Time to set a deadline for troop withdrawal from Afghanistan

Speech by Hazel Dakers, Vice-chair, Hounslow Liberal Democrats delivered to Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference 2009 on Tue 22nd Sep 2009

With the support of Councillor Andrew Dakers, our parliamentary candidate for Brentford & Isleworth Constituency, three times this year Hounslow Borough Lib Dems submitted motions to conference committee calling for UK withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of 2010.

Thus, whilst we welcome this motion, it does not go far enough.

As Simon Jenkins has said: "Britain is not the sovereign power in Kabul, nor is the Taliban a single political entity. Everyone knows that the British will go, but the Taliban will stay."

Sixty per cent of Britons want the UK military to withdraw from or reduce its presence in Afghanistan, according to an international poll.

Nick, Ed - You have the opportunity to use your influence in parliament and the country to avoid the needless loss of hundreds more of our brave and loyal troops and maybe thousands of Afghani civilians. In the weeks and months ahead, show that Lib Dems both listen to public opinion and can provide real leadership.

More than 200 of our troops have died, many recently, in order to secure a largely fraudulent election. In and around Babaji four soldiers died for 150 votes.

Our excellent forces are over-stretched and under-equipped. They are required to fight an unwinnable war against guerrillas - a task which has nearly always proved impossible for conventional forces and, according to General Richards, might take 30-40 years.

The government that we have been supporting passed laws giving rights to husbands to withhold basic maintenance if a wife does not meet his sexual demands. When women parliamentarians try to fight such laws they receive threats and intimidation - including from fellow MPs.

We cannot afford this war in terms of UK soldiers' and Afghani lives - nor can our fragile economy bear it.

The time is now to cut our losses and start negotiations with the Taliban as Ed has suggested.

Whilst I have no doubt conference will be in sympathy with this motion, which we know will be referred, I hope your focus, Nick, Ed and Paddy, will shift rapidly to making the UK intervention time-limited. The UK must seek to deliver a managed withdrawal in 2010.

Related Link:

Emergency motion - Afghanistan and Pakistan conflict - carried