Afghanistan

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con) [V]]

My Lords, this situation reminds me of the dark days of Dunkirk in more ways than one. The military events in France and the hurried evacuation of the British troops from Dunkirk were caused by the failure of the French army and the French Government, who refused to fight, surrendered and then collaborated with the Nazis, as did most of the European continental countries to a greater or lesser extent. Did anyone criticise the United Kingdom Government for Dunkirk? Yes, they certainly did: the French were dishonest enough to blame the UK.

From 2003 it was NATO that led the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force—ISAF. Its mission was to help the Afghan Government to exercise their authority throughout the country and build up their national security forces. This was accomplished in December 2014 when the Afghans assumed full responsibility for the security of their country. In 2015, NATO started its Resolute Support mission to train, advise and assist Afghan security forces. The United Nations, NATO and a total of 49 countries have been involved in Afghanistan in the past 20 years. Why, then, do politicians single out and blame the United Kingdom?

Although President Biden has tried to shift the blame on to President Trump, that simply does not work. President Biden had the power to stop the withdrawal of the troops but failed to do so. To be fair, this situation may not be easy for President Biden to deal with because he does not seem to me to be in good health. There are many examples of the disease of a national leader having a disastrous effect on a country, a continent or even the world. How does the Minister react to this explanation?

It is regrettable that Secretary-General Stoltenberg of NATO failed to appear on the public scene until yesterday, and even then he was not very convincing. As NATO, the United Nations and the USA are held responsible for the fiasco in Afghanistan, is it not about time that politicians and the media stopped attacking our Government and directed their fire to those responsible for the chaos? The senior German politician Armin Laschet is to succeed Angela Merkel as leader of her party. He wrote yesterday that the chaos in Afghanistan is the greatest fiasco that NATO has ever suffered in its 70 years.