A glimmer of hope
Sir: After the debacle of the West’s shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan, it was comforting to read two of the articles in last week’s Spectator (28 August). The first was Rod Liddle’s explanation as to how we got there in the first place (‘I blame Tony Blair’) and the second was John Casey’s piece about Ahmad Massoud and the mention of his late father, the messianic Ahmad Shah Massoud (‘Fatherland’).
Very often out of a dire situation something positive can appear. It may be that the arrival of Ahmad Massoud as the leader of the National Resistance Front, the potential he has of being the head of the Tajiks, along with his understanding of Afghani divisions, will give Afghanistan the hope of a settled future.
Although I am both a dog lover and dog owner, my final thought is this: how did we arrive at the point where some of our nation believes the transport of rescue dogs to the UK is more important than ensuring our nationals, as well as those Afghan nationals who put their lives on the line, are repatriated to the UK?
John Wick
Worthing, West Sussex
Blair’s legacy
Sir: Rod Liddle is so right when he says that arrogance, naivety and ignorance underpinned the foreign policy which gave us the Iraq and Afghanistan disasters (‘I blame Tony Blair’, 28 August).
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