Time to come clean about Afghanistan

The futile, pointless deaths of 6 young soldiers in Afghanistan forces us to address the reasons for our continued presence in that corrupt, rotten country, and to demand that our politicians face up to their responsibilities to their constituents, and start to take a positive lead in this debate, acknowledging the truth of the situation, and taking the necessary steps to bring our troops home immediately.

For years now, we have sat back while one after another, our young service people have lost their lives in a war, the reasons for which I doubt anyone understands any more. We have been given so many conflicting reasons for our troops being in Afghanistan; supporting the legitimate Afghan Government, making life safer for women and children, helping to build schools and social infrastructure, suppressing the drug trade, nation building, and now, fighting terrorism in Afghanistan in order to make our streets safer at home.

None of this has any reality, the people who committed terrorist atrocities in London on 7/7 were home-grown Jihadists, who were already known to the Security Services.

We went into Afghanistan to support the Americans. It was all part of Prime Minster Blair's sycophantic support for George Bush, and supported by the dwindling group of political Atlanticists in the UK Security Establishment who worry about not being allowed to nibble the intelligence crumbs that the Americans occasionally allow to drop from their high table.

The War in Afghanistan, also called the Afghan war, began on October 7, 2001, as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front, the old Northern Alliance launched Operation Enduring Freedom.

The primary driver of the invasion was the September 11 attacks on the United States, with the stated goal of dismantling the A Queda terrorist organization and ending its use of Afghanistan as a base. The United States also said that it would remove the Taliban regime from power and create a viable democratic state. A decade into the war, the U.S. and the Allied forces continue to battle a widespread Taliban insurgency.

The politicians are agreed that the UK must keep in line with the Americans, our plan to leave is set for 2014, all the while we are ostensibly working to train and support the Afghan Armed Forces and Police. Why do we maintain this ridiculous fiction? The Afghan army and Afghan police are a rag-tag collection of some of the most corrupt individuals in the country, serving a corrupt Government in which a large number of Karzai's ministers are actively engaged in overseeing the drug trade, and all the while our young men are dying.

The saddest fact is that from the start, there was no coherent exit policy, and we have not been able to extricate ourselves from a war that is becoming increasingly more costly in terms of human lives and matériel.

Even if it were possible to put aside the immeasurable human cost in sorrow and grief such deaths cause to families and loved ones, and it must be an unbearable burden for them, we have taken our eyes off the bigger picture of the huge number, in excess of 5,000 British service personnel, who have returned home, alive, but in many cases, severely injured, both physically and mentally, and who should be deserving of financial and social support for the rest of their lives, albeit an incalculable sum of money. I say 'should' but it doesn't happen.

Experts have warned of a tidal wave of cases of mental trauma caused by service on the frontline by overworked soldiers, first in Iraq and now Afghanistan. Of those, around 5 per cent are likely to suffer from the more serious Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which can lead to alcoholism and depression and other problems. 'Combat Stress', the veterans’ mental health charity, has said that based on the MoD figures it would mean that 51,000 veterans were likely to show symptoms of mental health problems because of their service in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There are other less visible but still shocking social costs. Ex-servicemen make up about a quarter of homeless people in the UK. It seemes that most have been so used to the discipline of military life that when this was taken away they were left dazed and confused, bereft of any sense of belonging. Last week, it was revealed that there are nearly 2,500 ex-servicemen in prison. A survey published last November 2011 by the National Association of Probation Officers put the number even higher, suggesting that one in 10 prisoners has previously been in the Armed Forces. The study also found that domestic violence is by far the most common conviction, accounting for one in three cases, while other violent assaults account for around one in five.

Having witnessed the way that ex-servicemen's lives can unravel once they leave the Forces, it should surprise no one that some will find themselves in trouble with the law. There is a quagmire of despair and loneliness that many face when they come out of the Army. How many of them can be expected to cope in the real world if, from the age of 16 in a lot of cases, everything about their lives has been so rigidly controlled. They have been trained to obey orders and never question them. Their day-to-day lives have been controlled and provided for – in essence, they have been institutionalised.

These are the real costs to the UK from our absurd insistence of continuing to try and cling to a military memory of a once-great nation with an Empire to defend. At a time of real recession, these are costs we should not want to be escalating, the ones we have are bad enough.

Our presence in Afghanistan is no longer a defensible policy. We have already told the Taliban when we intend to leave, and for all the posturing of politicians, from both sides of the House, on 'Newsnight' and 'Question Time', the insurgents are merely biding their time. There may well be overtures being made to their leaders to come to a negotiating table, but any discussions will be futile.

The Taliban have denied reports that it would soon hold talks with Mr Karzai's government in Saudi Arabia to end the war.

"There is no truth in these published reports saying that the delegation of the Islamic Emirate would meet with representatives of the Karzai government in Saudi Arabia in the near future," said a statement on the Taliban website.

Afghan officials had suggested that talks in Saudi Arabia would be in addition to contacts in Qatar between the Taliban and the United States. But it was never clear whether the Taliban, which has resisted talks with the Afghan government, or the Saudis, who have made involvement conditional on the Taliban renouncing Al Qaeda, would come on board.

And the real problem does not even reside in Afghanistan, but in Pakistan, among the tribes of the autonomous tribal areas, where the Pakistani Intelligence Services continue to maintain their links to the Taliban, and wait for the day when the British and the Americans have left.

A leaked NATO report has provided further evidence that Pakistan's ISI security service has been helping the Taliban. The report states that the Taliban was increasingly confident of regaining power once US forces leave in 2014, and said Pakistan was positioning itself for that outcome.

Key points from the report, 'State of the Taliban' and published by the BBC state that;

· Taliban consider victory inevitable once the International Security Assistance Force leaves Afghanistan

· Senior Taliban representatives maintain residences near the ISI headquarters in Islamabad

· Taliban see little hope of negotiated peace in Afghanistan

For years the US has argued that Pakistan's ISI has been providing support to the Taliban in Afghanistan. It has also been pressuring Pakistan's government to do more to stop cross-border raids by the Taliban. Large swathes of Afghanistan have been handed back to Afghan security forces, but many Afghans doubt their security forces can maintain control once the foreign troops leave.

Next time you hear a politician telling you that we need to stay in Afghanistan because it is making our lives safer here at home, you will know he or she is lying. They lie, because they don't know what else to say, but is a lie all the same! And all the time, the coffins will continue to be repatriated.

The Sleaze Machine bites back!

I can't imagine I am the only one who has noticed the way in which spokespersons for the printed media, many of them anonymous, are beginning to issue statements critical of the way in which the police are conducting their investigations into the sleaze allegations against the Murdoch empire. Others are openly whingeing about the way the Leveson enquiry is getting closer and closer to some seriously unpalatable facts. I wonder who is driving this campaign.

What this enquiry is doing is lifting up some of the biggest rocks in the murky world of police-press relations, and allowing the public to get a look underneath at the grubby activities which have, apparently, been common currency among certain senior policemen and the hacks for many years.

We have been entertained to some horribly revealing evidence in recent days, as senior cop after cop has wilted in the spotlight of counsel's questions, while giving answers that simply beggar credulity. Former Met Commissioners, in turn, have given evidence in the case. Their information has done little to give any comfort to the people of London, indeed, the whole of the 5th floor at the Yard has been exposed as a nest of pompous, petty, spiteful, self-serving back-stabbers, who leaked like sieves to the Murdoch empire, when they weren't cosying up to their executives, or going out to expensive dinners with them at exclusive restaurants.

AS the Guardian observed, the most awful experience was watching Robert Jay QC for the Leveson inquiry '...questioning two former assistant commissioners at the Met, John Yates and Andy Hayman. It was a masterclass in forensic examination and the conclusion that these two powerful men buried the evidence of widespread wrongdoing that lay in Glen Mulcaire's notebooks, because of their relations with Murdoch's people, was unmistakable...'

John Yates squirmed while an email sent from a member of staff at the News of the World to the paper’s crime reporter, Lucy Panton was read out: "John Yates could be crucial here, really need exclusive splash line, so time to call in all those bottles of champagne,"

Yates's response that, "those perceived favours had never been called in," and dismissed it as a "turn of phrase," were clearly the best he could muster in the circumstances, but didn't seem to influence anyone.

The inquiry heard that Yates and Neil Wallis, the former deputy editor of the paper who has since been arrested in the new Scotland Yard investigation into phone hacking, had dined and drank together at London restaurants Scalini, Scotts and Bar Boulud at the Mandarin Oriental.

Mr Yates said he did not declare these meetings in the Scotland Yard hospitality register because they were private and not work-related, but they do appear in his diary. Well that's his story and he's sticking to it!

When I was a detective at New Scotland Yard, we were taught that journalists were among the most dangerous contacts any detective could expect to meet, and that they were to be treated with extreme caution. If you were a detective who was active and going to court regularly, you got accustomed to being approached by Fleet Street's 'finest' and asked for stories or comments. If you had any sense, you referred them to the Press Bureau, and made sure you had another officer present to witness the conversation.

If they were from the tabloid red-top press, or from the grubby 'Sundays', you tried as hard as possible not even to be seen having any conversation with them at all.

So why, with all this knowledge and hindsight, have some of the most senior policemen at the Yard been caught, literally with their noses in the Murdoch trough. What did they think was on the journo's agenda, more importantly, why did they put themselves in harm's way in such a manner, because they must have known that one day there would be an accounting, a pro quo for the quid, to use a mixed metaphor?

But there it is, they ate and drank at the expense of the most powerful man in the world of sleaze journalism, the guiding mind behind the editor of the aptly-named 'News of the Screws', and engaged in close relationships with executives from the Sun, that beacon of liberal reporting, 'whose readers don't give a flying fig who runs the country as long as she has got big tits', to quote the old joke about the country's newspaper reading habits.

Did they think that one day, those editors who signed off the expense accounts wouldn't call in the favours, possibly at a time of greatest embarrassment to the police? If they didn't, then they weren't very acute detectives. If they did, and ignored the fact, well.....!

Now, suddenly, an anonymous complainant has alerted the Attorney General's office to remarks made by DAC Sue Akers in her evidence to the Leveson Enquiry, suggesting that they might prejudice any future prosecution.

Dominic Grieve's office is reportedly examining the testimony given by Sue Akers to the Leveson Inquiry last month after receiving at least one complaint. She told the inquiry that the Sun newspaper had a "network of corrupted officials" across bodies such as the police and Ministry of Defence. One individual had received £80,000, while one journalist made payments to sources totalling more than £150,000 over a period of years, she said.

Here is evidence of a massive red herring being trailed across the track of the most important enquiry into public sector corruption ever in this country. First of all, no-one has yet been charged with any offence, and in any event, evidence to the enquiry is privileged. Even if anyone is later charged, is anyone going to seriously seek to argue that any potential juror was not aware that the whole enquiry might have been about alleged corruption in high places, and involving the 'News of the World' and the 'Sun' newspapers? I seriously doubt it. If it happens, the proper place to make this allegation will be at the trial of any putative defendant, and let the judge make the decision. I am confident it will fail!

No, this smear has been planted by someone with considerable experience of placing such disinformation, possibly an old Fleet Street hack, but just as easily by an unreconstructed cop or former cop, there are still a few of them hanging around the bars and restaurants where journos frequent, but the sad fact is the AG's office have to go through the fiction of saying that the AG will examine it, when, if he has any sense, he will wait for the enquiry to finish and Leveson's findings made public. Those findings will obscure any irrelevant arguments about Ms Akers' evidence, which was open, transparent, and possessed the ineluctable ring of truth!

We should be extremely grateful for the Leveson Enquiry. It has only just begun, I suspect, to deconstruct the extent of public sector corrupt practice that was allowed to develop between elements of the Murdoch press and some in the Metropolitan Police hierarchy. It is a truly shameful story, one which reflects no credit whatsoever on those officers who were seduced by the sleazy atmosphere of backhanders for leaks, expense-account meals in classy restaurants, or bottles of Champagne.

I am sure that I am not alone among my former colleagues who served the people of London in the Metropolitan Police to say that I am utterly disgusted by these allegations, and ashamed to discover that the reputation of the Force that I and so many others served, I hope, with dignity and honour, has been damaged so badly.

It is now up to DAC Sue Akers and her team to begin to restore that reputation, and that is why her work is already being undermined by some bastard who realises that she is getting very close to a greater truth than anyone involved in this sleazy exercise wants to have made public.

Liars, Damned Liars and City Bankers

Unless you have been on some remote island without access to communications, you cannot have escaped noting that there is a significant backlash in the media and in financial circles against the wholly justified complaints about the Financial Sector for the way they have mistreated their customers, repeatedly engaged in fraudulent practices, paid themselves obscene bonuses and generally conducted themselves in a manner which is guaranteed to generate disgust and antipathy among right-thinking people.

The backwoodsmen have come out of the trees and have started their predictable calls for a cessation of 'City Bashing' for fear that it is likely to 'damage the good name of the City of London'! Foreign business won't want to come here to work, we are told, if they get the feeling that the British people are 'anti-business'! Don't take any notice of these protestations, there was some tame back-bench M.P or industry spokesman saying exactly the same thing at the time of the South Sea Bubble!

The financial sector, we are told, is responsible for earning huge sums of money for the benefit of the British economy, and their profits go to maintain a high degree of tax revenues for UK plc.

Well, that's what we are told, and it is a persuasive argument, I mean it's difficult to argue about the Corporation Tax that these institutions must be paying!

Well, I don't think anyone who points out that the financial sector is run by a gang of spivs, wide-boys, dodgy croupiers and con-men is necessarily 'anti-business'! Anti-liars however is another matter all together!

I am not apologising for these hard words, because today, we have been entertained to another classic case of Banker's lies, and guess what, they are all about tax!

It seems that HMRC have clamped down on two shoddy tax avoidance schemes that were being adopted by UK banks. In the present case, Barclays Plc said it was the bank at the centre of two tax avoidance schemes, loopholes that the government had said they would close and raise more than 500 million pounds in tax that would otherwise have remained unpaid.

Barclays said it had notified Britain's tax office about its plan to buy back its own bonds, on which it and other banks have made hefty profits in recent years. Well, there's nothing particularly admirable about this, anyone seeking to promote a tax-avoidance scheme has to run it past H.M Treasury first, so Barclays were only doing what they were supposed to do anyway, although it is interesting to note that Barclays had already started to adopt the use of the scheme, prior to seeking approval! Perhaps they hoped that the Treasury wouldn't grasp the nettle and legislate retrospectively!

The Treasury said on Monday the scheme and another one were "highly abusive." That is putting it mildly. These were nothing short of an attempt to create a wholly artificial tax-avoidance scheme, and at a particularly hard time when the Government is expecting the rest of us to pay our fair share to get us out of the financial mess the bloody banks created in the first place!

Why do I accuse the banks of gross mendacity?

Well, Barclays and other banks have signed up to the Banking Code of Practice on Taxation, which contains a commitment not to engage in tax avoidance. They have now been shown to have broken that code and that was 'unacceptable', a Treasury spokesman said! He went on;-

"All the banks have signed a code of conduct, they have said that they wouldn't be engaging in aggressive, artificial tax avoidance arrangements of the sort that we have seen disclosed to the HMRC, and in those circumstances, when we were aware of what this bank was doing, it is right that we took strong action," he added.

The Treasury is willing to shut down more bank tax loopholes schemes, Treasury official David Gauke said on Tuesday.

"We are willing to act because in these particular circumstances the behaviour is not acceptable and we are prepared to step in,"

More damaging however than the financial hit could be the reputational damage. Only last November, Barclays boss Bob Diamond was pontificating on the need for banks to accept responsibility for past mistakes and show how they can contribute to society and economic growth to improve their standing with the public.

This is the sort of thing bankers say in public! What they do in private is completely another matter, as this shabby exercise of fiscal dodgy-dealing demonstrates.

The Treasury spokesman said;-

"I suspect the bank in question is regretting what it has done. It's not going to do them any reputational good and they've not made any money out of it,"

That's all very well, but it does not punish the banks enough for this shameless attempt to get out of their responsibilities to the country. Remember, banks are underwritten by H.M.Government, well, no, actually that's you and me who have to cough up if they look like failing. There is a price for this unique privilege, which is that the greedy bastards pay their taxes, in full, and on time.

What all this tells us is that they still don't get the real picture. They still haven't understood why so many ordinary, hard-working people, hate them so much. Cameron and his cabinet of millionaires need to wake up and realise that these continuing examples of double standards and fiscal sleight of hand are seriously damaging the perception of legitimacy that banks and governments need, in order to stay in business. That legitimisation comes from the people, and if they begin to get the impression that all the banks' protestations of honour and commitment are just another bunch of cheap lies, which is what they have just been proven to be, then they will rightly withdraw their willingness to accept anything the financial sector says, and they will carry on bashing the bankers for all they are worth, and rightly so!

So, let us start by recognising some unpalatable facts before we consider easing off our criticisms of the Square Mile.

Remember how much we are told the banking sector contributes to the tax take of this country? In 2011, our banking sector contributed only 7% of Corporation Tax receipts to H.M Treasury, yes that's right, the munificent amount of 7%! Mind you, 30% of the FTSE 100 companies paid no Corporation Tax at all, so we should be grateful for small mercies, but whichever way you look at it, it wasn't very much.

HMRC have done us all a very good service by this unusual exercise in retrospective tax clawbacks. They have not only recovered a figure close to half a billion pounds in unpaid tax, but they have demonstrated, in the clearest of terms, what a bunch of lying, cheating bastards are running the UK Banking Sector, and have confirmed the wisdom of keeping up the pressure on their wrongdoings and exposing them at every turn!

Banking snake-oil purveyors force to disgorge some of their profits.

Lloyds Banking Group is to claw back almost half of the bonus paid to its former chief executive in 2010 because of the bank's role in the mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI).

Former CEO Eric Daniels will be stripped of 40% of the £1.45m payout he was given two years ago. He will have to give back £580,000, but still leaving a bonus of £870,000.

In total, the state-backed bank will strip 13 of its executives of the bonuses they were awarded following the scandal that cost it £3.2bn in compensation claims last year. In a classic case of bankers' double-speak and PR gobbledegook, Lloyds said the decision was based on the principle of "accountability".

A statement from the bank said: "The board wishes to emphasise that its decision is based entirely on the principle of 'accountability' and in no way on culpability or wrong-doing by the individuals concerned."

Of course, why on earth would anyone think any different? That's what happens when you don't do anything wrong or culpable, you have to cough up a load of loot which your institution acquired by conning ordinary people into buying a series of financial products which were no use to them. The bank have got to trot out this bromide because if it was thought to be anything else, like, saints preserve us, a crime, then it might open some very grimy doors indeed!

Other directors will have either 25% or 5% of their 2010 bonuses taken back, resulting in losses of between about £100,000 and £250,000 each. The bank will announce further claw-backs for the 2011 bonus season on Friday.

This decision will put pressure on Royal Bank of Scotland, which is 82% state-owned and was the second largest player in the PPI market behind Lloyds, to take similar claw-back measures. It will be instructive to see what happens. Lloyds' earnings are expected to be hit by the losses incurred from the PPI scandal when announced later this week.

It is the first example of a big British bank taking back bonuses since 'claw back' options were introduced in executive pay packages in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The decision follows pressure from the toothless and barkless banking watchdog, the Farcical Supine Authority, to retract some of the bonus pay-outs for executives in charge during the scandal which has cost the industry more than £9bn in compensation claims.

It is the first example of the FSA demonstrating it has the powers to clamp down on failures by banking executives. But frankly, it is nothing to shout about, because it is far too little, and far too late, and in any event, the FSA should not be just taking back what the bank executives should not have received in the first place. PPI was a product most often sold alongside loans and mortgages by banks, ostensibly to cover repayments if borrowers fell ill or lost their jobs. But it was found to be completely worthless insurance for too many customers, opening the way for a flurry of compensation claims by buyers. Not content with having fleeced their customers, the banks then mounted a hugely expensive and cynical court case to try and avoid the consequences of their actions. In April last year, the banks lost the case in the High Court to stop customers demanding compensation.

Let us be clear, any money which is realised as a result of a fraud being practised on any person, is the proceeds of a crime, and the PPI episode was nothing more than an institutionalised exercise in wholesale fraud. The FSA should even now be deciding who is going to be charged with conspiracy to defraud as a result of this case. Except the problem is that the practice was so huge and so widespread, and so many people in our rotten retail banking system were involved in the fraud, from the people at the front counter who flogged these dodgy policies, to their managers who urged them on to meet meaningless sales targets, to the executives who connived at these dishonest practices, all the while watching the profits piling up on their balance sheets.

I make no apology for calling our High Street retail banking system 'rotten', because for too long, the ordinary client has been treated as a dupe and a sucker, while his financial needs have been exploited and abused, whether in pensions provision, where his funds have been diminished by a whole series of secret and opaque costs and charges; or a series of so-called mis-selling scandals, occupational pensions, PPI insurance, whatever you call it, they've flogged it!

Fred the Shred - Victim of his own hubris! - The revenge of the pink wafer!

Some commentators have whinged piteously that Fred 'the Shred' Goodwin had committed no crime, and that taking away his putty medal, was an act of spite. Not so, the Shred committed the worst offence of all, he was guilty of acts of hubris, and he has been righteously punished.

In ancient Greek, hubris was most evident in the public and private actions of the powerful and rich. The word was used to describe the actions of those who challenged the gods or their laws, especially in Greek tragedy, resulting in the protagonist's fall.

Hubris, though not specifically defined, was a legal term and was considered a crime in classical Athens. It was also considered the greatest crime of ancient Greek society. It often resulted in fatal retribution or Nemesis, ancient Greek for "ruin, folly, delusion," the egregious actions performed by the individual, usually because of his or her hubris, or great pride, leading to his or her down-fall or disgrace.

Crucial to this definition are the ancient Greek concepts of honour and shame . The concept of honour included not only the exaltation of the one receiving the honour, but also the shaming of the one overcome by the act of hubris.

In its modern use, hubris denotes over-confident pride and arrogance; it is often associated with a lack of humility though not always with the lack of knowledge. An accusation of hubris often implies that a form of disgrace will follow, similar to the occasional pairing of hubris and nemesis in Greek society. The proverb "pride goes before a fall" is thought to summate the modern use of hubris. It is also referred to as "pride that blinds", as it often causes one accused of hubris to act in foolish ways that belie common sense. In other words, the modern definition may be thought of as, "that pride that comes just before the fall".

Examples of hubris in fiction, most famously in Marlowe's play Dr Faustus, portrays the eponymous character as a scholar whose arrogance and pride compel him to sign a deal with the devil, and retain his haughtiness until his death and damnation, despite the fact that he could have easily repented had he chosen so.

In so many ways, the Shred portrays a modern day Dr Faustus, whose arrogance drove him to push through the deal with ABN Amro, even when counselled against so doing, literally signing his own deal with the devil, and then, when found out, maintaining his arrogance and haughtiness, even when challenged in public in front of the select committee hearings, refusing to acknowledge his own personal culpability. If he had chosen that opportunity to make a heartfelt apology, to admit his failings, to take the blame fairly and squarely and say 'mea culpa' loud and long, he would have kept his knighthood.

Any man who can berate his staff and write threatening memos warning of dire retribution because someone put a pink wafer biscuit on his coffee tray, deserves to be punished by the gods. Taking away the Shred's knighthood is, even now, not enough punishment for the mess this overweening man made, but it's a start!