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I welcome the Turkish conference that has been mentioned. Frankly, we have to try to tease out our worries about Iran and its potential possession of nuclear weapons. I hope that on Iran at least there is some agreement that weapons of mass destruction are being planned for in that country. Most of Iran's drug problems stem from heroin being transported west towards Iran, just as most of China's drug problems stem from heroin coming east from Afghanistan. Both Pakistan and India suffer from serious drug problems, so all those big regional countries have an enormous stake in finding a solution to the Afghanistan situation.
We should try to understand that Pakistan has a vibrant press and a vibrant judiciary. They forced out General Musharraf when we were rolling out the red carpet for him. It is an imperfect democracy- [ Interruption. ] My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, who is certainly the finest Foreign Secretary that we have got at the moment, and who does know where western Sahara is, has been in post for only a year or two, probably since General Musharraf departed.
David Miliband: No, I met him.
Mr. MacShane: I am sorry, my right hon. Friend met him, so they overlapped slightly. Prior to that, the leading Governments of the world-here and in Washington and elsewhere-were not paying enough heed to the people of Pakistan who were anxious to get rid of their unelected and authoritarian general.
Pakistan has a vibrant civil society and a very good, free and energetic press. It has a strong women's movement and a strong human rights movement. Yes, it is very poor, so the real answer is to improve Pakistan's economic and growth perspectives. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary on pushing the European Union hard to open a dialogue and to try to increase trade between Pakistan and the rest of Europe. That is certainly where we should focus some of our efforts with our Pakistani and Kashmiri diaspora, of whom I know many in my constituency. They are men and women of peace-there is a Sufi version of the strand or path of Islam-and they are as horrified as any of us by the language of jihad and fundamental Islamism.
We have to look again at the ideology that spurs on the Taliban and other extremists. That ideology is not of the Islam religion, which has the same respect as any other Abrahamic faith, but is a coherent world ideology of Islamism that is rooted in the Muslim brotherhood that was founded by Hassan al-Banna in the 1920s and that has developed steadily since. [ Interruption. ] I hear again complaints from Conservative Members about my discussing Islamism as an ideology, but it is precisely the failure to understand that ideology and to work out ideological and political ways of confronting and exposing it that have left western countries vulnerable.
Dr. Andrew Murrison (Westbury) (Con): In no way can the right hon. Gentleman interpret any chuntering that he might inadvertently have heard from Conservative Front Benchers as criticism of anybody's ideology. For his information, we were simply saying that we could be spared the history lesson, once again.
Mr. MacShane:
Those who do not like history lessons often find themselves repeating the errors of history. Up to now, this has been a completely non-partisan debate,
but after that Bourbon intervention from someone who has learned nothing and forgotten nothing-
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): Order. The right hon. Gentleman is quite right that this has been a very reasonable debate so far. Perhaps we can keep it that way.
Mr. MacShane: I was talking about bourbon as a drink of course, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
What then do we have to do? We have to engage with the Muslim world and Muslim politicians much more strongly and seriously. We must try constantly to explain to them why any endorsement, however soft, of aspects of Islamism that lead to attacks on the universal values of human rights-whether those rights are freedom of expression, parliamentary democracy, the rule of law, the rights of men and women to be gay, or the right of women to control their own lives-feeds what is a cause of deep repression and oppression in Afghanistan. We have to find ways of engaging our British Pakistani and Kashmiri community. We have noble Lords, hon. Members of this House and many councillors who could play a leading role by talking in Pakistan, in Kashmir and to the community here about the need for a new approach from Britain that respects the faith of Islam but utterly rejects any ideological or violent expressions of it. The Taliban insist that they are giving expression to the ultimate implementation, as a political philosophy, of Islamism, and that they are obeying what the faith demands. That is a false line and we need to confront it.
I conclude by urging right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House to find ways of getting more MPs and other people to Afghanistan to understand the situation, and I urge that our Army chiefs be invited to consider using containment more and engaging in less confrontation. We need to reduce the casualty rate if the current support of the nation is to be sustained for a longer period. I urge that we should invite India to be part of the solution instead of being part of the problem by beating the drums of war, in Simla and New Delhi, against Pakistan. I urge that we use and harness our Pakistani British citizens to increase economic relations with Pakistan. We should set up effective structures using the Department for International Development, the Foreign Office, the Departments that deal with education and other Departments to find ways of explaining that what is happening in Afghanistan is a threat, not just to the region and not just in terms of providing incubators for terrorism in our country, but to everything that we should value if we want a peaceful and prosperous world.
2.7 pm
Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby) (Con):
I was very interested in what the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) had to say. He made some interesting and important points, some of which were somewhat disjointed, if I may say so, and some of which were slightly rambling. May I pick him up on one point, on which I disagree with him? He accuses the Conservatives of being in some way perverse in wanting to have a War Cabinet, but he must ask himself what on earth is happening to young men in Afghanistan. They are in
firefights the like of which have not been seen by the British Army for 50 years. As a former soldier, I would say that it is a war, and I think that most of those young men would also say that it is a war.
I welcome the debate. I am sorry that we are having it on a very quiet Thursday when people are rushing to get back to their snow-covered constituencies, and I hope that we will have more debates on this issue, because there is, as has been said, a terrible lack of knowledge and a lack of understanding about what is happening in Afghanistan, both here in the House of Commons and throughout the country. That is particularly worrying. I have no special insight into what is happening in Afghanistan, and I am certainly not an expert. Both Ministers and fellow Conservatives will be pleased to know that I am not going to put forward some absolutely fundamental, clever plan to solve the whole Afghanistan issue, because I do not have that insight.
However, I do know the area a little. I have been to Afghanistan often, and I have spent a couple of very enjoyable holidays trekking on the Afghan border in the most beautiful countryside imaginable, with charming people. I remember seeing, some 25 years ago, Massoud's mujaheddin streaming across border passes from Pakistan into Afghanistan, and some coming back on mules having had their legs blown off by Soviet butterfly mines. I have some slight understanding of the area, but that is all.
I also went there last year on a whistle-stop tour, and I thank the Ministry of Defence for laying that on, contrary to what the right hon. Member for Rotherham said. It was far too short a visit and we did not get out to the forward operating bases, but I came back with a clear view, not just from the briefing, of the medical evacuation plans that we had in place in Kandahar and in Bastion. It was valuable, albeit rather too short for my liking.
We also had a good briefing yesterday, again laid on by the MOD. I am grateful to the Secretary of State and others for that, because they are certainly trying to keep people abreast of what is happening. I am not sure that they are being entirely successful, but I cannot blame them entirely for that.
Those of us who know some history of the first and second Afghan wars know the traps that we allowed ourselves to be led into. The history of Afghanistan is not one of a united country. The right hon. Member for Rotherham referred to Afghanistan in the 1970s, when I, too, was young.
Mr. Robathan: Never a hippy, no.
People came back from Kabul with those ghastly, smelly goatskin coats, which then sat in a cupboard and destroyed many student lodgings, as I remember. At the time, Kabul was a very civilised and beautiful city, and the King was moving towards a much more modern society, certainly in the urban area of Kabul although perhaps not in the rural areas. However, Afghanistan was never an entirely united country. As I understand it, it was always a fairly loose confederation, for want of a better word, of tribal areas. That is certainly what it appears to be now. I fear that in the constitution that has been created, assisted by the UN and others, we
have perhaps tried to make Afghanistan into one centralised country. I do not have any great insight, but that seems to be turning into a difficulty. As has been mentioned already, it appears that the Pashtuns, who used to be called Pathans, resent other tribes lording it over them. I wonder whether we in Britain or in the UN can or indeed should aim to have a centralised Government in Kabul, as appears to be the case at the moment. It certainly does not seem to be working.
To stick with history, what was remarkable in the first and second Afghan wars was the way in which having foreigners in the country succeeded dramatically in uniting all the tribes against the foreign invader. I fear that we are seeing that problem to a certain extent now, which is why it is so important that the Afghans take over responsibility for law and order.
As we have seen both in history and recently, Afghanistan is a place of shifting loyalties. Loyalties are not laid down as we might think. People do not say, "My gosh, I'm an Afghan and I'm going to support the Afghan Government." That is self-evidently not the case, which was true in 1840 and has been subsequently, so we should be realistic about what can happen there.
I do not know whether hon. Members have read the autobiography of John Masters, who wrote "Bhowani Junction" and other books. It is called "Bugles and a Tiger", and I recommend it to everybody. Apart from anything else, it is a rattling good read. As an 18-year-old officer, he went out in command of a platoon of English troops to the North West Frontier, where in 1935 British troops were still being flayed alive by the Pathans-the Pashtuns-who did not see much of a border across the Durand line. It is worth remembering that that was in the lifetime of people who are around today. When we went into Afghanistan, we perhaps should have remembered the other half of the quotation about where angels fear to tread.
Finally on history, we can examine what the Soviets did. Of course it was a communist revolution that brought down the King and the Soviet invasion that led to the current chaos, destruction and poverty in Afghanistan.
Mr. Newmark: As my hon. Friend will know, I spent a week in Afghanistan at the end of November and had the opportunity to meet many Pashtuns, about whom he has been talking. Many feel incredibly alienated from the Government and from what is going on. They feel that they have no role in politics or in the army, which they view as a Tajik army. They view the leader, Karzai, as not really a Pashtun, though he is a Pashtun. Does my hon. Friend believe that we should be doing more to figure out ways to get the Pashtun community more engaged with what is going on in the country, so that they are not driven into the arms of the Taliban?
Mr. Robathan: As I said, I do not have a prescriptive solution, but my hon. Friend makes an excellent point from his own experience. Part of the reason why I wished to raised these matters was that I am not sure that the model of government in Afghanistan will work in the long term-I cannot say.
Ann Winterton:
The points that have just been made are valid. We are currently in a delicate situation in Afghanistan, bearing in mind that when the Soviet
regime left there was a civil war between the Pashtuns and the anti-Pashtun, Tajik-led forces. That is related to the ethnic tribal mix that my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Newmark) mentioned, which does not appear to be recognised adequately in the deliberations of the various organisations and countries involved in Afghanistan.
Mr. Robathan: I agree with my hon. Friend. Not just I, but the west, the United Nations and others should beware of too many prescriptive solutions.
Ann Winterton: That is not a prescriptive solution.
Mr. Robathan: No, but as far as possible we should let the Afghans determine for themselves how they wish to run things.
I was glad to hear the Foreign Secretary-in a speech in which, unusually, I disagreed with very little-discuss corruption and the fact that it has to be sorted out. Corruption is endemic in Afghanistan, and anyone who has travelled in the area knows the cries of "Baksheesh" along the streets. We should therefore not be surprised. It is difficult to defend British soldiers dying to defend a Government who are steeped in corruption, and that has to be sorted out.
I wish briefly to address three problems: whether the current strategy is working, the question of public support, which others have mentioned, and the long-term impact on our armed forces. As I recall, British and American troops invaded Afghanistan in late 2001. I naively believed that we might be able to establish a western-style democratic Government who would give women all the rights that they have in the UK, and I think I might have made some comments to that effect. Now, most people accept that it is a different country in more ways than one.
It was not until four years later that we deployed troops to Helmand. We have now been at work in Afghanistan for nine years, yet the war is not abating. Of course, the second world war was over in six years and the first world war-the war to end all wars, as I recall-was over in four. We need to consider that time frame, because it puts into context everything else that we are doing. I am not coming up with an answer; I am just putting the matter forward. I conclude that the strategy so far has not worked, but it might be getting better. I base that on reports from not just the Secretary of State or my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), who will be pleased to know that I did not disagree with a word of his speech, but from soldiers coming back from the front line to whom I have spoken and those who are there now. They say that things are changing and working. I am delighted to hear that. The US reinforcements, far from being something to be ashamed of, are a great boon, and I hope that they can help us to see the campaign to a finish some time in the foreseeable future.
There is a danger, as hinted at today, that we will not stick with the campaign. If we do not, however, we will send every message possible to jihadists everywhere that the west does not have the resolve to stay with it. However, that does not mean that Members of Parliament such as myself, and Opposition parties, should not be critical-in a positive way-or alert people to the problems being faced, without undermining the situation, I hope.
It is self-evident that public support for the war is not growing; it needs to be bolstered and we need to send a more positive picture. The Foreign Secretary's remarks were very positive, as we need to be-without being complacent. Issues such as the planting of more wheat in Helmand are hugely important. People need to understand that there is a return to normality-or greater normality-and that, similarly, one can walk safely around some Helmand villages where a year or two ago one could not. I am not a great believer in spin, but I think that we need an exercise in public relations. I do not mean to be particularly critical, but so far that has not been working. We need to convince some media commentators that our cause is worth while, although that should not involve deception, I hasten to add.
The worst thing for public perception is the sight of the young men-and at least one woman, I think-returning in coffins. It is gutting beyond belief. I have never worn badges or wristbands, or anything like that except for Remembrance day poppies, but I wear a wristband now, because what is happening is so awful. How can we not be moved? My old battalion-the Coldstream Guards-is in Afghanistan at the moment. So far it has had only one fatality, and god willing there will be no more. Injuries have been referred to as well. Although this is all deeply depressing, the long-term effects on the armed forces are of greater concern. One such effect has been mentioned this week: 20 per cent. of infantry soldiers not being available for active service. I happen to know that the figure has always been surprisingly high, for all sorts of reasons, but I still think that that is an issue. Other particular issues are the long-term employment of injured soldiers-some will be multiple amputees-how they can be employed in the armed forces and what assistance they can be given subsequently.
I would like to address two further long-term impacts on the armed forces. First, public attitudes towards the armed forces have in many ways improved. I think of Wootton Bassett and parades through other towns-Leicester among them-in which the public turn out to express their support. That is very positive. Furthermore, as I understand it-the Minister will correct me, if I am wrong-recruitment has not fallen, although of course there is a recession. Part of the reason for that is that young men want adventure. We need to build on the fact that public attitudes have improved, and we should not be complacent. Nevertheless, things are not all negative.
The second, and perhaps more controversial, point concerns the long-term impact on the armed forces of the defence cuts announced on 15 December. Everybody in the House will understand that they are very serious cuts in our capabilities. I hope that we will not be in Afghanistan for ever, but we will be in need of our armed forces for the foreseeable future-certainly for all of my lifetime.
I shall not detain the House any longer. I welcome this debate, although I think that we should have a longer one in which more people can take part and on a less quiet day-if I may put it that way. I would like the Minister to address, although not in huge detail, some of the questions asked, including mine.
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