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First, the US Marines have hit the ground in battalion strength near Kandahar (with every expectation that even more will be moving in very soon, and second, the UK government has ordered those Royal Marines to stand down. So far they don't seem to be leaving the region, but this contrast is rather striking. If large scale ground commitment of western forces has now begun, what's the deal here? What it makes me wonder is whether the rumors that the UK government was so quick to deny last week were actually true, and that there really was some sort of difference of opinion about the role of British ground force there. I think maybe there was. But I think it's a problem with the Afghans, not with the US. Another reason I think that is because of that flap about British troops when a hundred of them deployed at the Bagram airbase north of Kabul. 160 men moved in, also including 60 Americans. No-one seemed to mind the Americans, but there was vocal objection to the Brits. Eventually it was straightened out and they stayed, but I don't think there will be any more. Now 13 Russian (!) planes have landed there and unloaded supplies and equipment and people (!), and I don't think those will be the last. And no-one seems to mind. So why the complaints only about the British? We're going to fire up the subspace crystal ball and see what we can see. I think that what's going on is that the Americans and the Russian have been earning good-guy points with the Northern Alliance, and the Americans also with the southern Pashtun who are now opposing the Taliban, but that the Brits have not been. Grudges are held a long time there and I think the Brits are living down their colonial heritage. Certainly the Russians have a lot of atoning to do wrt Afghanistan, but they've been the main foreign source of supply for arms and equipment for the Northern Alliance for years, and just before the fall of Mazar-e Sharif they shipped in 60 fresh T-55 tanks and a bunch of trucks and APCs and a lot of other stuff, along with Russian technicians to keep it all running. And they've continued to ship in supplies in ever increasing amounts. And I don't think I have to go into too much detail about all the ways that the Americans have been earning points there in the last two months. The British have been very helpful in this campaign, particularly with aerial tankers which have assisted the bombing. They've provided other kinds of assistance as well (SAS, for example) but I think most of it has been invisible to the Afghans. What they see is American FAC's speaking on radios and bombs hitting the Taliban, Russians showing up with goodies, Americans helping them to plan their war, the Americans also showing up with lots of goodies (e.g. neat looking camo uniforms) etc. But they don't see much that the Brits are doing to actually help them in this war. (The SAS probably have been on the ground, but I suspect they've mostly been doing scouting rather than making contact with the locals and doing negotiating and coordination like the American Special Forces have been.) I think that a major movement of Russian troops into Afghanistan would also be fiercely resisted by the Afghans, but for the moment they're tolerated in small numbers because of all the goodies they're shipping in. But I think that right now the Americans are the only foreign forces that the friendly Afghans really trust, which is why American troops are the only ones (we know of) on the ground in substantial numbers. Which is the other possibility: this may be disinformation. But I don't think so; I think there really is some sort of rift, and how it was settled was "Americans, yes; British, no". I hope this doesn't embarrass Tony Blair. He's a good man and he's been a good friend. (discuss) |
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