America’s unconvincing explanation of the operation in Kabul to save civilians from the Taliban
SIR – While serving with Isaf at Kabul airport on the 10th anniversary of September 11, during a period of high-intensity combat operations there, I was ordered to attend a meeting at the US embassy in Kabul, thinking it at the time, for obvious reasons, a dangerous journey.
I was a fairly senior officer, effectively under American command, and I live to tell the tale despite having made the return trip by road.
For the US secretary of state to suggest that helicopter flights were the normal means of making that trip is contemptuously dishonest. We all know why it’s now a helicopter journey, as it was in Saigon.
Colonel James N Stythe (retd) Pewsey, Wiltshire
SIR – Tony Blair (report, August 22) might like to recall who committed British troops to this 20-year war before using the word imbecilic. TT Weller
Newbury, Berkshire
SIR – It’s getting embarrassing. As an (ex) paid-up member of the Conservative Party, I find myself agreeing with Tony Blair yet again. Garry Wiseman
Fordham, Cambridgeshire
SIR – Following Margaret Thatcher’s resolve to send a taskforce across the globe to recover the Falklands from Argentine occupation in 1982, Britain’s standing in the world shot up, our postwar decline was arrested and would-be invaders of our allies were deterred.
The catastrophic withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan has already had the reverse effect on the world standing of America, but also on that of Britain. With China having flouted the Joint Declaration in Hong Kong and already sabre-rattling over Taiwan, and with Russia’s Vladimir Putin having seized part of Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014, calculations will be made that the West under US leadership has lost the will to defend its interests and its values. Overnight, the world has become a much more dangerous place.
The West must now declare that Nato’s Article 5 remains firmly in force and that any attempt to seize Taiwan will be forcefully resisted.
Meanwhile, Britain must ramp up its Armed Forces more than envisaged in the recent defence review.
Sir Gerald Howarth
Minister for International Security Strateg y, 2010-12 Chelsworth, Suffolk
SIR – The unwelcome image of Taliban leaders returning triumphantly to Afghanistan from Qatar was made more shocking by the fact that they were filmed disembarking from an aircraft of the Qatar Air Force.
The Taliban are a terrorist grouping with no mandate to take control of Afghanistan, but they have been given a spurious status by this visible official support from the Qataris. Questions need to be raised, not just about the venue of the 2022 World Cup. Alexandra Wakid
London SW15
SIR – The article “Pakistan goes to the root of Taliban support. Time to stop treating it as an ally” by Kyle Orton (telegraph.co.uk) includes the claim that Mullah Omar died in Pakistan. By all accounts, he died in Afghanistan.
In the past 20 years, more Pakistani soldiers have died in confronting terrorism than those of the United States and Nato combined. Pakistan has suffered over 80,000 casualties.
Pakistan’s intelligence cooperation has been pivotal in decimating al-qaeda and other groups. Pakistan continues to be a generous host to over three million Afghan refugees.
It has been the consistent position of Imran Khan, the prime minister, that there was no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan, and that dialogue was the only way forward. So Pakistan played its part in bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table. The US, the Taliban and the Ashraf Ghani government held direct talks. Failure of intra-afghan negotiations to make headway speaks of the inflexibility of various Afghan parties, rather than any “duplicity” on the part of Pakistan.
Pakistan maintained that any withdrawal of international forces must be accompanied with a negotiated settlement. Unfortunately, the decision to withdraw forces was made without informing Pakistan.
In the last week, Pakistan has helped hundreds of diplomatic staff of several European countries and Afghans working at organisations like the World Bank and UN to evacuate safely.
Pakistan expects all stakeholders in Afghanistan to respect fundamental human rights, including the rights of women, while fulfilling their commitment to ensure that Afghan territory is not used by international terrorists against any other country. Moazzam Ahmad Khan
High Commissioner for Pakistan to the UK, London SW1
SIR – Which lessons of history will we repeat at Kabul airport, where flights are only possible by the acquiescence of the Taliban?
Will the media-savvy Islamists put us through a surrender and a repeat of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-81? Or will it be a promise of evacuation by land and then a massacre, as happened to Major-general Elphinstone’s army on the road to Gandamak in 1842?
We are past a military solution to this problem. Bring our soldiers home within hours, not days.
Otto Inglis Crossgates, Fife
SIR – A strong sense of déjà vu makes me wonder if, in 2035, a new musical will take the West End by storm, called Miss Kabul.
Paul Ryan Smarden, Kent