🔴The new millennium was only a year old when USA was attacked.

It followed a moment celebrated as the “end of history” after a century in which democracy prevailed against totalitarianism.

Far from closing the book, history began a new chapter

Thread ~
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/0…
🇺🇸When America, along with its allies, launched ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ less than a month after the 9/11, few could have guessed it would be stepping into its longest war telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/0…
❌“Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,” President Bush told the world after 9/11

Pitching good against evil in a way that could never encompass the subtleties of contemporary geopolitics
America triggered Nato’s “one for all and all for one” Article 5.

Its allies responded.

🇫🇷France was in 2001 an emblem of togetherness, coining the phrase “We are all Americans”
🔴THE INVASION

The Taliban were swept away by an onslaught of air strikes and US-friendly Afghan militiamen.

Osama bin Laden’s ability to give America the slip appeared to be the only blemish in an otherwise complete victory
It was not to last.

🇺🇸🇬🇧While politicians in London and Washington were basking in the victory - profound mistakes were being made that would later come back to haunt the international military coalition
The world’s attention switched to George W Bush’s campaign to oust Saddam Hussain.

🇦🇫Afghanistan appeared fixed compared with Iraq and the country was no longer a priority.

Attention and resources waned
🔺Then in 2005, Nato agreed to send more troops into southern Afghanistan to strengthen local forces.

Britain plumped for the south western province of Helmand.

Few had ever heard of this opium-growing backwater.

It would quickly become notorious
🔴BRITAIN'S BLOODIEST DAY

July 10, 2009: Two loud explosions in quick succession about 500m away from base were heard.

“We all had a gut feeling it was a bad one,” recalls Rifleman Peter Sherlock.

The carnage was, in fact, even worse than they feared
❌Five members of the 30-man patrol were killed and a dozen or so severely injured.

It was the worst casualty toll for a British foot patrol during the war.

Over the 24-hour period a further three deaths were announced making it the deadliest day in the entire conflict
🔺The first death heard confirmed over the radio was Danny Simpson, who had an eight-month-old son at home.

🔺Another of the dead, 18-year-old William Aldridge, was the youngest soldier killed in Afghanistan telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/0…
As the casualties mounted he recalls their orders being changed to become far more aggressive.

“We went from knocking on doors to forcing our way in,” Sherlock recalls.

“It became a very different war… we became hunters”
🔴THE WAR IN NUMBERS

January 4 2002: Sergeant First Class Nathan Chapman was shot dead in Khost province.

The first death of an invading soldier on Afghan soil.

In total, almost 3,580 further coalition forces would die serving in the conflict
The war in Afghanistan would prove less bloody than its sister war in Iraq - where at least 4,900 soldiers died.

But for British troops alone Afghanistan would prove more deadly telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/0…
USA and UK represented three-quarters of all troops in Afghanistan and saw 80% of all casualties.

United coalition casualties:
🇨🇦157 Canadian
🇫🇷85 French
🇩🇪53 German
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/0…
In Afghanistan, around 40 per cent of all deaths can be attributed to IEDs; a similar proportion to Iraq telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/0…
As power gaps began emerging with the phased retreat, violence against civilians increased.

2018 saw the bloodiest year of the conflict when 3,803 deaths were recorded telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/0…
🔴WHY THE MISSION FAILED

Britain’s war in Helmand sputtered to a close in 2014 after multiple losses and few gains.

The army had become bogged down, and the disconnect between politicians and soldiers was growing
🔴HOW WARFARE CHANGED

The British Army in 2006 in Afghanistan had similar kit to that used when the first Gulf War was fought in 1991.

The experiences in Afghanistan led to a sharp but necessary correction
By the end of combat operations in Afghanistan, a soldier carrying the equipment then issued to troops as standard would have seemed to their 2006 cousin as alien as a warrior of science-fiction fantasy telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/0…
On the offensive side, the data available from drones meant troops in contact had a better idea of what was going on than at any time in the past.

Everything shifted better to support soldiers on the ground telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/0…
🔴WHO WON?

Afghanistan is unlikely to be the graveyard of the American empire.

But after 20 years, more than 3,500 lives, and countless billions of dollars, there is no way of hiding the embarrassment of defeat telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/0…
🔴WHAT'S NEXT?

The biggest casualty may be an idea: to fight a “good war”, for the betterment of man.

Afghanistan was not the first war sold as such - but it was the longest since 1945.

It will be a long time before public support for such projects recovers

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with The Telegraph

The Telegraph Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @Telegraph

4 Jul
⚽ Pinch yourself, it might just be happening.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 After 90 exhilarating minutes in Rome, which saw England beat Ukraine 4-0 to go into the semi-finals of Euro 2020, it felt as if football might really be coming home telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/0…
📸 In pictures: England erupts with joy as team reaches Euro 2020 semi-final after beating Ukraine

View the full gallery: telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/0…
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 "England's destruction of Ukraine adds to the growing realisation that hope can be replaced by delivery - indeed, if not now, then when?" | Writes @oliverbrown_tel telegraph.co.uk/euro-2021/2021…
Read 8 tweets
3 Jul
🏟️ Follow the live action from Rome as #ENG take on #UKR in this evening's #Euro2020 quarter-final with @TeleFootball below:
📍 Here's what @TelegraphSport columnist Jamie Carragher (@Carra23) thinks of this evening's starting line-up:
🚨 #ENG vs #UKR is underway, follow the live action below:
Read 16 tweets
3 Jul
📈🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Coronavirus cases have surged over the past week to make Scotland the Covid capital of Europe.

🚨 So, how serious is the current situation in Scotland?

🧵 A thread...

telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…
🦠 Scotland is now the worst-hit region in the UK, with 317 infections per 100,000 people - more than double England's rate.

📈 On Friday, it reported more than 4,000 cases - the highest number so far in the pandemic, although hospitalisations and deaths remain mercifully low
💉 While vaccinations are moving at a similar pace across the UK, the averages disguise important gaps.

👉 Serology data from the ONS shows Scotland has fewer people with antibodies against Covid-19 than England: 79 per cent compared with England’s 87 per cent
Read 4 tweets
2 Jul
🔴Exclusive: A five-point rescue package to ease the impact of the Covid pandemic on children is being worked up by Boris Johnson’s officials after mounting pressure from Tory MPs

telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/0…
🔴Exclusive: The Archbishop of York has called for the end of school bubbles as he says that children must be the priority in the next phase of the pandemic

telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/0…
🔴The Government faces a battle with teaching leaders over the return to normality for students.

😷The head of the country’s largest education union has called for face masks to return in September
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/0…
Read 4 tweets
2 Jul
🔴A 'fraudwave' of sophisticated new cons have even cyber crime experts falling for them and losing thousands of pounds.

What do they look like?

How do you not get taken in?

🧵👇
telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer…
❗️‘We are in the middle of a massive fraud wave, and text scams are leading the charge’❗️

🚫You don’t have to be naive/particularly gullible/a little old lady to fall prey, either.

Interestingly more younger people are tending to get suckered in
telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer…
🔎New text scams to watch out for

Scam texts are highly sophisticated - some of the latest, cynically, pose as the NHS vaccine rollout programme.

Cyber crime is a massive business.

The cumulative cost of damaged assets in the UK over the past five years is more than £87B
Read 12 tweets
2 Jul
🔴 No 10 has condemned the toppling of Queen Elizabeth II and Victoria statues in Canada.

The demonstrations arose following the discovery of unmarked graves belonging to over 1,000 Indigenous children

Read more: telegraph.co.uk/world-news/202…
🔴Protesters gathered outside the Manitoba legislative building in Winnipeg on Thursday, Canada's national holiday, toppling a statue of Queen Victoria and covering it in red paint.

A smaller statue of Queen Elizabeth was also toppled nearby
telegraph.co.uk/world-news/202…
Many of the protesters wore orange shirts to honour the Indigenous children and covered the statues in red handprints.

A sign was left at the statue, reading: "We were children once. Bring them home"
telegraph.co.uk/world-news/202…
Read 6 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(