Failed Strategy in Afghanistan, Duncan McFarlane , Carluke, Lks, Scotland, Letter To Editor, The Guardian

Failed strategy in Afghanistan


When will the Obama administration stop transplanting the Bush administration's failed methods from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan (US begins major offensive against Taliban, 1 July)? The strategy is the same one Rumsfeld used in Iraq in 2004-06. Cities like Samarra and Falluja were repeatedly assaulted with artillery, helicopters and air strikes, resulting in heavy civilian casualties and hundreds of thousands of refugees. After an area is "secured" by an offensive, the insurgents, most of whom leave in advance, return, along with new recruits seeking revenge for dead family members and friends. So another offensive follows a year or two later, with similar results. The same is still happening in Helmand in Afghanistan, with another big assault to secure villages and towns. In the 1980s the mujahideen recruited in the refugee camps full of Afghans in Pakistan. Now the Taliban are recruiting from the same camps and ones created by Pakistan government offensives carried out due to threats of a cut in aid from Obama.

Duncan McFarlane
Carluke, Lanarkshire,
Scotland