AFTER SEVEN YEARS THE WEST FINALLY BEGINS TO SEE THAT THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN CANNOT BE WON.

Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British Ambassador to Afghanistan, concedes that the war against the Taliban and allied insurgents cannot be won. He has been reported as saying “The current situation is bad, the security situation is getting worse, so is corruption, and the government has lost all trust.” The Ambassador was also reported as saying that the NATO action against the Taliban will fail and that the only hope for an outcome that may be acceptable is the installation of a dictatorship.

Even the warmongering British neoconservative political commentator Con Coughlin concedes that the allies are getting nowhere fast in Afghanistan saying: “Next week it will be seven years since the war on terror was officially launched when the US military, with British support, unleashed a devastating bombardment on 31 al-Qaeda and Taliban targets in Afghanistan. But despite the heroic efforts of coalition forces [Invading other people’s country and killing their inhabitants is heroic?] and the deployment of vast resources, the West appears no closer to achieving its long-term objective of eradicating the threat posed by Islamist groups and helping to turn failed states into ones capable of sustaining democratic government based on the rule of law.”

This comes on top of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullin’s assessment last month when he told a Congressional hearing that “I'm not convinced we are winning it in Afghanistan”, adding that the allies should be ‘looking at a new, more comprehensive strategy for the region that would cover both sides of the border, including Pakistan's tribal areas’.

While the various views represented did not amount to a concession that they’d already lost, it does seem that they concede the point that, if they were to carry on as they are, they will eventually lose.

The British government responded to their Ambassadors remarks predictably saying they did not reflect British policy on Afghanistan. The Ambassadors view that an “acceptable dictator” might be the answer flies in the face of US propaganda that demands ‘democracy’, though the present ‘government’ in Kabul, despite Bush’s assertions to the contrary, is hardly representative of the people of Afghanistan. And Mullin’s idea that the war should be extended into Pakistan demonstrates only the failures of seven years of fighting in Afghanistan.

All that and still no sign of Osama bin Laden, the stated reason for the war in the first place.