Once again, imperialism that just doesn’t work...
HOW great would it be to say, that the peace movement was right when it warned America and Britain not to bomb or invade Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya?
We said Afghanistan, a country nobody has ever won a war in, was unwinnable. The British in 1842 lost, and in just one battle, 16,000 British soldiers died. The vast Soviet Union also lost.
And the US and Britain after 20 years of unremitting warfare are about to lose big style right now.
But there’s no “victory” in such a statement. What we are leaving is a destroyed nation with perhaps hundreds of thousands of dead and injured, at an insane cost to ourselves of perhaps $3trillion.
And what of the future? It’s clearly not over.
What is going to happen to young girls and women trying to get educated under the soon to be new Taliban government?
And how much were we, the Great British public, used and abused to support this war?
Remember Cherie Blair and Hilary Clinton telling us they believed in women’s rights? Perhaps they’ll go there now?
No lessons have been learned and of course America has got form in leaving countries under nightmarish clouds they invented.
After the bombing of Vietnam and Cambodia, Cambodia was so destabilised that it led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge who then murdered millions more poor Cambodians.
And what about what we did in Iraq, so destabilising that country, that it was nearly taken over by ISIS, the Khmer Rouge of the Middle East?
So, what is it about America and Britain? We nearly won the Afghanistan War in 2001 but instead of scarpering and giving that money to aid agencies to rebuild the country, we continued sticking our dirty noses into places is wasn’t wanted or needed. Classic imperialism! It doesn’t work!
How shameful are we?
Mark Holt via email