British troops are defending security of world, says Blair

When did al Qaeda and the Taliban become synonymous?

My memory tells me that Afghanistan was invaded because the Taliban were continuing to shelter bin Laden. Indeed, if my memory serves me correctly, weren't the Taliban going to be allowed to remain in Afghanistan if they handed over Osama?

I say this because Blair is currently on a swing tour through the region and he's talking some remarkable nonsense.

Mr Blair put the defeat of the Taliban as a priority for the world.

As always with Blair, he mixes in a little truth with his fantasies in order to confuse those not following the real story.

He told the troops at Camp Bastion that the reason they were out "in the middle of Afghanistan, in the middle of nowhere" was to rid the country of the Taliban who had allowed training camps for al-Qa'ida.

Forgive me if I sound pedantic, but I thought the reason the troops were in Afghanistan was to arrest bin Laden. When was that objective replaced with the removal of the Taliban, which I always believed was a necessary step towards the objective rather than the objective itself?

Blair and Bush have been pulling this shit for some five years now, where the definition of victory is some ever changing thing, subject to what is possible as opposed to what was the original war aim.

It is the same way that the Iraq war became not about finding WMD, but about exporting democracy to the Middle East. As the original reasons for the war proved false, they were immediately supplanted with a new set of reasons, and the original war aims were cast aside.

And now, as bin Laden's capture is proving impossible, we are being given another false reason as to why we are in Afghanistan.

One would hope that this kind of nonsense was solely for the consumption of those members of the public who are not actually following the story. But no....

Blair is using this argument in an attempt to convince other countries to contribute more troops to the effort.

Mr Blair will call on some of the 37 nations contributing to Isaf to drop their refusal to allow their troops to fight against the Taliban, ending some of their national constraints.

Privately, Downing Street are conceding that they do not expect the help that Blair is calling for to be forthcoming.

There's a lesson here which both Bush and Blair would do well to learn. Although they have both come to believe their own hyperbole, other countries do not. And, more importantly, other countries are not willing to offer the lives of their soldiers on a false premise.

That is what is so shocking about Bush and Blair's constantly shifting goalposts. I don't pull them up on their constantly changing war aims to score some petty political point, but rather to emphasise the fact that young men and women are dying for their "cause" and Bush and Blair keep changing the reasons as to why their deaths are necessary.

Blair, as always, talks like a snake-oil salesman constantly over selling the worth of his product:

"This is so important because here in this extraordinary piece of desert is where the future of world security in the early 21st century is going to be played out," he told the troops.

It started out as a hunt for bin Laden and it ends up as a fight for the "future of world security in the early 21st century".

And all the while young troops are laying down their lives.

I know both Bush and Blair are vain enough to see their roles in all of this as Churchillian, but Churchill remained constant in his message. He knew why it was necessary for so very many young people to lay down their lives.

Bush and Blair keep changing the reasons. That's what's so shameful about all this.

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tag: Afghanistan, British troops, "Stay the course", Blair