AS I watch on TV the coffins of British servicemen and women conveyed through Wootton Basset I call to mind the first order I received as a reluctant conscript: "Get your mind blank Horsfield".
I had been sent for training to this infantry unit straight from the finest university in the world where I had studied for three years history, with military history as my special subject. In those far off days, the total cost to me was £9 for a compulsory dark suit. The taxpayers covered the rest. Tuition, accommodation, books, meals, beer in silver tankards, black Russian cigarettes, the lot. The object was to train my mind to make me a valued member of society. The corporal bawling at me was doing his job to make me take my 303 rifle and shoot or bayonet people efficiently and above all without question as ordered. The system used was licensed bullying which had not changed much since the 18th century.
Fortunately it did not completely work. A few weeks later pinned up next to my orders was a notice in bold type appealing for volunteers to assist with a scientific experiment at a place called Porton Down in the search for a cure to the common cold. What caught my eye was the promise of a 48 hour pass and rail warrant at the end of the week-long experiment to go home. I was tempted to apply. I had a wife and a one year-old son living in a condemned property on a marriage allowance of £3 a week. But at Oxford my tutors had taught me to challenge the unusual. How was the army involved with the research for the common cold? The answer came many years later when a coroner issued an exhumation order to examine the body of a National Service Soldier. The truth came out: the experiment was to assess the capability of different uniform materials in protecting soldiers from sarin nerve gas which is fatal when in contact with the skin. Many others claim to have been made very ill by falling for a blatant lie. I do not know what troops today in Afghanistan are told about the reason for fighting there. In my day the South Staffs in their training to fight Eoka, Greek Cypriot guerillas seeking union with Greece, were taught nothing, not even where the place was. Few died but a lot lost the soles of their boots in the Troodos mountains due to Caustic soda that was swilling across the rotting floors in the Lichfield barracks. The only relaxed time was Sunday morning when a news-agent sold his papers in the barracks rooms. "Tit Bits" was a favourite paper though quite a few preferred "Dandy" or "The Wizard" or "The Beano". My Sunday Times was a provocation. We also had put in with us a soldier who was from the Worcesters who read the "Daily Worker". When his battalion was posted to Germany he was kept behind as communist sympathisers were not allowed in Western Europe. He was posted to Bermuda which we all envied. He had resisted the mind blanking process too.
David Miliband, our Foreign Secretary, and number two in Government, also went to my college and was popular with his contemporaries and emerged with a brilliant first class degree. He should know the truth better than anyone but he has been uttering the same official line that our troops are there to protect the UK from the Taliban. The truth is that after the Russians moved in to support their communist president who was building clinics and schools for girls and modernising the country. The SAS, the Marines, our forces trained, armed, and directed the Taliban (means students) to fight the Russians. After over 15,000 of their occupying forces had been killed they cut their losses and withdrew. The Taliban took over, re-imposed Sharia Law, and expelled Bin Laden and Al Qaida and the Arabs that "our" side had introduced in the anti-communist crusade. But then they became unco-operative in what really mattered to the Americans, so Washington supported the vilest Northern Warlords to drive out the Taliban from Kabul, taking no prisoners. So poor old Afghanistan which has six major tribes, all speaking their own languages is now in the hands of a feeble, corrupt government.
At the same time the Taliban are twice as strong as when the British troops were sent, run half the country, receive billions of dollars from rich Muslims in the Middle East, and are searching for ground to air missiles which turned the war against the Russians, and will almost certainly see off the helicopters that our troops are waiting for.
The reason for all this is before me in transcripts from the proceedings of the American Congress of February 12 1998 when Unocal, on behalf of other major oil companies pressed the American Government to link the rich fields of gas and oil in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan with a 1040 mile 42 inch pipe-line through Helman province in Afghanistan where our troops are, to the port of Gwadar in Pakistan and then by tanker to the vast Asian market.
The US Government informed its allies of the plan to invade Afghanistan before the 911 attacks. The attack on the twin towers was planned in Germany, and 20 out of the 21 participants were Saudis angry about American support for Israel. But it gave Bush on October 7 2001 a popular boost for the opening of his invasion of Afghanistan, and on June 13, Hamid Kazal, who had been a Unocol consultant, became the new Afghan leader. He is standing for re-election in a country he cannot control but if enough people are killed this billion oil barrels a day pipeline will be built, and the contracts are already signed. It is about oil.
The score so far in Helmand Province: 186 British dead since 2001, 157 wounded in one week last month, 180,000 boys and girls in school in 2001, none in school today, two million Afghan widows today in a country without a welfare state, cost: billions and billions. Reputation: around 200,000 shoes sold by the Turkish firm like the one thrown at Bush. Could be worse. On July 1 1916 in the battle of the Somme 60,000 troops were sent over the top on a 14 mile front to advance in line, rifles at the high port, pace steady, ignore casualties. Then a second wave of 40,000 troops. By the end of the day 20,000 were dead, 50,000 injured and the "gains" were insignificant. The battle went on until November when Britain had suffered 400,000 casualties without breaking through the German lines. All the men had volunteered to join the army. Lloyd George, the Prime Minister, allowed himself to be over-ruled by the generals and the King. They did it again, it was even worse at a place called Passchendaele.
But the tragedy of the lives lost and the families blighted brought before us at Wootton Basset is exactly the same, sickening. Sickening because it is about control of oil and gas fields. The only gleam of hope is David Miliband's latest pronouncement. He must have read a history book because all war ends in diplomacy. Why not do a deal with the Taliban who just want us all out of their homeland and live according to their law. I found it extraordinary when in Vietnam to find American sailors putting a wreath on the memorial to the people who fought against them while my hotel was full of American businessmen seeking trade. All were friends again. How can this war be justified? – Roger Horsfield, Bream.