Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

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So soon after his bravura performance in his Autumn Statement during which his party, lined up on the benches behind him, became hysterical with delight as he found big increases in tax revenue, about which nothing had been know before, the first test has been a spectacular disaster. Government Borrowing in November is up on last year, reaching above a hefty £14 billion in the month. So another forecast from our George is wrong. Dear me! Who would have guessed it? Practically everyone.

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Once again we arrive at the predicted point. The government we left behind in Afghanistan is weak, divided and losing authority. Its forces are low in morale and ready to switch sides. An assertive Taliban grows in confidence and piles on pressure with its own distinctive and deadly brand of moped warfare. A weary population is often willing to accept the medieval order of Taliban rule in preference to the corrupt incompetence of the Kabul authorities.

The response to this in the West is to call for some kind of military intervention. It will not work, it will cost many lives, it will make the lives of Afghans a misery and the project would be supremely futile. The Russians tried for years and lost. The West mobilised almost all of NATO for thirteen long years and have achieved next to nothing. Political authorities in the West are deaf and blind to reason and their military do their bidding for fear of budget cutbacks if they don’t.

There is no solution to the tides of tribal traditions and loyalties in Afghanistan  and has never been since the Ripping yarns of the North West Frontier. Fundamental Islam actually fits the piece better than most other visions of life. To ensure it is more progressive and less bloodthirsty requires a settlement of rivalries in which Pakistan is the regional power, and must be in the driving seat of any brokered deal both in Afghanistan and its own tribal territories. Everybody else can help by supporting Pakistan and providing aid to establish economic reform so that an economy based on more than poppies can emerge and lift living standards into the twenty-first century. That will be the most effective engine of social and every other kind of reform. Anybody who asserts that more military intervention from the West will somehow speed the process is being little short of idiotic.