Afghanistan and the lessons from history. Letters in The Week.

The letters below appeared in The Week published on Sept 4 2021.  Each show an interesting take on the lessons from history which have, or should that be haven’t, been learned from events in the graveyard of Empires.

Afghanistan: Lessons from history.

To The Guardian

One can perhaps forgive Americans for botching the Afghanistan campaign, but the British, who fought the Afghans three times (1839, 1878 and 1919), should have known better.

When, before the first Anglo-Afghan war of 1839, Lord Auckland, the head of the British invading force, asked the Maharajah Ranjit Singh, the Sikh ruler of Punjab, to undertake the responsibility of invading Kabul, the Maharajah refused; he knew only too well that they were easy to conquer, but difficult to rule; that they were a mosaic of competing tribes, which ensured that no strong central authority maintained its power over them for too long.  It is a pity that Western leaders could not foresee in 2001 what Ranjit Singh could in 1839.

Randhir Singh Baines, London.

Obviously the Sikhs knew the Afghans far, far better than the British, or anyone else for that matter.

 

To the Financial Times

The British Army’s retreat from Kabul in 1842 was chaotic and ignominious, resulting in the deaths of 16,000 troops and support staff.

However, Britain still had a plan: imperial expansion.  This plan meant the retreat was a minor sideshow.  Britain’s retreat from Kabul today is existentially significant because Britain has no plan.  Having been abandoned by the US and having rejected the possibility of achieving national fulfilment as leader of the EU, Britain, unlike in 1842, stands in self-inflicted desolation.

Professor John Martin, University College London.

This letter arranges and distorts facts in order to make a very thinly veiled attack on Brexit.

To The Times

You report that the air evacuation from Kabul is the biggest since the Berlin blockade in 1948-49.  It is more appropriate to mention the airlift from Kabul in winter 1928-29, the first mass air evacuation by the RAF, in which 586 British and foreign nationals were flown to Peshawar to escape the take-over of Kabul by Bacha-i-Saqao, also known as Habibullah Klalakani.  The operation was co-ordinated by the British legation in Kabul.  Operating in overladen, underpowered aircraft, then flying through the North-West Frontier was no mean feat.  Politicians ought to do more historical research.

Geoff Cowling, British vice-consul, Kabul, 1970-73.

I thought the Berlin blockade of 1948-49 was a matter of supplies being flown in rather than people being flown out.  Be that as it may, a remarkable effort by the RAF on both occasions.