Gordon Brown’s Afghan adventure

By Jeremy Corbyn MP

Gordon Brown’s trip to Afghanistan last weekend was more of an adventure holiday than a dramatic political journey. He attempted a strange combination of Churchillian presence and Rambo-style military involvement. But this isn’t likely to convince anyone of the justice of the cause or the political sense of the direction he is taking.

In his lengthy statement to Parliament, in which he curiously linked the outcome of the EU council of ministers meeting with his visit to Afghanistan, he seemed to indicate that his mind is set on a permanent long-term war.

Brown pledged yet more helicopters, equipment and support for the British troops based in Afghanistan and made emphatic statements about how “victory” will be achieved over the “enemy.”

He justified all this on the basis that the war in Afghanistan makes our city streets safer. Under pressure, he was forced to acknowledge the corruption and inadequacy of the Karzai government. But he then launched into a colonial-style message that the local administrations in Afghanistan have got to improve, adding that he expects to see much closer co-operation between Afghanistan and Pakistan over the disputed Durand line.

For someone who knows so much history, it is surprising that Brown doesn’t recognise that the Durand line and the division of the Pashtun people is a product of the break-up of British India.

During the exchanges in Parliament, when MPs spoke with varying degrees of knowledge about equipment and the need for more helicopters, Brown was rattled by a telling question from Paul Flynn.

I quote:

“Very recently, seven Taliban attacked a convoy that was being protected by 300 members of the Afghan army. Almost all those 300 fled the scene immediately and one of their generals said that they have no motivation to risk their lives for an election-rigging president, for their own country or for the international community. The Afghan police are a lawless bunch of depraved thieves. Does the Prime Minister really believe that we can build a solid security service on those collapsing foundations?”

Brown went on to repeat his mantra about the need to win the war and added that the treatment of women in Afghanistan remains very, very bad. I asked him to explain why a conflict in its eighth year shows no prospect of ending and at what stage he would undertake a political solution. This question was met with the argument that “the streets of my constituency are much safer because of the war” – although not in so few words.

The reality is that ever since the invasion of Afghanistan and the illegal war in Iraq, the relationship between British Muslim youth and the police has been damaged. If we are to achieve a cohesive society in Britain, it requires a cohesive approach to cultures and values all around the world.

Last Sunday, Tony Blair more or less admitted in an interview that his real aim was regime change in Iraq, despite his very many utterances to the contrary in the run-up to the war. This indicates that the whole Iraq cover story is unravelling.

Although there is a sort of poetic justice about this, millions have been displaced, lives have been ruined and innocents have been killed while the arms manufacturers, dealers, security companies and construction giants have done extremely well for themselves.

Last weekend the Iraqi government conducted an auction of its oil fields to the world’s biggest oil companies, which gleefully snapped up their spoils of war. There is something chilling about the experience of the last eight years in which the public has been fed a daily diet of militarism and conflict, backed up by the government’s spurious claims that it is protecting them.

This week a Ministry of Defence conflict and security analyst was brazen enough to say that British military planning has to be about how we can secure land, natural resources, and food-growing potential for ourselves in the future.

It seems that the warmongers are in the ascendancy. However, preventing wars, conflict, death and destruction is surely the only strategy for a meaningful future in which we protect the environment, share resources and do not blame or marginalise the poor for their own poverty.

This post was also published at the Morning Star.