Kipling and the London conference
British have made the mistake of paying the enemy earlier and still not learned their lessons.
From the At War blog of the New York Times:
There is talk of paying Afghan tribes to give up violence and stop fighting the American-led NATO forces in Afghanistan.
This brings to mind a poem by Rudyard Kipling about the Danegeld, a levy paid in Anglo-Saxon England in an attempt to buy off Danish invaders who were prone to raiding the coasts.
The verses were written a century ago, about a protection racket that was being run a millennium ago. Although – some progress in 1,000 years – the Danes and British are actually on the same side this time, in Afghanistan.
“It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation
To puff and look important and to say: -
‘Though we know we should defeat you
We have not the time to meet you
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.’“And that is called paying the Dane-geld
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.”–School History, Dane-Geld (A.D. 980-1016), 1911, Rudyard Kipling, coauthored with C. R. L. Fletcher.
What was it about those forgetting history being condemned to repeat it.
Col Warburton did manage to keep the peace for 18 years on the Khyber. Money and talk worked. It helped that his mother was an Afghan. Sadly, the Brits did not use him again in 1897 when major troubles started – as to why – the then Angrez sahib’s file notings (National Archives Delhi) indicate racial prejudice.
It would take too long to work out marriage alliances between say the families of Ainsworth, Antony and Abdul Wardak so money will have to do the talking if boots on ground or UAV’s don’t.
Another way of looking at things is like this – if bloodshed can be prevented then it is a better way.
Charlie Wilson’s pale horse
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7024365.ece