Labour admits: we made mistakes on Afghanistan

[IndianaGreen]

Labour admits: we made mistakes on Afghanistan

Strength and determination of Taliban were misjudged, says defence secretary

Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday September 19, 2006
The Guardian

The defence secretary, Des Browne, will admit today that Britain and its Nato allies seriously underestimated the strength of the Taliban and the violent resistance faced by western forces in Afghanistan. "The Taliban's tenacity in the face of massive losses has been a surprise, absorbing more of our effort than predicted and consequently slowing progress on reconstruction," he will say in a speech to the Royal United Services Institute in London.

Though he says it was expected that the Taliban would fight hard, he will add: "We do have to accept that it's been even harder than we expected."

The defence secretary is also expected to tell his audience: "Success won't be what we understand by security and prosperity and proper governance, but it will be progress and it will be massively worth achieving." He is expected to admit that that seemed "some way off" against the current background of intense fighting and of little progress on building up public institutions and infrastructure in southern Afghanistan.

The speech comes amid a wave of violence in Afghanistan and concern over the scale and nature of the mission. Nineteen British soldiers have been killed in southern Afghanistan this month.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,1875709,00.html

[Erika]

1. W's cut and run in Afghanistan dumping it off on NATO

We should have listened to the Russians. Our troops are paying the price, and W could care less.

[IndianaGreen]

5. The inconvenient truth: Bush didn't want to capture OBL in 2002

Bush wanted his war in Iraq and he couldn't have it if Al-Qaeda was destroyed and Bin Laden was dead or captured.

[rpannier]

2. Ya think???

Bout friggin time they noticed because the rest of us noticed a long time ago.

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. They are only starting to fight now. Apparently they were regrouping

over the last 5 years. The NATO thing is in for a long tough fight.

[MrPrax]

4. How could they be mistaken?

British labour only now discovered people will fight a foreign occupation force aimed at coverting their country to some British imperial model -- no dice

They have a whole history of oppressed folks doing just that -- in fact their fake Labour left schtick has a whole culture of songs, poems and literature about oppressed people fighting back against imperialist tyranny going back a hundred years?

Sounds like LABOUR is lying again...couldn't possibly be that stupid to confuse their racist British projections of power with their own history.

[samsingh]

6. no shit