Tag Archives: afghanistan

NewsHound

LibLink: Ming Campbell – Afghanistan: We have to see it through till 2014

By NewsHound | Mon 24th September 2012 - 5:00 pm

Former Lib Dem leader Sir Ming Campbell has taken to the pages of the Independent to set out his views on British troop involvement in Afghanistan, and the need to be realistic about the speed at which British troops can be withdrawn from Helmand. Here’s an excerpt:

It is naive to suggest that, even if we began today, we could be out by Christmas. Withdrawal of nearly 10,000 troops and their equipment is not achieved by waving a wand. During any withdrawal, forces are at their most vulnerable. What additional protection measures would be required? What equipment would we be able

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Paul Reynolds

Opinion: the undignified spectacle at the G8

By Paul Reynolds | Tue 22nd May 2012 - 5:22 pm

Imagine the scene. It’s a dirty whitewashed three-storey government building in the capital city, surrounded by high walls with US helicopters parked around. Inside sit several US generals and two Europeans, in the dusty heat. The war they are there to discuss is secretly assumed to go on for 25 years. They all know they cannot win it despite superior air power and unlimited cash. They had all given it their best shot with use of terrible weapons. Neighbouring countries have been mercilessly bombed, and ushering in governments very unfriendly to the US and the West.

It was time to find …

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | 3 Comments
Issan Ghazni

Opinion: Support for emerging democracies – we’ll do it our way

By Issan Ghazni | Fri 6th April 2012 - 8:57 am

Speaking at the recent Munich Security Conference, US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton said “Americans and Europeans must send a clear and common message to despots that they must respect the rights of their people….America and Europe stand shoulder to shoulder.”

However, the UK role in encouraging emerging democracies must be determined through a process of working closer with the EU and by identifying limited areas in which tangible gains can be made through shared resources. That is to say that we do what we can with our European partners to achieve the best results within our areas of influence. Continually …

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Michael Moore

Michael Moore MP’s Westminster Notes – Scotland better off in Union

By Michael Moore | Wed 14th March 2012 - 11:55 am

Every week, Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore writes a column for local newspapers in his constituency. These are the highlights of the last two editions. 

Afghanistan

 The loss of six young soldiers in Afghanistan last week shocked and saddened the whole country and was a grave reminder of the huge sacrifice made by our armed forces in one of the most dangerous places in the world. The work of our men and women in Afghanistan is absolutely vital for the security of the UK and the freedom of the Afghan people and the deaths of these young men remind us …

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Paul Walter

PMQs: Lest we forget

By Paul Walter | Fri 9th March 2012 - 11:24 am

A different Prime Minister’s Questions review this week. Often, the Prime Minister prefaces his first answer with a tribute to fallen service personnel. I have mentioned these tributes a few times in the course of these write-ups over the last (nearly) two years.

It seems appropriate to devote the whole of this week’s review solely to those who have died fighting for us, as we pass the milestone of 400 troops killed in Afghanistan with a particularly bloody incident.

Whatever our views of the right or the wrongs of our involvements overseas, I think most people agree that our service personnel do …

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Paul Walter

LibLink: Ashdown – This 11-year exercise in self-delusion must end

By Paul Walter | Mon 6th February 2012 - 10:24 am

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

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Nick Harvey

Nick Harvey MP writes: A hard look at defence spending

By Nick Harvey | Wed 3rd August 2011 - 6:53 pm

Today the Commons defence committee published a report criticising the MOD for decisions taken in last year’s Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR).  The report claims that recent defence budget reductions will leave our Armed Forces unable to execute the operations the Government sets for them post-2015.  
 
I disagree.
 
It is true that the MOD is reducing numbers of service personnel across the Army, Navy and Air Force and indeed the MOD has altered the equipment programme, which led to the deletion of Nimrod and Harrier.  But these tough decisions were necessary in order to address the black hole in the …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 17 Comments
Mark Pack

Resignation of Afghan central banker puts Western governments on the spot

By Mark Pack | Mon 27th June 2011 - 6:54 pm

The resignation and flight to the US of Abdul Qadeer Fitrat, chairman of Afghanistan’s Central Bank, has been accompanied by a wide-ranging set of allegations from him about corruption being behind the near collapse of Kabul Bank. That it itself is not a surprise, as corruption was already widely suspected, but he has also claimed that corruption investigations had been deliberately blocked and that he feared for his own personal safety.

It is credible that he would have detailed knowledge of such matters, though Abdul Qadeer Fitrat …

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Mark Pack

LibLink: Nick Clegg, the New Statesman interview and crying

By Mark Pack | Sat 9th April 2011 - 12:26 pm

The latest edition of the New Statesman has an interview with Nick Clegg, which has mostly garnered attention for the shock news that Nick Clegg is a human being and has been known to cry to music:

He is besotted by his “three lovely boys” and is most proud “by a long shot” of the family life he has created with Miriam. They manage to lead a relatively normal life, “not in a bunker in Westminster”, and he tries to pick his children up from school and put them to bed at night at least two or three times a week.

He

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The Voice

LibLink… Paddy Ashdown: Defence cuts? Why, they’ve barely started

By The Voice | Tue 22nd February 2011 - 2:43 pm

In today’s Times (£) Paddy Ashdown argues that the Ministry of Defence is “no longer fit for purpose.”

Ashdown says that the current government are not making enough progress with addressing the Ministry’s problems: the large annual deficit, bureaucratic blunders and project overruns and puts them down to a lack of political direction.

Here’s an excerpt:

The dust is now settling on the Strategic Defence and Security Review, published last October. And what it reveals is that the deeply painful cuts already announced are not going to be enough to balance the books. There will have to be more — there may

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Paul Walter

PMQs: The Pillsbury Doughboy takes on Motherhood and Apple pie – and loses

By Paul Walter | Thu 3rd February 2011 - 11:32 pm

For the second time in three weeks, a LibDem asked the first question at Prime Minister’s Question time. Bob Russell asked, first of all, for the PM to list his engagements for the day. As usual, there was the same response as there has been for virtually every week since Noah was in short trousers. “This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others and, in addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today.” Same question, same answer, every blinking week. It is hard not to have a mite of sympathy with …

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Mark Pack

Inside the Danger Zones: Paul Moorcraft on thirty years of war reporting

By Mark Pack | Mon 3rd January 2011 - 8:55 am

Paul Moorcraft’s account of his several decades touring the world’s violent trouble-spots as a journalist and some-time government representative entertains as well as informs. From Rhodesia in the 1970s through to his contemplation of pioneering a niche market in blind observers for African elections in 2010, Moorcraft’s account reflects plenty of the swagger of many war correspondents but with enough self-mockery to make the account illuminating and interesting rather than a macho display. Even the clichés about drinking and womanising journalists, which he seems to have often fulfilled to the maximum, are full of his own failings.

The result is a portrait of not only the countries he visited but also the breed that makes up war correspondents, with their bravery, their bravado and their desire to get the story and the footage even at great personal risk. The motivation for such story getting may often be as much ego as public service, but in the end the public benefits from people willing to take remarkable risks with their personal safety in the name of journalism.

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Alex Feakes

Opinion: for the want of a nail

By Alex Feakes | Fri 24th December 2010 - 11:42 am

Joining the traditional Nativity story of revelation followed by deliverance, this festive season we have been able to enjoy even more revealed truths about our world courtesy of Wikileaks, the Daily Telegraph and more or less any senior Army officer near a microphone.

Although there are moral and technical differences between these sources of information, they have each attempted to lift the veil to reveal the ‘truth’ behind the public face of diplomacy, coalition governance and military strategy. But have we liberals been consistent in our responses to these revelations?

With the diplomatic cables released through Wikileaks, there’s been a strong …

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Mark Pack

Nick Harvey outlines the UK’s objectives in Afghanistan

By Mark Pack | Thu 16th December 2010 - 9:43 pm

Minister of State for the Armed Forces and Liberal Democrat MP Nick Harvey set out the government’s objectives in Afghanistan in a speech he gave during his visit to Denmark this week. He made clear the limits to what the government is now seeking to achieve:

We do not seek a perfect Afghanistan, but one able to maintain its own security and prevent the return of Al-Qaeda.

This is primarily a mission of national security.

We are neither colonisers nor occupiers.

We are there under United Nations Security Council endorsement and at the invitation of the Afghan Government.

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Mark Pack

Camp Victory, Afghanistan

By Mark Pack | Tue 23rd November 2010 - 8:57 am

Over the weekend I went to see a screening of Camp Victory, Afghanistan. In short, if you get a chance – go see it.

What makes the film different from many others about Afghanistan post-2001 was illustrated by a comment from the director in a post-screening Q+A session. Carol Dysinger explained that, unlike many others making films of the conflicts in Afghanistan, she had first approach the Afghan government for permission to film rather than the US (or other) military forces.

It is the Afghan army that is at the centre of the film. The footage comes from five visits, each …

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Mark Pack

How to defeat Al Qaeda

By Mark Pack | Wed 10th November 2010 - 8:55 am

The cover of Bruce Riedel’s The Search for Al Qaeda shows a group of armed men working their way up a hillside overlooking a beautiful valley that stretches away to rolling hills. It captures the wonder and the tragedy of Afghanistan in one frame.

The book itself is similarly crisp, packing a wide-ranging history of Al Qaeda and its key figures into only 150 pages of moderate size print. It is penned by an ex-CIA man of thirty years service who was frequently closely involved with the figures and events painted in the book, but not so closely as to make the reader fear it is more a justification of his career than a fair account of events.

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Posted in Books and Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , , , and | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

It’s not a science journalism problem, it’s a journalism problem

By Mark Pack | Mon 11th October 2010 - 10:25 am

Late last month, Martin Robbins wrote a fantastic spoof of science journalism for the Guardian’s website – This is a news website article about a scientific paper. In his subsequent commentary on the reaction to that spoof he wrote,

Science is all about process, context and community, but reporting concentrates on single people, projects and events … Hundreds of interesting things happen in science every week, and yet journalists from all over the media seem driven by a herd mentality that ensures only a handful of stories are covered. And they’re not even the most interesting stories in many

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Mark Pack

In the long-run, it’s governments and not insurgents who win

By Mark Pack | Tue 28th September 2010 - 9:24 am

One of the most commonly made comments about insurgencies such as those in Afghanistan or Iraq, and most famously Vietnam, is that in order to win the insurgents simply need to survive. It’s a piece of conventional wisdom challenged in a thoughtful piece in Foreign Affairs, based on looking at 89 insurgencies over the last fifty years:

Many have assumed that insurgents invariably win by simply holding out. This is incorrect. Historically, governments have won more often than insurgents in the long run. And even wars that seemed to be spiraling inexorably toward defeat, such as Colombia’s against the Revolutionary

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Posted in Op-eds | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

The flaw in war reporting from Afghanistan, or why Robert Peston should not be embedded in a McDonald’s for a fortnight

By Mark Pack | Sun 19th September 2010 - 10:24 am

On Wednesday evening I went to a Frontline Club event titled Who is winning the media war in Afghanistan? and was reminded of the way what journalists call “the kinetic stuff” (that is soldiers and shooting to you and me) dominates mainstream TV footage. The set of clips shown to set the scene at the start of the event were all of the kinetic kind and although during the event some journalists made the point that other types of footage is also used – they also conceded that those other reports are not the ones which grab the public …

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Also tagged and | 2 Comments
The Voice

Nick Clegg writes about his visit to Afghanistan and Pakistan

By The Voice | Thu 2nd September 2010 - 4:54 pm

In an email sent this afternoon, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has written about his trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Earlier this week this week I went to Afghanistan and Pakistan to see for myself the problems and challenges that those countries face. The coalition government is committed to playing our part to helping ensure that the region has a peaceful and prosperous future.

It was my second visit to our armed forces in Afghanistan, where I saw again the bravery and professionalism of our troops. Whilst the situation in the country is still difficult, I believe

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Stephen Tall

The Saturday Debate: Time for British troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan

By Stephen Tall | Sat 3rd July 2010 - 8:45 am

Here’s your starter for ten as we continue our Saturday slot posing a view for debate:

Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies has recently written to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg renewing his call for British troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan:

It is very difficult to justify our continued engagement when the reasons for it so often appear contradictory and open to challenge. I suspect one reason why 77% of people in this country tell pollsters that they want our troops out of Afghanistan is because they either do not know what are the objectives for their presence or do not

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Paul Walter

PMQs: Hattie opens up the Coalition’s Grand Canyon

By Paul Walter | Wed 2nd June 2010 - 3:58 pm

I feel as though Norris McWhirter (late of the Guinness Book of Records) ought to have been kneeling at the foot of the Speaker’s Chair with his stopwatch for this momentous Prime Minister’s Questions. There were several records or firsts being set. The first coalition PMQs ever, I would suggest (I doubt whether Winnie or Ramsay or our David held such events). The first with Liberal Democrats on the government benches. The first with a party sporting its second female leader (Margaret Beckett was acting Labour leader after John Smith died). And it’s 13 long years since we had …

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Mark Pack

The coalition agreement: families & children and foreign affairs

By Mark Pack | Sun 30th May 2010 - 6:20 pm

Welcome to the tenth in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here.

If you have been following this series of posts, you’ll be familiar by now with the mix of statements in the families and children section: a strong showing of Liberal Democrat policies, some amenable Conservative policies and then a couple of tricky points.

So we have policies which would happily fit in a Liberal Democrat manifesto such as maintaining “the goal of ending child poverty in the UK by 2020”, supporting “the provision of free …

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Mark Pack

Daily View 2×2: 4 April 2010 with special beard and moustache feature

By Mark Pack | Sun 4th April 2010 - 9:00 am

It’s Sunday. It’s 9am. It’s time for beards. And moustaches. But first the news.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

2 Big Stories

Teachers threaten strikes over workload

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Helen Duffett

Teachers, Thatcher, tax and troops: Nick Clegg Q&A

By Helen Duffett | Sat 13th March 2010 - 7:26 pm

Nick Clegg answers questions at Spring Conference, Birmingham

In this afternoon’s Q&A from the Conference hall, Nick Clegg tackled questions from the floor with a relaxed and confident manner that bodes well for the upcoming TV Leaders’ Debates.

He took questions from party members in the hall, before taking supplementaries.

First up was education and whether schools should use the Pupil Premium to reduce class sizes. Nick said that the Pupil Premium seeks to give back trust to teachers and headteachers. Smaller class sizes are important for instilling a sense of self-confidence and …

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NewsHound

LibLink: Paddy Ashdown – A military Rolls-Royce, but a political car crash

By NewsHound | Fri 26th February 2010 - 12:45 pm

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

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Sara Bedford

Daily View 2×2: 9 February 2010

By Sara Bedford | Tue 9th February 2010 - 9:53 am

Welcome to this morning’s Daily View.  I am sure I cannot be the only person to be cheered by waking to the news that the Conservatives believe that their no. 1 electoral weapon is George Osborne.

On this day 60 years ago, United States Senator Joe McCarthy launched his anti-communist crusade, with a speech accusing more than 200 staff in the State Department of being members of the Communist Party.  On 9thFebruary 1979, England and Birmingham City forward Trevor Francis signed for Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest for £1 million, the first UK footballer to move for a seven figure sum.

Today is also the third anniversary of the death of actor Ian Richardson CBE, best known for his portrayal of the Machiavellian Conservative politician Francis Urquhart in the wonderful House of Cards trilogy.

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Alex Foster

Daily View 2×2: 4 February 2010

By Alex Foster | Thu 4th February 2010 - 7:04 am

Good morning, on this misty day which in history saw three awful earthquakes – in Haicheng, Guatemala and Afghanistan.

This day is a birthday to American civil rights campaigner Rosa Parks (pictured) as well as to the American vice-president famously unable to spell “potato”, Dan Quayle.

Deaths on the 4th February include Liberace and American novelist novellist writer Patricia Highsmith, who wrote Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr Ripley, and – according to Wikipedia at least – the first lesbian novel with a happy ending.

Today is also Facebook’s 6th birthday. How many other 6 year-olds earned $300m last year, had new words entered into dictionaries, and caused moral panic?

2 Big Stories

Legg Report published

Later today, Sir Thomas Legg’s report will be published on Parliament’s website. The Guardian – MPs ordered to pay back more than £1m reports:

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Mark Pack

Two-thirds of key helicopters for Afghanistan unavailable

By Mark Pack | Sun 31st January 2010 - 11:33 am

A news release from the party pings into my inbox:

Almost 2/3rd of the RAF’s Merlin helicopters, which the Government has hailed as a key part of increasing capacity and ‘ideally suited’ to Afghanistan, are incapable of carrying out their planned missions, according to figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats.

Answers to Parliamentary Questions have shown that of the 19 RAF Merlins in the ‘Forward Fleet’ (those aircraft which frontline commands are meant to be able to use), just seven – or 37% – are classed as ‘available’ (defined as ‘considered capable of carrying out their planned missions on a given

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Daily View 2×2: 10 January 2010

By Mark Pack | Sun 10th January 2010 - 7:00 am

It’s Sunday. It’s 7am. It’s time for an exclusive peak at the next Conservative Party election poster, but first the news.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here’s are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

2 Big Stories

New Karzai cabinet snubs warlords

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