Top soldier quits as blundering campaign turns

[spindrifter]

into 'pointless' war

The Sunday Times September 10, 2006

Christina Lamb

THE former aide-de-camp to the commander of the British taskforce in southern Afghanistan has described the campaign in Helmand province as “a textbook case of how to screw up a counter-insurgency”.

"Having a big old fight is pointless and just making things worse,” said Captain Leo Docherty, of the Scots Guards, who became so disillusioned that he quit the army last month.

“All those people whose homes have been destroyed and sons killed are going to turn against the British,” he said. “It’s a pretty clear equation — if people are losing homes and poppy fields, they will go and fight. I certainly would.

“We’ve been grotesquely clumsy — we’ve said we’ll be different to the Americans who were bombing and strafing villages, then behaved exactly like them.”

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2350795,00.html

[babylonsister]

1. At least he's allowed to quit. nt

[Kagemusha]

2. Amen to that.

To US servicemen this must sound like The Impossible Dream.

[BrotherBuzz]

3. Any student of Russian history, and their attempt to subjugate Afghanistan

would understand this. Isn't Dr. Condoleezza Rice a Russian history authority? :shrug: