Afghanistan

Khalid Mahmood Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

First, I pay my respects to all those military personnel who lost their lives, all those who still have mental health trauma, all those who still suffer from life-long injuries, and all those diplomats, journalists and 69,000 Afghani soldiers who lost their lives during the last 20 years.

In 2001, we went into Afghanistan to say to the people that we would get rid of the military, medieval regime and bring them up to speed as regards what we believed their living standards, education and living systems and style should be. We promised all those women that they could move forward—that they could be judges, politicians and teachers—and that they could learn. We said they could do what we could do—they could do everything that they wanted to do. That was right, because they should be able to do that.

Now, will all those women, and all those judges who wanted to put the system right in Afghanistan, be able to do that? The Taliban are saying, “We will treat everyone fairly, but under Islamic jurisprudence.” Does anybody understand what Islamic jurisprudence is? It is applied by individuals—the people who are in charge in that place. It is applied by those who sit in judgment. Their jurisprudence can be different from that of anybody else in that area. We can say that we have been given these guarantees, but we need to look at what those guarantees will mean to those women and how they will be treated.

Over the past 12 years, we have taken no real action in Afghanistan. The Obama Government dithered over what they wanted to do. The Trump Government did not know what they were doing; they tried to do, and did, backdoor deals with the Taliban. The Biden Government have just come in and, without looking at what is happening on the ground, have taken a unilateral decision, throwing us and everybody else to the fire. They have decided to withdraw in a manner that no military person of any rank would perceive as fit for the arena in which they serve.

What did we do wrong during that period? As the right hon. Members for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) said, we did not understand government there—we did not understand how it worked. Kabul has never been Afghanistan’s only entity. The people who ran the Government we placed there were totally corrupt, with hardly any mandate, and there for themselves. As we have seen, the current President has run away, leaving all those brave women to stay and believe in what they believe in. That was the Government we supported. Had we looked at the regional possibilities, the regional government that was in place and what the regional warlords were playing at, we would have understood the force of the Taliban, their training and how many people had been gathering in their ranks. We did not do that, and that is why we are suffering the consequences.

President Biden has decided to pull out because he does not believe that there is now a direct threat to the US. I do not know where he has got that intelligence from, but let us see how that goes. He needs to understand that this is about not just terrorist threats emanating from Afghanistan, but the economic war going on in the region. By vacating Afghanistan and not speaking to its neighbour Pakistan, he will now provide a clear corridor for China and Russia to come through. It is not about a 20-year war, but about the current situation, the economy and the area’s geographical position. I hoped that he would understand that but, unfortunately, I do not think that he has managed to.

We need to ensure that we address the refugees fleeing into Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands of people are crossing the border, but the Prime Minister did not once mention what relationship he has with Pakistan, what work he is doing with it, what support he will give it, or how he will speak to it about what to do. If we do not support those refugees and we do not understand what is going on, they will be left to the people traffickers who want to exploit them. Children will lose their lives in the seas and God knows where else.

We need co-ordination. We know enough to move forward and not make mistakes that we have already made. We need to work this properly, look to the region, support the people at source and resolve these issues, not leave it all until the very end.