Matthew Parris Has Gone Too Far This Time

Matthew Parris, desperate for attention, may usually be ignored but his latest ill-thought outburst in the Times on Saturday, “Our Afghanistan Heroes Died for Nothing,” should not go unchallenged.  Parris took issue with the sentiment, expressed in a letter signed by a lot of senior military and political figures, that the dedication of those who died in Afghanistan should be respected in the current accommodation with the Taliban, a ceasefire and effective US withdrawal from that theatre.  The sub-headline, “the army’s top brass let down their men in a shambolic campaign and now don’t even have the decency to stay silent,”  a monstrous generalisation, tells us all we need to know about the thrust of the article.  Parris is outraged and demands that the retired army leadership should apologise. 

To borrow a phrase from the article, “need I bother to spell out the flaw,” in Parris’ argument?  History will probably record that the recent Afghanistan campaign was a failure.  The difficulty arises in allocating blame for that failure.  Parris, with his usual infallible insight, is convinced that the blame lies with the Generals who he lampoons as chinking their gongs and swishing their ermine.  I am not a military historian and neither do I have any special knowledge of this period of military history but I learned enough whilst at Bracknell attending the Royal Air Force Staff College that matters are seldom so clear cut and that it is unwise to be selective in argument, particularly if one’s grasp of the facts is tenuous.  Even if Sir Sherrard Cowper-Coles believed that the army in Afghanistan looked for action in order to justify its existence, that many tactical leaders were recklessly overconfident or that the UK armed forces punched above their weight, that is, fought with inadequate reserves, the accumulation of these tactical military failures would be unlikely to amount to an explanation of the strategic disaster.  For the root cause we will need to understand how the whole Whitehall apparatus, military and civilian, failed to think through the strategy in the first place – to select and maintain the aim, the first principle of war.  For example, to what extent did Tony Blair’s apparently unconditional assurance to George Bush in July 2002 that “our job is to be there with you,” trump common sense in the following years of mission creep?  Historians will, no doubt, provide the answers but not yet.

Matthew Parris has little of no life experience to bring to the debate.  He “worked,” briefly in the FCO before becoming an MP.  Thereafter he wrote speeches for David Cameron and became an MP.  He has been a journalist since.  He was decorated by the RSPCA, received a “gong,”  for jumping into the Thames to rescue a dog and he has been very active in favour of gay rights but his relevant military experience, from which he appears to comment with such authority, is obscure.

Parris concludes his article by pointing out that “we lost” and opining that “sacrifice has been in vain.”  He says that military leaders of the period should respect a “period of embarrassed silence.”  Quite so Matthew Parris; let us leave it to the mature judgement of future historians who will be able to examine all the facts.  Meantime, rather than rake over current grief, to borrow your own words again, “about 50 years” would be a good time for clever dicks like you to observe a respectful silence.

PS

I am most grateful for the thoughts of a friend and former colleague, somewhat more senior than me, who adds:

"Generals do not select a war in which to get involved. Nor do they seek to put their men in harm's way. It is politicians who throw them the hospital pass, and Parris should acknowledge that - and also remember that those in senior command positions were not plucked from nowhere. They, without exception, had worked their way up, experiencing the dangers and hardship of being  a soldier. And probably, on the way, vowing to be better than those who led them."