Afghanistan: The Lion's Last Roar?

A pretty devastating documentary in which senior military figures candidly discuss the failings over Britain's mission in Afghanistan. So limited was the resourcing and manpower it did feel at times like this is now the end if Britain's ability to fight large wars in the future overseas. Both Labour and Tory governments presided over this. There are some Afghan voices on the documentary but not enough, we even get one taliban contributor. Key American voices also contribute.

Among the horror of the war there are nice moments too like the football game shown.

As you'd expect theres quite a bit of focus on Afghan politics and the instability of the country.

The role of Pakistan is also explored.

None of the former PMs appear.

As ever with these things there's no real accountability, its all a bit of a muddle according to the contributors, the army, Whitehall, The MOD and the government all seem to share the blame and there's a lot to go round. "We just weren't in the real world" as one puts it.

The NATO pull out from Afghanistan is now complete . The NATO coalition lost a grand total of 3.466 dead of which 454 were British in a conflict that can't really be described as anything but a defeat . It's a not defeat in the way that Stalingrad was a defeat for Hitler's Germany or the fall of Singapore in 1942 was for the British or even a defeat in the way the Soviets lost in Afghanistan that saw 15,000 dead Red Army soldiers and perhaps 1,000,000 Afghans . But defeat is still a defeat , the opposite of success . This documentary tells how NATO pulled defeat from the jaws of victory and how the country is the graveyard of empires

Being a BBC documentary it is British-centric but it's not just because it's made by a British TV company . Afghan history for the last couple of centuries is mainly composed of wild reckless and untameable Afghan mountain men battling the British empire in the North West Passage . During the first Anglo-Afghan war a column of 16,500 Imperial personnel evacuated Kabul . Of this number only 1 man Dr William Brydon made it back to safe lines ! Those who forget history and condemned to repeat it

What the documentary does very well is sum up how from what was a success 2001-2002 where the Taliban had been kicked out of the country to what became a quagmire for the West I the later part of the decade and how Britain in particular found itself stuck deeper than most of their NATO allies in this quagmire . It's summed up concisely

1 ) Britain was fighting a painfully unpopular war in Iraq and in order to placate American and criticism at home sent a expeditionary force to Helmand in 2005-06 . Afghanistan still being seen as " The Good war "

2 ) The afghan culture is endemic with corruption . It's not a country at all but provinces ruled by violent warlords where a " foreigner " can be defined as someone living in the next village and Machiavellianism doesn't even begin to describe the Afghan mind-set with probably the worst offender being Hamid Karzai

Unfortunately the issue becomes clouded with a lot of talking head inserts which is composed of British military and political chiefs who usually say something along the lines of " Yes we hadn't had prepared for this or anticipated that but it wasn't really my fault . It was someone else " I'm currently reading British Generals In Blairs Wars where former chiefs of staff try and give their excuses and shift any blame . This documentary is much worse for this . Former SAS chief Lt Col Richard Williams is refreshingly honest when he states the British Army wanted to leave Iraq entirely to the Americans . Cut to a military head denying this . It's painful to watch General Peter Wall get embarrassed and saying " Well I admit it now we got it wrong " Since his pension is safe Wall and the other Generals ( And of course the retired politicians no longer in office ) will now admit they got it wrong now that their pensions are getting paid out . Here's hoping the next generation of Generals and politicians admit they're wrong at war fighting and nation building BEFORE their pension is guaranteed

Afghans themselves are interviewed such as district leaders " No honestly I'm not a corrupt violent warlord drug baron . You're misinformed " and Taliban members and when it comes to these interviews things have to be taken with a large salt mine . A Taliban commander claims to have hit a British helicopter with a rocket in 2006 . If he did it can't have exploded because no British helicopters were lost in this period . Likewise his attack on a 4 vehicle convoy where he " killed the enemy " what all of the enemy ? There's no record of any British convoy being wiped out . These facts are easy to check . Likewise another commander of the Taliban claiming " Your tanks and helicopters were effective " but the British Challenger II was never deployed to Afghanistan . Maybe he meant American tanks ? Or Soviet tanks ? Or maybe he's making things up ? It's a good documentary about the war in Afghanistan but please remember truth is the first casualty of war and this documentary might prove it