This Tory MP believes we need to invade Afghanistan. Again.
UK military forces must return to Afghanistan, a Tory MP has said. Tobias Ellwood insisted that only a new deployment could stop a potential civil war. In recent weeks, the Taliban has made massive gains in the territory. This has led to fears the country could end up back under its control.
Airstrikes against the Taliban were underway on Thursday 5 August. But the same report suggested that more and more territory is falling to the insurgent group regardless.
Ex-army officer Ellwood also tweeted that a coalition force of 5,000 could prop up the current government. And he warned the other option was a failed state:
STILL TIME TO PREVENT CIVIL WAR
The WEST should re-think it’s strategy – if must – without the US.
We should RETAIN a 5k strong coalition force- enough to give legitimacy to the Afghan Gov & spt to Afghan forces to contain/ deter the Taliban.
Otherwise we face a failed state. pic.twitter.com/jaJ0e8p9Zr
— Tobias Ellwood (@Tobias_Ellwood) August 4, 2021
A large-scale deployment so soon after an official withdrawal seems unlikely. And the UK government does not seem to want to rake over the past 20 years in Afghanistan. For instance, Boris Johnson recently rejected calls for a full Iraq War style inquiry into the war.
Withdrawal
Ellwood’s call comes just over a month after the US officially withdrew. It did so in an unusual way: by sneaking out in the dead of night on 4th July and without telling Afghan allies.
Ellwood also attacked the US decision to withdraw at all, saying it was “made for political reasons”.
Earlier in the week, senior general Nick Carter was asked if Afghanistan could become a failed state again:
That is one of the scenarios that could occur, but we have to get behind the current Afghan government and support them in what they are trying to do.
Interpreters
Meanwhile, the safety of Afghan interpreters who helped UK forces during the war has become a flashpoint as the Taliban has advanced. On 28 July, a group of former military officers demanded that the Afghans be re-homed in the UK more quickly than they are being.
The UK MOD announced a package of measures to help those affected in June 2021. The former officer’s letter sparked an angry response from defence secretary Ben Wallace, who disputed their claims.
Endgame
Ellwood’s call for more troops may not go anywhere. There’s little appetite in the UK to return to Afghanistan – a location of major international embarrassment and defeat. But what he says is telling. Even now in the upper echelons of the UK security and defence establishment, some still believe that military intervention is a cure-all.
This proves true even in places like Afghanistan, where military occupation is what caused the problems in the first place.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/L/Cpl Jeremy Fasci
Comments 18
Leave a Reply
The Canary
PO Box 71199
LONDON
SE20 9EX
Canary Media Ltd – registered in England. Company registration number 09788095.
For guest posting, contact [email protected]
For other enquiries, contact: [email protected]
© Canary Media Ltd 2026, all rights reserved | Website by Monster | Hosted by Krystal | Privacy Settings
It wasn’t the Tories who took us into Iraq or Afghanistan though. It was The Labour Party. It still has blood on it’s hands.
I disagree with Ellwood on many things, but he’s a decent man who has life experience. Unlike career troughers like Corbyn who have earned millions from the taxpayer by doing nothing.
So you accept and feel comfortable with right-wing governments lying…….
Thatcher, Blair, Camoron, de Pfeffel Johnson hardly representative of leftist politics…
I’m guess you couldn’t spell ideology let alone navigate a dictionary…
Boomers……LMAO
Bless. You aren’t even good at trolling.
You can talk!
You really are a silly child.
No, he’s an ignoramus who seems to know nothing about Afghanistan. We went into Afghanistan in November 1878 to fight Russia. Sound familiar? And eventually withdrew in 1919. Seems Mr “life experience” isn’t aware of that. We went back in again by supporting rebels with arms and finance under James Callaghan (Labour. Minority gov.). Regardless of who was in power in the UK we would have supported first the rebels and then against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
You don’t seem to have much life experience. Tell us about all the millions Corbyn has been given?
Lower order thinking, Diane and you know it. Time to lie down dearie.
Stop trolling.
We can send out an advanced force.
He’s called William Windsor.
Why bother.
So Tobias “Bombing for Peace” Ellwood believes we need to extend the conflict even longer.
The whole debacle started in 1959 when the USSR controlled PDPA violently overthrew the elected government. After 2 decades of brutal repression the people rebelled against the government and in 1978 the USSR intervened to support the ruling PDPA. The rebellion was financed and armed by the USA and the UK. The USSR gave up after a year and went home and 3 years of civil war followed, until until the fall of Kabul in 1992.
This was followed by 4 years of infighting between mujahideen rebel factions, ending in 1996 after the Taliban and al-Qaeda took Kabul. and then the The Afghan Civil War from 1996 to 2001, again between Islamic factions.
So the USA then had to invade, just to make things worse. And the morn Ellwood believes he knows the story? He also doesn’t seem to know about the disastrous Anglo-Afghan (UK-Russian) wars of the 19th and early 20th centuries which were really the precursors to the present conflicts.
“Ellwood also attacked the US decision to withdraw at all, saying it was “made for political reasons”.”
And the decision to invade WASN’T????
The Taliban had already arrested Bin Laden, and merely asked for some EVIDENCE before they handed him over for a show trial and execution. The US didn’t have that evidence then, and they don’t have it now.
The invasion and Occupation of Afghanistan was PURE politics. Unless you count the dark-money the Intel Agencies spun from the heroin trade profits.
TBF to the guy, if HE wants to go to Afghanistan, let him give up his safe seat in Parliament, and go help some pro-Govt militia personally.
I’m sure he’ll be “Back in time for Xmas”…….
In a coffin.
To me the sad, but typical, problem is the inability to learn from history. We started the First Afghan War in November 1878, for political reasons, and got hammered over the next 40 years, and yet a so called military man doesn’t seem to know about that.
Tobias Ellwood once again, proving that stupidity is no barrier to being a Tory MP.
Correction “Tobias Ellwood once again proving that stupidity is mandatory for being a Tory MP.”
” … otherwise we face a failed state.” Err …
Elwood, you’re living in a ‘failed state’. I suggest you worry about your own shabby little pile of corruption before you criticize other countries. Didn’t your dorm captain tell you that people that live in glass houses should never throw stones?
Why don’t we just mind our own business for once and concentrate on our own problems. Starving kids springs to mind.
Becasue the Little englander readers of the Telegraph and Mail prefer killing to caring.