Center for a New American Security

The United Kingdom is cutting its Army by an incredible 40% and making other hard cuts in its navy and air forces. My question is this: are these cuts being entirely driven by UK fiscal outlook or are they in any way supported by scenario-based planning, i.e. "this is what we believe we would need for the following contingency operations." I'm guessing the former, but can someone in the formerly great Britain shed some light on this one? One of the followers of my Twitter feed suggested this might be posturing from the Ministry of Defense.

Amongst the furore generated by Gen. McChrystal's slagging off of his bosses and colleagues in Rolling Stone Magazine, everyone seems to have missed the fact that Britain's highest representative to the AfPak party has resigned.

It seems Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British government's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, resigned over differences concerning talks with the Taliban.

The Guardian says:

While insisting Britain should support the US, he was quoted as saying in the Canard Enchaîné: "We should tell them that we want to be part of a winning strategy, not a losing one." The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said his remarks had been distorted.

As for the Washington Post:

He had pushed for a political solution in Afghanistan and for higher priority to be given to talks with the Taliban and other insurgent groups, while expressing skepticism that increased military force could prevail.

Quite a few officials in Afghanistan have said Sir Sherard did not see eye-to-eye with Ambassador Holbrooke, the NATO representative Mark Sedwill or Gen. McCrystal.

"Cowper-Coles has been more downbeat, warning that the current battle in Afghanistan was "a civil war" and that the international community had "backed the wrong side", according to one non-British diplomat.

"He had increasingly come to believe that "sod-all can be done" about turning round the fortunes of the nine-year war, a top diplomat said, and is believed to have pushed strongly for the withdrawal of British troops as soon as possible."

I heard Sir Sherhard speak at a dinner organised by the Pakistan Society in London a couple of weeks back. He didn't say anything telling in terms of policy, but it was easy to see from what he said and how he said it that he had figured out exactly how to strike a chord with the kind of people who run Pakistan. I'm not qualified to speak about Afghanistan policy, but Sir Sherard seems like the kind of official I'd want to listen to.

The Quilliam Foundation, a pretty influential UK think tank focusing on extremism, is holding a round table discussion on a report it put out last month on Britain's Islam Channel satellite television station.

Reading through the executive summary just now made me feel a little uneasy. I've had the same feeling reading some of their other work, and I've always struggled to put my finger on what it is exactly that makes me react as if I'd just seen a thug suddenly get kicked to death on a bus by a bunch of grannies. After a long uninterrupted think (having no electricity, I can't distract myself with Pakistani television), I think I've finally figured it out.

Quilliam says; "the channel regularly promotes intolerance and sectarianism, and gives a platform to individuals and groups with a track record of promoting hatred and violence."

I don't know how Quilliam conducted the study but I'm willing to believe that material like: "I am not against the women. I am not against anybody. But this is the truth. That today, the problem, the calamities and hardship and suffering is due to the women..." or "Shia madhab [school of jurisprudence] has many aqaid [belief systems] which are not acceptable" is broadcast on Islam Channel because I am depressingly used to hearing such things (although, I have hung out with extremists more than most people). The sound of this sort of talk gets my back up. I can imagine the tone of voice it is delivered in, and it grates in my mind.

I'm referring to my own reaction because one person I know who has spent more time with extremists than me is Maajid Nawaz, one of the directors of Quilliam. For those that have not heard of Maajid, he was a key member of UK Islamist outfit Hizb ut Tahrir when it was properly nutty, as opposed to the toned down version it is now. Maajid's HT activities landed him in jail in Egypt. After his release, he left HT, denounced their ideology and helped set up Quilliam. I don't know Maajid. But I have bumped into him a couple of times and have heard him speak once or twice (I related one such occasion here as what Maajid was saying about his own attraction to radical Islamist politics brilliantly humanised the issues floating around in a young recruit's mind).

Ed Husain, the other Quilliam director, had a similar journey (without the jail time). His book The Islamist was very popular and I reviewed it a while ago for AM. I'm sure that due to their own experiences, Ed and Maajid's reaction to hearing intolerant, bigoted claptrap spouted by people who say they are speaking the Islamic "truth" is more pronounced than mine. But is it really a good thing?

As I sort of touched upon in the Arguing Extremism post, the whole issue of what is "moderate Islam" and what is "extreme" has become a battlefield littered with mines that have more to do with appearances than content. What I mean is that many Muslims will almost instinctively denounce something as un-Islamic because it seems to conform to Western norms rather than anything intrinsic about the issue at hand. By the same token, they will see things that seem an antithesis to Western practice as automatically Islamic. And, of course, this approach has gained more popular acceptance recently because to many it seems the West is at war with Islam.

You can see this unsaid, but underlaying, viewpoint in some of the statements pointed out in the executive summary:

"Within the western way of life the idea that a woman, even if she gets married, can refuse relations with her husband because of ‘individual choice'. This is something which is part of the western culture, but not Islam".

By denouncing material of this sort on Islam Channel, or elsewhere, in their customary manner, I think Quilliam actually gives it a stamp of approval. People who think that anybody who talks about "democracy" "human rights" and "freedom of expression" is automatically a "Western-educated, elitist, secularist" and must not be listened to under any circumstances will be quite happy to earn the ire of Quilliam. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are much better at sounding objective, which makes them then sound more credible. The only group i can think of that sounds like Quilliam in tone is, well... Hizb ut Tahrir. For example:

"London UK, 13th April 2010 - David Cameron has called for a ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir in the Conservative party's manifesto launched today which once again twists the truth and states that "a Conservative government will ban any organisations which advocate hate or the violent overthrow of our society, such as hizb-ut-tahrir".

"Their desire to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir shows they really fear that our ideas have taken a hold amongst Muslims around the world, because of our uncompromising criticism of Western foreign policy in Muslim countries, and relentless call to replace tyranny and dictatorship in the Muslim world with an Islamic Caliphate that will bring security, stability, authority to the people, and accountability and justice - all enshrined in the Shariah."

Yes, I am subscribed to email alerts from both organisations.

I'm a big fan of debate. During the last few months in Pakistan, I have come to realise that one of the elements that has evolved in British Muslim society recently that places like Pakistan don't have and could really do with is rigorous debate on issues that tie together religion, identity and politics. The Quilliam approach, in my view, seems to want to shout down rather than argue, tackle or rebut. Denouncing makes for pithy soundbites, but ultimately doesn't convince people to change their views. 

Where I think Quilliam does a great job is where it does encourage debate. Such as the discussions it organised last year at the conferences of the major political parties (here's a write up of one of the sessions which took place on the sidelines of the Tory party conference) and got people talking constructively about counter terrorism strategy.

As for the Islam Channel, is it really al-Qaeda TV? I mean REALLY? I mean, apart from extremism, it will also teach you how to make black forest cupcakes.

Anyway, the roundtable is taking place at midday on April 21 in London somewhere. If you want to go email: events@quilliamfoundation.org

No comment from Londonstani on this, but read the article and comment at will.

Ok, maybe a few excerpts would be useful:

"Foreign Secretary David Miliband was under pressure today to explain why there had been cutbacks in counter-terrorism programmes in Pakistan because of the falling value of the pound.

"...The Foreign Office (FCO) is trying to deal with a shortfall of £110 million, a figure expected to grow in 2010-11, due to fluctuations in sterling.

"...Baroness Kinnock caused astonishment by disclosing that programmes to tackle terrorism and radicalisation in Pakistan had been hit as a result.

"...Her revelation in the House of Lords came hours after Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the Commons that the "crucible of terrorism" on the Afghan-Pakistan border remained the "number one security threat to the West".

And, in case you thought this was due to some sort of unforseen international economic situation:

"Mr Hague said the cuts were the "direct consequence of Labour's decision to remove the FCO's protection against exchange rate movements".

UPDATE:

And where are the cuts landing?

"Kim Howells, a former foreign minister who is now chair of the intelligence and security committee that oversees MI5, MI6 and other intelligence agencies, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning that he was surprised at the timing of Kinnock's comments, but not the content.

"It is well known that obviously if a currency devalues against other currencies than you buy less than your money," said Howells.

He did not believe these cuts would affect "the hard end" of counterterrorism activities, he said, before adding: "Undoubtedly what it will affect are those softer diplomatic efforts ... for example, trying to convince the Pakistani government and the regional governments in Pakistan that they should try to improve the material lives of people that will make them less susceptible to the overtures of al-Qaida, the Taliban and so on."

So like in the areas where many analysts think we have the best opportunity to make substantial changes

Londonstani spent most of the summer on a housing estate clinging to the outskirts of Bristol. The job in hand was to investigate racism for a documentary by living as an immigrant in the kind of area many recent arrivals are housed in by local councils. But the experience also shed light on how the process of radicalisation plays out on the streets of modern Britain. Considering the recent debate about Prevent in the UK, Londonstani thinks it'll be useful to share his observations.

British readers will have little difficulty guessing Londonstani's identity from this post, but he would very much appreciate they keep it to themselves as full disclosure will threaten continued posting from Pakistan.

(preemptive apologies to Ma Exum and Lady Muqawama for some of the language in this post)

I'm used to hearing people in the Muslim world talk about life in Britain as a utopian fantasy. In Pakistan, on a daily basis, i hear rich and poor people talk about Britain's civilised society, it's impartial justice system and the humanitarian founding principles of a health system that provides care for all. Sometimes, I try to inject a little realism into the discussion by pointing out our social problems and the frequent complaints about the deteriorating quality of the country's social services. But I can almost see the words bounce off people's glazed expressions. This is not restricted to Pakistan. Even people in more stable countries like Egypt allow themselves to think of life in a developed economy as a heaven-like dream.

This summer, I saw reality hit home for those few who make it to Britain. I was sitting at a bus stop on the edge of Bristol's Southmead Estate. Beside me was a Sudanese man with his young daughter, who seemed about six years old. We sat on the same bench as he asked her about school and her homework. He had no reason to think I understood his northern Sudanese Arabic dialect, and I felt guilty being an unintended party to a private conversation between a father who looked like he'd just finished a long shift as a security guard at a supermarket and a child, who was plainly excited to be out with her father. 

I reached into the paint-splattered overalls that were meant to make me look like a Pakistani immigrant doing odd jobs to survive in his new home and pulled out a cigarette, hoping that leaning against the bus stop away from the Sudanese family would let me tune out of their conversation. On the other side of the road was another bus stop. A group of local girls, none older than 15, were talking to each other loudly. Amongst all the squealing, the only words I could make out were "fuck", "bastard" and "cunt". Occasionally one of the girls would pull her skirt up at a passing car of boys and the others would cheer and hand her a bottle of brightly coloured liquor to swig from. Every now and again, one of the cars would stop and another girl might stand in front of the passenger window and pull down her top. The boys would try and persuade them to get in. Eventually, two of the girls got into a crowded little car with wide tyres and lowered suspension.

I had been absent mindedly watching the events in front of us. After the car drove away, the Sudanese father turned to his daughter and said; "That's what English girls are like. Never talk to people like that."

A few days later at the same bus stop, two Indian low-grade computer technicians were discussing their new home. They probably assumed I understood their Hindi, but they didn't seem to care. They spoke of near daily verbal abuse and friends who had been attacked by teenage thugs.  England, they decided, wasn't what they thought it was. Just before they got on their bus, a group of teenagers outside the chip shop behind us proved the technicians' point by rounding on a passing elderly local.

"Look out, he's a perv," shouted one boy. Before another pushed the girl standing next to him in front of the old man and said, "I bet you wish you could fuck her". They all then burst into laughter.

Southmead is the Britain that most people do not see. This is perhaps understandable if you live abroad. But judging from comments after the broadcast of the documentary, people in Britain's more affluent areas are unaware of what happens in neighbourhoods literally on their doorsteps. The little attention places like Southmead merit on the public's radar, is inversely proportional to their physical presence. Places like Southmead exist on the borders of every British city and inside the largest ones. A very large proportion of Britain's immigrants live in places like Southmead and a sizeable chunk of the white population has grown up in similar surroundings. 

I saw these surroundings at close quarters. Hundreds of cans of high-strength cider littered the streets every Saturday and Sunday. I saw unemployed drunken youths accost shoppers in the mornings. The green spaces that looked inviting from afar were littered with used condoms, pregnancy test kits and the excrement of pitbull dogs that were popular pets amongst residents. In the daytime, teenage mothers pushed young children around the estate. I saw the partner of one young mother call a toddler a "fucking little shit" before smacking him hard enough on the back of the head to make the child drop to his knees and cover his head in the expectation of further violence. In the early evenings, young teenagers would sit at benches swigging from bottles of cheap alcohol. On one occasion, I became their target.

As an immigrant in Southmead, segregating yourself and your family was an act of self preservation. Two young British-born Pakistani boys I talked to told me earnestly that they were good because "we aint got no white friends". There were many helpful and kind local people living on the estate. But the few I bumped into were often quick to distance themselves from their environment. A retired man who used to try to talk to me every morning at another bus stop would freeze when tatooed men with aggressive dogs walked by. Young mothers who used the same stop would talk about needing to move out "for the sake of the kids".

The impulse to segregate was compounded by the messages that seemed to reinforce the idea that the treatment in Southmead reflected the mood and views of the rest of Britain. "Hundreds of thousands of migrants here for handouts, says senior judge". "Britain paying migrants £1,700 to return home BEFORE they've even got here" "The violent new breed of migrants who will let nothing stop them coming to Britain" These headlines were just three of many that were printed in the Mail, a right-wing daily during my time in Southmead. I don't usually take much notice of the headlines in the Sun and the Mail unless they are truly shocking, but in Southmead the headlines seemed to have an impact on the treatment we received. The level of low-level hostility from adults seemed to be directly linked to the content of the headlines. More outright hostility from younger adults and children followed a day or so later.

Walking around the estate, I often thought of British Pakistani and Somali boys growing up thinking their experiences were an accurate portrayal of what Britain was about. I imagined growing up with such a view of Britain would make the idea of fighting UK forces in Muslim lands seem righteous. On the battlefields of Iraq and/or Afghanistan, the young soldiers they would face would likely include the white youngsters who joined up hoping the army was their way out of Southmead.

But the army wasn't the only way out. There was also religion. If you decide that the dysfunctional reality of Southmead is a product of a permissive society, austere religion is a logical answer.

I met one man from Southmead who had made that decision. A local man had embraced a strict form of Islam. He told me that the problems of the area resulted from weak family values and a moral laxity that allowed the misuse of drugs and alcohol. Islam had provided him a way out and a template for a better life than the one he had seen growing up. Although we talked for literally minutes, it was easy to tell I was talking to a mature adult who made a considered decision that had helped him live as a productive and responsible member of society.

I heard of at least another local man who had embraced Islam. I didn't meet him but I read about him in the newspapers while he was on trial for trying to bomb a shopping centre in the city. When police raided his flat they found a suicide vest and explosives hidden in a biscuit tin.

Andrew Ibrahim is the son of middle class parents, who news reports said were Egyptian Christians. During the trial, a picture emerged of a young man with serious emotional and drug abuse problems. It was a picture I had come across before when looking at a new emerging breed of extremists who came from criminal backgrounds and actively sought out extremist Islam as a way of depicting their activities as more than mere criminality and a route to a new identity as warriors in a cosmic battle.

News reports said Ibrahim described the UK as a "dirty toilet". How much of his view was influenced by the surroundings of his upbringing?

The judge presiding over the trial, which ended with Ibrahim getting a life term, summed up the prosecution's portrayal of Ibrahim as one of a young man who suffered a disturbed adolescence and went on to become lonely, angry and alienated from society. The description could fit any number of young men in Southmead and other places like it. Not all will turn to extremism, but they will likely be drawn to other forms of angry destructive behaviour.

The ingredients that make a British terrorist are numerous, interact with each other in different ways and are changing constantly. Just looking at "Britishness" or identity fails to take into account the growing numbers of extremists that are emerging from non-Muslim backgrounds. But what affects one person doesn't necessarily affect another. Ibrahim's brother Peter was reported to be a Oxbridge educated lawyer. But whatever the ingredients are, it was clear from my time in Southmead that it's easier to find them in places that suffer social deprivation. And the UK has many of them.

The discussion about Muslim immigrants turning to extremism often centres around them not wanting to integrate into British life. But it never addresses the fact that many come with high hopes of a new life, and find reality bitterly dispiriting. They come to take advantage of social mobility and a law-abiding society to build a better life for their families. They end up feeling they need to protect their families from the very society they had idolised. Why don't they go home? Many people I met from more stable parts of the world talked about it "after saving enough". But like others before them, chances are that they will stay. People who had come with a fantasy of Britain ended just seeing it as an opportunity to earn and a contagion to avoid.

Government policy seeks to target resources to fix problems in the most cost effective manner. However, the problem of extremism now involves society as a whole. Pre 9/11 it was limited to a section of a section of the population. That has grown with the advent of the Iraq war and the emergence of an image of Muslim militants as righteous men ready to stand against a superpower and the ability to make the established powers of the world look impotent. It's an image that appeals to people of diverse backgrounds who are disillusioned with their societies. People who aren't necessarily observant Muslims, or even Muslims at all. But at the same time, the increasingly obvious bloodlust of the men and women drawn to the cause has alienated most Muslims.

What does that mean for initiatives like Operation Contest's Prevent aspect? (thanks davidpfbo) On the one hand, allies and partners are easier to identify, but the work that needs to be done has to reach out to more people and address wider issues in our society. Despite the protests of individual voices lobbying for the adoption of their own outlook, work on identity, engagement with more authentic Islamic voices and community work (including seemingly unconnected activities like sports) all have a roll to play. The undertaking is huge and constant fine tuning is vital. It also involves sums that the British government will struggle to find.

The UK's Department of Communities and Local Government is conducting an enquiry into the UK's government's Prevent strategy, one strand of the government's overall plan to tackle terrorism and its causes.

Before relocating to Pakistan, Londonstani spent a fair amount of time looking at extremism in the UK as well as efforts to counter it. Prevent seems to have started out very much as a "work in progress", meaning that the idea was to try a bunch of stuff and see how it played out before fine tuning the strategy. The broadbrush approach has drawn in community partners with differing views on the nature of the problem.

The way to see Prevent, Londonstani thinks, is as an effort by the government to draw in partners to help it understand an issue it realised was beyond its present capacity. The problem is that the partners might have had a snap-shot understanding of the areas in which they operate but who also lacked an overall understanding of the problem. This isn't a criticism of any given group - the problem is vast and the issues involved in it are manifold and constantly evolving.

Among the submissions to the enquiry are some interesting points made by the Quilliam Foundation, an influential think tank in the UK.

The argument that radicalisation is driven by grievances, in particular about foreign policy and the idea that of a "War on Islam", is a popular one but one that is undermined by a comparison between Britain and America. If British foreign policy feeds into a narrative of a "War on Islam" then America's foreign policy must also equally or more so. Yet, despite American Muslims sharing British Muslims' concerns about a "War on Islam"[5], America has seen nothing like the home-grown 7/7 attacks. This can be explained by the greater accessibility immigrants to America have to a shared identity built on universal values than is granted to immigrants to Britain.

Quilliam, to take this example, is very keen on the "inclusive British identity" approach. Others think extremists rise from disadvantaged communities and the main focus should be based on social services that tackle education, social exclusion etc.

However, Quilliam's above statement is a good example of the superficial nature of present extremism analysis. How does the greater accessibility that American universal values are supposed to offer immigrants explain events at Ft. Hood? An isolated incident? Well, what about, Najibullah Zazi, who planned "Mumbai-on-the-Hudson" with help from extremists in Pakistan. Or, Byran Neal Venas, a Hispanic American convert, who was captured in Afghanistan and admitted to helping with initial plans to launch an attack in the US. Or David Hedley, an American who planned to kill an editor at the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in Copenhagen. If he had managed, the US would have joined the list of nations that have become a launching pad for extremist violence.

Read Peter Bergen's Foreign Policy article where he outlines these cases and others in more detail and effectively makes the case that the US has basically just been lucky so far. And as we know, luck is no basis from which to argue for policy direction.

Drawing together lots of views and opinions is definitely a good approach, but Londonstani doesn't envy the people who have to navigate all the competing interests and ideologies that underlay the different views and come out with a better policy.

Does Britain collude in the torture of terror suspects or not?

The head of MI5 said in a speech the other day that torturing people might be OK for Jack Bauer, but it's not OK for his officers..  Well, he basically said that without the television reference.

However, Londonstani has a good friend who went to Pakistan totally off his own bat and filmed interviews with Pakistani military people saying that British officials had asked them to obtain information through torture. The material was not broadcast or developed as UK news organisations couldn't afford to buy the footage and repay their costs.

In Londonstani's experience, nothing has been as damaging to the fight against radicalisation, extremism and terrorism as accounts and images of people being tortured by UK and US personnel, or those acting on their behalf. This isn't to say information of such occurences should be suppressed, rather that they should just plain not happen. Anyone who has spent time in the places between Casablanca, Cairo, Karachi and Jakarta and talked to people about al Qaeda/terrorism etc will have heard pre-2006 that AQ's fight was justified by the US and UK's practices. And after 2006 would have heard that AQ was no worse in its actions than Washington and London. Even that change in view came about because of AQ's bloodlust in Iraq and not actions undertaken by the international community.

Hiding information about torture is counterproductive. It gets out anyway. And if it's seeping out through the families and friends of people who have suffered it, the shadowy details will be much worse than the actual facts. This isn't to say that the UK did collude in torture, but rather that the sense of doubt is harmful. If Londonstani was a government accused of involvement in torture (the government of Londonistan, maybe), he would put it out in the open, denounce it as an abberation of normal conduct, hold people accountable and make sure it doesn't happen again

Not to be outdone by AM on the traveling front, Londonstani has spent the best part of 24 hours on planes flying around the Middle East. And, the one good thing about travelling economy class on Emirates air are all the free English and Arabic newspapers.

The Taliban attacks on ISAF forces in Nuristan made for the top story in every single title. The story seems like a pretty straight forward affair, but hidden in its coverage is clue to how the Afghan conflict is being seen within the Muslim world.

Wire stories are a nuts and bolts write-by-numbers affair with strict rules on news judgement, impartiality and grammar which aim to ensure the finished written product adheres to the ethos of the organisation and varies little from individual writer to writer. Newspapers then later reprint these stories. Often the only changes they make are to cut out the final paragraphs of background or re-write the headline.

With that in mind, the original Reuters story on the Nuristan attack has the title; Eight U.S. soldiers killed in east Afghan battle. The same story in the Gulf News is; US troops beaten back. AFP's original story has the headline; Eight US troops die in one of worst Afghan battles. The Gulf news runs with; US suffers heavy losses in Taliban's daring attack.

Gulf News is a Dubai-based paper with a fairly neutral line towards the United States. Sitting in the middle of the central section of seats on the Emirates airbus squashed between a large Punjabi man and a nose picking spoilt Pakistani teenager visiting home after a stint working in the family business in Saudi, Londonstani was not in a position to conduct a media study, but the Arabic newspapers had similar headlines. It would been instructive to look at other newspapers from across the region and monitor the op-eds which will appear in the next couple of days. (This is something embassies do, right?)

The public in ISAF contributing nations are exposed to media stories that highlight the sacrifices of their own country's troops and the general evilness of the enemy. But what we don't see is how the conflict is being viewed abroad. But it is vital strategists are aware of perception in the region when they consider the implications of future strategy decisions.

There is little point denying that the Taliban (whether in Afghanistan or Pakistan) get much popularity for just fighting toe to toe against Western, and particularly American and British, troops. One of the new realities on the ground engendered by the last eight years of conflict is that local militias in the Muslim world attract respect and therefore support just by taking on Western forces. This respect, particularly when it comes from people who live far away from the theatre of conflict, translates into financial support. Many of these groups now have a strong motivation to turn "internationalist" where once they would have been local. Most readers here are aware of the talks between US and Taliban officials held in the US before 9/11. Once, it seemed the Taliban might develop a Saudi-like US client state. Not any more.

In Londonstani's own opinion, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan was misguided. But now it's done, it needs to be done right. "Leaving them to it" is morally dubious after a botched occupation that returned a bunch of gangsters to power. Not to mention the years of bloody service Afghanistan provided to the West in its cold war struggle against the Warsaw pact countries. But also, in the same way the Palestinians' use of suicide attacks sanctified their adoption by al Qaeda, what happens in Afghanistan will have an effect in the future. It's only the exact form of that impact that's not clear.

British politicians are fond of telling the public that fighting in Afghanistan prevents bombs going off at home. Considering that more than half the population wants the army out of Afghanistan, and there's an election coming, it's not a surprise that the people hoping to keep their jobs (who are the same people who decided to the send the troops there in the first place) like to stress the most obvious, stark justification. "The army stays in Afghanistan so you don't blown up on your way to work".

"Well, yeah.. ok," Londonstani's often thought; "but is this one of those situations where politicians and spin doctors decide that the public needs the most face-slap basic message to understand its own self interest?"

There's a bigger picture problem with getting out of Afghanistan too early and today the head of the army, Sir David Richards made it very clear:

"Failure would have a catalytic effect on militant Islam around the world and in the region because the message would be that al-Qaeda and the Taliban have defeated the US and the British and Nato, the most powerful alliance in the world. So why wouldn't that have an intoxicating effect on militants everywhere? The geo-strategic implications would be immense."

What does that mean exactly? Imagine extremists operating in a place far away from Afghanistan are struggling to convince their local audience that austerity and rejection will end corruption, increase justice and restore their pride. A place like, say, Nigeria. In the vast majority of instances, these groups are shunned not because of the intervention of others but because of their own excesses and unpopular practices.

What happens when the Taliban succeeds in making good al Qaeda's vow to defeat the remaining world superpower as they destroyed the Soviets (according to their own image projection)? A realistic projection resulting from the steriod injection of kudos such as outcome would produce will likely include a strengthening of groups in places like Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Indonesia, Pakistan as well as the emergence of groups in all sorts of unexpected places (like inner city London).

Result? Decades of small wars all over the globe, increased civilians deaths (in Western and Muslim countries) and therefore continued escalation, higher defence costs and disruption to global trade etc. So if you think Afghanistan is bad...

Ramadan is officially over and the Muslim world is about to give thanks after a month of contemplation, temperance and the chance to be granted God's forgiveness.

Well actually....

Ramadan is just about over and no one can really decide what day Eid is on so various communities will hold it on different days and absolutely everyone will be very, very confused but give thanks for the chance to overdose on fried food and revisit long-running family arguments. 

But whatever day they do hold it on, Britain's streets will be full of young men and women of Pakistani descent melding their cultural backgrounds in one big celebration that encapsulates our country. 

That's right.. binge drinking and hooliganism - Eid style.

Apart from the opportunity to laugh at a drunk guy, the other point of this post is to ease us gently into the world of Pakistani dysfunction, which will be revisted in greater depth very shortly. Happy Eid!!