A Week End in Afghanistan
As I write this, the news has come in that a Royal Marine has been killed in Helmand province in Afghanistan, at the start of a NATO offensive operation. The bulletins give the news just one line, but tonight for me it is particularly resonant, as I have just returned from a week end with the Royal Marines in Afghanistan.
I almost certainly did not meet the young man who has been killed, but I certainly did meet his colleagues. It is difficult to say anything that is not a platitude, but you can rest assured that the Royal Marines represent some of the finest soldiers to be found anywhere in the world, doing a very difficult job with professionalism and enthusiasm.
Forty-eight hours is not much time, but I learned a huge amount. First, the people I met, in Khandahar, Camp Bastion and Lashnah Gah, believe that they have made significant headway in the last few months. One special forces officer I met was incredibly enthusiastic about what has been achieved. However, almost every one was unanimous that one policy could undo all that good work - poppy eradication. As one senior officer said, “If you want to turn Afghanistan into Iraq, that is the policy that will do it”. They are not against the policy in principle, just not now. Afghanistan is a counter-insurgency operation, and it will be won with hearts and minds. It will be lost if we set about systematically trying to destroy the one source of cash for the indigineous population. In any event, even with our best efforts, we will destroy less than ten per cent of the crop.
The other issue that comes out in a week end like this is equipment. It is a mixed picture, extremely difficult to form an objective view on. Every single complaint I heard was contradicted later on. That wasn’t a soldier being contradicted by an officer, either. It was soldiers contradicting each other. Every fighting man has a view on what works best, so it’s not a surprise that there are a huge range of opinions. There is also some good stuff out there. The Apache has proved highly effective, for example. What is clear and what is a scandal, is the lack of defensive equipment available to the Hercules, particularly the foam protecting the petrol tanks, which the Americans fit as standard and which we don’t have on planes we bought just a few years ago. That is something that could and should be remedied, along with the need for more air capacity to move troops around.
It was a huge privilege to spend time with the Royal MArines, as well as the Estonians and the Dutch, who are out there with us, fighting with the Americans. Afghanistan need not be the quagmire it was for the Russians, and for the British in earlier times. This fight is being waged with shrewd intelligence and realistic aims and there is every chance of a good outcome.