The Afghan war – a total waste. Unless...

[rug]

'Investment in Blood – The True Cost of Britain's Afghan War'
by Frank Ledwidge (Yale UP)

A new book paints a grim picture of the UK's role in taking on the Taliban in 2001. But it is not too late to make some amends

James Fergusson
Sunday 2 June 2013

Nato's Afghan campaign has not expired yet, but with Britain and those of her allies who have not already left now jostling for the 2014 exit, it is not too early to start the post-mortem. The first, book-length attempt to evaluate British expenditure of blood and treasure, by former frontline military intelligence officer Frank Ledwidge, should become a Defence Academy set text – if, that is, the generals can bear it, because it makes for very grim reading indeed. How much has this war cost us? And what, if anything, has it achieved?

More British soldiers have died in Afghanistan – 444 since 2001 – than in any other counterinsurgency campaign fought by Britain since the Boer War, which ended in 1902. More than 2,600 have been wounded, including 247 amputees. Other injuries, including future cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, are harder to enumerate, although they will likely surpass 5,000.

The financial costs are no less startling. Since 2006 we have spent at least £15m per day to maintain the British military presence in Helmand. By 2020, the UK will have spent, at a conservative estimate, £40bn in Afghanistan, 90 per cent of it on the military, equating to £650 for every resident of the UK, or more than £2,000 per tax-paying household. And for what? Successive prime ministers (but especially Gordon Brown) have told us that this war directly safeguarded Britain's streets; it was a necessary evil in which we "fought them over there so that we didn't have to fight them over here". But this was true only immediately after 9/11, when Bin Laden was still hiding on Afghan soil.

We have been fighting the Taliban this past decade, not al-Qa'ida, who were entirely driven out of Afghanistan by 2002. Our war was at least legal, in that it was mandated by the UN, but post-2001, was it really in Britain's long-term security interests? The Taliban – who, let it not be forgotten, publicly condemned the attacks of 9/11, of which they almost certainly had no prior knowledge – have never shown the slightest interest in attacking Western streets.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-afghan-war--a-total-waste-unless-8640756.html

[KG]

1. a total waste. period. end of story.

[sylvanus]

2. Not if your a war profiteer

If you have investments in fuel, medical supplies, weapons, transportation etc..
For most of the people who championed these wars, Dick Cheney et.all, the Afghan and Iraq wars
were a very profitable venture.
A "Mission Accomplished" if you will.