"Our Troops in Afghanistan Betrayed"

Max Hastings is a rara avis: an msm journalist who instinctively understands and supports the military. Unlike many, if not most, of his journalistic colleagues, Hastings is no knee-jerk anti-war jerk but a thinking journalist (and military historian) who, over more than two decades, has reported on the British armed forces worldwide, always sympathetic but never afraid to give constructive criticism when warranted. In the current edition of The Spectator he argues that British forces in Afghanistan are trying to fulfil a difficult task which is likely to end in failure because of inadequate resources, misconceived operational planning and a lack of political support.

Earlier this week, Crumbling Spires reported the concerns of senior army officers over inadequate equipment and lack of political support. Hastings adds some detail.

The junior Foreign Office minister, Kim Howells, asserted earlier this week that as far as he knows the army has everything it wants to do its job in Afghanistan. This is only the latest in a long series of disgracefully disingenuous government statements. The only reason the army is not crying from the rooftops for more helicopters in Afghanistan — there is no point in sending more men unless there are means to deploy them — is that the resources do not exist. Thus far, the government has not attempted the only possible measure that would help on the margin — leasing more heavy-lift helicopters on the open market...

Equally worrying is the "hideously misconceived" operational plan which places servicemen's lives in constant danger.

Small British detachments have been deployed in ‘platoon houses’ at key local centres, to provide visible support for the local authorities. The concept made political sense, but represented military folly. The platoon houses have provided fixed points for the Taleban to attack, and they have done so with persistence and growing skill. Rockets, mortar bombs and small arms fire have rained down on the posts, inflicting a steady stream of casualties. All resources are committed to supporting and supplying these little bases, together with providing casualty evacuation. To get a company in or out of its positions at Musa Quala, for instance, requires the commitment of the entire British battlegroup.

To illustrate the human cost of such tactical folly you have to root about in the local press, for example the Derbyshire Times, in the UK midlands:

[Lance Corporal Jack Dallas'] job was to help protect local villages from the Taliban, the British soldiers were under fire every day and it was during one of these attacks in July that Jack was shot. The bullet hit him in the back — narrowly missing his spine, heart and lungs — and after a week in an army hospital, he was flown back to Britain for treatment and is still recovering at his home in Kent.

Hasting's entire article makes many more serious points about the politics and strategy of British involvement in Afghanistan than I have highlighted here. It is required reading for anyone who wants top understand how our servicemen are coping in Afghanistan.