Afghanistan: the war with no winners

In Return of a King, William Dalrymple tells of the first British invasion of Afghanistan, in 1839. The intention was to put Shah Shuja ul-Mulk, reckoned a friend of Britain, back on the throne in place of Dost Mohammad Khan, seen as too close to the Russians.

The invasion met little resistance. Initial reports back to London were that a majority of locals had welcomed the troops and hoped that their presence would usher in honest government and stability across the land. It was not to be.

Two years later, Afghans in large numbers answered a call to jihad and rose up against the invaders. By the end of the following year, the occupation troops were in full retreat, survivors lurching demoralised after a five-week trek under constant ambush into Ferozepur in an area controlled by the East India Company.

By this stage, Shah Shuja had been assassinated and Dost Mohammad was set to reclaim the throne.

Lord Ellenborough, governor general of India, was waiting in person in full regalia to greet the troops, while the band of the lancers provided a sprightly rendition of See the Conquering Hero Come.

The troops who left Afghanistan on Monday last after 13 years of war didn’t receive such an upbeat greeting but were told by Downing Street and the White House, the MoD and the Pentagon that, all things considered, their efforts had been worthwhile. I suppose they can say no other. But it’s as wide of the mark as Lord Ellenborough’s imperial tomfoolery.

The decision to invade Afghanistan was taken by the Bush administration in a spasm of anger and seethe for revenge following 9/11. The stated aim was to crush al-Qaeda and drive the Taliban out. Later, the war aims were extended to eradication of poppy growing and the emancipation of women.

The achievements have fallen far short of these objectives. Nothing has been accomplished to justify the loss of hundreds of British, thousands of American and tens of thousands of Afghan lives.

The Taliban is not weaker than in 2001. Al-Qaeda has morphed into Islamic State. US officials forecast that this year’s poppy harvest will be the most bountiful in Afghan history. The rights won by women have already been eroded and, to put it inadequately, will not be improved by the return of the Taliban.

More than $100 billion has been expended, more than the total cost – taking account of inflation – of the Marshall Plan to regenerate the whole of western Europe after the second World War.

But, according to the UN, Afghanistan remains one of the poorest, least developed and corruption-ridden countries in the world.

The last western invasion of Muslim countries accounted a success by some came with the defeat of the Ottoman empire in the second decade of the last century, although that verdict, too, now seems unsound in light of the erasure of the borders imposed as part of the settlement and the emergence of Islamic State as a frightening formidable force.

The perspective of British leaders in particular may well have been influenced by schoolboy thrill to the rollicking adventures of the Wolf of Kabul, featured in the Wizard and then in the Hotspur between 1922 and 1961. The Wolf was Lieut Bill Sampson, fluent Pashtun speaker and wily in the ways of the devious natives, who could pass as a tribesman except for the giveaway steel-blue eyes which he mostly managed to keep hidden under the traditional headgear which he wore with considerable aplomb. His speciality lay in stirring up enmity between warlords so that they didn't unite against the British. He was invariably accompanied by his faithful companion, Chung, a mountainy man from the Himalayas, who could brain any number of uppity locals in short order with his clicky-ba (cricket bat) and rescued the Wolf from certain death in every episode.

A typical instalment involved the successful incitement of furious hatred between Shir Muhammad and Gunga Khan. The climax saw the Wolf observing from his cunning hideaway in the village mosque the decisive battle between the gullible followers of the two warlords, the ground outside carpeted in corpses and swamped in slurping gore.

“Bill Samson chuckled . . . He owed his life to the heroic Himalayan. He went out to look for him. A squat figure loomed . . . ‘Master,’ said Chung sorrowfully. ‘The clicky-ba moved in my hand and killed many men . . . My lord, is it a very terrible thing to kill men.’ Bill Samson laughed as he patted his servant on his broad shoulders. ‘No,’ he answered.”

Dalrymple ends with an account of a conversation in 2010 with tribal leaders. One recalls an American officer asking why they had turned against the occupation.

“Because you blow down our doors, enter our houses, pull our women by the hair and kick our children. We cannot accept this . . .You will leave, just as the British left . . . These are the last days of the Americans. Next it will be China.”