And yes, there is a return.
Nearly six years after the British deployment to Helmand's 14 districts, the
British army hold three of them, with a combined area roughly that of Kent.
Helmand itself is the size of Scotland. By "holding" of course we
mean just that, large numbers of troops manning the walls of heavily fortified
bases and occasionally foraying out on lethally dangerous patrols. In the
district of Nad Ali, where British efforts have concentrated, incidents
are down by 86%. One British general told me last week that things are now
so good there that the provincial governor can actually travel from the capital
Lashkar Gah to Nad Ali in a vehicle, rather than taking a US or British
helicopter. You and I could not do such a thing, we would be kidnapped or
killed, but the governor has rather more bodyguards. Some districts have been
"handed over" to overwhelmingly ethnic Tajik Afghan forces almost as
foreign to southern Pashtun Helmandis as the British army. British and US
forces remain in what they call "overwatch", which is to say in much
the same profile as they were before.
"Let's mark" the
Taliban's work, says Bucknall. He points out that they have lost their
"heartland" in central Helmand. Prior to the British deployment in
2006 Helmand was a relatively rich, virtually conflict-free province. When our current
chief of defence staff General Sir David Richards, who was at the time
commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan said, "Where's Helmand? It's not
important" he was right. There were very few Taliban in central Helmand or
indeed anywhere else in the province and the small US garrison had suffered no
serious casualties. The SAS had ranged the area for years, successfully gaining
intelligence and ensuring that al-Qaida could gain no traction. Before the
British got to Helmand there was no "Taliban heartland" there.
Six months after British
16th Air Assault Brigade blundered in, Helmand was the most savage combat zone
on Earth. Three years later in 2009, the undermanned and
poorly led British force had been fought to a standstill. It took the
deployment of 20,000 US Marines – most of the US "surge" went to
Helmand – to provide the resources to pull the British out of trouble. Bucknall
claims the surge has been a relative success. The painful fact is that it was
only required because the desperate situation the British army had got
themselves into had made such huge reinforcement necessary.
But what of that
"investment in blood" itself? Three hundred and ninety soldiers have
been killed and over 2,000 seriously injured, limbless, blind, emasculated or
disabled in a hundred different ways. We have also imposed a considerable
"investment" on the people of Helmand. Hundreds of Helmandi civilians
have been killed, many thousands seriously injured. We don't know how many as
we don't count them. Tens of thousands more have been displaced by the
fighting, many of them to squalid refugee camps in Kabul.
This newspaper has estimated
the financial
cost to the UK of military operations at the very least £18bn, a figure
that does not include of course the vast amounts expended building "Afghan
governance". Sherard
Cowper-Coles's evidence to the parliamentary foreign affairs select
committee puts the cost of the entire campaign at nearly £6bn a year.
After five years of bloody
fighting the British army clings on to three districts in a single province
which contains 3% of the Afghan population. It supports a chronically
kleptocratic government, named last week as the third most corrupt in the
world. Incidents in Helmand are down this year because the Taliban are
doing what any sensible guerrilla force does, avoiding taking on the enemy's
strength. Now they are focusing
on other provinces drawing Nato into a highly dangerous confrontation with
Pakistan.
"We almost owe it to
those who have gone before to see the job through," says the general, yet
nowhere do we hear what that "job" is. It must be time now even for
senior soldiers to admit that this has become a very bad investment indeed. We
"owe it" to those whose lives and limbs may yet be saved to cut our
losses.
Oborne/Lamont/Howard
http://catandgirl.com/?p=3638 (Nothing
is certain but death and taxonomy)
remember,
remember the fifth of November
The
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.
I know of no
reason why the gunpowder treason
Should ever
be forgot
Similarly to the graphic
novel, there is repeated reference to the letter “V” and the number five
throughout the film (note that letter "V" is number five in Roman
numerals).[21]
For example, V's introduction to Evey is a monologue containing 48 words
beginning with the letter "V", and containing a total of 52 letter
"V"s. When Evey tells V her name he repeats it slowly as "E...
V". In Evey's name, the letter "E" is the fifth letter of the
alphabet, "V" is the fifth letter from the end of the alphabet and is
the roman numeral for five, and The letter Y is the 25th letter of the
alphabet; 25 being 5 squared. In Latin, Evey's phonetic name means "exit
V"; the character V acknowledges this, knowing that this event has begun
the chain-reaction of events which will end in his demise. During his
imprisonment at Larkhill, V was held in cell "V", as is Evey during
her fake imprisonment. V's Zorro-like signature is also the letter "V". In the
explosion involving the Old Bailey, the fireworks form a red V configuration,
completed by a circular firework, thus resembling not only V but the V for
Vendetta logo. It is revealed that V's favorite phrase is "By the power of
truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe", which according to
the film translates into the 5 "V"ed Latin phrase: "Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici".
("Veniversum" is actually written with a U, but in old Latin, the
letter "U" was written as a "V.") In a dance with Evey, the
song V chooses is number five on his jukebox. In fact, all the songs are song
number five. When V confronts Creedy in his greenhouse, he plays Beethoven's
"Fifth" Symphony, whose opening notes have a rhythmic pattern
that resembles the letter "V" in Morse code
(•••–).[22][23]
The film’s title itself is a reference to "V for Victory".[24]
As V waits for night to fall, he arranges a complex domino pattern in black and
red which forms the V logo. In the short sequence overlooking the traincars,
the railroad tracks form the letter V. In a flyover shot of London towards the
end of the film, Big Ben is shown, with its hour hand pointing at 11 and the
minute hand at 1, forming a V shape. When the time is read, it shows 11:05,
another reference 11–5, or November 5. In the battle with Creedy and his men at
Victoria station, he uses five of his six
daggers and forms a "V" with his daggers just before he throws them.
As V throws two of his daggers at the men on either side of Creedy, the daggers
form a "V" shape five times while spinning through the air. After V
kills Creedy's men, Creedy fires five shots at V. After the battle, when V is
mortally wounded, he leaves a "V" signature in his own blood. The
destruction of Parliament results in a display of fireworks which form the
letter "V", which is also an inverted Circle-A, a
symbol commonly used by anarchists.[25]
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