Afghanistan Debate. Why aren't Tom Tughendhat and Tobias Elwood in more senior Government posts

[life on mars]

Re: Afghanistan Debate. Why aren't Tom Tughendhat and Tobias Elwood in more senior Government posts

Trump of course started the rot.

But he only announce the final troop withdrawals a fortnight before the inauguration. Biden could and should have changed this decision in those first days when in a blaze of publicity he signed those various executive orders reversing other things that Trump had done.

There will be much criticism of this government over this debacle, much of it justified. But once America had decided to leave there was little we could do. I heard somewhere on TV that Boris Johnston had tried to get a group of other countries to try and step in but no one was interested. No idea how true this is.

And before Trump Obama made the same troop withdrawal quote to apease public opinion the only difference is its on Bidens watch, its not a huge force they have the same troop numbers in Europe and South Korea.
Biden could have made his win choice and kept something in place in the name of peace for innocent women and children.

[surge]

Re: Afghanistan Debate. Why aren't Tom Tughendhat and Tobias Elwood in more senior Government posts

Global Britain? The UK now have a frosty relationship with the USA and Europe leaving them either reaching out to nations who aren't concerned about human rights or shouting in a chamber trying not to admit it can't actually do anything.

[Seabird]

Re: Afghanistan Debate. Why aren't Tom Tughendhat and Tobias Elwood in more senior Government posts

Is Tobias Elwood related to you?

[life on mars]

Re: Afghanistan Debate. Why aren't Tom Tughendhat and Tobias Elwood in more senior Government posts

Perhaps we should listen to Richard Burgon who along with 18 others such as Corbyn , Diane Abbott and John McDonnell who have signed a letter asking fir to reparations costs to be paid by the British government.

Now before we judge Boris unfit , please draw a breath and consider the other option of who could be in charge

No wonder we have a fruit loop in charge .🤣

[ninian opinian]

Re: Afghanistan Debate. Why aren't Tom Tughendhat and Tobias Elwood in more senior Government posts

Perhaps we should listen to Richard Burgon who along with 18 others such as Corbyn , Diane Abbott and John McDonnell who have signed a letter asking fir to reparations costs to be paid by the British government.

Now before we judge Boris unfit , please draw a breath and consider the other option of who could be in charge

No wonder we have a fruit loop in charge .��

You mean Corbyn and Abbott who both voted against invading Afghanistan in the first place. Always right old Jezza.

[ToTaL ITK]

Re: Afghanistan Debate. Why aren't Tom Tughendhat and Tobias Elwood in more senior Government posts

And before Trump Obama made the same troop withdrawal quote to apease public opinion the only difference is its on Bidens watch, its not a huge force they have the same troop numbers in Europe and South Korea.
Biden could have made his win choice and kept something in place in the name of peace for innocent women and children.

And before Obama!...don't stop there mate! this has been a problem for decades.

[jon1959]

Re: Afghanistan Debate. Why aren't Tom Tughendhat and Tobias Elwood in more senior Government posts

The full wording of the Stop The War Coalition statement on Afghanistan that Richard Burgon has supported and publicised, just to put the headlines about 'reparations' into their right context:

https://www.stopwar.org.uk/article/stop-the-war-statement-on-the-situation-in-afghanistan/

There have been 240,000 people killed in Afghanistan since 2001 as a direct result of the war - including 457 UK service personnel. There has never been a stable government or stable civil society. There has been a space for people (especially women and various minorities) to find work and get an education. But it is precarious and that space could only be maintained by a continuing western military presence with all the human and financial cost that goes with that (including regular drone strikes on wedding parties!) It was never going to continue indefinitely (Trump and Biden agreed on that). It was never going to be another Germany or South Korea.

The only way forward now is full support for refugees and those most at risk from the Taliban, combined with multilateral diplomatic and financial engagement with the new government. The economy is broken. Helping to rebuild the country is probably the best way to protect the people and avoid the worst effects of radicalisation. It already appears that different parts of the Taliban are looking for international backing in their internal power struggle - creating an opening for a less dangerous future. That is what the STW Coalition is arguing and it sounds right to me.

We still have a fruit loop in charge, though.

[Elwood Blues]

Re: Afghanistan Debate. Why aren't Tom Tughendhat and Tobias Elwood in more senior Government posts

The full wording of the Stop The War Coalition statement on Afghanistan that Richard Burgon has supported and publicised, just to put the headlines about 'reparations' into their right context:

https://www.stopwar.org.uk/article/stop-the-war-statement-on-the-situation-in-afghanistan/

There have been 240,000 people killed in Afghanistan since 2001 as a direct result of the war - including 457 UK service personnel. There has never been a stable government or stable civil society. There has been a space for people (especially women and various minorities) to find work and get an education. But it is precarious and that space could only be maintained by a continuing western military presence with all the human and financial cost that goes with that (including regular drone strikes on wedding parties!) It was never going to continue indefinitely (Trump and Biden agreed on that). It was never going to be another Germany or South Korea.

The only way forward now is full support for refugees and those most at risk from the Taliban, combined with multilateral diplomatic and financial engagement with the new government. The economy is broken. Helping to rebuild the country is probably the best way to protect the people and avoid the worst effects of radicalisation. It already appears that different parts of the Taliban are looking for international backing in their internal power struggle - creating an opening for a less dangerous future. That is what the STW Coalition is arguing and it sounds right to me.

We still have a fruit loop in charge, though.

The stop the war statement says "The British government should take a lead in offering a refugee programme and reparations to rebuild Afghanistan"..

Nothing wrong with the first part, yes we should take a lead in the refugee program. However the reparations part concerns me.

I do suspect that at some stage more prosperous countries will have to give financial help to Afghanistan. But are STW saying that we should immediately give cash to a regime that when it was previously in power was brutal and repressive? How would we know that they would use the money for the benefit of the Afghan people.

And if we call them reparations and give them to the Taliban what wrong are we righting there?

[RonnieBird]

Re: Afghanistan Debate. Why aren't Tom Tughendhat and Tobias Elwood in more senior Government posts

The full wording of the Stop The War Coalition statement on Afghanistan that Richard Burgon has supported and publicised, just to put the headlines about 'reparations' into their right context:

https://www.stopwar.org.uk/article/stop-the-war-statement-on-the-situation-in-afghanistan/

There have been 240,000 people killed in Afghanistan since 2001 as a direct result of the war - including 457 UK service personnel. There has never been a stable government or stable civil society. There has been a space for people (especially women and various minorities) to find work and get an education. But it is precarious and that space could only be maintained by a continuing western military presence with all the human and financial cost that goes with that (including regular drone strikes on wedding parties!) It was never going to continue indefinitely (Trump and Biden agreed on that). It was never going to be another Germany or South Korea.

The only way forward now is full support for refugees and those most at risk from the Taliban, combined with multilateral diplomatic and financial engagement with the new government. The economy is broken. Helping to rebuild the country is probably the best way to protect the people and avoid the worst effects of radicalisation. It already appears that different parts of the Taliban are looking for international backing in their internal power struggle - creating an opening for a less dangerous future. That is what the STW Coalition is arguing and it sounds right to me.

We still have a fruit loop in charge, though.

Yeah true enough, but can you suggest an alternative fruit loop who’d be better ?
I mean one in politics so who COULD get the job ? I should imagine that the average newsagent or bus conductor could do the job better.

Similarly, there’s no way forward on this. If there was ever any point other than giving politicians something to talk bollocks about and to embezzle money where no one can check, it’s over now .

The people there get to run their own affairs whether we like their ideas or not ( which is in fact right and proper ) and they’ll probably be left alone for a while,

File it.

[RonnieBird]

Re: Afghanistan Debate. Why aren't Tom Tughendhat and Tobias Elwood in more senior Government posts

By the way, and with utter total respect to the poor poor bastards who were conned into giving their precious brave and honourable lives then betrayed,

- does anyone here think it is, or ever has been, our business or responsibility to tell the people of that far away region how they should run their affairs or which religion they choose to follow ?

[Elwood Blues]

Re: Afghanistan Debate. Why aren't Tom Tughendhat and Tobias Elwood in more senior Government posts

Just watching a bit of the Lords debates which they are repeating now (I am a glutton for punishment and just seem an excellent speech from Lord Haine who I don't normally agree with. He was pointing out tha he was a junior defence minster in the Blair government and he did not attempt to castigate this government or Biden but instead said that all governments who have had any power in the last 20 years bear a responsibility for this mess (including Lib Dems who of course were in government from 2010 to 2015 and seem to have spent a lot of time since saying that all the good things of that government were down to them and all the bad things were the nasty tories!). Think he is quite right there.

Lord West the former Labour Defence Minister spoke in similar terms

[A Quiet Monkfish]

Re: Afghanistan Debate. Why aren't Tom Tughendhat and Tobias Elwood in more senior Government posts

The full wording of the Stop The War Coalition statement on Afghanistan that Richard Burgon has supported and publicised, just to put the headlines about 'reparations' into their right context:

https://www.stopwar.org.uk/article/stop-the-war-statement-on-the-situation-in-afghanistan/

There have been 240,000 people killed in Afghanistan since 2001 as a direct result of the war - including 457 UK service personnel. There has never been a stable government or stable civil society. There has been a space for people (especially women and various minorities) to find work and get an education. But it is precarious and that space could only be maintained by a continuing western military presence with all the human and financial cost that goes with that (including regular drone strikes on wedding parties!) It was never going to continue indefinitely (Trump and Biden agreed on that). It was never going to be another Germany or South Korea.

The only way forward now is full support for refugees and those most at risk from the Taliban, combined with multilateral diplomatic and financial engagement with the new government. The economy is broken. Helping to rebuild the country is probably the best way to protect the people and avoid the worst effects of radicalisation. It already appears that different parts of the Taliban are looking for international backing in their internal power struggle - creating an opening for a less dangerous future. That is what the STW Coalition is arguing and it sounds right to me.

We still have a fruit loop in charge, though.

What the above doesn't mention is the US had more personnel in their Consulate in Kabul than soldiers 'on the ground'. Their presence was sufficient to keep the Taliban on the margins, and the Afghan government to maintain order.

[life on mars]

Re: Afghanistan Debate. Why aren't Tom Tughendhat and Tobias Elwood in more senior Government posts

Trouble with stop the war statement crew , they are an attempt to feed the students or win attention from the margins of their party , many other wrongs and atrocities in tge world ie China, Russia Iran, South America are whitewashed, its all about the headline .

[WJ99mobile]

Re: Afghanistan Debate. Why aren't Tom Tughendhat and Tobias Elwood in more senior Government posts

Johnson is shocking

I cannot believe this arsehole is running the country

Probably the hardest tenure of a PM since WW2

No opinion on how its been handled but it’s certainly easy to criticise.

[life on mars]

Re: Afghanistan Debate. Why aren't Tom Tughendhat and Tobias Elwood in more senior Government posts

Probably the hardest tenure of a PM since WW2

No opinion on how its been handled but it’s certainly easy to criticise.

It's a period of history that has been turbulent to say the least , Brexit, Covid, Trump , BLM , Climate ,Economic Chaos etc .

I do wonder if any other buffon could have done any worse or better something I don't know , can't judge compare Boris fully as it's not normal times, I'm sure though folk who say he's a buffon are right as they could easily have managed these last few years .

The only thing I feel personally feel, is the alternative
( Corbyn vehicle ) was a risk and a worry.