Britain to stay engaged in Afghanistan for 'decades'

[maddezmom]

Source: AFP

Britain to stay engaged in Afghanistan for 'decades' 11 minutes ago



LONDON (AFP) - Britain will need to stay involved in Afghanistan for "decades" to help restore stability, London's ambassador in Kabul said Wednesday.

In an interview with BBC radio, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles put greater stress on Britain maintaining a "long-term development" presence rather than a military one.

"I wouldn't say my picture is gloomy, I would say it's realistic," Cowper-Coles said. "It's a marathon rather than a sprint, We should be thinking in terms of decades."

"We're standing up a country that is near the bottom of the world development index, a country that has suffered from 30 years of war, with an insurgency spreading across the Pashtun belt."

He said Britain, with 5,200 troops in Afghanistan as part of a NATO-led force, was waging a winnable counter-insurgency war that resembled those it had fought before in Malaya and Northern Ireland.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070620/wl_afp/afghanistanunrest_070620082745

[dipsydoodle]

1. He used a strange comaprison

"a winnable counter-insurgency war that resembled those it had fought before in Malaya and Northern Ireland"

The N.I. issue took about 80 years from start to finish, if anything the IRA won and Malaysia/Indonesia isn't exactly a shining example of anything

[Stella_Artois]

2. The IRA won ?

Brits out and one Ireland ?

Brits are still in and there are two Irelands. The IRA is disarming and the British military is still there.

In fact, Wales and Scotland have had self rule for longer than Northern Ireland. It seems that the IRA delayed self rule in Northern Ireland rather than caused it to happen. 3,000 people are dead for something that Scotland and Wales got without any bloodshed.

If thats an IRA victory i'd hate to see a defeat.