So That's Why We Went to War in Afghanistan

Well, folks, it appears that my blogposts have taken on the persona of the archetypal London bus - you wait ages for one to appear, then two come along in quick succession!
So why one so soon after the previous?

Well, I felt compelled to post this after listening to Defence Secretary Michael Fallon on BBC Breakfast yesterday morning as he justified Britain's 13 year operation in Afghanistan. When asked whether the deaths of 453 servicemen and women was justified, he started his response by stating that nowadays more than half the population of Afghanistan have mobile phones.
What?
Is that really how we are going to measure the success of a multi-billion pound military operation?
Granted, he did go on to mention more important outcomes, like the numbers of children (especially young girls) who now have access to education, but to start his justification with a statement about mobile phones seems to me more than a little disturbing.
Was the aim, all along, to simply open up a whole new market for Apple and Samsung and Angry Birds? Did the powers that be in the West believe it was fundamentally wrong that the 30 million people of Afghanistan were being denied the opportunity to 'like' a Taliban member on Facebook, to tweet about how much opium they were growing, or to take AK-47-toting selfies in front of bombed-out houses with their new iPhone 6 or Samsung Galaxy Alpha?
And does this widespread access to mobile communication not mean that we've provided the Taliban and its supporters with a whole new means of keeping in touch, of sharing information and planning new atrocities? (Or maybe this is actually a cunning plan by the West to digitise the Taliban's communication networks so that they can be monitored and studied by the intelligence services so we're always one step ahead…like they were before 9/11 and 7/7).

Whatever the potential security benefits of a full-coverage mobile network may (or may not) be, the fact remains that the Right Honorable Mister Fallon would, I believe, have been better served to start his justification for the 13 years of danger and death that our troops endured in Helmand Province by telling us how much safer it has made us here at home, how less of a threat there now is from terrorists who had once been able to regard Afghanistan as a safe haven, and how the sacrifice of 453 brave men and women had been worthwhile in ensuring the security of millions of ordinary people back here in Blighty.

Oh, by the way, the Ministry of Defence will be announcing how many young Afghan children have X-boxes and Playstations some time next week. After all, access to and ownership of mobiles, games consoles and flatscreen TVs is the new measure of how 'civilised' a society has become.

Oh Tony, do be quiet!

As the positions of the US and Russia on Syria become more entrenched, and the rhetoric of the two leaders becomes more aggressive, how comforting it is to hear the comments of former PM Tony Blair.
According to Tony, the UK is hesitant to get involved in Syria because of what happened in Iraq...though not, he quickly points out, because of the fact that we went into that war on false pretences...oh no, according to Saint Tony, it was our failure to deal with the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq that has left us hesitant.
Now, far be it for me to argue with a former PM, but I think people here in the UK, appalled as we all are by the use of chemical weapons in Syria, actually don't want to go charging into another Middle Eastern country for the following reasons:

1. Whilst it's pretty likely that Assad was behind the attack, forgive us (after Iraq) for not believing either the US or UK governments when they claim to have 'conclusive proof' of who was behind it - after all, we never did find those weapons of mass destruction or the capability to launch those weapons in 45 minutes in Iraq, did we? (But we did find a shit-load of oil!!)
2. It's a bit rich for us to one year talk about the importance of UN resolutions as a mandate for military intervention and then, because we can't actually get one (yes, Russia and China, that's because of you and you still should be ashamed of yourselves!) we decide we don't actually need UN approval anyway.
3. We are still trying to get ourselves out of Afghanistan!
4. We're sick and tired of trying to police the world, and paying for the privilege.

For the West to take sides in Syria is to try to help people who hate you win a fight against people who hate you - in the end, you just end up with even more people hating you than when you started!
So, forgive me, Lord Blair of Cheam, if I don't subscribe to the argument that we are hesitant to attack a few buildings in Syria with missiles because we don't know how to end wars; I think we're hesitant because, under your leadership, we learnt about the folly of getting involved in a war, however barbaric, which we can never really win, based on all the wrong reasons!