ARmy Rumour SErvice

**whitecity** · 25-07-2009, 15:26

Originally Posted by parapauk

Originally Posted by gobbyidiot

I had an army officer quoting Sun Tzu at me the other night - "Strategy without tactics is a slow route to victory. Tactics without strategy results in disaster". Problem is, with Afghanistan is there any available strategy which would produce anything you would want? It's easy to say, "Abandon all notions of democracy, and even liberty, aim for order. Exploit local identity to create fiefdoms which make it impossible for zealots to gain a foothold. Then promote development, again caring not a jot for democracy and liberty".

But with the raw materials this "best strategy" isn't workable. The warlords wouldn't be content (in the way that at least some of the Sunni militia in Iraq seem to be).

I'd argue what I've highlighted is tactics masquerading as strategy.

FAR better people than you and I have been debating the essence of 'strategy' for centuries. There is no definitive answer.

However, if the 'policy' is to prevent Afghanistan becoming a safe haven for terrorists, then the 'strategy' of bringing stability and security via some il-liberal means expressed above may well do the trick rather than the current 'strategy' of forcing a pluralist democratic society upon an audiance with little or no understanding or appreciation of what's involved. The operational 'tactics' employed by various commanders to implement this 'strategy' and achieve the 'policy' goals will vary upon circumstance. For example, the 'tactics' necessary to bring stability and security in Helmand are quite different from those in Mazar.

ALVIN · 25-07-2009, 16:03

I agree, its all been one big funking lie, by you know who, just like the 45 mins W.M.D bullshit. ---- Duped again!! --- What is Labours game?

**PartTimePongo** · 25-07-2009, 17:00

The biggest lie? The Afghan Government are WITH us.

Once that lie is admitted and everyone stops fooling themselves, we may make progress.

**Winstanley** · 25-07-2009, 17:28

Just before we Brits took responsibility for Helmand, the then Secretary of State, John Reid, downplayed fears and said he hoped we would not need to fire a shot. It follows that he totally misjudged the situation. It also follows - surely? - that we Brits were under prepared. I'm not a lawyer - but is there a case for criminal negligence here?

**parapauk** · 25-07-2009, 17:35

Originally Posted by Winstanley

Just before we Brits took responsibility for Helmand, the then Secretary of State, John Reid, downplayed fears and said he hoped we would not need to fire a shot. It follows that he totally misjudged the situation. It also follows - surely? - that we Brits were under prepared. I'm not a lawyer - but is there a case for criminal negligence here?

I hope when I go shopping that I won't have to pay. That doesn't mean I don't expect to.

**whitecity** · 25-07-2009, 17:52

The SoS for Defence, John Reid, also believed the 'opposition' in Helmand consisted only of "rag-tag international terrorists" and that it would be a three year mission only.

Well, we're at the 3 year point and the so-called "rag-tag international terrorists" are proving to be a little more stubborn than he opined.

Originally Posted by John Reid, 26 January 2006 (My bold)

The resources for this deployment will be made available. This will be a three- year deployment, and it will cost around £1 billion over a five-year period. The resources will be made available, commencing in this financial year.

Originally Posted by John Reid, 26 January 2006 (My bold)

The hon. Gentleman asked about whether the resources available are from the reserve, and the answer to that is yes. He asked why there is a five-year plan when we are looking at three years, and the answer is because just as there is a build-up period, there is also a run-down period with preparations for people coming out. We have chosen an envelope that encompasses the envisaged three-year stay.

Originally Posted by John Reid, 26 January 2006 (My bold)

Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle) (Con): Notwithstanding the points that I made to the Secretary of State at Defence questions earlier in the week, I supported the original intervention in Afghanistan to clean out the al-Qaeda training camps in the Tora Bora mountains. I would remind the House, however, that Ministers assured us at the time that it was a temporary intervention and that we had no intention of occupying the country. The situation in Afghanistan, and in the middle east as a whole, is now very different. Now, al-Qaeda is able to train all over Iraq, which was formerly closed to it, as well as over large areas of the Islamic world. The Secretary of State says that we have been invited into Afghanistan by a democratic Government, but the sad truth is that President Karzai's writ runs only in the immediate environs of Kabul. Most of the country is governed by the so-called warlords that the Secretary of State has described. In Afghanistan, we face terrain that is vastly more difficult than that of Iraq or Vietnam, and a people who are far more war-like than the Iraqis or the Vietnamese. I have known Afghanistan well over a long span of years, and, in my judgment, we are asking the British Army to go into a country in pursuit of unobtainable objectives.

John Reid: The hon. Gentleman has made many points. Obviously, I do not accept his equivalence of the rag-tag international terrorists and former fascists in Iraq with the national liberation struggle of the Vietnamese people. I do not put the two in the same category. Furthermore, we do not intend to be in Afghanistan as an imperialist power. I would have thought that a man of such wide reading as the hon. Gentleman would see the differences, as well as the similarities, between the Afghan interventions. I do not think that he really believes that we have any long-term colonial ambitions in Afghanistan.

**Manley** · 25-07-2009, 21:10

For all the column inches about Afghanistan and all the mealy mouthings of the "polies", the one truth I would like to see is a redoing of the Crucifixion but with an added fourth cross with that lying, fiddling, warmongering, playboy scumbag, Anthony Linton Blair firmly spiked in his wrists and heels, in front of, and LOWER, than the traditional threesome normally depicted.

**PoisonDwarf** · 25-07-2009, 23:08

Divide and conquer.

**jonwilly** · 26-07-2009, 00:21

Karzi is an old Haliburton man.
Dick Chaney's choice.
that he chooses former Warlords as his supporters comes as no surprise to me.
Ganistan is a violent country, always was and always will be.
Sickening that TOM should die to keep his like in power.
john

**Jammy66** · 26-07-2009, 01:00

We are in there and stuck in the short to medium term at least, all I know is that the whole episode isn't worth a single British life and fear that we are going to lose many more yet.