The Telegraph reports that the Ministry of Defence has extended the remit of the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT) to include investigation into alleged abuse in Afghanistan.

In addition to the 1,500 Iraqi cases already under investigation a further 550 alleged Afghan war crimes have been added to the IHAT caseload.

As Johnny Mercer MP has already pointed out this implies a ‘total breakdown of law and order on an unprecedented scale across the British Army’, which is a complete fantasy.

As Iraq cases begin to dry up without a single successful conviction, extending the investigation to Afghanistan preserves the gravy train for the IHAT investigators for a few more years. But I sense a darker motive for squandering taxpayers money and causing unnecessary misery for those individuals and their families who have been accused of wrongdoing.

Investigating individual allegations of abuse deflects the spotlight away from the strategic failure of the Iraq and Afghan campaigns. This sits squarely with the policy makers and doctrine writers at the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office who sanctioned the tactics of drone strikes, kill/capture missions and detention without charge or access to legal representation, sometimes on the flimsiest of evidence.

For the most part, British soldiers carried themselves with great dignity and showed incredible courage and restraint. It is the flawed counter-insurgency doctrine and strategy that has thrown the Middle East into chaos and caused untold misery and suffering that needs to be investigated.

SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is the unauthorised, unvarnished and irreverent story of one man’s midlife crisis on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan where the locals haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842 or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. Of course, all infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.

 A JOURNEY OF LOVE, SERVICE AND ADVENTURE. EXCELLENT!

 A MODERN WARFARE LITERARY CLASSIC! OUTSTANDING READ.

 ENTERTAINING, THOUGHT-PROVOKING AND COMPULSORY TO READ.

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