The leaders of Britain’s government have been facing an increasingly skeptical citizenry in terms of the nation’s troop presence in Afghanistan, but they are fighting to keep morale and support for what they still believe is ‘the biggest source of threat to our national security’. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Minister David Miliband made a strong defense of Britain’s military presence in Afghanistan in back-to-back major addresses. Here are some of the highlights of Brown’s speech:
“At every point in our history where we have looked outwards, we have become stronger. And now, more than ever, there is no future in what was once called ‘splendid isolation.
When Britain is bold, when Britain is engaged, when Britain is confident and outward-looking, we have shown time and again that Britain has a power and an energy that far exceeds the limits of our geography, our population, and our means….”
“Make no mistake, Al Qaeda has an extensive recruitment network across Africa the Middle East, Western Europe – and in the UK. We know that there are still several hundred foreign fighters based in the FATA area of Pakistan travelling to training camps to learn bomb making and weapons skills. Al Qaeda also has links to the Afghan and Pakistan Taleban…..”
“Vigilance in defence of national security will never be sacrificed to expediency. Necessary resolution will never succumb to appeasement. The greater international good will never be subordinated to the mood of the passing moment.
So I vigorously defend our action in Afghanistan and Pakistan because Al Qaeda is today the biggest source of threat to our national security – and to the security of peoples lives in Britain… and tonight I can report that more has been planned and enacted with greater success in this one year to disable Al Qaeda than in any year since the original invasion in 2001.
Tonight I want to leave you with a clear summary of Britain’s case, and that of the coalition as a whole. We are in Afghanistan because we judge that if the Taleban regained power Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups would once more have an environment in which they could operate. We are there because action in Afghanistan is not an alternative to action in Pakistan, but an inseparable support to it.”
While these speeches are definitely worth reading, not everything else is. Case in point, Woody Harrelson is an idiot. To make up for that and get us back to reality, here is a worthwhile Steve Coll piece in the New Yorker about the possible scenarios facing a ‘failure’ in Afghanistan.
