A few days ago a senior British military officer made a comment which reminded me of an old Hans Christian Andersen children's story. In the tale, some very persuasive salesmen met the king and told him they had a suit made from a magic fabric which was invisible to fools. Not wanting to appear a fool, the king accepted their story and convinced the queen and court, who all went along with the scheme to avoid being thought of as fools. The word went out across the land, and people came out one day to see the king modelling his new clothes. It took a little boy who hadn't heard the story to burst the bubble by pointing out, loudly and publicly, that the king wasn't wearing any clothes.

The officer in question is Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, the British commander in Afghanistan, who told the Sunday Times newspaper that "We're not going to win this war."
Instead, he offered a more realistic prognosis for ending what seems an open-ended affair: "If the Taliban were prepared to sit on the other side of the table and talk about a political settlement, then that's precisely the sort of progress that concludes insurgencies like this." He added that no one should be uncomfortable with the idea.

As of June this year, Britain has more than 8,500 military personnel in the country, principally in the south, where it shares responsibility with Canada and the Netherlands. Generals from these three countries rotate in command of the southern region from their headquarters in Kandahar. This is perhaps the most dangerous region for the occupiers, who daily face attacks from the Taliban as they patrol the small towns and settlements in the harsh terrain. These troops make up the International Security Assistance Force, an operation organised and run by NATO. In all, there are about 53,000 personnel from 43 countries, with the largest contingents from the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Australia.

A constant source of danger is what the soldiers on the ground call the IED - Improvised Explosive Device. It's a very lethal weapon, cobbled together from whatever explosive the insurgents can find and generally planted in the roads the troops use as they drive their cumbersome armoured personnel carriers on patrol. These devices can be triggered by wire, remotely by radio or cellphone, or simply by driving over them.

Behind ISAF is the Afghan National Army with 76,000 troops and more than 30,000 Afghan policemen who the British Ministry of Defence describe as "fully equipped and trained". However, others say both, particularly the police, have some way to go before achieving that status.

The present operation in Afghanistan began after terrorists flew planes into buildings in the US seven years ago, and was at first aimed at securing the capital, Kabul, and its immediate hinterland from the Taliban, al Qaeda and factional warlords in order to allow for a transitional government headed by Harmid Karzai. In 2003, the UN authorised expansion of the mission to encompass the entire country.

Since 2006, ISAF troops have found themselves engaged in increasingly intensive combat in the southern part of the country. The Canadians, who carry out most of the ground patrols there, have suffered 101 fatalities, including a diplomat and three civilian workers. It's become a fairly touchy issue back home, and the prime minister has been forced to agree to end the mission by 2011.

Attacks on ISAF troops in other parts of Afghanistan have increased in recent months. In fact, more foreign troops have been killed in Afghanistan this year than in any year since the foreign invaders, led by the US, ousted the Taliban.

As the body count increases, so have the calls in Western nations to negotiate with the insurgents and bring the troops home. Only the United States has called for a surge - the currently popular term for an increase in the number of boots on the ground. The US general who commands the NATO forces wants three more brigades - as many as 15,000 more troops - than the 4,000 already due to arrive in January.

The US is also passing the hat for more money towards the US$17 billion needed to beef up the Afghan army. According to the Afghan Defence Ministry, the amount it cost to maintain one foreign soldier could support 60 Afghan troops.

The UN special envoy in Kabul has endorsed the Carleton-Smith assessment. Kai Eide told reporters a few days ago, "I've always said to those that talk about the military surge... what we need most of all is a political surge, more political energy. We all know that we cannot win it militarily. It has to be won through political means. That means political engagement." The British ambassador in Kabul recently commented to a French colleague that a troop surge would only create more targets for the Taliban. The French diplomat passed this on to Paris, and the message was published in the newspaper Le Canard Enchâiné last week.

There is one major obstacle - the Taliban aren't interested in talking. Qari Mohammad Yusuf, a spokesman for the Taliban, told an Afghan news agency in Pakistan on Monday: "As we said before, as long as invader forces are in Afghanistan, we won't participate in any negotiations."

History is strewn with example after example of countries which started wars with no clear idea of why they were going into them and how they would get out. Our headline comes from that archetype of political cynicism, the 15th-century Italian political philosopher, Niccolò Machiavelli. It is something world leaders need to keep in mind more than ever, considering the extent of carnage the modern warrior can create.

Nowhere is this more relevant than in Afghanistan. This is a country with a long history of invasion by foreign forces which were forced to go home with nothing to show for their sacrifice in blood and treasure. Notable among them were the British, which had a particularly painful experience in the 19th century. That led that most patriotic of British writers, Rudyard Kipling, to ruminate:

"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains
And the women come out to cut up what remains
Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier."

- keeble.mack@sympatico.ca

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