Brit squabbling about Afstan

Further to this post, the views of a columnist in the Daily Telegraph (always remember that the UK press, even the "qualities", love to stir things up--rather like ours, I guess):

Battle rages over our tragic failure in Afghanistan
There is a fierce conflict between the MoD, determined to conceal how far its strategy is failing in Afghanistan, and other Government players who realise our policy must be completely rethought, says Christopher Booker.

Mission impossible? British troops in Afghanistan Photo: PA

In recent days, while the penny has been dropping as to what a tragic mess our politicians and senior generals made of our occupation of southern Iraq, there have been two remarkable twists to the story of our commitment in Afghanistan. One of these is highly alarming, the other possibly more hopeful.

Almost wholly unreported until yesterday’s Daily Telegraph, there has been a dramatic change in Taliban tactics in Helmand, where some 8,500 British troops are stationed, with their headquarters in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital. On four occasions since April 21, including three in the past week, US air power has had to be called in to take out heavy machine guns, ZPU-1s and ZPU-2s, that the Taliban were installing around the town. Their purpose, as the British in Lashkar Gah are painfully aware, was all too obvious – to bring down the Chinook helicopters [emphasis added] on which the British rely for transport and re-supply. [Update: From Milnews.ca--"2 x ZPU-1 14.5mm Anti-Air MG's Nailed in Helmand", note USAF A-10s, now at KAF? See fifth para in first quote here.]

Since a Chinook can carry more than 40 men, just one successful hit would strike a devastating blow at our presence in Afghanistan, not least because of the fearful impact this would have on an unprepared British public. As I reported last week, the Ministry of Defence, using a strategy only too reminiscent of its record in southern Iraq, has gone out of its way to play down the parlous situation of our forces in Afghanistan, preferring to divert media attention with a succession of human interest stories such as that of the girl soldier toting a real live gun...

The truth is that, as we also learned last week, a battle royal has been raging behind the scenes between the MoD, determined to conceal how far its strategy is failing in Afghanistan, and other senior Government players, centred in Number 10, who realise that if our policy is to succeed it must be completely rethought.

The first fruit of this was last week’s lucid and thoughtful strategy paper on Afghanistan and Pakistan, tellingly published not by the MoD but by the Cabinet Office [the paper is here, good maps at end; would be nice to see something similar from our government--good luck]. It lays out the framework of a wholly new approach, calling for much greater effort to be given to building up the rural Afghan economy, through new roads and other infrastructure, to give local farmers a positive alternative to the present chaotic and murderous stalemate. Unless they can earn their living from crops other than opium, they will remain in terrified semi-thrall to the Taliban...

...The new thinking from Number 10 is highly welcome as offering the only practical way forward from the dead-end strategy imposed on gallant British troops by those blinkered minds in the MoD...