Afghanistan -Time to set some objectives

Staying on the Afghanistan subject there is much comment in the papers this morning following the deaths of three young soldiers in a suicide bomb attack on Sunday which brought British casualties to 100.

The Times leader starts to question whether we should be there at all given the paralysis of the Afghan state

Britain’s forces in Helmand deserve nothing but our admiration, thanks and praise. The same cannot be said of the civilian governance bequeathed by that historic Loya Jirga. Five years on Kabul’s writ scarcely extends beyond the city limits. Warlords retain control of most northern provinces. The Taleban have quietly reimposed Sharia in Kandahar. What civil service existed in 2001 has defected en masse to serve the tangle of aid agencies that constitutes Kabul’s main industry. In rural Afghanistan, opium rules. Corruption, everywhere, is rampant.

The Guardian gives the same argument

Troops fighting with great commitment and bravery in extreme conditions would be better served if politicians were more modest in the objectives they set and clear about the possibility - and consequences - of failure. It has never been agreed whether Britain is in Afghanistan primarily to protect British interests, fighting terrorism and opium cultivation, or to assist in the reconstruction of Afghanistan; or what would happen if, as looks likely, the mission falls short on all these tasks. Success, of some form, may still be possible, if western commitment lasts. But the confident language still used here has little to do with the reality of the country, seven years after the fall of the Taliban

It is an emotive subject and politians from all sides have shyed away from questioning what we are doing there as it has been seen as an attack on our armed forces.

Perhaps now it is time to set some objectives for all the coalition forces out there