Justice there is not

It is a while since we visited the EU extradition treaty, the last time being in 2007 when we reported the case of Joseph Mendy, a black Englishman who fell foul of the Spanish police and the European Arrest Warrant.

What was particularly chilling at the time, with Frank Dobson having called an adjournment debate, was the response of the Parliamentary under-secretary of state for the Home Department, by name of Meg Hillier. "We have to have faith in our European partners," she said. "There are safeguards in place to ensure that each European country has a proper legal and judicial process to take such decisions."

Someone who most certainly will not agree with those fine sentiments is Andrew Symeou, who was deported to Greece last month to await trial for murder, where he was not allowed bail because he is not domiciled there.

This case is picked up today by Christopher Booker, under the heading "EU extradition treaty means British law no longer protects us".

He reminds us that, in 2001, when EU leaders gathered in Laeken, Belgium, to plan their next great leap forward to European integration – the ill-fated EU constitution – they also agreed on what they saw as another bold symbol of their wish to see Europe politically and legally united: the European Arrest Warrant.

At the time, our leaders were fired by the recent 9/11 outrage – or using it as yet another beneficial crisis – and agreed that the courts of any country could call on those of another to order the automatic extradition of anyone suspected of offences under 32 headings, with such crimes as terrorism, drug-running and "xenophobia" high on their list.

Even then, as we well recall, fears were expressed that such a summary shortcutting of normal legal procedures might lead to serious injustices. Not all of the EU's judicial systems (to put it mildly) rest on the same ideas of justice.

But even those most worried about the dangers of this system, writes Booker, could scarcely have imagined a case like that involving the extradition to Greece of a 20-year old British student, Andrew Symeou.

There follows a tale of skullduggery and violence by the Greek police which Booker recounts in full but, despite Mr Symeou's case was taken up by various bodies including Fair Trials International, Liberty, Open Europe and the UK Independence Party, their actions have been to no avail.

With politicians of the three main parties pointedly refused to get involved, in June this year, two High Court judges proposed that the case should go to the House of Lords because it raised legal issues of "public importance". But the Law Lords refused to hear it because it did not raise "an arguable point of law of general public importance".

So it was that on 23 July, Mr Symeou was deported to Greece, where he was not allowed bail because he is not domiciled in Greece. He was imprisoned for some days in concrete cells in Zakynthos, locked up with illegal Albanian immigrants in intense heat and taunted for being British, until he was last week transferred to another prison near Athens.

His parents, allowed to speak to him through bars, say he is not taking his ordeal well. He could be held in prison for up to 18 months before trial, although this week his Greek lawyer hopes to win a further plea for bail.

Concludes Booker, little could Tony Blair and his fellow European leaders have imagined in 2001, when they blithely agreed to strike a blow against terrorism by agreeing to the Arrest Warrant, that this was what it would come down to in practice.

All traditional British beliefs in protecting the liberties of the subject have been thrown out of the window. Mr Blair – and all those other politicians who acclaimed the Arrest Warrant and have refused to comment on Mr Symeou's case – can really be proud of what they have done.

But then, what is the liberty of British citizens – or even justice – when compared with the inestimable benefits of our membership of the European Union?

COMMENT THREAD

News values

In projecting the progress of the counter-insurgency in Afghanistan, metrics most commonly by the media are the deaths of British soldiers and, more generally, the deaths of other coalition troops. Further "downstream" are reports of the deaths of Afghani citizens, both civilians, members of the security forces and such categories as security guards.

In the hierarchy of death, however, we have long been aware that there has been a ranking applied by the popular media – the emphasis (quite understandably) given to British troops. Much less attention is given to other nationalities and, down the scale, are incidents involving Afghanis, which are often completely unreported.

Much the same applied to the campaign in Iraq, to the extent where the death of even quite prominent Iraqis went unreported, sometimes dropped in favour of more prominent events, especially those with a domestic political content.

This, I remarked upon in Ministry of Defeat, in one instance noting that the murder of a prominent Sunni and his son in Basra – and the kidnap of five others - had gone unreported. The British media had focused on Tony Blair giving evidence to the House of Commons Liaison Committee, where he had been asked whether life was then better for the citizens of Basra than it had been pre-war.

This came up during the Frontline Club meeting yesterday, as an example of my unreasonable criticism of the media, the argument being that the news value of the Blair evidence far outweighed the murder and kidnap of a few Iraqis, even if these crimes had been committed by men in civilian clothes and police uniforms, in a fleet of 10 "official" cars with no number plates.

This, incidentally, had coincided with a six-hour curfew being imposed in Basra in an attempt to stem the growing tide of violence and a report that oil smuggling in southern Iraq had reached epidemic proportions, costing the country an estimated $4 billion a year, followed by yet another report of a rocket attack on a British base – none of which were reported in the British media.

What I had not realised, however, was that the ranking was quite formally structured. In the early days, of the occupation, one news organisation imposed a "tariff", reporting events only if they involved one dead British or American soldier, or five Iraqis. But, as the violence increased, the bar was raised where, to qualify for inclusion in a news report, three US soldiers or 25 Iraqis had to be killed. A British military death, of course, was always reported.

This, in my view, undoubtedly distorted British public perception of events – and indeed misled journalists. Relying on the metric of British military deaths as a comparator, in May 2005 Guardian journalist Jonathan Steele actually wrote that the insurgency barely existed in the south, it having been "quiet for months". British troops could pull out immediately, he declared.

Undeterred, the media is playing the same games in Afghanistan. We know, of course, that the reporting of British troops has been extremely high profile, with the toll reaching 22 for the month.

Yet, in the last two days, four Afghani soldiers have been killed in Helmand, their lives ended by an IED which hit their vehicle, and – in two separate incidents, eight and then four Afghani private security guards were killed, also by roadside bombs in Helmand, the first incident injuring four others. None of these incidents have been reported by the British media. You will have to turn to the official Chinese news agency Xinhuanet for details.

This news, however, is highly significant, for several reasons. First, it points up the perilous insecurity of the roads, where the death toll is actually far greater than the British media would indicate. Secondly, it reminds us of an important, but again ill-reported dynamic – that the Taleban is by no means confining its attacks to foreign security forces. The Afghan forces are at greater risk than our own.

Nor indeed are just the security forces are risk. There is also a steady and largely unreported toll taken of construction workers, another incident recently reported in Khost. And just over a week ago, 13 Afghan road construction workers were kidnapped in Paktia.

All these issues have a much wider significance. On the one hand, the strategic plan for Afghanistan is progressively to hand over responsibility for security to Afghan forces and, on the other, much depends on the coalition and aid agencies being able to deliver reconstruction. Where both the security forces and construction workers are so much at risk, neither is going to happen, even discounting the unreliability of the local police.

The other significant issue here – one we have noted before – is the media-supported demand to increase helicopter lift for British troops, to enable them to be transported without using the road network, to keep them out of harm's way. Yet, that very process – effectively abandoning the network to the Taleban – could delay progress, by exposing local security forces and others to greater risk.

Meanwhile, in Lashkar Gah, in the city's main bazaar, turban seller Haji Lala says Taleban black is still the most popular colour. "Everyone wants black, like the Taleban. I sell 40 or 50 a month." It may be an indicator of where ordinary people think the province is heading, notes Australian writer Jerome Starkey.

Whichever way the province is heading, it seems not unreasonable to aver that we will not find out from the British media. Whether it is even reasonable to suggest that they should tell us is another matter. The very firm view I heard expressed on Wedenesday was, effectively, that it was not. What matters, it seems, are news values – not the actual news.

COMMENT THREAD

A mighty kick?

The triumphalism and euphoria of the (not the) Conservative Party over the Norwich North by-election is only to be expected of a tribal system where winning is all. However, since the winner took only 18 percent of the popular vote, this is not so much a victory as a sign of a political system in crisis.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, we see an uneasy Charles Moore, who seems to be more than usually on form of late. He writes:

And I am sure that the Conservatives' focus groups tell them that, beyond thinking well of Mr Cameron, voters do not recognise the Tory "signature" on anything much. In 1978/9, they would have known that the Tories promised something different on taxes, inflation, trade unions, and the Cold War. What do they know now? Nothing terrible, but also, nothing much.

The vagueness of these impressions might not matter politically if in fact the Tories did know what they wanted to do. But where are they on terror, "human rights", our constitutional decay, health service reform, local government, energy, our relations with America, the undeclared war in Afghanistan?

This blog has rather gone overboard on the Afghan issue, but it is one which has considerable political traction and has a totemic significance far beyond the narrow geographical confines of the conflict – from which many broader lessons can be drawn.

Yet, apart from – some might say – a cynical exercise to exploit the very narrow issue of helicopter shortages, we have seen little input from the Conservative Party in general, reflected in a remarkable paucity of debate on the Tory-supporting blogs.

From the flagship Tory blog, for instance, we have had but one clumsy intervention and little more. By contrast, debate on the Labourlist site has been far more active, albeit on the forum rather than on the main blog.

Something of this must surely stem from the tendency of contemporary politicians to steer the debate in directions they want it to go, rather than address the issues that concern real people in the real world. But the lack of political discourse on a subject that has dominated the headlines for the best part of three weeks can do nothing but reinforce the sense of disconnect between the political classes and their claques and ordinary people.

The evasion of reality, of course, stretches far beyond Afghanistan, not least into the pressing issue of the economy where it is growing evident that there are extremely tough times ahead. And, with tough times come tough choices, which will require bold political leaders with a strong mandate from the country.

Whatever the victory at Norwich North was, it was not an expression of support of and confidence in the Conservative Party. Eighteen percent does not a mandate make. And, if that is in any way replicated at the general election, we face the prospect of a government lacking the moral authority to make the tough choices that will be needed – assuming even that there is the basic competence which will enable the right choices to be identified.

The immediate repercussions are difficult to predict, but while our protests lack the élan of the Gallic street riots, the things we do well in this country are sullen resentment and mulish stubbornness. Against that, even the brutish violence of our increasingly militaristic and insolent police force will find it hard to prevail.

Mr Cameron may, therefore, be cherishing his victory this weekend, but one can't help but feel that the mule is eyeing him up for a mighty kick.

COMMENT THREAD

Not a funding issue

It is easy to get seriously tired of the prevailing narrative, which is spreading like swine flu, completely out of control. A typical example comes in The Northern Echo, with an exclusive interview with Robin Fox, managing director of Northern Defence Industries – also a colonel in the Territorial Army, recently returned from active service in Afghanistan.

Mr Fox should know something about this issue from his unique perspective as a defence contractor and soldier. And he has absolutely no doubts as to the cause of the helicopter problem, declaring that the procurement system has cocked up in getting enough rotary wing assets for use in (Afghanistan). "We know well the story of the Chinooks that have sat in a hangar for years because nobody got it right," he says," but why the hell didn't we buy a shedload of Black Hawks from the Americans, which are cheaper and better than the alternatives?"

That we did not, according to Fox, is "a load of political nonsense." He then argues that the helicopter shortage is a symptom of "a greater disease across the support that is given to our troops on operations. It's a lack of funding across the whole… not just for helicopters."

As always though, this is just extruded verbal material – all you have to do is the basic arithmetic. Future Lynx is currently costed at £1.7 billion for 62 helicopters, with deliveries starting in 2014. A batch of 60 Blackhawks would cost £600 million and, with an order placed in late 2006 or early 2007, it could be in service now.

For a down payment, the £185 million spent on the six Danish Merlins could have bought the first batch of 18 machines, without raiding the Future Lynx fund.

The £100 million wasted on the Pinzgauer Vector would have bought another ten, the £166 million wasted on the useless Panther could have bought another 16 – with some change left over. The £314 million wasted on the "Trigat" anti-tank missile could have bought another 31 and, with the change left over from the Panther added, another machine could have been squeezed out of the system. Hey! That comes to 58 - we're nearly there, and we still have not touched the Future Lynx fund.

Over and over again, we have to repeat that this is not a funding issue. As long as the MoD procurement system is so wasteful and inefficient, there will always be cash problems, but throwing more money at the system just generates more waste. The Merlins are not only expensive to buy – they are extremely expensive to operate, at £34,000 an hour – a point made by Ann Winterton in today's letter column in the Telegraph.

For decades to come, therefore, these helicopters will be a hidden drain on the defence budget, soaking up money that could be spent elsewhere. The same will apply to the Future Lynx. While a Bell 212 costs £2,000 an hour to operate, the current (Army) Lynx models cost a staggering £23,000 an hour. The Future Lynx will perpetuate this waste. Even to contemplate £1.7 billion on a mere 62 helicopters is a higher kind of madness.

Perpetuating the "underfunding" narrative, therefore, is a cop-out. As with every other public sector organisation – from the NHS to the police and everywhere else – throwing money at a problem solves nothing. It has not worked with the NHS and it will not work with defence. The driver must be value for money, from which it is painfully evident that there is actually no shortage of cash – simply grossly inadequate management of the funds available.

Then, that is the malaise right through the public sector and one could argue that, if we get defence spending right, the lessons learned could be applied across the board. Purely on NHS procurement, billions could be saved without in any way touching service provision. But, as long as the insistent bleat of "underfunding" drowns out the sound of money pouring down the drain, we will get nowhere. It really is time the debate moved on, before we too follow the path our money is taking.

COMMENT THREAD

Yet another triumph

The report that British soldiers have launched a major airborne assault on a Taleban stronghold in southern Afghanistan should, on the face of it, be good news.

The operation, codenamed Panther's Claw, involved more than 350 troops from the Black Watch who were dropped into Babaji, north of Lashkar Gah, just after midnight local time on Friday. Twelve Chinook helicopters were deployed, backed by a formidable array of airpower, including Apaches, a Spectre gunship, Harriers and UAVs.

The aim is to secure a number of canal and river crossings in the area to establish a permanent ISAF presence in what was previously a Taleban stronghold. Royal Engineers are now constructing checkpoints on the main routes in and out of the area, to be occupied by the Afghan National Police, established to hinder movement by insurgents.

More on Defence of the Realm.

A lack of focus

Today, the domestic political focus will be on the election of the Speaker in the House of Commons, an event that will absorb much time and energy both of the media and the political classes.

That this election should be necessary and that so much attention is being devoted to it, however, demonstrates how inwards-looking our politicians have become – all at a time when great events should be demanding theirs and the nation's attention.

Not least is the violence in Iran following the rigged election but, of direct and immediate importance is the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan where there is a sense that events are coming to a head. And with so little reporting in the British MSM of actual events, there is also a sense that we are sleepwalking into another disaster, the effects of which are incalculable.

What is particularly remarkable though is that after the flurry of publicity over the weekend and the urgent and important issue of inadequate vehicles supplied to our troops, but politicians and the media had slipped back into their normal torpor, ignoring what seems set to become a major crisis.

That is not the case with the US media, where the Washington Post devoted a lengthy article to the situation in Now Zad, which we recorded in one of our Sunday pieces.

Today we also see Associated Press reporting on the same area, with an account of some of the ongoing fighting, all under the headline, "Afghan firefight shows challenge for US troops".



Written by Chris Brummitt, he offers an eyewitness account of an operation where, "Missiles, machine guns and strafing runs from fighter jets destroyed much of a Taliban compound," but he then records that "the insurgents had a final surprise for a pair of US Marines who pushed into the smouldering building just before nightfall."

As the two men walked up an alley, we are told, the Taleban opened fire from less than 15 yards, sending bullets and tracer fire crackling inches past them. They fled under covering fire from their comrades, who hurled grenades at the enemy position before sprinting to their armoured vehicles.

We then learn that the assault capped a day of fighting Saturday in the poppy fields, orchards and walled compounds of southern Afghanistan between newly arrived US Marines and well dug-in Taleban fighters. It was a foretaste, writes Brummitt, of what will likely be a bloody summer as Washington tries to turn around a bogged-down, eight-year-old war with a surge of 21,000 troops.

Significantly, though, Brummitt also agues that the fighting was on the outskirts of Now Zad, "a town that in many ways symbolises what went wrong in Afghanistan and the enormous challenges facing the United States. It is in Helmand province, a centre of the insurgency and the opium poppy trade that helps fund it."

The point, of course is that, in 2006, the town of Now Zad was a British responsibility yet, as Brummitt records, British and Estonian troops, then garrisoned there, were unable to defeat the insurgents. They were replaced last year by a company of about 300 US Marines, who lived in a base in the centre of the deserted town and on two hills overlooking it.

Even now, a year later, the Taleban hold much of the northern outskirts and the orchards beyond, where they have entrenched defensive positions, tunnels and bunkers. The Marines outnumber the Taleban in the area by at least 3-to-1 and have vastly superior weapons but avoid offensive operations because they lack the manpower to hold territory once they take it. There are no Afghan police or troops here to help.

"We don't have the people to backfill us. Why clear something that we cannot hold?" said Lt-Col Patrick Cashman, commanding the battalion occupying Now Zad and other districts in Helmand and Farah provinces, where some 10,000 Marines are slowly spreading out in the first wave of the troop surge.

Cashman says the Marines did not intend to allow the Taleban free rein in parts of Now Zad, but was unable to give any specific plans or time frame for addressing what he acknowledged is "a bad situation."

For all their better equipment ands resources, therefore, the US Marines – who have now been in-place for over a year – do not seem to be making much more headway than the British before them, with the same limitations on "Clear, Hold, Build" that the British Army is experiencing – the subject of some criticism.

The trouble is that, in a country the size of France, with Helmand roughly the size of Wales, there are never going to be enough troops to hold the territory. That suggests that the basic approach being adopted by both the US and British is flawed. Although it might be fine in theory, on practice it is never going to happen, in which case we really should be looking at an alternative strategy – or admitting defeat and getting out altogether.

This makes Afghanistan a highly political issue yet, where there is any attention being given to foreign adventures, our politicos are looking at pre-war Iraq. But, as Peter Hitchens in the Daily Mail remarks, "Who needs an inquiry into the Iraq War? It's over. Nobody will be brought to justice. Isn't it time Parliament debated our dubious involvement in Afghanistan, and sought to end it?"

Despite this, we all know this is not going to happen. The Speaker's election will get a hundred-fold more time and attention, and the Iraq inquiry has already had far more attention than current operation in Helmand. This lack of focus is dangerous – to the troops on the ground and to us as a nation. For our neglect, there will be a price to pay.

COMMENT THREAD

A "loathsome charade"

Monday last, the BBC's Jane Corbin in Tehran was trilling with enthusiasm about the then upcoming Iranian elections, telling us that the challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi was seen as the biggest threat to Ahmadinejad.

So the legend then went that young people who had never bothered to vote before would embrace the message of change and attempts to secure better relations with the West and turn out at polling stations in large numbers.

As the contest loomed closer, so the BBC racked up its propaganda, positioning it as a "Big test for Iranian democracy". Thus, it made out that this was a normal election, telling us that it appeared that " more and more Iranians, inspired by strong views for or against President Ahmadinejad, want to have their say on 12 June in the country that boasts that it is the most democratic in the Middle East."

Some two weeks before it was still making out that this was a genuine political race, even though only four out of 475 candidates applying had been allowed to stand by the mullahs.

Then, on the day, the BBC's Jon Leyne in Tehran was breathlessly reporting that it had "become an extraordinary day, at the end of what has been an extraordinary election campaign." As soon as polls opened in Iran, Leyne told the world, "it became clear that the enthusiasm of the last few days has been translated into what is likely to be a huge turnout. There were queues snaking round the block from many polling stations."

In fact, it was all a sham. According to eyewitness reports from 25,000 polling stations across Iran, the real voter turnout was 7.5 million, and more than 85 percent of the 51.2 million eligible voters boycotted what was being described locally as "the mullahs' sham presidential election."

No international observers had been allowed access to monitor the elections and, such was the grip of the mullahs that before even the polls had closed, a confidential directive was issued by the regime's supreme leader Ali Khamenei announcing voter turnout at 35 million and declaring Ahmadinejad the winner in the first round.

To maintain the fiction of a popular election for the likes of the BBC, the number of ballot boxes in central Tehran were reduced, forcing those few voters who turned up to wait in lengthy queues ready for the foreign cameras. But in the rest of Tehran most polling stations were deserted throughout the day. The number of voters in most such parts was less than the number of state security forces present. Even the appearances of young people in streets was misinterpreted by the BBC as signs of enthusiasm. They were actually muted protests against a regime that was quite cynically rigging the election.

Also misinterpreted by the BBC and its ilk was the extension of the voting deadline announced by the Interior Ministry. Reported as a measure to allow the crowds to vote, in fact it was to give time to complete it programme of delivering partially filled ballot boxes to the polling stations.

To stop the word spreading, the government closed down the SMS text messaging networks and, even though the registered electorate stood at 51.2 million, some 57 million ballot papers were distributed. Members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the paramilitary Bassij Force and other state bodies were then issued with millions of fake identity cards or IDs of dead people, and told to get the vote out.

Suddenly, guest Afghan workers and other people without identity cards were given IDs and small sums of money and told to vote for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Thus were regime officials and state media able to announce turnout in many villages that exceeded 90 percent.

All this passed by the BBC, leaving Booker to report today that the election was a sham battle between rival factions of a regime as ruthless as any in the world, in which the real power is exercised by the gang of hard-line mullahs. He describes it as a "loathsome charade".

As so it has come to pass that Tehran has erupted in riots at the "rigged" election. Defying official orders to stay off the streets, protesters shouted "Death to the dictator" and hurled rocks at riot squads. Police dispersed the crowds, beating up both male and female protesters. But by nightfall there were still sporadic disturbances across the capital, with palls of smoke rising across the skyline from burning tyres.

Needless to say, the BBC maintains its spin to the last. Forced to report the riots, it still managed to head its report: "Ahmadinejad defiant on 'free' Iran poll", telling us that Ahmadinejad had defended his "completely free" re-election. And to the last, it is maintaining the fiction of a closely fought election, still telling us that there were long queues at polling stations on Friday, "with turnout reaching 85 percent".

All the BBC will now allow, as a concession to the reality, is Jon Leyne to report that the result "has been greeted with surprise and with deep scepticism by many Iranians." Quite how this once respected institution manages to get its reporting so skewed, and so wrong, is one of those modern mysteries. But, in its coverage of Iran, it seems to be excelling itself.

COMMENT THREAD

This is so boring …

When is David Cameron going to grow up - if ever?

If ever a man misjudged the mood of the nation, it is he. This is a leader of the opposition, against possibly the worst government in living memory, who has just gone through a major national election where only one in ten of the electorate actually turned out to vote for his party.

Having watched part of the "debate" on the prime minister's statement, to watch Brown make his proposals and then to listen to Cameron deliver his fatuous response is to invite embarrassment and frustration in equal measure.

Back in October, we wrote a piece entitled "This is not a game". Away from the political claque, ordinary people are sick to the hind teeth of the empty, vain posturing from our politicians, and the bear garden of the Commons chamber. If a local pub got that disorderly, the landlord would be calling out the police.

Mr Cameron needs to latch on to that figure. Only one in ten voters in this entire nation voted for him. Nine out of ten, therefore, did not. He is not engaging, he is not carrying the nation with him. He is not speaking to them or for them.

We'll cover the debate when the transcript is up on Hansard, but what the written record does not convey is the truculent, smug and puerile tone of a man who can only attract the support of ten percent of the electorate. One in ten may be happy with his performance but, if Cameron is to carry any weight, he needs to speak to the other nine.

COMMENT THREAD

A sense of proportion

"I find it so distressing to hear lavish praise being heaped upon the procurement of vehicles that are potential death-traps and to listen later to expressions of condolence to the families of those who have perished in them."

Thus said Ann Winterton on Thursday (pictured below right), to a near-deserted Commons debating chamber, addressing on the government benches the minister of state for defence, Bob Ainsworth (below left).

Spoken from the heart, with more than a hint of anger, that went entirely unrecorded by the MSM which 24 hours later was to be engulfed in a "day of drama", precipitated by the sudden resignation of James Purnell. Little did we know that, by the end of the next day, John Hutton would have resigned and been replaced by Ainsworth as the new secretary of state for defence.

Why Hutton should have resigned so suddenly is not known. He claims "family reasons" but nothing is that simple in politics and, with only eight months in office, he had barely begun to make his mark. For him to leave at what is a crucial moment in the Afghani campaign, however, can hardly help matters. Unsurprisingly, his action has been described by Field Marshal Lord Bramall, former CDS, as a "dereliction of duty".

Back on the Thursday, Ann could hardly have guessed that she was addressing that man soon-to-be-king, when she complained to Ainsworth about the all-important "protected vehicle fleet" in Afghanistan, using General Dannatt's words to describe it as "unbalanced".

There were, she said far too many other vehicles in service (or about to arrive) without the basic mine protection afforded by the "v-shaped hull", those including the Coyote, Viking, Tellar and Warthog - and the Jackal (pictured above, being driven by John Hutton).

It augers ill that Ainsworth, now in the dominant position, did not get the point. The hon Lady, he said, "must accept that we cannot put all our people into the same kind of vehicles. We have to give them a range of different vehicles of different sizes."

There is no way that Ann was arguing thus. Simply that all military vehicles in a part of the world where mine strikes and IED blasts are tragically common should be suitably protected. It is not part of the case that the choice should be restricted to that which are available – the point being that better vehicles are required to supplement the range.

Ainsworth, though, ploughed on regardless, heedless of this point, picking up the arguments Ann had offered about the Jackal which, she averred, "highlighted the failed concept of bolting on armour, as proved by the American Humvee vehicle."

Repeating the tired and discredited mantra which he had been fed by his advisors, Ainsworth launched into its defence, declaring: "We have to try to mitigate the effect of using a smaller vehicle and that can be done only to a degree. The main protection of the Jackal is its massive manoeuvrability; it does not have to go down the well-trodden path. If the hon. Lady goes to theatre, she will know that it is a very well thought of vehicle among all ranks."

This invited the obvious retort from Ann: "I would not like to hazard a guess as to how many young men have been killed in it unnecessarily," she told Ainsworth. But the now defence secretary would not leave it there. "The hon. Lady is suggesting that there is some easy alternative that would give our people the capability that they need to do the job and yet remove if not the entire risk, a lot of the risk associated with the Jackal. I do not believe that she is correct."

Ann showed her anger once more. "I hope that the right hon. Gentleman does not think I was born yesterday," she responded. "War is bloody and people get killed in it, but what is desperate is the fact that this country has not supported its soldiers in conflict with the right kind of vehicles, which can be obtained, and has instead made major mistakes in procurement."

While we would not attempt to argue that the recent events have not been important, the "drama" embraced so enthusiastically compares poorly with the real-life struggle that lies out of sight and out of mind, ignored by an indifferent media and uncaring politicians – the real world where men and women are dying needlessly because of mistakes made in London by people who should know better – mistakes to which Ann was seeking to draw attention.

The stark peril facing those men and women is underlined by an article in The Daily Telegraph today, but as no more than a curiosity, detached from the political process.

Written by the paper's stringer, Ben Farmer, he records that troops in Afghanistan "are facing a major increase in the number of roadside bomb attacks as a surge of reinforcements has forced insurgents to shun direct attacks".

This is based on a Nato report that the incidence of IEDs has jumped 80 percent and last year killed 172 international troops. Hundreds more Afghan police, soldiers and civilians have been killed and maimed. Then cited is Gen Richard Blanchette, spokesman for the Nato-led forces, who says: "This is very serious business for us."

He adds that the increase was prompted by insurgents changing tactics and an influx of international troops patrolling on the ground, telling us that, "They are using this as a last measure".

The piece also tells us that armies including the British have been forced to abandon lightly armoured "patrol jeeps" and Snatch Land Rovers, and spend hundreds of millions of pounds on heavier, more cumbersome armoured protection. Yet, it then continues, "despite these efforts, casualties have still dramatically risen", with this year 28 British troops having been killed, 21 by bombs.

Had the paper tied in this piece with last Thursday's debate, the issue would really have come to life, as Ann Winterton told of the wasted money, the poor designs and those procurement mistakes, all explaining why the "efforts" in Afghanistan have not met with complete success.

Perhaps, like this blog, Ann was "too strident" and "too sanctimonious", or perhaps she is simply too detached from the real "drama" of politics. After all, how can the unnecessary deaths of soldiers begin to compare with the "tumultuous" events – as they have been described – of the last 24 hours?

One must, after all, keep a sense of proportion.

COMMENT THREAD

History repeats

MP Bill Cash has "some very serious questions to answer" in relation to his expenses claims, Conservative leader David Cameron said.

This is according to The Guardian which reminds us that the MP for Stone, Staffordshire, claimed more than £15,000 in expenses to pay his daughter rent for her London flat.

We are thus told that Cameron, speaking outside Keswick Police Station in Cumbria, said: "I think Bill Cash has got some very serious questions to answer and he needs to answer those questions."

Suddenly, there was this flash of déjà vu. We've been there before. This is "Cash for questions" all over again.

COMMENT THREAD

Low politics

As usual, the claque has today avidly followed the drama of PMQs, blogging every minute of them and coming up with their fatuous score cards.

But, while the "high politics" of the weekly joust between the prime minister and the leader of the opposition grabs the lion's share of attention, scarcely any notice is taken of the boiler room(s) – the select committees where the important work of parliament is, or should be done.

However, when it comes to "value for money", this is where Parliament should be earning its keep, scrutinising in detail the policies of government and their implementation, in recognition of which the chairmen of the committees are paid an extra £20,000 a year over and above their normal parliamentary salaries.

When it comes to the Defence Committee, therefore, not only does its chairman James Arbuthnot get his swimming pool cleaned at the expense of the taxpayer (although he is repaying that), he also gets an emolument for a part-time job which is more than most people earn.

It is all very well raising Cain about MPs' expenses, therefore, but it would help if some note were taken of MPs' salaries, what they actually did for their basic pay and then – where there are generous add-ons – whether they delivered value there as well.

In respect of the Defence Committee, however, we have averred that the MPs and chairman give very poor value for money, a defect which probably applies to most committees, as was picked up recently by The Times, if only in terms of attendance records.

What brings this to a head once again is that the journal Defence Management has reported the Panther story, in particular picking up on what we broke last night, their story going under the heading: "£20m for upgrades to undelivered vehicle".

DM records that the MoD has paid millions to BAE for urgent upgrades to the Panther command and liaison vehicle (CLV) on top of the nearly £160m it has already spent in procuring the vehicles, and notes that, "The revelation that the MoD had to pay extra for upgrades before the vehicles were ever delivered or introduced to troops will only add to the growing criticism of the nine year old programme."

The fact that this is a "nine year old programme" is in itself remarkable but the longevity has also afforded the Defence Committee ample opportunity to examine it, not least because the vehicle is taking so long to introduce into service.

Yet, while the redoubtable Ann Winterton has been highly critical of the machine (without extra pay), we can find no trace of the Defence Committee ever having looked at the project. All I can find is one member of the committee, Robert Key, complaining that the Panther is not to be issued to the Royal Military Police. (This is the same Robert Key who, incidentally, welcomed the introduction of the Vector).

This is only one project on which the committee has dropped the ball, pleading that there are too many issues to cover. Yet, as with most of the committees, it is very rare to see a "full house" during evidential sessions, which makes you wonder what the MPs are doing with their time.

When it comes to issues it chooses, the committee has just announced that it is to conduct an inquiry on the contribution of "ISTAR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance) to operations" – even though it completed a very similar inquiry last year. One can but wonder at the priorities, especially as this is an area where the military, if anything, seems to be getting its act together.

The broader point which arises from this, though, is the old one of quis custodiet ipsos custodes? We can create all sorts of elaborate controls to stop MPs from abusing their expenses system. But how do we make sure they do their jobs properly? As the man said of the "custodes" … "qui nunc lasciuae furta puellae hac mercede silent. Crimen commune tacetur."

COMMENT THREAD

Pratting about

As the political claque indulge in their endless prattling, with ever-more detailed scrutiny of their own navels, the real world goes on.

In that real world, real people die because these wastrels cannot concentrate on the jobs for which they are paid, one of which is to ensure that our troops are properly equipped, fighting to a workable strategy which has half a chance of success, and that the people running the show are properly scrutinised and brought to account.

I cannot estimate how much time and energy has been spent inside and out of parliament discussing MPs' expenses, but I can tell you exactly how much time has been spent on the floor of the House discussing current military strategy in Afghanistan – precisely none.

Thus we get the wages of neglect. MoD website, item 1:

It is with great sadness that the Ministry of Defence must confirm that one British soldier from 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles and one member of 173 Provost Company, 3rd Regiment, Royal Military Police have been killed in Afghanistan.

MoD website, item 2:

It is with great sadness that the Ministry of Defence must confirm that a British soldier from 2nd Battalion The Rifles was killed in Helmand province yesterday evening, Thursday 7 May 2009.

MoD website, item 3:

It is with great sadness that the Ministry of Defence must confirm that a British soldier from The Black Watch, 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, was killed as a result of a gunshot wound in Afghanistan today, Thursday 7 May 2009.

Four soldiers in one day. We have been writing for months that the situation was going belly-up … it is going belly-up. The first two were caught by a suicide bomber, in a market area of Gereshk district. Twelve civilians were killed and 32 injured as a Snatch Vixen patrol was targeted, the two killed soldiers having dismounted.

In the next incident, we have a Jackal driver killed, the sixth soldier now to be killed in this "boy racer" toy. Of the soldier shot, we are still awaiting more details. And the "fighting season" is yet to start.

Yesterday, we had an inquest into the death of Jason Barnes, the fifth and hopefully last soldier to be killed in a Vector.

Major Joe Fossey, an explosive expert from the Royal Engineers, described the front cab as "mangled beyond comprehension". "The front axle punched up and there was a buckling of metal" that had "crinkled it like a crushed Coke can". Capt Boyd described the driver's side of the vehicle a "complete mess". Cpl Barnes suffered catastrophic wounds with the front plate of his body armour blown away.

The vehicle has now been withdrawn - £100 million pissed up against the wall for a useless killer of men. And just three newspapers bother to report it, in short, down-page items. None of them tell us it was a 6kg mine. The minimum specification for a Level I MRAP is protection against 7.5kg. If the MoD had bought decent vehicles, the man would have lived.

Yet The Daily Mail report has as its headline, "MoD vows to 'learn lessons' after death of soldier ….". And the "lesson" is? The same day that the US Army rejects the International MXT, after failing the mine resistance test at the Aberdeen proving ground, the MoD orders 200 at a cost of £120 million.

The MoD is pouring money down the drain. It is spending £93,000 each on dune buggys - the US forces buy theirs for $18,000. We fly Harriers which take 60 manhours maintenance per flying hour, compared with a quarter of that for an F-15. It is planning to buy Lynx helicopters for £14 million each. The comparable US helicopter is lighter, faster, can carry more, costs less than half that amount and is available off-the-shelf. We can have our overpriced garbage in 2014.

And where the hell is Parliament in all this? Where is the political blogosphere? When the hell are these prattlers going to stop wasting their time and ours on personality politics, as Jeff Randall complains, and get down to some serious politics, scrutinising the hard issues … such as why our troops are dying in Afghanistan, with some of the military warning of worse to come?

COMMENT THREAD

Different realities - 3

The official reports do not always give the locations of the strikes but, for the date, Monday 4 May, the closest match tells of Navy F/A-18F Super Hornets and an Air Force B-1B Lancer being called to carry out air strikes during an engagement between anti-Afghan gunmen and Afghan national police. The jets hit several enemy fighting positions and a compound in which enemy personnel had gathered after the fight.

This is the attack which, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) "killed dozens of people, including women and children" in an area near the village of Granai in the Bala Baluk district of Farah province, Afghanistan. The same source claims that the deaths arose during fighting between the Afghan National Army, backed up by international military forces, and "armed opposition" which had taken place in the area on 4 May.

The ICRC, however, "was not in a position to know whether armed opposition fighters had been in or near the houses when the air strikes took place, as it had not been on the spot at the time." Thus the spokesman for the organisation said: "We will now try to learn as much as we can about exactly what happened and then raise our concerns in bilateral dialogue with the parties to the conflict."

The New York Times adds detail to the account, telling us that villagers reached by telephone said many were killed by aerial bombing. Muhammad Jan, a farmer, said fighting had broken out in his village, Shiwan, and another, Granai, in the Bala Baluk district. An hour after it stopped, the planes came, he said.

In Granai, he said, women and children had sought shelter in orchards and houses. "Six houses were bombed and destroyed completely, and people in the houses still remain under the rubble, " he said, "and now I am working with other villagers trying to excavate the dead bodies."

One reporter "on the spot" is Patrick Cockburn, writing for The Independent. Actually, though, his dateline is Kabul, more than 400 miles from the scene as the jet flies, or well over 500 miles in a tortuous drive by road. But, at least, he is "there".

Cockburn has his own brand of reality, which does not allow for doubt, thus permitting his newspaper to offer the headline, "'120 die' as US bombs village", with the strap: "Afghan outrage after strike targeting Taleban fighters hits women and children."

"A misdirected US air strike," he writes, "has killed as many as 120 Afghans, including dozens of women and children." The attack, he adds, "is the deadliest such bombing involving civilian casualties so far in the eight years since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan."

Cockburn, however, in contrast with the IRCC and the NYT, tells us that the air strike was on the Tuesday, called in by US Marine Special Forces supporting the Afghan army. He then relies on an account retailed by "local residents" via "Afghan officials". They put their children, women and elderly men in walled compounds in the village of Gerani, which is three miles from the scene of the fighting and where they thought they would be safe. It was these compounds which were then attacked from the air and most of the people sheltering inside were killed.

"Dozens of dead bodies were seen in the two locations we went to," says Rohul Amin, the provincial governor of Farah. He told The Independent that "the dead numbered over 100". Villagers brought 30 bodies, including women and children, in a truck to Mr Amin in Farah City to prove it had happened.

As one might expect, The Guardian has its own version of reality. Under a headline, "Afghanistan police operation leaves devastation behind", its man "on the spot", Jon Boone - also in Kabul – has the village named as "Geraani", without putting a date to the incident.

In his account, the villagers of "Geraani" and another in Gangabad had just finished their breakfast when the Taleban came to their town to collect a so-called tax on the area's poppy farmers.

Unfortunately for the people of the lush agricultural area in the western province of Farah, the cavalry arrived two hours later in the form of the Afghan police and army, backed up by US bombs. By seven in the evening, many houses had been turned into piles of rubble out of which the villagers pulled their dead.

Some locals estimate the death toll at up to 200. The Red Cross, the only international observers to have thus far visited the area and reported on what they saw, say "dozens" of people were killed, including many women and children.

Village elder Hajji Issa Khan from Gangabad may be more precise because throughout yesterday his tractor was used to carry the dead to a central area where the villagers could mourn their dead and bury them immediately, in accordance with Islamic custom. "In this operation there were 127 people killed. I can tell you exactly because my driver was carrying those … people to the centre of the town and he came and told me that he carried 127 people."

As to the background, Boone relies on district police chief Haji Khudadade. According to him, a huge number of militants – about 400 – put up a fight and had 130 Afghan forces surrounded. He said the Afghans had no choice but to call in air support, a call that the US military was quick to point out was an Afghan decision taken at the highest level of the military command. The provincial police chief, Ghafar Watandar, then says the Taleban deliberately used the villagers as human shields.

To ring the changes, Jeremy Scahill, writing for the Huffington Post has yet another version of reality. He writes of, "a US bombing massacre that may have killed as many as 130 Afghans, including 13 members of one family." At least six houses were bombed, we are told, and among the dead and wounded are women and children. And the US airstrikes happened on Monday and Tuesday.

The Washington Post, now reporting on an Obama government, has Greg Jaffe, its staff writer in Kabul, writing on yet another version of reality. Jaffe has the top US commander in Afghanistan sending a joint US-Afghan team to investigate the airstrikes "that killed more than two dozen people".

Jaffe also quotes a US defence official, speaking "on the condition of anonymity", saying that "the Taleban went to a concerted effort to make it look like the US airstrikes caused this." The official did not offer evidence to support the claim, and could not say what had caused the deaths.

The BBC, on the other hand, reports protests in the streets in Farah "at the deaths of civilians in US air strikes earlier this week". But it also cites a "Pentagon official" saying it was not clear who was to blame for the death of the civilians. "Initial American investigation shows that some of the deaths do not seem to be in concert with how a civilian would die from an air strike," the official says.

But it also has one protester, Haji Nangyalai, 42, declaring that he was demonstrating to "show our anger at the crimes committed by the American forces". "We ask the Afghan government to force the American forces to leave Afghanistan. They kill more civilians than Taleban," he says.

Associated Press has its reporters, Jason Straziuso and Lara Jakes – datelined Kabul – citing a "former" Afghan government official saying that up to 120 people may have died. If so, the pair observe, it would be the deadliest case of civilian casualties since the 2001 US-led invasion. But it cites top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiern. He is allowed to say: "We have some other information that leads us to distinctly different conclusions about the cause of the civilian casualties."

A senior US defence official then adds that Marine special operations forces believe the Afghan civilians were killed by grenades hurled by Taleban militants, who then loaded some of the bodies into a vehicle and drove them around the village, claiming the dead were victims of an American airstrike.

Afghan police add that 25 Taleban died in the fighting, which began Monday and lasted until early Tuesday. It was unclear whether they were among the dozens of bodies witnessed by the Red Cross.

Then again, we have a different brand of reality from the Wall Street Journal. It cites Col Greg Julian, the main US military spokesman in Kabul. He says that a US-Afghan investigative team was in Farah, with the results of its investigation expected today. "I'm pretty sure the high numbers of casualties are not going to prove true," he says.

Of course, the other reality is that Obama is in talks in Washington with presidents Karzai and Zardari. The Taleban is nothing if not media aware, and skilled at manipulating the Western press.

And, to contrast two of the different realities, while The Guardian tells us of the Taleban coming to their town to collect their so-called tax on the area's poppy farmers, with the "cavalry" arriving two hours later … backed up by US bombs, the WSJ has a completely different version.

According to this source, with writers Yochi J Dreazen and Peter Spiegel in Washington, the disputed airstrike incident began Sunday when Taleban militants publicly beheaded three villagers. When Afghan forces went to investigate, they came under attack and radioed for help to nearby US forces. A US quick-response force went to the area, but was also attacked. The American troops then called in air strikes on locations believed to house the fighters taking part in the hours-long gun battle.

From the look at it, according to this version, the whole affair is compatible with the Taleban having planned a deliberate set-up, to coincide with the Obama talks, deliberately to muddy the waters and create hostile publicity – a classic propaganda coup.

But then, what do we know? We weren't there. But neither were any of the reporters and, from those who were there, we get confusing, conflicting stories of uncertain accuracy (some, possibily deliberately so). In the battle for hearts and minds, though, the truth hardly matters. By the time the "real" reality emerges, no one will believe it anyway. In war, it is the perception that counts. That is the reality.

COMMENT THREAD

Another day … another GBU

On our uniquely "ill-informed" and "out-of-date" blog, we are unable to deal with the real political issues that are so important. Instead, we fritter away our life energy on trivial and inconsequential tat that the media quite rightly discards.

Thus today, we looked at the latest instalment of the venture that is set to cost the British taxpayer some £3 billion this year, fully appreciating that this is of absolutely no interest compared with the pressing issue of today.

Nevertheless, even we raised our eyebrows slightly at the latest available airpower summary from the USAF, which told us of the events in that haven of security and peace that is Lashkar Gah, in Helmand province, Afghanistan, where our blood and treasure are so freely expended.

From this source, we are told that, on 30 April a US Navy F/A-18C Hornet responded during firefights between anti-Afghan forces and combined Afghan national army-coalition units in the vicinity of Lashkar Gah. The jets employed GBU-12s to hit enemy positions in response to their mortar, RPG and automatic weapons fire.

In the same area, a coalition aircraft strafed an enemy improvised explosive device team. The aircraft engaged after detecting anti-Afghan personnel setting up a "daisy-chained," multiple-explosive IED. The aircraft used guns rather than a precision bomb to prevent damage to the roadway.

A Navy F/A-18E Super Hornet executed a show of force over anti-Afghan forces shooting at a coalition unit in order to suppress their fire. When the enemy shooters were not deterred, the jet hit their position using a GBU-38. Some surviving enemy personnel continued firing, but fled after the jet performed an additional show of force.

Of course, "the problem with all information that the military releases to the public, like the US Air Power Summary, is that it does not contain the context necessary to interpret its information appropriately."

For that, one presumes, one must imbibe the latest MoD press releases telling us how wonderful things really are (if there were any). After all, we get Super Hornets screaming up the High Street in Wibsey virtually every day, dropping GBUs and strafing the pub-goers as they spill out onto the road after closing time – so we should not take much notice of these "out of context" reports.

Alternatively, we could rely on another "ill-informed" and "out-of-date" journalist, this one James Palmer writing for the New Jersey Star Ledger newspaper.

Palmer, in fact, is writing what could be taken as an upbeat piece, charting the construction boom in Lashkar Gah. He finds "dozens of sprawling new villas" springing up, each with "gleaming glass windows, wraparound balconies and gabled rooftops that sit behind tiled walls." Then there are, "towering hotels and vast commercial centres, sturdy piles of fresh brick sealed with thick slabs of mortar."

The headline to the piece, however, gives the game away: "In Afghan construction boom, reflections of corruption", it reads. Palmer tells us that town residents and local officials offer two reasons for the boom: drug trafficking and government corruption.

"Many of these new big houses and commercial buildings belong to high-ranking government officials and drug smugglers," says Mohammed Enwar Khan, who heads a group of elders acting as liaisons between residents and the government, commonly known as the provincial council. Khan says the link between their illegal activities and their wealth is an open secret here, saying simply, "Everybody knows this."

Another local, Ramazan, a 48-year-old mechanic, who adds that the drug traffickers and crooked politicians are enriching one another. "Everything here depends on money and power," he says. "The smugglers have the money and the officials have power."

Then we get Sadar Wali, a 30-year-old poppy farmer from Helmand's Nawa district. He offers a sobering explanation of how the Taleban now work: "They tax our crops however much they want by sending notes to the houses," Wali says. "If you don't pay, they will accuse you of spying for or working with government and kill you."

That much and more from Palmer tells you that the glowing picture of "peace and stability" in the so-called "security zones" is an illusion. The Taleban move freely within the town, running extortion rackets, intimidation, murder and kidnap, many of the incidents not crossing the radar of the coalition forces safely ensconced in their fortress on the edge of town.

And of course, as long as the farmers pay their "taxes" to the Taleban, and the drug lords building their new palaces in the town pay their homage, the Taleban do not trouble them. They do not foul their own nest, indulging in their violence out of town where, occasionally, they meet Navy F/A-18E Super Hornets in full flight.

One wonders, incidentally, whether the author is the same James Palmer who last October wrote a piece for The Guardian describing how the once showcase project, the $190m Kandahar to Kabul highway had become the most dangerous stretch of road on the planet.

Government and military officials, recorded Palmer, say insurgents and bandits regularly pull travellers from their vehicles, murdering or kidnapping them for ransoms. Corrupt government security forces seek bribes and collaborate with insurgents and robbers. Roadside bombs frequently target Afghan police and military patrols, along with Nato convoys. No one in an official capacity can even quantify the violence.

Thus, what started as the road to recovery has turned into a highway of terror in Afghanistan. A project that was to bring economic prosperity has become a symbol of failure. The road is littered with burned-out green police pick-up trucks, 4x4 vehicles, Nato supply trucks and demolished bridges.

No doubt Palmer is "ill-informed". His piece is undoubtedly now "out-of-date" and, in any case, to draw any conclusions from his information is to take it "out of context".

Those three descriptors seem to be the layered defence adopted by the military and officialdom. Either the information is wrong in one or other detail, in which case the writer is "ill-informed" and can be ignored. If the information is correct, it can be dismissed as "out-of-date". The situation has moved on, so the information is no longer relevant. Or, failing that, where the information is both correct and relevant, it is "out of context". Then too, it can be ignored.

However, what is interesting about Palmer's road experience is that we have been there before. In a number of remarkable studies of the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, one in 1988 and the other in 1995, produced by the US Army, graphic accounts were offered of what the Russians called the "highway war" - dorozhnaia voina.

In these studies, it was reported that the favourite tactic of the Mujahedeen guerrillas was to interdict the movement of troops and supplies of all types over the limited road network throughout Afghanistan. Interestingly, that was also a favourite tactic of the Viet Minh in French Indo-China during the 1950s, with epic convoy battles on the infamous RC4, with accounts chillingly similar to those written by Russian troops twenty years later.

Unsurprisingly, this carried over into the Vietnam conflict with both the Viet Cong and the NVA adopting the same tactics. In 1968, however, after a major loss, it was then realised that, far from being a drag on operations, convoy and route protection should be used as an opportunity to bring the enemy to battle on favourable terms, defeating them in detail in the war of attrition that characterises counterinsurgency operations.

As was later recounted in the current counterinsurgency doctrine, "A change in thinking about a logistic problem converted the perception of convoy operations from an unglamorous defensive activity into a valuable opportunity to offensively engage elusive insurgents."

What is staggering, therefore, is that in 2008, thirty years after the Russian experience, and forty years after US tactics were adjusted to deal with similar threats, our modern, technological, "superbly equipped" coalition forces are still getting caught out.

It is not that the Taleban have suddenly adopted new, especially effective tactics. They are simply doing what the Mujahedeen did before them and, before that, the Viet Cong and the Vietminh. What has changed is that our own forces have forgotten the lessons of their own history, and ignored the lessons and experiences of others, even to the extent – with the Americans – of their ignoring their own doctrine manual.

So it is with the "take and hold" strategy which the British so proudly proclaim and hold up as an example of progress in Lashkah Gar. The Taleban simply move in, in "mufti", change their tactics and prepare to wait for the day when some anonymous bean counter decides that the level of troops is no longer needed. Then, the Taleban, who never left and never changed, simply pick up their weapons and takeover … again.

As we write in our latest response to the troubled "Praetorian", success in dealing with insurgencies comes when people begin to see the balance of advantage in supporting the government as greater than in supporting (or tolerating) the insurgency.

If on the one hand, the people see the coalition forces creating their "security bubbles" in the towns, which merely create the conditions for the drug lords to flaunt their wealth, while the Taleban range freely, practising their extortion, kidnap and intimidation under the noses of the authorities; if the people see that the coalition cannot even protect the main transport routes; and if the people see the rural hinterland become the playground for free-range F/A-18C Hornets and the like, this is not an insurgency which is going to be defeated.

Such is the situation though that any "debate" requires us to agree wholeheartedly with the authorities, otherwise you are branded "negative" and "defeatist". On the other hand, we see political and public disengagement, media indifference, and MoD concealment, plus criminally inept strategy and procurement.

Meanwhile, we have allowed ourselves to become a bit player in our own destiny and our national security is now entirely in the hands of the United States. And their answer is, another day, another GBU – with, all too often, dire results.

COMMENT THREAD

Corporate self-deception

After last week's piece, Booker returns to the subject of Afghanistan with a vengeance this week, taking on the man signing himself "Praetorian", claiming to be the Operations Officer for 3 Commando Brigade which has just returned from Helmand.

It was last week that Booker argued that "our military humiliation in Afghanistan is a scandal - and the cover-up is an even greater one," under a strap line, "The under-funded British Army is being forced to make the same mistakes in Afghanistan that it made in Iraq". Praetorian did not so much disagree as simply, in lofty style, dismiss Booker's arguments outright, stating that he did not recognise the situation that Booker described, claiming he was "out-of-date and ill-informed."

We are not at all ill-disposed to argument and discussion, although a rebuttal was denied us when The Sunday Telegraph published two lengthy comments from Praetorian but failed to post either of the comments I had placed on the site. What is not acceptable though is this lofty dismissal, claiming with the authority of rank and position and on the basis of supposed experience, a situation that simply does not accord with the facts.

Thus it was that Praetorian had it that we – the British military mission - had secured the five major population centres in Helmand and the Provincial Reconstruction Teams had "exploited this security to deliver tangible, effective and sustainable reconstruction and development." During our tour, the man added, "you could count the number of security incidents in these areas on the fingers of your hands."

That tour, as we recounted in a separate post, started on 8 October and, within days of taking over, in just one of those "major population centres" – Lashkar Gah – the Brigade was pitched into battle with major Taleban forces attempting to take over the provincial capital. With US and Canadian forces called to assist, an additional 1400 Afghani troops were also drafted in and it took ten days of continuous fighting before victory was declared.

During the rest of the tour, noted by Booker in today's piece, we were able to identify 69 further "security incidents" in just that one "major population centre", set out in another post. Not all of these were centred on the town itself and some were recorded as part of ongoing operations by the Brigade. But the detail indisputably gives the lie to the impression Praetorian sought to give – that the areas under British control were secure. The evidence shows that they are far from secure.

Booker also shows, with an account of the threat to RAF Chinooks which provide a vital support role, just how tenuous is the grip of British forces in the province, the details rehearsed in our post and also in The Daily Telegraph yesterday.

Far from offering the security to the Afghanis that Praetorian claims, the British forces have major problems of their own. We are, basically, one major incident away from a monumental domestic crisis of confidence which could castrate the military effort and lead to the termination of our participation in the ISAF operation.

Whether Praetorian is lying, or not, is moot. He certainly labours under the handicap of working for an overarching organisation, the MoD, which lies freely, an organisation which distorts, prevaricates, bullies and "spins" to the extent that, amongst those who know, it has lost any confidence or trust.

Further, within the military, fresh from its debacle in Iraq, we see a dysfunctional organisation, unable to come to terms with its own failings – or even the fact that it has failed – locked in a state of denial from which its seems unable to escape. This is an organisation that has lost more credibility that it can begin to imagine.

Most likely though, Praetorian sufferers from the very problem of which he accuses us – he is ill-informed. But there is much more to it than that, helpfully elucidated in a paper carried by Small Wars Journal reproduced from the Marine Corps Gazette.

Analysing the pressures on the military to come up with optimistic assessments of its own performance, author Bing West makes the following observations:

In sum, garbage and lies reside inside any large organisation in the form of optimistic forecasting. A healthy human mind accentuates the positive. Thus, we stress that a particular surgery has a 90 percent success rate, rather than to admit there's a 10 percent chance of dying. We hold onto our losses when the stock market goes down, because selling is an admission of failure, even when it's the rational choice.

Similarly, it's especially tough for a commander to objectively assess his own battlespace. Hence there is a need in the Afghanistan war for an independent risk assessor who can expertly calculate the rough odds of succeeding in the mission of nation building versus the size of the US force commitment.

In his paper, Bing discusses various metrics used in different conflicts to assess performance and likelihood of success, demonstrating that flawed choices, or incomplete data, can distort perceptions – either way. Praetorian, within the "bubble" that he inhabits, no doubt has his own set of metrics in which he is entirely confident, allowing him to make his assertions in the sincere belief that he is right.

However, the problem in an insurgency – certainly in the "guerrilla warfare" phases - is that incidents tend to be widely dispersed in space and time. Most areas, most of the time, will be free from violence. Furthermore, the enemy is highly adaptive, changing tactics rapidly in response to security force action, altering the tempo at will, in accordance with counterinsurgency activity.

This we have seen in Iraq and see again in Afghanistan, where the response to a failure to tackle the security forces head-on led to guerrilla tactics, relying on the ambush, the bomb and harrying indirect fire – plus the tactics of the urban guerrilla, which include extortion, murder, kidnap and intimidation within the civilian population.

Thus, the only way one can get a "feel" for which way the insurgency is going is to assess the totality of available information. And because the metrics are constantly changing, there us a need for intuition as well as hard analysis. Since so much depends on public sentiment, both here and in Afghanistan, that is as valid a tool as any.

Nevertheless, one metric alone speaks of failure. During March, the number of roadside bomb attacks in Afghanistan for the first time exceeded the number in Iraq, with 361 bombing incidents recorded, compared with 343 in Iraq. That, in itself, tells you that the Taleban is active and had not lost its core strength.

On the other hand, a metric often quoted in support of claims of "success" is the "fact" that seven million school-age Afghans were this year studying in 12,600 schools across the country. When compared with about one million six years ago, this is seen as a real sign of progress.

However, it is still the case that roughly half of Afghan children - mostly girls - are still not in school. And the overall situation is extremely fragile. For instance, we are told that insurgent attacks and crime killed around 70 Afghan teachers, students and education workers over the past year, and wounded another 140. Violence linked to the insurgency also stopped 240,000 students from attending school, mainly in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

There have also been multiple attacks on schools over the past years with scores of buildings burnt down or blown up, as well as students and teachers threatened. About 480 schools are still closed because of insecurity and, although the government reopened nearly 100 this year, keeping them – and other public facilities - open is becoming a major part of the battle.

The latest in this battle came on Friday 1 May, when the Taleban blew up a health clinic in the Lakan area of Khost province, eastern Afghanistan. Four rooms were completely destroyed. In another incident, a high school serving over 1,300 students was dynamited in Nadir Shahkot district of the same province. Seven out of 18 classrooms were destroyed. This is the third school to be destroyed in the past month in that district.

Another metric – one favoured by the media – is the death rate for coalition soldiers. Here, there is less than good news. On Friday also, five soldiers were killed – three American and two Latvians. They were attacked with small arms and RPGs at an outpost in Kunar province near the border with Pakistan. About 30 troops were stationed at the outpost and several others were wounded.

Two days before that, a German soldier was killed and nine were injured in two separate attacks in the northern Kunduz province, where the army is suffering more frequent insurgent assaults. The soldier who died was killed in a roadside ambush, with four injured. The other five were injured in a suicide bombing – but only slightly. They were in a Dingo MRAP.

German officials now admit, "It's become more difficult there [in Kunduz] than it was four years ago," and, as if to emphasise this, on Friday evening there was another roadside bomb in the same province, damaging a police vehicle. Fortunately no police were killed or wounded.

Earlier, on 18 April, a Taliban commander was killed after he led a raid on a police checkpoint in the province. Police returned fire, killing the rebel commander. In the neighbouring Baghlan province on 27 April - where it is normally peaceful - Taleban fighters stormed the Birka district headquarters and set it on fire.

That week, on the Tuesday, a British soldier was killed north east of Gereshk by an explosion, while patrolling on foot. Additionally, two civilians were killed and seven others, including five children, were wounded when a rocket hit a residential area in the Lashkar Gah district – another of those "security incidents" that isn't supposed to be happening.

These "security incidents" are breaking out with increasing frequency. Also that week the US military battled with Taleban southwest of Kabul in the strategic province of Logar - the site of a multi-billion-dollar Chinese project to develop a copper mine. Ten insurgents were killed.

Elsewhere, in the British sector of Helmand, on the same day, Afghan and US forces killed five Taleban in Nahr Surkh district. The joint force had been attacked from several compounds while on a reconnaissance patrol, and had returned fire.

Through such metrics, the impression gained is of a country on the edge. But most disturbing of all is a recent report in The Independent indicating that the flood of aid continues to be misspent. Apart from anything else, 40 percent of the international aid budget is returned to aid countries in corporate profit and consultant salaries

Far from improving the lot of Afghanistan, conspicuous spending by the elites and foreign workers is increasing the disparity of wealth. And, with the rural aid programme stalled, displaced workers and refugees are pouring into the city, a dispossessed, poverty-stricken mass that is a natural recruitment ground for the Taleban. Not for nothing was Kabul referred to in a recent Channel 4 documentary variously as a "city under siege" and a "city waiting for the Taleban".

The problem is that no one seem to be able to get a grip, thus leaving the "bubble dwellers" like Praetorian mouthing their mantras and relying on their flawed metrics, convincing themselves – but few others – that they are doing a marvellous job.

In a repeat of Iraq, we can see them still doing it as the British Army packs up its bags and leaves Afghanistan for the last time, defeated again but refusing to accept it. Unable to confront the reality of the situations it has to deal with, it prefers the cosy world of make-believe where the word "defeat" has been abolished.

COMMENT THREAD