Afghanistan

Bob Seely Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The Government are doing much to protect people in trying to ensure that people can access ways of leaving Afghanistan. A point was made earlier about not just expecting people to get to Kabul, and I hope that is something the Government will be able to look into and take up.

Apart from the impact on the lives of women and girls, we see a potential humanitarian crisis, at least in some parts of Afghanistan. We have cut our international aid budget, but I am pleased that the Foreign Secretary has told me that more funding will be made available to deal with this crisis.

It is not just the impact on the people of Afghanistan that must concern us, however; we must be deeply concerned about the possible impact here in the UK. The aim of our involvement in Afghanistan was to ensure that it could not be used as a haven for terrorists who could train, plot, and encourage attacks in the UK. Al-Qaeda has not gone away. Daesh may have lost ground in Syria, but those terrorist groups remain and have spawned others. We will not defeat them until we have defeated the ideology that feeds their extremism.

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

One of the most concerning things that is happening is that several thousand al-Qaeda operatives have been freed from prisons in Bagram, Kabul and Kandahar. Is my right hon. Friend concerned that those people will go back to their old ways, or do we hope that they will somehow go into retirement? It seems to me that we are going to restart with a new round of international terrorism.

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend has anticipated exactly the point I was about to make. The Taliban has said that it will not allow Afghanistan to become a haven for terrorists again. Yesterday, in the press conference, it said it would not allow anything to happen in Afghanistan that would lead to attacks elsewhere across the world. However, we must look at its actions, not its words, and, as he has just pointed out, its action has been to release thousands of high-value Taliban, al-Qaeda and Daesh fighters. Its actions are completely different from its words, and it is essential that we recognise the probability that Afghanistan will once again become a breeding ground for the terrorists who seek to destroy our way of life.

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[Ian Blackford]

Indeed, Mr Speaker.

It is important that the cuts to overseas aid are reversed in their entirety. [Interruption.] I know that the Foreign Secretary is trying to wind me up. When the rest of us were doing what we could in the past few days, he was lying on a sunbed, so I will not take any lectures from someone like him. People are facing the worst situation imaginable and we have a Foreign Secretary who sits laughing and joking on the Government Front Bench. He should be ashamed of himself. He demonstrates that he has no dignity whatsoever. He can carry on saying that the amount has been doubled—

[Bob Seely]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We have had 20 minutes of speech and we now have a private conversation between Front Benchers. Should we not be debating the subject, Sir?

[Mr Speaker]

That is for me to decide and I have referred twice to both sides trying to antagonise each other, which is not a good idea. Whichever Front Bench it is, they should not be responding. I am sure that Mr Blackford is coming to the end of his speech. He did say that he would not take too long.

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[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

This is a difficult and upsetting debate, and I am not quite sure why. It may be because some of the people I knew are now dead and because I do not think that some of the things that are being said are true. I want to set the record straight and, in the short time I have, correct some of the false assumptions that are being made and also make a few observations. I pay tribute to the many hon. Members who have made excellent speeches, especially the Chairman of Foreign Affairs Committee and the Chairman of the Defence Committee, whose speeches were incredibly good.

What has happened is an appalling and unnecessary self-inflicted wound. We are being presented with a choice: invest more blood and treasure or walk away. No: we had a steady state, give or take, in Afghanistan for the last few years, and the mission was a train, equip and mentor one. It was large, but for between 5,000 and 20,000 troops, contractors, special forces and so on who were there, it was smaller than many NATO/US bases and missions around the world. We have chosen to withdraw politically; we have not been forced to do so on security grounds. I think we will regret that decision for many years.

The collapse happened because a truly dreadful US President, Donald Trump, who was probably in hock to the Russians, dealt with the Taliban behind the Afghan Government’s back—a shocking betrayal. Joe Biden, who admires Kennedy—we had some great quotes from Kennedy earlier—could have changed things. He has chosen not to and has opened the United States, Europe, India and many allies throughout the world to considerable terrorist risks from the 2,500 to 4,000 jihadi nut jobs—pardon my French—who are currently being released from Bagram, Kandahar and Kabul. When they have stopped slaughtering our friends and beheading a few key women journalists, they will turn their attention to us. We have walked away from a successful anti-terrorist operation after 20 years. Sooner or later, we will reap the rewards.

Many people have said that the Afghans did not fight. I was in Afghanistan four times over seven months, not on long tours—four months, two months and a few weeks. In my experience, many Afghans fought very hard. At first, yes, there was an uneven flow of recruits to the police, but I had the privilege of patrolling in Nad-e-Ali north with a small team. Those people were remarkable. When we went into a village, they would tell us from where the Taliban were watching us—which haystack, which bund line. They would tell us that the motor cycle repair man had to work for the Taliban because his wife and children were under threat. They also told us that they would happily take their daughters to school, but asked why they should when there was not enough security to prevent them from being raped and abducted on the way home. Sometimes it was difficult to give them an answer that reassured.

In many ways, those people were a model of courageous integrity. They were effective and efficient, they loved their country and they knew right from wrong. They are probably dead. If they were not killed a year ago, they will be finished off as we speak, and I find that upsetting.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend from the Foreign Affairs Committee makes an excellent point, which has been made by a few others. He always looks at these things with a keen eye. Given what he has just said, is it not offensive that those people’s contribution has been swept away, particularly by the President in the past few days?

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[Bob Seely]

Yes, absolutely. I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution. To dismiss the 70,000 people who have died is absolutely wrong. People were uneven at times, especially in the beginning, but there were many brave male and female soldiers, journalists and people who engaged in civil society. They will now be shut down. They will not all be murdered. The Taliban are clever: they will carry out some high-profile assassinations to silence others, but the direction of travel is clear.

The Secretary of State for Defence, who is in his place, is one of the few people who has emerged from this with any credit because he can see the bigger picture. He has understood the geopolitics, the rationale, but also the emotions of many troops who have served in Afghanistan. He has shared that and I thank him very much for it.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) said, Russia and China are happier today and Taiwan and Ukraine are considerably more nervous. We are weaker. As several hon. Members have said, Europe has been as bad as the United States in not stepping up to the mark. A weak and divided west is not a recipe for a caring future for anybody. It is a recipe for global instability and greater global threat.