London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Tuesday, Oct 14, 2025

Afghanistan is a tragedy is of our own making. Let’s not pretend it had to happen

Afghanistan is a tragedy is of our own making. Let’s not pretend it had to happen

The executions, brutality towards women and persecution of the Hazara are happening because of the choice not to redeploy 2,500 troops, says Tom Tugendhat
Today Kabul city is getting a new lick of paint. This isn’t a celebration but because the new rulers have banned photographs. All billboards, shop fronts and public spaces in a town half the size of London will lose their colour and blank walls will replace glamour models.

That’s not the worst of it. Underneath the white hoardings, pools of red are forming. The Taliban, despite its promises, have begun the executions that were long predicted and have been seen in Lashkar Gah and other towns it has captured. This is heart-breaking for everyone but perhaps more so for those of us who know the place and the people.

Like all the best cities, it has everything. Markets, food, confusion, noise and people from around the world. Pashtuns mix with Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Baloch, even some Sikhs, each bringing their own style and culture. When I lived there, helping to set up the Afghan National Security Council, my Afghan colleagues each had their favourite haunts. Restaurants — and even secret bars that served illegal alcohol — were where we went after work to talk about everything and the old days: life under the old king, the communist period and now the American period, as they called it. It was fascinating to hear.

My favourites were the Hazara places. Delicious ravioli-like pasta filled with lamb and covered in yoghurt, called mantu, came out of bamboo steamers like so much eastern cooking. Those restaurants will be closed now. Their owners have faced frequent persecution from the Taliban in the years before the Nato operation in 2001. Today, the new government will have a completely free hand, there isn’t even the Northern Alliance to offer sanctuary.

This is a tragedy of our own making. We’ve pulled out the keystone of a complex security triangle and are now watching the effect. It’s a choice. It’s our choice. But let’s not pretend it had to happen. As we start getting reports of executions on the street of those who worked with us or the Afghan government, the brutality towards women and the persecution of the Hazara, remember, this is because of the choice not to redeploy 2,500 troops.

That’s about half what you need on an aircraft carrier, about eight per cent of the troops in the Gulf, and a fraction of those in South Korea and Japan where they have been for decades.

They weren’t fighting. No British soldier had been killed in combat since 2013. They were holding the line. Now that’s over. Over the coming weeks we’re going to see this tragedy unfold — we’ll witness the hangings on TikTok. Twitter will bring reports of massacres. When you see them remember, the cost of the continued operation was low. And my friends who we lost are never coming back. This was a choice. President Biden chose to leave. Everything that now follows was foretold.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
EU Deploys New Biometric Entry/Exit System: What Non-EU Travelers Must Know
Australian Prime Minister’s Private Number Exposed Through AI Contact Scraper
Ex-Microsoft Engineer Confirms Famous Windows XP Key Was Leaked Corporate License, Not a Hack
China’s lesson for the US: it takes more than chips to win the AI race
Australia Faces Demographic Risk as Fertility Falls to Record Low
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
×