Afghanistan

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, this has been a sobering debate indeed, and speeches have rightly been unanimous in their support for our Armed Forces, diplomats, BBC journalists and the women and girls now at risk. I too endorse the pleas for support for religious freedom in Afghanistan. However, those predicaments could pale before the enormity of a geopolitical shift that would see the Taliban aligning with China and Russia, as my noble friend Lord Alton, my noble and gallant friend Lord Stirrup, the noble Lord, Lord Hannan and the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, warned.

Writing in the Times yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord Hague, warned us not to turn our backs on future interventions, and he cited our work in Kosovo, but what we have learned once again today is the danger of interfering in other cultures, particularly tribal ones, without a carefully considered exit plan. As Vietnam and Iraq foretold, vacuums are inevitably filled by warlords or groups whose aims are at odds with those of the free world and frequently lead to an even worse situation than that which we sought to improve.

We cannot and should not conflate the cultures of other societies with our own, but, from the Crusades on, I fear that that is what we have consistently done, as the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, colourfully described. Like him, I found Ben Wallace’s interview moving in its honesty. I dared to hope when I saw the Taliban press conference that there might be some hope that the Taliban of 2021 is not that of 2001, but we have heard anecdotes and warnings from noble Lords better informed than me that we should be very sceptical about this. Nevertheless, jaw, jaw must, for the time being, be preferable to war, war, even if it is ultimately a doomed exercise—after all, we do business with other countries that invoke sharia law, however foreign it may be to our values.

I therefore have specific questions for the Minister. First, will the Government keep the House informed after the Recess on how the Taliban are behaving on the ground, how they are treating women and children, whether freedom of religious belief is being allowed, and if they are, as the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, mentioned, pursuing artists and musicians? Secondly, was there no intelligence to suggest the inadvisability of a withdrawal while the Taliban were seasonally in the cities, as opposed to the winter when they tend to withdraw? If so, was this intelligence ignored? Thirdly, is it true that a country-wide disgust at the corrupt failings of the Afghan judicial system, despite the rise of women judges, has meant that there is more support for a return to sharia and the Taliban than otherwise might be the case?

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, that we need to come better to terms with our current place in the world to inform our future interventions which, I pray, will be few and far between.