But whilst American officials are talking to the Taliban, American special forces are also seeking out and killing many Taliban commanders. ibid.
The armies of the Coalition are all heading for the exits. ibid.
Another tragedy for Afghanistan. The country has been littered with some ten million land-mines over the last two decades of conflict. Every single day between ten and twenty people lose their limbs or their lives, mostly children and peasants. The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror, 2005
This is the story of how Britain muddled from one plan to another. The story of how the nation was not prepared to pay the price for success. But most of all it’s the story of those who had to face the consequences of a war that others had not thought through. Afghanistan: Battle for Helmand, BBC 2011
They usually found themselves over-stretched and out-numbered. The primary mission was meant to be reconstruction. So how did Britain end up at war? ibid.
The trouble started in the northern valley – volatile opium country. ibid.
Their only hope of survival was evacuation by helicopter. ibid.
Towards the end of 2006 the Royal Marines replaced the Paras. ibid.
Six months later a new brigade arrived with its own ideas and aims. ibid.
IEDs killed eighty British troops in 2009, three-quarters of the total fatalities. ibid.
Britain came here in 2006 to develop Helmand. But for every £ spent on reconstruction UK PLC has spent twelve £12 on the war. £9 billion in all. ibid.
Solutions will require non-military solutions to Afghanistan’s insurgency. ibid.
Afghan forces will take over from the British in 2015. ibid.
Are you in favour of abandoning Afghanistan to warlords and brigandry again and see what happens? ... Anything is better than imperialism, right? Christopher Hitchens, Hitchens v Galloway, Baruch College New York September 2005
I don’t think the war in Afghanistan was ruthlessly enough waged. Christopher Hitchens
This is a country that’s known war for thirty years. That may be how you know Afghanistan. I’ve been coming here for much of that time. And there’s another country too. Lyse Doucet, Afghanistan: The Unknown Country, BBC 2011
In a country where much has been lost Afghans hold on to their traditions. They never fail to honour old friends. ibid.
Afghans want to reach for something new and better. But the path to a brighter future is being made by people from a darker past. ibid.
It’s poetry night: Afghans have written and recited their stories in verse for hundreds of years. Enhanced by the grace of the Persian music. ibid.
To understand Afghanistan you have to go to Kandahar, heartland of the nation’s biggest tribe – the Pashtuns. Birthplace of the Taliban. So our moves were carefully planned. ibid.
Life expectancy in Afghanistan is around forty-five years. Around half the children are malnourished. ibid.
In lives that are for the most part determined from birth. ibid.
90% of the heroin on Britain’s streets is Afghan. Angus MacQueen, Our Drugs War: Birth of a Narco-State, Channel 4 2010
Instead, General Aminullah was sacked for accusing government officials of involvement. ibid.
In many places the drugs trade is the only source of income. ibid.
The Big Fish are often in the government or in the parliament and have real power. And these are the people and the system that we have troops in Afghanistan fighting and dying for. ibid.
President Karzai had pardoned them [five drugs traffickers] and they were released from jail. ibid.
I said in my interview that the girl that I’d arrested had been released by government officials. Next day when my interview went online the President himself issued an order to have General Aminullah investigated. I was sitting in my office when the investigators arrived. General Aminullah, televised interview Angus MacQueen, Our Drugs War: Birth of a Narco-State
He was only a guard: the Judge said so, the Prosecutor said so, I say so. Yet they sentence him like a smuggler. But those who smuggle by the lorry-load with convoys of opium and heroin none of them get arrested. Or when they are, they don’t stay arrested; it can’t be done. In this country power is in the hands of a few. The government is theirs. The drugs Mafia controls government. Everyone knows the Mafia rules; the government belongs to the Mafia. I want you to know this. Afghan defence lawyer, reacting angrily to sentence of penniless client for sixteen years plus fine
The Western’s policies against the opium crop – the poppy crop – has been a failure. They did not result in any damage to the Taliban. But they put farmers out of work. They alienated people. And drove people into the arms of the Taliban. And the US has wasted hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars on this program. And that is going to end. We are not going to support crop eradication. General Richard Holbrooke
It didn’t take long for the Taliban to fall. Frontline: Top Secret America, PBS 2011
The Taliban was broken. Al Qaeda was hiding in the mountains. And the military had lots of prisoners on their hands. Frontline: Bush’s War I, PBS 2008
Can Afghanistan be won? Frontline: The War Briefing, PBS 2008
Today there are 33,000 troops in Afghanistan ... It’s a tenuous holding strategy. ibid.
Without significant ground forces to fight all the factions American and NATO forces have relied on air strikes to fight the war. ibid.
The bombing campaign has taken a toll on the Afghan population. Civilian deaths have doubled over the last two years. ibid.
The tribal areas provide the Taliban and al Qaeda with a sanctuary where they can plan and plot attacks. ibid.
It’s become the unlikely target and obsession of some of the world’s greatest empires and superpowers. Afghanistan: The Great Game – A Personal View by Rory Stewart I, BBC 2012
In 2001 an America-led Coalition invaded Afghanistan. ibid.
It had never encountered a non-Muslim power as alien as Britain. And yet in the 1830s Afghanistan was perceived as it is believed to be today to be an immediate threat to British national security. ibid.
The Russians called it the Tournament of Shadows. The British remember it ... as the Great Game. ibid.
Britain had taken a decisive step and placed an army of occupation in this distant and unlikely land. ibid.
By 1841 Britain’s choice of leader had been a disaster. ibid.
The British empire never had and never would experience a defeat like it. ibid.
In the late 1870s Russians again appeared in Kabul, and a new generation of British hawks decided the only response was again to invade. ibid.
It was about the fears of empire. ibid.
An un-winnable war. In the twenty-first century a US-led coalition attacked and is still mired there. In the nineteenth century it was the British empire who invaded and suffered an agonising defeat. Afghanistan: The Great Game – A Personal View by Rory Stewart II
A war costing $130 billion a year. ibid.
The new Communist President ... announced a new manifesto of staggering ambition: secular education, equality for women. ibid.
A few months after the Afghan communists took power 12,000 Afghans had been arrested, put in Kabul prisons and then executed. ibid.
A plan to covertly supply weapons across the Pakistani border to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan – but only weapons that could not be traced back to the US. ibid.
It became the largest covert operation in US history. ibid.
The Russians began to call this conflict a War of Mines ... They felt they were fighting an army of ghosts. ibid.
You can never honour soldiers by piling more corpses on top of their head. ibid.