Afternoon:
10°c
Gayle Williams, the British aid worker shot dead by the Taliban, was buried at the weekend, a day after another Briton, David Giles, was murdered in Kabul together with a South African colleague. Meanwhile, the last remaining members of 2 Para returned from their tour in Afghanistan, a deployment that has seen casualty levels of one in three. So what better time for John Hutton, the new Defence Secretary, to remind us all of how essential British participation in the Afghan conflict is.
You'll recall that when, as part of an international coalition, we went into Afghanistan, it was not simply to defeat the Taliban and its allies al Qaeda. No, the aim was to lift this benighted land out of its medieval mire. There was to be the shock of true equality for women, followed by the awe of democracy.
Funny how we don't hear much about this any more; instead, Hutton reminded us that the men of 2 Para were laying down their lives because it was "vital for national security". And yes, there would need to be a British Army presence for decades to come. But hang on a minute, why is it vital for the security of an island half a world away that British men and women should be shot and maimed in this mountain fastness?
Hutton and all the other apologists for the Afghan adventure argue that Afghanistan under the Taliban was a training ground for international terrorists, and it's they who represent the dreadful threat. The truth is that al Qaeda and its affiliates operate anywhere where there's Muslim resentment against the West, whether it's Barnsley or Baghdad. All shoving them out of Afghanistan resulted in was they shifted their operations into Pakistan. Now Pakistan is almost a failed state (and one with a nuclear capability), its democracy winnowed out by corruption and Islamism, the former perpetuated by America's client elite, the latter actively encouraged by its own "security services". As for Afghanistan, its "democratic" government is headed by the brother of a drug baron, while its writ doesn't even run as far as the ever-spreading poppy fields. If Pakistan is a failed state, Afghanistan is a narco-state, and you would have thought that Hutton, a minister in the European country with the biggest per capita population of heroin addicts, would be alive to this irony. If he isn't, it's because he and his ilk remain little people trying to play the Great Game.
The likes of Gayle Williams and David Giles bought the lie that force of arms would make Afghanistan safe for humanitarian aid and commercial employment; for their families I feel great sympathy and sadness. But the injured and dead men of 2 Para had no choice: they were obeying orders. They and their families deserve a better explanation than the shop-worn mantra that this war is "vital for national security".
A potent Brand of outrage
I suspect Russell Brand's licence to outrage won't be revoked by the BBC despite the grotesquely offensive messages he left on Andrew Sachs's answer phone. Some find Brand an enigma - but not I. He interviewed me for his Radio 2 show when I was in Los Angeles in June, and while I was waiting outside the studio I could hear him doing his usual shtick with some has-been actress: a mixture of puerile sexual innuendo and ... more puerile sexual innuendo. Yet when he spoke to me he was smart, engaged and polite.
With his raggedy hair and skinny limbs Brand looks like the struwwelpeter of the collective British unconscious. Perhaps that's his real appeal: like Jonathan Ross, his fellow phone prankster, Brand is a kind of man-dolly, at once babyish and sexually potent. If you squeeze his soft tummy an obscenity pops from his pouting lips. He can't help it - so surely it's up to us children to stop squeezing?
The RA's iconic new vision
To the Royal Academy for a preview of its Byzantium show. It was the icons I was there to see - and they are truly fabulous, beautifully painted and exhibiting a stylistic approach to the human figure far in advance of comparable Western art. The Academy has dimmed the galleries to resemble the interior of an orthodox church, and it's a nice conceit; after all, if in our secular country art is the new religion, and those who go to galleries its worshippers, then why not go the whole hog? The only worry is that just as with Byzantium itself, the RA could experience an outbreak of iconoclasm, with people smashing the graven images of their gods. But come to think of it, since the only real British deity is money - the worship of which consists in consumerism - the arty zealots will probably confine their destruction to the gift shop.
Reader views (4)
The credit crunch is here - the economy is on it's knees & everyone is skint - Messers Ross and Brand have invented a way of getting paid many thousands/millions of pounds by making stupid puerile phone calls, funded by the masses through the (obligatory) license fee.
Everyone wants a public hanging to take our minds off the dismal state of the country & rightfully so - I'd be the first person in line to pull the trapdoor lever.
- Marcus,, Maidenhead, UK, 29/10/2008 11:11
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Typical hypocritical idiocy from the 'die hard leftie' who sends his kids to private schools.
Will Self's books are full of far more obscene and unpleasant things than a prank call. Maybe we should stop buying his books, which, to echo his own trite metaphore, is the equivalent of squeezing his disgusting, drug-wasted tummy to see the sewage which for some reason he manages to pass off as novels.
- John James, London, 29/10/2008 09:38
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It is absolutely devastating to see these key aid workers being murdered by fanatical mindless pack animals. Once the opium crop is substituted for a food crop or a Bio ethanol fuel crop I feel the solution for the Afghan people will be part resolved. The security solution will still be outstanding but at least seeds of change will be implemented to educate and transform the lives of the people.
- Ryan Tate, Leeds/Bradford, 28/10/2008 15:16
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WS is right to point out the futility of our presence in Afghanistan. As he notes, Islamic extremists from Hackney and Halifax are far more of a danger to us and our way of life than those in Helmand. Consider the view, too, that the Taliban, for all their dire primitivism, are fighting for what they regard as their homeland. Imagine lorry-loads of Afghan troops patrolling the streets of London; Afghan jets making 'erroneous' airstrikes on British weddings, etc. I know exactly what I'd be doing in such a situation, no matter politicians back in Kabul branding me an 'insurgent' or 'terrorist' or whatever the word is for the local fighters these days. So, yes: bring back our brave troops to deal with the real menace, which is a lot closer to home than lurking this 'mountain fastness'.
- Mike Collins, London, UK, 28/10/2008 11:37
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