After eight years of bloodshed, support for the war is haemorrhaging even in “patriotic” circles. Voices calling for an end to the British involvement in Afghanistan are growing and becoming louder.

Wootton Bassett, a small English town in Wiltshire with a long tradition of saluting fallen soldiers, has become the public face of national mourning for British troops killed in Afghanistan. Last week, hundreds of journalists and scores of TV crews from around the world descended on this quiet market town to record the return of the 80th bodybag as the British toll rose dramatically after one of the “bloodiest” phases of the eight-year war. Wootton Bassett apart, the human cost of the war in Afghanistan is being felt in cities and towns across Britain with military funerals becoming an almost daily ritual. Not surprisingly, the national mood has started to turn ugly with Prime Minister Gordon Brown under mounting pressure to defend the British “mission” amid fears that it is in danger of being bogged down in a Vietnam-like disaster.
In order to get a full measure of how much the mood has changed, it is important to remember that — unlike Iraq —the invasion of Afghanistan had widespread support initially. While Iraq sparked a wave of protests culminating in the famous million-strong London march of February 2003, there was hardly any peep over Afghanistan. It was generally regarded as a “good war,” portrayed as a mission to drive out a fundamentalist repressive regime, liberate oppressed women, and restore democracy and rule of law.
But after eight years of bloodshed (more British soldiers have died in Afghanistan than in Iraq) the support for the war is haemorrhaging even in “patriotic” circles. Voices calling for an end to the British involvement in Afghanistan are growing and becoming louder. According to an ITV poll, taken after the deaths of eight soldiers in a 24-hour period, 59 per cent want the British forces withdrawn.
On a recent episode of BBC’s Question Time, Foreign Office minister Chris Bryant was booed as he attempted to justify the war. People wanted to know, “Why the hell are we there?” as one panellist put it; and how did the British forces hope to “win” an asymmetrical guerrilla war of attrition in which the “enemy” was the master of his terrain and had all the time in the world? One questioner argued that the Taliban represented an ideology and you couldn’t fight an ideology with guns and drones. And then there were lessons to be learnt from history: no foreign power had ever “won” in Afghanistan. Had we forgotten the famous Afghan war cry: “You may have the watch, we’ve the time?” One angry young woman said the whole Afghan adventure was based on a “lie.”
“We were told that it was meant to protect the people but thousands of innocent civilians have been killed; we were told it was to promote democracy and good governance but we’ve actually ended up propping up one of the most corrupt regimes in the world,” she said.
In pro-war circles, the view is that the government has botched up a “good” war, not being clear about its goals. The former Shadow Home Secretary David Davis and supporter of the war says, “Everything has gone wrong” since the overthrow of the Taleban regime. He believes it is the “right war fought in the wrong way...poorly planned, badly executed...calculated only to stir up resentment with little beneficial outcome.”
His boss David Cameron has been involved in angry exchanges with the Prime Minister accusing his government of a lack of commitment to the war effort.
The Left is equally critical. Lord Paddy Ashdown, former Lib Dem leader who was once tipped as the U.N. representative to Afghanistan, says the British mission suffers from a “military error of major proportion.”
“We made the two classic mistakes of over-ambitious targets and under-resources to achieve them,” he said recently calling for more troops to recover the “tactical and strategic opportunities” that he thought had been lost because of poor management.
Nick Clegg, the current Lib Dem leader, has gone a step further and demanded a wholesale review of the government’s approach, saying British lives are being “thrown away” because of wrong policies, especially the “failure” to provide adequate equipment to the troops. “I am concerned that we are simply not giving our troops the means to do their difficult job. We must not will the ends without being prepared to will the means,” he said in a newspaper interview.
In the charged debate over Afghanistan, Mr. Brown is looking as isolated as did appear his predecessor Tony Blair over Iraq. Doubts about the purpose of the war and the government’s approach to it are not confined to ordinary people and the Opposition. The army, also, is in a rebellious mood with top generals embroiled in an unprecedented war of words with the government over their concern that a lack of resources is putting the lives of soldiers at risk. The government has been accused of penny-pinching in meeting the needs of the troops who want safer armoured vehicles and more helicopters.
The shortage of helicopters has become a huge issue with Mr Brown facing accusations of “dereliction of duty” over the way he is handling the war. There was the bizarre spectacle of General Sir Richard Dannatt, chief of the general staff, flying in an American helicopter in what was seen as an attempt to embarrass the government and shame it into accepting the army’s case for more helicopters. Asked why he flew in an American helicopter, Gen Dannatt pointedly said: “Self-evidently...if I moved in an American helicopter it’s because I haven’t got a British helicopter.”
Some in the Prime Minister’s inner circle said the General was “playing politics” but much to Mr. Brown’s embarrassment General Dannatt’s views were echoed by Parliament’s cross-party Defence Select Committee. In a stinging report, it said the helicopter shortage was undermining British operations and exposing the troops to avoidable risk.
“We are concerned that operational commanders in the field today are unable to undertake potentially valuable operations because of the lack of helicopters for transportation around the theatre of operations. We are also concerned that operational commanders find they have to use ground transport, when helicopter lift would be preferred, both for the outcome and for the protection of our forces,” committee chairman James Arbuthnot commented.
The army also wants more “boots on the ground” in a mini British version of the American “surge,” arguing that additional troops are essential in order to hold on to the areas seized from the Taliban fighters. Mr. Brown was grilled by MPs over reports that Gen. Dannatt had demanded 2,000 extra troops but they failed to get a direct or satisfactory answer from the Prime Minister, who insisted that the government was doing everything to support “our brave and courageous armed forces.”
There is a widespread perception, especially among families of the soldiers, that the government is “betraying” the troops by trying to fight the war on the cheap. Caroline Munday, whose 21-year-old son James was killed in Afghanistan, made an emotional appeal to the government to “stop feathering its own nest and provide our guys with the best equipment they deserve.”
Meanwhile, ironically, by far the seniormost Labour figure to attack the government on the issue is none other than the man who ran the Defence Ministry until a few weeks ago — John Hutton. His statement that ministers should not behave like “armchair generals” and instead listen to “advice from the military” has surprised observers who point out that as Defence Secretary he ignored the very same demands he is now opportunistically backing.
So much for the politics of Afghanistan war. But the big question (as television anchors are fond of saying) is: Will more troops and equipment really help and make the war more “winnable?” Those who know Afghanistan say the assumption that Britain and its allies can win the war by simply pouring more men and machine into Afghanistan are making the same mistake the “Soviet” generals did. According to Victor Sebestyen, a Hungarian-born British military historian, there are “uncanny” parallels between the “Soviet” experience and the situation now facing Britain and its allies.
“The Soviet forces were in the seventh year of their nine-year-war in Afghanistan and had lost about 12,000 men. (Marshal Sergei) Akhromeyev (commander of Soviet armed forces) was summoned to explain why a force of 109,000 troops from the world’s second super power appeared to be humiliated year after year, by a band of terrorists. Akhromeyev ….insisted the army needed more resources — including additional helicopters….….words that sound uncannily resonant today,” he wrote in The Sunday Times recalling how despite the best resources Moscow finally lost the war.
Is Britain heading in the same direction?