Afghanistan leaks and cover-up are just the tip of the iceberg

In 2022, the Tory government leaked the information of thousands of Afghan people who had supported British forces in their country. It put their lives at risk, and then began a costly cover-up of its mistake. As a result, it had to relocate over 16,000 people to Britain. But it’s not just farce and waste that sum up the UK’s obedient backing of US regime-change efforts in Afghanistan. It’s the war crimes and backstabbing of local people.

The Afghanistan Inquiry is looking into potential war crimes of UK Special Forces (UKSF) in the country. Previously, it revealed that SAS members operated with near-total impunity between 2010 and 2013. There were reports of civilian and child executions, and subsequent cover-ups. And that’s where the betrayal comes in. Because documents have also shown that:

A UK Special Forces officer personally rejected 1,585 resettlement applications from Afghans with credible links to special forces

The officer in question may have had a connection with war crimes, possibly witnessing them.

Afghanistan’s Triples were commandos who supported UKSF for years. But they were also present on operations where British forces may have committed war crimes. And if they were in Britain, the inquiry would be able to call them as potential witnesses – which it couldn’t do if they were still living overseas. So logically, anyone wanting to make that impossible would also want to reject resettlement applications from potential Afghan witnesses.

As former minister Johnny Mercer said, there was a:

significant conflict of interest that should be obvious to all

There must be no repeat of Afghanistan

Britain knew from its colonial exploits in the 1800s that Afghanistan was a very tough place to conquer. And as a pro-Soviet revolution brewed there during the Cold War, the US empire helped to coordinate the reaction of religious fundamentalists (like Osama bin Laden) along with key ally Saudi Arabia. This conflict reportedly killed more than a million people, and many more had to flee. It also allowed the extremist Taliban to take hold, negatively impacting on women’s rights in particular.

The US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 with the excuse of going after bin Laden. The reasons it gave for spending potentially $2tn in the following two decades of forever war varied, but it was clear that keeping arms companies happy was a central aim. In 2019, Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission said the invasion and occupation had claimed 75,000 civilian lives, forcing millions more to flee. Airstrikes between 2016 and 2020 alone reportedly killed 2,122 civilians (about 40% of them children).

Britain spent tens of billions of pounds on supporting the devastating US operation.

Today, establishment newspapers are slamming the state’s cover-up of the 2022 Tory leak. The Telegraph called it “the most expensive email in history”, saying it “could cost taxpayers £7bn”. A reasonable outlet might now call for an end to disastrously wasteful regime-change wars abroad; or it might demand parliament change its focus and invest billions on people’s futures at home rather than billions on war elsewhere. But not the somehow ‘newspaper of the year’.

Get the elitist warmongers out of parliament, and out of our media

Less about journalism and more about making money for the rich and powerful, the Telegraph has a record of trying to boost far-right talking points and distract us from the real issues. And true to form, it turned the lesson about the Afghanistan fiasco into a front page that wouldn’t be out of place on a far-right conspiracy blog. The rag stooped low, with the headline “£7bn Afghan migrant cover-up” alongside an image of young, serious men with beards holding big weapons. And the image was in black and red, of course, for good measure.

This is what we’re dealing with. Vile mainstream media propaganda that intentionally misses the point. And a government that takes billions from disabled people to give to arms corporations.

Instead of serving the public interest, the state has misdirected taxpayer money to kill, maim, and terrorise people abroad for too long. We desperately need to get the elitist warmongers out of parliament, and out of our media. And we need to organise to make that happen.

Featured image via the Canary