{"id":1784,"date":"2014-04-13T08:01:24","date_gmt":"2014-04-13T12:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=1784"},"modified":"2014-04-13T08:03:48","modified_gmt":"2014-04-13T12:03:48","slug":"a-failed-censorship-attempt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=1784","title":{"rendered":"A Failed Censorship Attempt"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Afghanistan<\/a>

(photo: Hurst Publishers)<\/p><\/div>\n

The UK Ministry of Defence has been trying to stop publication of a book it requested on the British Army\u2019s 13-year campaign in\u00a0Afghanistan\u2019s Helmand province.\u00a0The MoD commissioned captain Mike Martin of the Territorial Army to write the book, entitled\u00a0An Intimate War \u2013 An Oral History of the Helmand Conflict 1978-2012<\/a>,<\/em><\/i> but does not like its conclusions. It therefore held up publication for almost a year, under a policy governing books and articles by serving military personnel.<\/p>\n

The ongoing dispute \u00a0prompted captain Martin to resign from the Army, and the book will be published soon. In the U.S., it\u2019s available from Amazon for pre-order, coming Friday, April 18.<\/p>\n

According to an account in The Guardian<\/em><\/a>, \u201cthe book presents a bleak picture of British and American involvement, claiming that troops failed to grasp that it was primarily a tribal civil war.\u201d As a result, Martin says, the troops \u201coften made the conflict worse, rather than better. This was usually as a result of the Helmandis manipulating our ignorance.\u201d Involvement in Afghanistan has cost the Britain 448 deaths, many of which occurred in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold and one of the country\u2019s major poppy-growing regions.<\/p>\n

Martin\u2019s book argues that the Taliban were not the \u201cmain drivers of violence,\u201d but rather that the conflict was driven by the personal motivations of Helmandi individuals, including local politicians\u00a0 and tribal chiefs. This made the conflict akin to a civil war\u00a0 between clans, \u201crather than a clash between the \u2018good\u2019 government of Afghanistan and the \u2018bad\u2019 Taliban,\u201d says The Daily Mail<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

Martin wrote the book as part of his PhD work for Oxford University and was one of a very few British soldiers who speaks Pashtu fluently. The book was the result of six years of research, involving 150 interviews conducted in Pashtu, and it begins with the problems the Soviets faced in Afghanistan in the 1970\u2019s.<\/p>\n

The Daily Mail<\/i> story says \u201chis criticism of intelligence blunders and the failure of commanders to understand the conflict is said to have embarrassed officials.\u201d Although the Ministry opposes the book, Major General Andrew Kennett, who commanded Martin\u2019s unit, said: \u201cI think he has done the Army a great service by writing this,\u201d and General Sir David Richards, the recently retired head of the Armed Forces, who commanded international forces in Afghanistan between 2006-07, said, \u201cI sincerely wish it had been available to me when I was ISAF Commander in Afghanistan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin plans to donate proceeds from the book to military charities.<\/p>\n

Three years ago, the Ministry of Defence bought up and destroyed all copies of a book by Sunday Times <\/i>journalist Toby Harnden: Dead Men Risen: The Welsh Guards and the Real Story of Britain’s War in Afghanistan<\/a><\/i>. Harnden\u2019s award-winning book also was about the British deployment to Helmand, and after deletion of 50 words, it was reprinted.<\/p>\n

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