“We have a government that has completely failed to make a cogent case for this war or convince us that it has a strategy worthy of the sacrifices being made.”
“There is a real chance we will lose this struggle in the bars and front rooms of Britain”
Lord Paddy Ashdown, former Lib-Dem leader and Special Forces soldier.
Public opposition to the war is real, in a recent BBC survey 64% of those polled said the war was “unwinable” and a similar number felt British troops should be withdrawn “as soon as possible”.
I’ve been listening to some British talk radio over the Internet this week and discussion has been of little else.
It’s been a particularly bad few weeks and tomorrow is Remembrance Day. So far this year 96 British soldiers have lost their lives.
Last week one of the policemen being trained by British soldiers to protect his own country turned on his tutors and shot dead five inside the training barracks, an increasing number of people are asking what we are doing in Afghanistan and whether it is worth it.
And the government is quiet; there no attempt to sell this as a necessary war and as Lord Ashdown this will be lost in the pubs and living rooms of the electorate.
In the background to all this is the fiasco of the August elections in which one third of the votes for President Hamid Karzai turned out to be fraudulent. Karzi’s opponent Abdullah Abdullah withdrew from a planned run-off last week has brought the election and all the problems with it to a close. He point is valid, the same corrupt officials in charge of the election, and another vote would be pointless, as the result will not change.
Lord Ashdown clearly spoke for the majority when he said: “We have a government that has completely failed to make a cogent case for this war or convince us that it has a strategy worthy of the sacrifices being made.”
Gordon Browns case is not being helped by the apparent indecision of the Obama administration over the request for more troops by the US General in charge of the NATO led force in Afghanistan. The request was made in late August and no decision seems to have been made.
The British PM clearly has to react to public opinion and Friday is giving a speech at the Royal College of Defence studies. He has to convince that the sacrifice being made in the hills of Afghanistan along with the billions being poured into a corrupt government make Britain a safer place.