Is it time for British forces to get out of Afghanistan?
Five British soldiers have been shot dead in a single incident in Helmand Province. Three of them were from the Grenadier Guards and two were from the Royal Military Police. The Ministry of Defence has informed their families.
Eight years on from the invasion of the country, there are few signs of stability and peace in most of Afghanistan, and the list of British casualties keeps getting longer. Should they be there at all? Is it time for a radical rethink of our military policy? Or do we have to see this through?
It's our phone-in from 9 this morning. You can contact the programme by text on 85058, email breakfast@bbc.co.uk, or post comments online. The phone lines will be open at 8.30.
Jump to more content from this blog
About this blog
Subscribe to 5 live Breakfast
You can stay up to date with 5 live Breakfast via these feeds.
5 live Breakfast Feed(ATOM)
If you aren't sure what RSS is you'll find our beginner's guide to RSS useful.
Podcast
5LNPI: Why did Tony Blair take Britain into Iraq? 24 Nov 09
08:48 Tue, 24 Nov 09
The former PM is among those who will have to give evidence to the independent inquiry into the build up to war. That begins today, and Mr Blair will be called in sometime in the New Year. Why did Tony Blair take Britain to war in Iraq?
Download or subscribe to this programme's podcast
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~44~RS~)
Comments
Sign in or register to comment.
What is happening in Afghanistan now is reminiscent of the British Forces in Aden in 1967. Many British troops died when the Aden army mutineed and then we left rather quickly.......with our tails between our legs.
Complain about this comment
Afghanistan is unwinnable and we should pull out.
Kharzi is unelected, the government is corrupt. The afghan people don't want us there.
Al Qaida, Taliban or whatever they call themselves will allways be there or wherever they need to be to try and further their cause.
Aden, Vietnam and many other such operations ended in failure, because of our actions, however the issues went away when we left them alone.
Pull out now before we suffer greater cassualties.
Complain about this comment
I thought Nicky's 'rant'comment about the last contributor, who obviously had a passionate point of view on the soldiers in afganistan was condecending and totally unnecessary.
Complain about this comment
Cant believe you let that racist have the last word. 'People like them' comments have no place on the BBC.
Complain about this comment
Nick i think is your name - what happened to being unbiased?
the afghan man that came on made a fair point. forget about the sept 11 comment and who did it.... i still believe it is a mystery - but never mind that.
remember the other things he said like -
there were no drugs until the invasion
there was no theft until the invasion etc
in addition to this there are other countries with what you would call a backward mentality - so are we fighting to make afghanistan think like us or are we fighting to get rid of the talliban - if it is the latter we should also be fighting pakistan - should we not?
I will conclude with this - Why are we trying to enforce our values of democracy on a country that does not want it or doesn't even know about it. our system is the result of many years educating the public - please remember how recent the Sex discrimination Act is and even then there are women who are underpaid - my point being we have a flawed system too. lets sort our own system out first.
If we want afghanistan to vote we have to educate them not fight with them until they vote, clearly from the last election we can see that they don't care about the vote. Afghanistan has a tribal system, it is about time we respect that and get out of there. unfortunately the longer we stay the more lives we lose.
Thank you for letting me say my piece.
Complain about this comment
I thought the way Mr Campbell spoke to that the Afghan man was arrogant and dismissive.
It is a fact, that at the time the war in Afghanistan was launched, even the FBI themselves admitted that they could not prove Al Qaeda carried out the 9/11 attacks. Unlike the academics and scholars which researched this Mr Campbell perhaps, more than likely, bases his opinion on skewed newspaper reports and simplistic television news reports.
He made a fool of himself in the way he spoke on this topic. Perhaps in future when he doesnt know what he is talking about he should shut his mouth instead of spreading misinformation. There are enough media outlets in this country to provide such flawed info without Mr Campbell, an intelligent man, to do so.
Complain about this comment
britan and the usa need to make a serious decision now. win it quick ie loads of troops all out war with all afgan hostiles that will mean severe civilian casulties but can be won at a long term cost or plan an exit strategy for a withdrawl wirhin 12 months and let the taliban take retrabution on all the people that voted and took a part in the new look afganastan
this middle of the road nonsence only gets soldiers killed for nothing. we need to take the shackels off our troops and let them do their job
Complain about this comment
"I thought Nicky's 'rant'comment about the last contributor, who obviously had a passionate point of view on the soldiers in afganistan was condecending and totally unnecessary."
theres a diiference between being passionate and demanding that the family of any afghan who might join the resistance should be summarily executed.
Complain about this comment
"Nick i think is your name - what happened to being unbiased?
the afghan man that came on made a fair point. forget about the sept 11 comment and who did it.... i still believe it is a mystery - but never mind that."
nicky has strong points of view with regard to islam, muslims . you should know that one cannot criticies israel, americans or ourselves.
with regard to 9/11 , there is little hard evidence - that is why when the taliban under mullah omar asked for evidence before handing bin laden over to the saudis we chose to go to war, which by the way is illegal.
what we do klnow is that the men were not from afghanistan, the plot was hatched in germany , trained in the usa and the wmds' were american passenger airlines.
it is why nicky tried to muddy the waters by saying it was 'the jews', 'mossad', 'cia' etc etc.
"if it is the latter we should also be fighting pakistan - should we not?"
actually we are already fighting pakistan, we support some of the so called pakistan taliban, the terrorist group BLA and the likes of the Jondallah.
"If we want afghanistan to vote we have to educate them not fight with them until they vote, clearly from the last election we can see that they don't care about the vote."
we're not there for democracy, womens rights etc we're there for strategic reasons, for resources and becasue we are the poodles of america.
Complain about this comment
"Perhaps in future when he doesnt know what he is talking about he should shut his mouth instead of spreading misinformation. There are enough media outlets in this country to provide such flawed info without Mr Campbell, an intelligent man, to do so."
it does make one wonder why an intelligent man would make such a mistake - to do so at every opportunity - and not expand on the possible reasons for the war .
we do know that the taliban are afghans, they are made up of disparate groups - tribal, ethnic and religious - a wide spectrum. we also know that the northern alliance were far worse before the taliban and have proven to be so after the taliban under the guise of our democratic process.
Complain about this comment
"this middle of the road nonsence only gets soldiers killed for nothing. we need to take the shackels off our troops and let them do their job"
what exactly is their job?
to invade another country - illegally - to present the afghans with a puppet regime that is made largely from foreign nationals and warlords.
to occupy and subjugate a nation so that we can maintain our hegemony over those who we deem to be of lesser people but just happen to have the resurces that we cannot live without.
how many of our soldiers have been killed compared to the innocent afghans. 90 killed in a single missile and we only get to know about it because of western ngo's . the usa denied it. the afghan dead are largely invisible, dont exist.
key words:
brave, courageous, heroes, civilised, democracy are reserved for us - jihadist, barbarian, medieval, mysogenists, islam, muslims, backward for them.
listen to nicky he knows them all.
Complain about this comment
Ref Comment 4: Exactly Chris! The programme editor probably had him lined up to have the last word so nobody could come back at him, (yet alone Mr Campbell of course)! This very gullible apathetic caller, father of a squaddie, was all for the war when nobody was being killed. Now the policy is in turmoil they are lost for an argument so just resort to racism even more!
Complain about this comment
The reason why these tragic and needless military deaths are occurring at an increasing rate is because there's no realistic political opposition in the UK to the deployment in the country. The left have been completely marginalised and the mainstream parties back it. This factor, combined with the fact that the majority of the populaton watch these events passively at home without feeling the effects of the conflict mean that they, (especially that clot who was the last caller on the phone in) and many rank and file military accept such spurious arguments that are always trotted out by mainstream politicians and papers like the Sun: we are there for humanitarian reasons, to establish democracy, to defeat the Taliban and terrorism etc!
The real reason we are in Afghanistan is for the same reasons all wars and conflicts are fought for: resources, raw materials, profits, pipelines, establishing spheres of military and political influence and authority.
Complain about this comment
Apparently we are missing the bigger picture!
It's all part of a cunning plan to stem immigration.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1225177/British-troops-fighting-Afghanistan-stop-immigrants-coming-Britain-claims-Phil-Woolas.html
"Minister says UK troops are fighting in Afghanistan to stop immigrants coming to Britain
Mr Woolas had been responding to a question from the home affairs select committee about whether members of the Taliban had successfully claimed asylum in Britain.
The immigration minister said he did not know the answer, as people 'who claim asylum tend not to tell us if they are a member of the Taliban."
Complain about this comment
I cannot believe we are involved in a dead end situation in Afganistan, I can understand people not being familier with Viet Nam but there was a song (Check out 'Feel like I'm fixing to die rag' by Country Joe and the Fish) which went:
1,2,3 what are we fighting for, don't ask me I don't give a dam, next stop is viet nam, open up the pearly gates, woopeee we're all going to die.
Then the unforgettable line: be the first one on your block to have your boy come home in a box.
Is this what we really want? Of course not, the troops should be brought back from this farcial situation in the desert with the absurd elections, abdulla abdulla and Karsi it sounds like something from a Carry On film. I see the fat suits from the UN have just got out, you could not make it up
Complain about this comment
" 13. At 10:45pm on 04 Nov 2009, Nick Vinehill wrote:"
as you point out we have a dishonest news media + its because we dont get anything but what the government and MoD allow.
have you noticed how lacking of any real news 5live breakfast/victoria et al are?
Complain about this comment
Steady Wendyman. If you accuse the BBC for not broadcasting 'real news' it would be considered an offence far worse than urinating near a War Memorial whilst under the influence. The poor bloke got imprisoned for that and the likes of the Jeremy Vine show covered it as a leading topic which attracted idiotic callers who its editors put on air to say seriously he should have been put in the stocks and stoned! Not much hope for you then. You'd be put in front of a firing squad but I agree with you all the way mate and I'd be joining you!
Complain about this comment
View these comments in RSS