Nation Building | SPIN ZHIRA

We are told that President Donald Trump changed his mind about sending more troops to Afghanistan after a campaign by his national security adviser H.R. McMaster which included showing the president a photograph of women casually strolling through downtown Kabul dressed in miniskirts.

The picture from 1972 was used by Mr McMaster in an effort to demonstrate to Mr Trump that Western culture could return to Afghanistan if he sent more troops. It appears to have been a winning argument. On the campaign trail last year, Mr Trump had vowed to end America’s longest war calling it a “total disaster”.

If the President was moved to change his mind by the prospect of Western culture returning to Afghanistan it is not clear why he would lie about his motivations to the American people but he did. In a widely publicised speech to troops at Fort Meyer in Virginia he insisted, “We are not nation building again. We are killing terrorists.“

It seems the British government are equally eager to see the return of Western culture to the streets of Kabul and “welcome” the President’s change of heart. Prime Minister Theresa May is prepared to approve a surge of special forces personnel to hunt down Taliban leaders and the Isis and al-Qaeda militants they are sheltering.

It’s curious because, only last year, speaking at the Republican Convention days after Donald Trump was inaugurated as President she declared, “there can be no return to the failed policies of the past – the days of Britain and America intervening in sovereign countries in an attempt to remake the world in our own image are over“. Or perhaps not.

Western rhetoric, policy and strategy on Afghanistan are contradictory and confused. Words and deeds are not aligned.

SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand. A true story of love, service and incompetence.
Over-matched, over-ruled and over-weight, Spin Zhira is a tale of one man’s personal battle against the trials of middle age set on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan. Guaranteed to make you laugh and cry or your money back.¹

Ten reasons to read SPIN ZHIRA.

‘Brims with authenticity and dark humour.’
Patrick Hennessey, The Junior Officers’ Reading Club

‘A must read.’
Richard Dorney, The Killing Zone

‘The best book by a soldier concerning the Afghan War that I have read.’
Frank Ledwidge, Losing Small Wars

‘First Class.’
Doug Beattie MC, An Ordinary Soldier

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Dr Mike Martin, An Intimate war

What others are saying about SPIN ZHIRA.

¹Check the small print first

11 Police Officers have been killed at a checkpoint in Lashka Ghar, the capital city of Helmand Province and the former citadel of Task Force Helmand.

Visited by Prime Minister David Cameron in 2012 it was once the epicentre of Britain’s £15m/day nation building mission to Afghanistan. It is a sad marker of failure that Lashka Ghar has been under siege since the summer of 2016 and would have fallen to the Taliban in October were it not for US military intervention.

Meanwhile, Sarah Sands, reporting for the Evening Standard reveals that Priti Patel the Secretary of State for International Development continues to describe the British mission in Afghanistan as ‘Nation Building’.

In January Prime Minister Theresa May told US Republicans the UK and America cannot return to “failed” military interventions “to remake the world in our own image”. She is, of course, correct. Two disastrous counter-insurgency interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan are clear evidence that nation building in our own image doesn’t work, but it seems the doctrine still stubbornly persists.

When will the Prime Minister communicate her message to the Department for International Development?

SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand. A true story of love, service and incompetence. Guaranteed to make you laugh and cry or your money back (but check the smallprint first).

‘Brims with authenticity and dark humour.’
Patrick Hennessey, bestselling author of The Junior Officers’ Reading Club

‘First class’
Doug Beattie, bestselling author of An Ordinary Soldier

‘A must read.’
Richard Dorney, bestselling author of The Killing Zone

‘The best book by a soldier concerning the Afghan War that I have read’
Frank Ledwidge, bestselling author of Losing Small Wars

‘Five stars’
SOLDIER The official magazine of the British Army

Ten reasons to read SPIN ZHIRA.

What others are saying about SPIN ZHIRA.