from both sides of the House have been at debates or briefings in the Foreign Office, and we have raised the issues. We cannot wish ourselves back to where we were eight years ago, so we must make the best of what we have. The hon. Member for Newport, West made a crucial point. Without the support of public opinion, it is difficult to execute and implement the strategy. There is no doubt that public support for British troops in Afghanistan has declined over the past nine months for lots of reasons. First, there is the lack of a clear strategy, and secondly there is the drip, drip, drip of casualties. The hon. Gentleman was right to talk not only about deaths, but about the physical and mental casualties. However, if we looked at casualties alone, however personally horrendous for individuals, it is likely that at different times in our history we would not have pursued strategies of one kind or another. There is a supreme irony that perhaps some of the casualties that we are sustaining now are due to General McChrystal having restrained the use of air power and ground fire power because he is concerned about its impact on Afghan civilian causalities. Our servicemen and women understand that. They are only too well aware of that balancing act, and have perhaps more grit and determination about it than we do. However, the onus of responsibility must be on the Government to explain their policy. Although I accept that Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup and others are saying that the negative aspect of the debate—the casualties and the comments made by Members of Parliament and the media—undermines the morale of the troops, I do not accept that that is a reason why we should not have such a debate or, indeed, why the hon. Member for Newport, West should not raise these questions. It is the duty of the Government to provide the arguments about why we are in Afghanistan, why we are taking casualties and why, as the military themselves have accepted, we may, at least in the short term, end up taking more casualties.