How many soldiers in Afghanistan will this year celebrate their last Christmas ever?
his will be the last Christmas for some British soldiers and the blood of those killed will be on the hands of David Cameron and the government waging a war they know to be futile and lost.
The BBC has announced that it is sending one of its top DJs, Radio 1′s Greg James, to Afghanistan to host his radio show from Camp Bastion for five days.
“I’m excited to be bringing Radio 1 to the troops and show them we appreciate their hard work,” said Greg James.
One song we can be sure he will not be playing for the troops is Ry Cooder’s Christmas Time This Year:
Our boys and girls will be here soon coming home from war
I’m so glad it’s Christmas time this year
But they’lI be going back to war again I fear
Can’t they stay for Christmas time this year
Now Johnny ain’t got no legs and Billy ain’t got no face
Do they know it’s Christmas time this year?
Tommy looks about the same but his mind is gone
Does he know it’s Christmas time this year?
I’m so glad it’s Christmas time this year
But they’lI be going back to war again I fear
Can’t they stay for Christmas time this year
Now Johnny ain’t got no legs and Billy ain’t got no face
Do they know it’s Christmas time this year?
Tommy looks about the same but his mind is gone
Does he know it’s Christmas time this year?
We can also be sure that Greg James will
not mention Caroline Munday on his programme, the mother of British
soldier James Munday, who was killed — aged just 21 — in Helmand
province in Afghanistan. Earlier this year, she explained why she joined
the campaign initiated by MP Paul Flynn to bring the troops home by Christmas:
“I know the devastation that this war has caused. Whether it’s mums
in Britain or Afghanistan, I know how it feels. Bring the troops home as
soon as possible to stop even one more family suffering like we have.”
And we can be certain Greg James will
not feature the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, Paddy — now Lord
— Ashdown. Last week he became the first senior British politician to
declare openly that the game is up in Afghanistan. The war is lost, he says, and all UK troops should be brought home immediately.
‘We cannot pretend there is any more to do in Afghanistan. The urgent
priority is to get out. It is not worth wasting one more life in
Afghanistan. All that we can achieved has now been achieved. All that we
might have achieved if we had done things differently, has been lost.
The only rational policy now is to leave quickly, in good order and in
the company of our allies. This is the only cause for which further
lives should be risked.’
Ashdown is saying nothing new to the
anti-war movement, which has since the invasion in 2001 consistently
argued that the war is unjustified and unwinnable. Vindicated yet again
are those who over the past eleven years have opposed sending British
troops to kill and be killed in other people’s countries, at the behest
of US foreign policy and its ‘war on terror’.
Paddy Ashdown was joined this week by the New York Times – usually such an obedient flag-waver for America’s imperialist wars. Reporting on the alternative timetables the US military has given President Obama for bringing US troops home, the Times asks why the most obvious option has not been included: don’t wait till 2014, bring the troops home now.
The military wants to withdraw as slowly as possible (no surprise)
and keep as many troops in Afghanistan for as long as possible (even
less of a surprise) … But why not just start now? If all it takes is a
year, then the United States could plausibly be out of Afghanistan by
this time next year.
The United States should not be tempted, says the Times:
… to hang around in 2014 to provide security for Afghanistan’s next
presidential election – at best a thankless task and at worst an
operation that risks giving the stamp of approval to what could be yet
another crooked vote. And it would mean one less year of American
casualties on the battlefield – and one less year spent trying to make
the Afghan army into a real fighting force (that targets the Taliban and
al Qaeda, and not American and other NATO forces).
The Times is referring to the
ever-increasing “blue on green” attacks, in which US and NATO troops are
being killed by the Afghan army and police recruits they are training
as a replacement for the invading armies, which are supposed to leave at
the end of 2014.
These “insider” attacks were probably
what prompted Paddy Ashdown to go public. But he is both a politician
and a former soldier, so when he says that it is time for the troops to
get out, we can be sure he reflects the thinking of many of those who
make the military and political decisions about this war, but who —
unlike him — would rather keep British troops killing and dying, than
face having to admit defeat.
It is six years since John Reid, the
then British defence minister, voiced the hope that the thousands of
troops he was deploying to Helmand province would eventually be able to
come home “without a single shot being fired”. He did so in the
knowledge that up till then — 2006 — just five British troops had been
killed in Afghanistan. The latest figure of British dead is 438.
How many more troops are David Cameron
and his generals prepared to “sacrifice” on a raft of lies about
“success” in Afghanistan before they too have to follow Paddy Ashdown
and admit there is no “exit strategy” from Afghanistan that can be
dressed up as some kind of “victory”?
How many more Afghan families — already
numbering tens of thousands — are going to pay the price in loved ones
lost or wounded in a war with no purpose?
As Paul Flynn MP told the House of Commons — and was kicked out of parliament for
doing so — the government is using British troops as “human shields” to
protect their own reputations. Soldiers, he said, are being killed in a
war by government ministers who have the power to stop it.
Paul Flynn made the comparison with the
first world war, in which it was said, “Politicians lied, and soldiers
died.” The troops are being “sent to die in vain in a war from which we
should withdraw and which the country wants us to withdraw,” he said.
David Cameron and his government show no
signs that they are listening to Paul Flynn, Paddy Ashdown or the
British public — over 70 percent of which wants the troops home now. So
this will be the last Christmas for some of those soldiers in Camp
Bastion listening to Radio 1 DJ Greg James. And the blood of those killed will be on the hands of David Cameron and the government waging a war they know to be futile and lost.
Who killed Channing Day - the third woman in the British army to die in Afghanistan?
- 12 November 2012
- Robin Beste
- Afghanistan and Pakistan
She was proud to be a soldier, but did Corporal
Channing Day expect when she joined the British army that she would be
sent to fight in illegal or unjustified wars of occupation?
By Robin Beste
Stop the War Coalition
12 November 2012
Afghanistan is lost - bring troops home now say soldiers' families
Funeral of Coporal Channing Day.
Funeral of Coporal Channing Day.
WE DO NOT YET KNOW the name of the British soldier
killed in Afghanistan yesterday. For another day or so, he or she joins
the tens of thousands of Afghan civilians who are the nameless victims
of this unjustified and futile war which has now lasted over eleven
years.
Forty-four British soldiers have been killed this year, bringing the total since the invasion in 2001 to 438. The latest to die was killed in an "insider attack" by an Afghan in a soldier's uniform. Twelve British soldiers have been killed this year in these so-called "green on blue" attacks.
Soon we will be told the name of the soldier killed yesterday, along with the usual ritualistic statements that "our thoughts and prayers are with his family and loved ones", and "he paid the ultimate sacrifice defending the interests of British national security".
He didn't. The only reason troops are being deployed to kill and die in Afghanistan is to save the face of the politicians and the generals waging a war they cannot bring themselves to admit is lost.
We do know the name of Corporal Channing Day. On 24 October 2012, aged 25, she became the third woman in the British army to be killed in Afghanistan.
Who killed Channing Day? She died while on a patrol overseeing the training of Afghan local police. At first it was thought she was the victim of a "blue on green" attack or she died as a result of "friendly fire". This was corrected later when the army reported that she had been killed in a firefight when her patrol came under attack, from the Taliban or other forces opposing the foreign occupation of Afghanistan.
She was proud to be a soldier in the British army. Her family say she wanted to be a soldier from an early age and joined as soon as she left school, aged 16. It was the life she wanted. "She loved what she did and we are so proud of her," says her sister Lauren.
But when she joined the army, was it with the expectation that she would be sent to fight in illegal or unjustified wars of occupation? Did she expect to be lied to about why Britain was causing such mass slaughter and devastation? Did she think that she would be fighting under the phoney flag of "democracy" and "freedom" in countries where the vast majority of people only wanted the occupying armies to get out of their land? Did she expect to be fighting in wars which were opposed by two thirds of the British public?
Who killed Channing Day? The short answer is those who sent her to fight in this pointless war. When the MP Paul Flynn accused government ministers of lying and using soldiers "as human shields" to protect their reputations, he was thrown out of parliament. But his only crime was to reflect the view of most people in Britain who do not accept the reasons given for waging this war and want the troops brought home now.
Who killed Channing Day? David Cameron was responsible for her being in Afghanistan when he had the power to end the pointless war in which she lost her life. At the current rate, more than 100 British soldiers will die before the end of 2014 -- the supposed exit date for the British army. The blood of every one of them will be on the hands of David Cameron.
MP kicked out of parliament for saying minister lying about Afghanistan: http://youtu.be/XXNb3j2ZZEM via @youtube
Forty-four British soldiers have been killed this year, bringing the total since the invasion in 2001 to 438. The latest to die was killed in an "insider attack" by an Afghan in a soldier's uniform. Twelve British soldiers have been killed this year in these so-called "green on blue" attacks.
Soon we will be told the name of the soldier killed yesterday, along with the usual ritualistic statements that "our thoughts and prayers are with his family and loved ones", and "he paid the ultimate sacrifice defending the interests of British national security".
He didn't. The only reason troops are being deployed to kill and die in Afghanistan is to save the face of the politicians and the generals waging a war they cannot bring themselves to admit is lost.
We do know the name of Corporal Channing Day. On 24 October 2012, aged 25, she became the third woman in the British army to be killed in Afghanistan.
Who killed Channing Day? She died while on a patrol overseeing the training of Afghan local police. At first it was thought she was the victim of a "blue on green" attack or she died as a result of "friendly fire". This was corrected later when the army reported that she had been killed in a firefight when her patrol came under attack, from the Taliban or other forces opposing the foreign occupation of Afghanistan.
She was proud to be a soldier in the British army. Her family say she wanted to be a soldier from an early age and joined as soon as she left school, aged 16. It was the life she wanted. "She loved what she did and we are so proud of her," says her sister Lauren.
But when she joined the army, was it with the expectation that she would be sent to fight in illegal or unjustified wars of occupation? Did she expect to be lied to about why Britain was causing such mass slaughter and devastation? Did she think that she would be fighting under the phoney flag of "democracy" and "freedom" in countries where the vast majority of people only wanted the occupying armies to get out of their land? Did she expect to be fighting in wars which were opposed by two thirds of the British public?
Who killed Channing Day? The short answer is those who sent her to fight in this pointless war. When the MP Paul Flynn accused government ministers of lying and using soldiers "as human shields" to protect their reputations, he was thrown out of parliament. But his only crime was to reflect the view of most people in Britain who do not accept the reasons given for waging this war and want the troops brought home now.
Who killed Channing Day? David Cameron was responsible for her being in Afghanistan when he had the power to end the pointless war in which she lost her life. At the current rate, more than 100 British soldiers will die before the end of 2014 -- the supposed exit date for the British army. The blood of every one of them will be on the hands of David Cameron.
MP kicked out of parliament for saying minister lying about Afghanistan: http://youtu.be/XXNb3j2ZZEM via @youtube
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