Anthony Slessor

NATO Future

NATO’s Secretary General, the Dane Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has said that NATO members must continue to be prepared for military operations outside their borders in the future.

The lack of specifics and clarification about what this means suggests that we could be in for more of the same in the future.

Time limited operations to meet limited aims are one thing, long term invasion quite another. So, shooting up the Tora Bora was one thing. It was militarily and politically expedient, and useful, given the circumstances. As a sharp lesson it worked and had it not elongated into occupation we would be reflecting on a success story.

Julie Burchill would have us all in Afghanistan for the next millennium, guaranteeing the safety of the Afghan women. This is laudable but pie in the sky. The iniquitous injustices and obscenities inflicted on those who are socially and/or physically weaker – for example the mutilation of women and the enslavement of children – must be fought against and we should all strive to make a better world. But, invading and occupying countries with military force is not the way.

And, don’t believe Mr Rasmussen or any other politico who tells you that withdrawal from Afghanistan is “conditions-based”. To be strictly honest, it is – based on political conditions and considerations affecting NATO countries, not conditions within Afghanistan. We will leave a mess behind but we need to be able to pretend that we left stability, and say so, and that a subsequent disintegration into familiar inter-tribal strife was not our fault. All to do with Western elections, Western vested interests, and Western stability, old boy.