Tag Archives: Theresa May

Words and deeds are not aligned.

August 29, 2017 chrisdsgreen Leave a comment

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.

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‘Brims with authenticity and dark humour.’
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¹Check the small print first

Spin Zhira

INSURGENT ALGEBRA: 10-2≥20

August 27, 2017 chrisdsgreen 3 Comments

The Sunday Times has learned that the SAS are being readied to return to Afghanistan as part of Donald Trump’s planned military surge.

According to Whitehall sources, “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 seems that we are, once again, walking with eyes wide open into a flawed strategy of night raids and drone strikes.

As General Stanley McChrystal, a former ISAF commander explained: “From a conventional standpoint, the killing of two insurgents in a group of ten leaves eight remaining: Ten minus two equals eight (10-2=8). From the insurgent standpoint, those two killed were likely related to many others who will want vengeance… Therefore, the death of two creates more willing recruits: Ten minus two equals twenty, or more, rather than eight (10-2≥20).”

McChrystal’s insurgent algebra is correct but it is Albert Einstein, author of the most famous algebraic formula of them all, who is alleged to have said “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand
A true story of love, service and incompetence.

When Chris Green became disillusioned with his seemingly perfect existence he didn’t buy a sports car, run off with the au pair or snort cocaine from the breasts of prostitutes.

Instead he went to fight the increasingly unpopular war on terror in Afghanistan.

In the process of discovering himself he unwittingly discovers that the courage and heroism of the soldiers he fights alongside are confounded by incompetence and corruption, not to mention “an industrial strength counterterrorism killing machine”.

It’s a world where the dipsomaniac governor is in the pay of the illicit opium trade, the Chief of Police is a pederast and all round bad guy and the locals still haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842, or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. All infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.

Missing his two young sons, unable to influence policy and just a phone-call away from a brawl he can only lose with the elite SAS, Chris dreams of epic powder days in the High Alps a world away from Afghanistan. But before he can return home to a hero’s welcome – and his wife’s divorce lawyers – he must first complete one last mission to Zumbalay, the Taliban Heart of Darkness and an unlikely reunion with an old man in Helmand.

Guaranteed to make you laugh and cry or your money back*, Spin Zhira is a rare insight into the male mid-life crisis. What every woman needs to know and why every man should be careful what he wishes for.

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

‘Absolutely fantastic’
Dr Mike Martin, An Intimate war

What others are saying about SPIN ZHIRA.

* check the small print first

Spin Zhira

Nation Building doesn’t work

February 28, 2017 chrisdsgreen 4 Comments

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.