Over in The Times, former Lib Dem leader Lord (Paddy) Ashdown argues that though there are reasons to be cheerful in the latest news from Afghanistan, battlefield success alone won’t win the war. Here’s an excerpt:
… we do, at last, seem to be getting our act together on the battlefield. We are now following the right military strategy — protecting the people, not chasing the enemy. We have limited our aims to the achievable and matched our resources to our objectives. … it is now possible to turn the momentum on the battlefield in our favour in the next few weeks or months.
But … if you win the military battle in these kinds of wars, but lose the political one — you lose. And this, I fear, is still where we are. While the new Rolls-Royce military team starts to turn things round on the ground, there is the complete absence of any similar heavyweight international leadership on the political front. Here, we have either made no progress or moved backwards.
International co-ordination has not improved. It has, if anything worsened … The truth is that Western governments — and most especially our own — have completely failed to make it clear that winning this war is their first priority and completely failed to convince the public that it can be won. …
Unless we address these continuing political failures in Afghanistan — and soon — then once again the capture of our enemies, our success on the battlefield and the sacrifices of our soldiers may well not prove enough.
To read Paddy’s article in full click here.
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2 Comments
Paddy 4 Defence Minister in the next government!
As a life -long Liberal then Lib-Dem supporter I am bitterly disappointed by Nick Clegg’s performance. To my mind he now appears just another bog-standard politician with little to distinguish him ethically from a Blair or Cameron. I suspect that my judgement is shared by other Lib-Dem supporters who risk voting labour or Green next time round.
Generations of Lib-Dem leaders – Paddy Ashdown, Charles Kennedy among others – have successfully toiled for decades to make the party both credible and principled and it would be tragic for their work to come to nothing.
To speak melodramatically, the soul of the party is in danger and its principles are more than ever in need of robust defence.
Richard Hyde