Sir, It seems that Britain has not learnt any lessons from history, not so much from the three Afghan wars that we lost, but from the most recent war the Afghans fought against the Russians.

I worked in Afghanistan and lived with the Afghans in the early 1990s. By that I mean I have eaten with them, slept with them, drunk out of the same glass and eaten yoghurt from the same spoon as them, even shared fleas with them.

I have great admiration for the British servicemen but I think they are in a no-win situation. They are fighting on the Afghans’ home ground. There are Pashtun people on both sides of a very porous border with Pakistan, which after all is only a line drawn by Europeans on a map, and cuts across the tribal areas. The Afghans do not like foreign soldiers on their soil.

They don’t mind taking casualties, and there is a limitless supply of volunteers who don’t mind dying. They have mobile phones, satellite phones, motorbikes and plenty of money, maybe some of it coming from sympathisers in this country. The terrain is on their side. They spend their lives running up and down mountains, they are very fit, very resilient and very determined. Another asset the Afghans have is time and plenty of it.

Most importantly, never presume to know what the Afghan is thinking. To send two female officials for discussions with conservative Afghan leaders was madness. This shows a lack of understanding of the culture. Their own women would not even be allowed in the room with men there. I have known Afghan commanders refuse to shake hands with women expat aid workers and walk out of the room.

It’s a lot easier for a country to get involved in a conflict than to extricate itself. It will be a costly affair. The huge amount of money would be better spent elsewhere.

WILLIAM MILLER
Excideuil, France

Sir. Is there a way of making Ben Macintyre’s article on Afghanistan (“Written again in British blood”, July 7) compulsory reading for the entire British Government?

NIGEL DOUGLAS
Barfrestone, Kent

Sir, The suggestion that the Taleban will eventually weaken as a force in Afghanistan is overly optimistic. The Taleban are not a finite group who can be systematically defeated. They are an amorphous group fed by recruits from both Afghanistan and Pakistan, able by the simple expedient of removing their black turbans to melt back into the communities from which they arise.

Over recent months the numbers of the Taleban have surged, partly because of widespread propaganda in Pakistan and partly because of support from the Pakistan military and intelligence services. Unlike in the north west of Pakistan where the Pakistan Army has been aiding the US in the unsuccessful hunt for the al-Qaeda leadership, in the south west of the country the Pakistan military is engineering the Talebanisation of Baluchistan, as it engineered the Talebanisation of Afghanistan a decade ago. In return the Taleban are providing the Pakistan Government both with the possibility of a friendly government in Kabul at some point in the future and are curbing the present tribal uprising in Baluchistan which threatens oil and gas pipelines. Pakistan is the key to stability in Afghanistan and unless it is pressured, and if necessary given additional means, to shut the Taleban down on its own soil, British and Nato forces will be ground down in a battle they cannot win.

PROFESSOR SHAUN GREGORY
Department of Peace Studies
University of Bradford

Sir, Those seeking an apt quotation from Rudyard Kipling might try the lines from his story The Drums of the Fore and Aft: “An Afghan attacked is far less formidable than an Afghan attacking: which fact old soldiers might have told them” — and which, from the reports of your own correspondents, is still true today.

T. A. HEATHCOTE
Author The Afghan Wars 1839-1919 (2003)
Camberley, Surrey

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