CURRENTLY a great deal of propaganda hot air is being expended hailing the action that British forces are taking to ‘liberate’ the town of Musa Qala, in the north of Helmand province, from the Taleban.
In fact, the town is in the hands of the Taleban because the British army last year gave up the struggle to defend it, fearing that its troops would be overrun, and a large number be killed or captured.
Instead, it opted to make a local agreement with the Taleban – much to the horror of the US military command in Afghanistan, which denounced the tactic.
The result of the deal was that the Taleban allowed the British army to be ferried out, and the Taleban reoccupied the town.
It seems that despite all of the propaganda to the contrary, that the British army is in no great rush to get itself back into the town.
Currently at Musa Qala, the plan that Britain has adopted is that after British and US forces have cleared a way with their mighty fire-power through the outer defences of the town, the Afghan army will be sent in to take the town from the Taleban through house-to-house fighting.
Thus, the British army will be fighting to the last Afghan soldier, which will mean, it is hoped, absolutely minimal casualties to the British forces.
At the moment, several hundred US troops from the 82nd Airborne Division are barring the way out of the town to the north.
The way in from the south is being opened up by up to 3,000 British troops, using armoured vehicles and artillery, backed up by helicopter gunships and US fighter jet strikes to break through the town’s outer defences.
Once the outer defences of the town have been broken, then the Afghan army will be sent in to test the Taleban defences. Again, this means that the British army will have avoided taking the heavy casualties that its military and political chiefs dread.
However, if the Taleban forces melt away into the night as their guerrilla warfare tactics would seem to dictate, then the British military can claim a ‘great victory’, and that the Afghan army is ready to take on the Taleban.
However, all that will have really happened in the event of the town falling in this fashion, is that the British army will have reached the point where it will have to decide whether to re-garrison the town and face the same type of attacks that it had to retreat from last year, or leave the occupation of the town to the Afghan army.
Its occupation would be shortlived, and overwhelmed in a few months at the most. The Anglo-US alliance will then be faced with carrying out the same task once again.
The current operation smacks more of a drive to try to paper over the real military situation in Afghanistan than a serious military operation to change the balance of forces in Afghanistan.
The British and US military are trying to hide that the real situation is Afghanistan is worsening.
The Taleban movement is getting stronger by the hour all over the country. It is now a force in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and Taleban attacks are now taking place even in Afghanistan’s non-Pashtun northern provinces.
It is also a fact that of the NATO forces in the country, only the Canadians, the US and the British are fighting the Taleban – its other NATO allies are keeping their heads down.
So, behind the propaganda smokescreen that a great victory over the Taleban is emerging at Musa Qala, the situation in Afghanistan is actually worsening to such an extent that very shortly most of the British forces in Iraq will have to be transferred to Afghanistan. The British ex-chiefs of the general staff will then have to make more demands for a massive increase in military expenditure, at the expense of the Welfare State, to try and stave off defeat.
British workers must demand the immediate withdrawal of all British troops from Afghanistan, so that the Afghan people can decide on what government they want, free from imperialist intervention.
