By Robert Fisk
"....Dr Bob was introduced as "inevitably controversial" – "controversial", I long ago realised, was one of those code words applied to Middle East correspondents if they have been abused by Israel's so-called supporters abroad – so controversial I intended to be.
I said that we should not be in Afghanistan, that we Westerners now have 22 times as many military personnel in the Muslim world than the Crusaders had in the 12th century (the great age of real Gothic cathedrals, of course) and that the Muslim lands did not belong to us. Send them our doctors and our teachers and our agronomists – but not our soldiers. They should be brought home. This was the week in which we had all seen the heartbreaking grief which greeted the return of another eight Brits from Afghanistan.
And to my astonishment, the burghers and their families, students and their mums and dads – hitherto silent in expectation of a soft homily – began to clap, a great wash of sound that spread through the chapels and aisles of Scott's cathedral. This was due to no Fisk eloquence (nor did everyone applaud). But something had been touched off. That very morning, The Guardian had assured us that an opinion poll showed the great British public remained "firm" in its support for our campaign in Afghanistan. Well, I thought, as the clapping echoed through the nave, I wonder...
That's what my Liverpool visit taught me. In a spiritual emporium, Brits showed that, even if their Government tried to convince them that Afghanistan was worth the bones of British grenadiers, they did not believe it. The Taliban are not on the Western Front or flying over Liverpool. In fact, the Taliban themselves have never bombed us – except in the land to which we have sent our soldiers. The clapping in Liverpool Cathedral last Wednesday had nothing to do with me. It had everything to do with a hopeless, lost military campaign in which we should never have become involved, whose casualties – yes, let's remember the thousands of Afghans here – are a mockery of the dead of two world wars......"
"....Dr Bob was introduced as "inevitably controversial" – "controversial", I long ago realised, was one of those code words applied to Middle East correspondents if they have been abused by Israel's so-called supporters abroad – so controversial I intended to be.
I said that we should not be in Afghanistan, that we Westerners now have 22 times as many military personnel in the Muslim world than the Crusaders had in the 12th century (the great age of real Gothic cathedrals, of course) and that the Muslim lands did not belong to us. Send them our doctors and our teachers and our agronomists – but not our soldiers. They should be brought home. This was the week in which we had all seen the heartbreaking grief which greeted the return of another eight Brits from Afghanistan.
And to my astonishment, the burghers and their families, students and their mums and dads – hitherto silent in expectation of a soft homily – began to clap, a great wash of sound that spread through the chapels and aisles of Scott's cathedral. This was due to no Fisk eloquence (nor did everyone applaud). But something had been touched off. That very morning, The Guardian had assured us that an opinion poll showed the great British public remained "firm" in its support for our campaign in Afghanistan. Well, I thought, as the clapping echoed through the nave, I wonder...
That's what my Liverpool visit taught me. In a spiritual emporium, Brits showed that, even if their Government tried to convince them that Afghanistan was worth the bones of British grenadiers, they did not believe it. The Taliban are not on the Western Front or flying over Liverpool. In fact, the Taliban themselves have never bombed us – except in the land to which we have sent our soldiers. The clapping in Liverpool Cathedral last Wednesday had nothing to do with me. It had everything to do with a hopeless, lost military campaign in which we should never have become involved, whose casualties – yes, let's remember the thousands of Afghans here – are a mockery of the dead of two world wars......"
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