Development blues

[RAENORTH]

A central part of the quest for "hearts and minds" of the Afghan peoples is the ongoing development programme. Nowhere is this more vital than in Helmand province, which sustains the heart of the Taliban-based conflict and where much of the fighting is currently taking place. Helmand, though, is no stranger to development projects. From 1946 to 1979, it was the subject of one of the largest and most expensive schemes in the history of Afghanistan, known as the Helmand Valley Project.

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[Odins Raven]

See the wonderful articles by Adam Curtis on how this mess developed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2 ... art_3.html
We hear about fighting around Lashkar Gah, but the media omits to mention it is the remnant of a previous attempt to plant America in Asia. The first time it was a dream. Now it's a nightmare.

[RAENORTH]

See the wonderful articles by Adam Curtis on how this mess developed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2 ... art_3.html
We hear about fighting around Lashkar Gah, but the media omits to mention it is the remnant of a previous attempt to plant America in Asia. The first time it was a dream. Now it's a nightmare.

This is based on the Cullather paper - which is based almost entirely on secondary sources. This gave me a lot of problems - I think he's over-egged the story focusing too much on the Lashkar Gah element, which was largely colonised by American workers and middle-class "professional" Afghans, and very separate from the rest of the areas. What was going on in the farming areas was not in any way "Americanised" and very different. Further, the factual framework is a little woolly ... the scheme was initiated by the Afghans, and remained under their control until 1953, but the dams seems to have been pushed by the contractors, not the Afghans, and very much later in the scheme. Thus, I have relied less on Cullather than I originally thought I might, and am going to have to revisit his thesis, checking out original sources, before I can get the full picture.

[Kenny]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... lment.html

Can it be true that troops were sent into battle with only 5 bullets each?

The container full of skis is surely dark humour.

[archonix]

These deep historical posts are always fascinating, though it's a little depressing to see how we keep going over the same mistakes... up to now everything I knew about Afghanistan came from the Flashman books. :D

[Guest]

Yes, it is quite true about the shortage of small arms ammunition and the other information in the Telegraph is pretty accurate. My unit was issued with only 15 9mm rounds and I carried a Browning High Power pistol during TELIC 1 without ever being issued with a single round. It is quite 'hairy' having a weapon and no ammo in a combat zone and is one of the reasons I resigned from the Service after I came home. I remember talking to an officer from a supply unit in late March 2003 who told me that his entire battalion were issued with only 20 5.56mm rounds in total and these were given to four sentries. Most infantry units had only 20-50 rounds of rifle ammunition. This partly explains the apparently slow advance by British forces on Basra and the reluctance to engage in combat while surrounding the town. There were also extreme shortages of NBC kit (I had one respirator canister, manufactured in 1986 and way past its use by date), NBC decontamination kits, body armour (none of use got the plates), medical kit (no morphine), ration packs, desert combats and so on. The Americans were just incredulous and wanted to know why we were willing to risk our lives for a government that clearly did not give a stuff about us.

It would be interesting to know just how many experienced soldiers quit the Army in disgust in 2003-04. Post-war resignations are often put down to people having had the combat experience they joined up for, but I suspect there was widescale disillusionment with the sheer incompetence of the supply chain. However, it should be remembered that throughout the 1990s and into the 2003 period the Government had saved money by cutting what was in reserve (which is invisible to the public) and putting everything into the shop window, so I have some sympathy for those in the ordnance depots faced with impossible demands and having to spend a fortune on urgent purchases from foreign countries.

I am told (and this is unconfirmed) that the reason for the small arms ammunition shortage was that most of it was packed into ISO containers and shipped aboard a chartered East European merchant vessel. This ran into difficulties in the Red Sea when the load shifted during bad weather and the crew ditched a number of these containers containing millions of rounds of ammunition overboard. The result was that there was simply very little ammunition to be issued and the seabed is one of the best provisioned spots in the Middle East. Perhaps someone can corroborate this?