"Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, who led 16 Air Assault Brigade in Helmand, before the real trouble began said:
“There is not to my mind an insurgency in Helmand. But we can create one if we want to.”
It was a peaceful area, and we created the insurgency by our presence there in 2006. Ministers sleepwalked into the hornets’ nest of Helmand and changed what was a manageable situation in Afghanistan into one that is now unwinnable."
"Indeed, one of my friends was on the recce in 2004 before we went into Helmand. When he got back to England, he went to see a very senior guy at Permanent Joint Headquarters. That very senior general asked him,
“So, what’s the insurgency like in Helmand?”
My friend replied, “Well, there isn’t one, but I can give you one if you want one.”
Foot note: In 2005 US authorities arrested Afghan opium kingpin / occasional CIA asset Bashir Noorzai in a treacherous sting operation, jailing him for life on drug smuggling charges. I don’t know if Bashir Noorzai is related to Mohammed Daoud Noorzai, but it’d raise some fascinating questions if he is.
Part Three: The Consequence of British Complicity in Afghan Opium Production
Tactical: From a soldier’s point of view the principle consequence of our complicity in opium production by Camp Bastion was that Taliban allies posing as migrant labourers could spend weeks living just two hundred metres from our base’s perimeter fence, mapping the airfield, noting aircraft movements, guard patterns and the like. That’s confirmed by the British and American generals I’ve quoted above who admit it contributed to the success of the Taliban’s September 2012 airfield raid (that was originally planned for July). Therefore on a tactical level the main cost of Britain’s criminality was borne by the US Marine Corp. They suffered two Marines killed in action while defending the airfield, an entire squadron of their Harrier Jump Jets decimated by Taliban grenades, and a total of $400-million in damage and costs.
Strategic: The Taliban has effectively eradicated opium production in Afghanistan twice, first in 2000 and again in 2022, both times at very little cost and done within a growing season or two. NATO spent twenty years and about $7-Billion on the same project but achieved nothing other than presiding over record levels of opium production – fuelling over 80% of the world’s heroin supply. Strategically NATO made fools of ourselves, for twenty years, our stated mission in tatters. But if the strategy had been to keep the heroin trade and private military contractors busy, it couldn’t have been more successful. Was that MI6's plan when they sacked SMA? Having protected the opium harvest and processing for the British army in 2012 Helmand myself, it wouldn’t surprise me.
Political: I know of no political or military consequences or accountability for our complicity in Afghan opium production. The British officers who allowed it got medals, tea with the queen and promotions, as did the British officers who allowed it to continue after the Taliban’s 2012 airfield raid. Members of parliament and government ministers refuse to pursue the matter and move on to executive jobs with the war profiteers. Military and civilian police have proved utterly corrupt, refusing to accept the incontrovertible evidence.
Moral: There appears to have been little public reaction, but there’s also been a major absence of media coverage too. The one journalist who did report it, Private Eye magazine’s defence correspondent Paul Vickers, did a hatchet job on it in 2015 – dismissing my claims with made-up sources. Two years later I exposed Vickers’ lies and three months after that he ‘died suddenly’ aged 54. But the truly guilty parties – the MI6 officers who appear to be the authors of our invasion of and failure in Helmand – remain unidentified and unaccountable.
