Paddy Ashdown has an opinion piece on Afghanistan in The Times today (£) in which he says:
We have repeatedly deluded ourselves about “successes” that never existed and thus took so long recognising that a victor’s peace was beyond our reach that we wasted the best opportunities for a negotiated one. We failed to understand that in these wars it is politics, not weapons, that counts most. Even if you win on the battlefield, you lose if you lose politically; which we have, painfully
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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One Comment
The west is struggling to come to terms with the diminution of it’s power, and noticeably so in the case of Paddy Ashdown.
I respect Paddy for what he achieved in the Balkans – very much against the odds. But he supported the war in Iraq – of which we now know was a catastrophic mistake – and he persuaded Nick Clegg to support the war in Afghanistan at a time when some in the Lib Dem leadership – notably Vince Cable – were preparing to advocate that we pull out.
Continuing the war in Afghanistan has simply meant more British troops lose their lives for no good reason. It is always possible to point to successes in Afghanistan, but on closer inspection it often appears to be one step forward and two steps back.
We need a more political role in these conflicts, I agree with Paddy on that. But most important before we even do that is understand the country you are dealing with. Not all countries are the same and can be treated the same.