Good question? I've been asking the same one myself! "But how do the UK and US allies see their role in the country?" I wish they'd see it as getting the hell out asap, before the body bags and broken bodies and minds start coming home again. WTF is this obsession with effing Afghanistan fgs? I was watching Bitter Lake again last night, and jotted down the following from it . . . "By 2006 the British and United States began to realize that their plan to bring democracy to Afghanistan was failing." So what do they do now, 16 years later? Why, they have another try! If anyone wants a precis of the farce of Afghanistan, the final 20 minutes of Bitter Lake exemplifies it in a nutshell; but here's a health warning - If you do watch those 20 minutes it could seriously blow your mind. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-44967531
Has any country ever managed to persuade Afghanistan to do anything that the Afghans didn't already want to do ? The British Empire had a number of tries in the 19th century and ended up simply bribing the Afghan tribes to be relatively quiet and do relatively little to disturb India. Russia had a jolly good go back in the 1980s and ended up in a terrible mess. The coalition have been hard at it for well over a decade and although life in Kabul and other urban centres may have changed, from what I see in the UK media, the vast majority of Afghanistan is essentially unchanged. A Hereford-based friend is going back yet again in the next few days - I hope he comes back safe and sound.
