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LONDON: Britain should accept defeat and move all of its soldiers out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible, former Liberal Democrat party leader Paddy Ashdown wrote in Friday’s The Times newspaper.
“All that we can achieve has now been achieved,” wrote the peer. “The only rational policy is to leave quickly, in good order and in the company of our allies. This is the only cause for which further lives should be risked,” he added.
Pressure is mounting on Prime Minister David Cameron to bring forward the 2014 deadline for bringing home British troops following a series of insider attacks.
Ashdown said it was “crystal clear that we have lost in Afghanistan”, adding the only achievement was in driving out al-Qaeda.
However, the former soldier argued the failure had been political, not military. Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said in September he was considering bringing some British troops back from Afghanistan earlier than expected.
“I think that the message I am getting clearly from the military is that it might be possible to draw down further troops in 2013,” Hammond told The Guardian in an interview at Camp Bastion in Helmand province. The government has said it intends to pull out all its 9,500 combat troops by the end of 2014.
Ashdown led the party between 1988 and 1999 following careers as a Royal Marine and as an intelligence officer for the UK security services. He was the international High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2002 to 2006.
Ashdown said the failure to establish a functioning state was not the fault of British troops but of the international community to work with the country’s leaders and neighbours.
“The international community in Afghanistan needed to speak with a single voice in pursuit of a single plan with clear priorities,” he said.
“Instead we have been divided, cacophonous, chaotic. We should have concentrated on winning in Afghanistan where it mattered, instead of distracting ourselves with adventures in Iraq.
“We should have engaged Afghanistan’s neighbours, instead of going out of our way to make them enemies. Our early military strategy should have been about protecting the people instead of wasting our time chasing the enemy.
“We should have made fighting corruption our first priority instead of becoming the tainted partners of a corrupt government whose writ, along with ours, has progressively collapsed as that of the Taliban in the south has progressively widened.”
His comments come amid an increasing number of green-on-blue attacks where members of the Afghan National Army have turned on allied troops.
On Remembrance Sunday, Captain Walter Barrie was playing in a football match between British soldiers and members of the Afghan National Army at his base when he was shot at close range in the Nad-e Ali district of Helmand province.
The 41-year-old, from Glasgow, has been hailed as a great man by his wife, Sonia. He also leaves his 15-year-old son, Callum. His body was flown into RAF Brize Norton on Thursday, where the Union Flag-draped coffin was carried from the plane with full military honours.
“All that we can achieve has now been achieved,” wrote the peer. “The only rational policy is to leave quickly, in good order and in the company of our allies. This is the only cause for which further lives should be risked,” he added.
Pressure is mounting on Prime Minister David Cameron to bring forward the 2014 deadline for bringing home British troops following a series of insider attacks.
Ashdown said it was “crystal clear that we have lost in Afghanistan”, adding the only achievement was in driving out al-Qaeda.
However, the former soldier argued the failure had been political, not military. Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said in September he was considering bringing some British troops back from Afghanistan earlier than expected.
“I think that the message I am getting clearly from the military is that it might be possible to draw down further troops in 2013,” Hammond told The Guardian in an interview at Camp Bastion in Helmand province. The government has said it intends to pull out all its 9,500 combat troops by the end of 2014.
Ashdown led the party between 1988 and 1999 following careers as a Royal Marine and as an intelligence officer for the UK security services. He was the international High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2002 to 2006.
Ashdown said the failure to establish a functioning state was not the fault of British troops but of the international community to work with the country’s leaders and neighbours.
“The international community in Afghanistan needed to speak with a single voice in pursuit of a single plan with clear priorities,” he said.
“Instead we have been divided, cacophonous, chaotic. We should have concentrated on winning in Afghanistan where it mattered, instead of distracting ourselves with adventures in Iraq.
“We should have engaged Afghanistan’s neighbours, instead of going out of our way to make them enemies. Our early military strategy should have been about protecting the people instead of wasting our time chasing the enemy.
“We should have made fighting corruption our first priority instead of becoming the tainted partners of a corrupt government whose writ, along with ours, has progressively collapsed as that of the Taliban in the south has progressively widened.”
His comments come amid an increasing number of green-on-blue attacks where members of the Afghan National Army have turned on allied troops.
On Remembrance Sunday, Captain Walter Barrie was playing in a football match between British soldiers and members of the Afghan National Army at his base when he was shot at close range in the Nad-e Ali district of Helmand province.
The 41-year-old, from Glasgow, has been hailed as a great man by his wife, Sonia. He also leaves his 15-year-old son, Callum. His body was flown into RAF Brize Norton on Thursday, where the Union Flag-draped coffin was carried from the plane with full military honours.
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