Afghanistan war ‘always doomed to fail’ says Welsh peace society

The war in Afghanistan was “always doomed to fail” and the British government should take the lead in offering refugees a safe home, according to a Welsh peace society.

Cymdeithas y Cymmod backed a statement by Stop the War which said that the “disaster now unfolding in Afghanistan is the consequence of a twenty-year long failed military intervention”.

“The responsibility rests with the US, British and other NATO governments which plunged into a war that was always doomed to fail. The starting of the conflict, not the manner of the ending of it, is the problem,” they said.

Their condemnation came after the Taliban recaptured nearly all of Afghanistan in just over a week, despite the billions of dollars spent by the U.S. and NATO over almost 20 years on the Afghan military.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has reportedly fled the country.

“If there were still countless countrymen martyred and they would face the destruction and destruction of Kabul city, the result would have been a big human disaster in this six million city,” he said in a Facebook post yesterday.

“The Taliban have made it to remove me, they are here to attack all Kabul and the people of Kabul. In order to avoid the bleeding flood, I thought it was best to get out,” President Ghani said in a Facebook post on August 15.”

According to witnesses, at least five people were killed in Kabul airport last night – either by gunshots or a stampede – as hundreds of people tried to leave the capital.

‘Reperations’

Cymdeithas y Cymod is part of the international IFOR (International Fellowship of Reconciliation) peace movement which has branches across the globe.

They argued that the military occupation of Afghanistan could not lead to stable governance and would be rejected as a foreign imposition by many Afghans.

The society added that “democracy and human rights can rarely be imposed externally and must be the product of the efforts of the peoples themselves if it is to prove durable”.

“Cymdeithas y Cymod supports the Coalition’s demand that the British government should take a lead in offering a refugee programme and reparations to rebuild Afghanistan,” they said.

“Such an act would go a great deal further in advancing the rights of the Afghan people, women in particular, than continued military or economic intervention in the fate of Afghanistan.

“We urge politicians of all parties to learn the lessons of the failed wars of intervention and turn to international cooperation as the means of resolving disputes.”