War on Taliban cannot be won: British military commander

Britain's senior most military commander has said the British public should not expect a 'decisive military victory'.

Virtually ruling out an outright victory against Taliban in Afghanistan, Britain’s senior most military commander has said the British public should not expect a “decisive military victory” and be prepared for a possible deal with the Taliban.

Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith’s assessment followed the leaking of a memo from a French diplomat who claimed that Sir Sherard Cowper Coles, the British ambassador in Kabul, had told him the current strategy was “doomed to fail”, The Sunday Times reported on Sunday.

Carleton-Smith, commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade, which has just completed its second tour of Afghanistan, said it was necessary to “lower our expectations”.

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“We’re not going to win this war. It’s about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that’s not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army,” he said.

“We may well leave with there still being a low but steady ebb of rural insurgency… I don’t think we should expect that when we go there won’t be roaming bands of armed men in this part of the world. That would be unrealistic and probably incredible.”

He claimed his forces had “taken the sting out of the Taliban for 2008. But his brigade has sustained heavy losses in the southern province of Helmand in the past six months, with 32 killed and 120 injured.

“We want to change the nature of the debate from one where disputes are settled through the barrel of the gun to one where it is done through negotiations.

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“If the Taliban were prepared to sit on the other side of the table and talk about a political settlement, then that’s precisely the sort of progress that concludes insurgencies like this. That shouldn’t make people uncomfortable,” the commander said.

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