What??? Then why do I keep hearing on the radio that the SAS was delighted to be there and wished they were back and the soldiers who are there want nothing more than to stay and are happy with their leaders? Wait a minute, is it possible that my radio is telling me
lies???
My radio also tells me it will take 6 months to get the troops out of Afghanistan for logistical reasons. Is that true? Will they have to walk out or ride horses like the English did in the 19th century and then take sailing ships back to NZ??? I thought the NZ air force has a Boeing 757 which could take them all home tomorrow if that is what they really wanted. Is my radio lying about those 6 months?
A bit of history:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1842_retreat_from_Kabul
"The Massacre of Elphinstone's Army was the destruction by Afghan forces, led by Akbar Khan, the son of Dost Mohammad Khan, of a combined British and Indian force of the British East India Company, led by Major General William Elphinstone, in January 1842.
After the British and Indian troops captured Kabul in 1839, an Afghan uprising forced the occupying garrison out of the city. The East India Company army of 4,500 troops, along with 12,000 civilian workers, family members and other camp-followers, left Kabul on 6 January 1842. They attempted to reach the British garrison at Jalalabad, 90 miles (140 km) away, but were immediately harassed by Afghan forces. The last organised remnants were eventually annihilated near Gandamak on 13 January.[2]
Apart from about a dozen high-ranking prisoners, including Elphinstone and his second-in-Command Brigadier Shelton, only one British officer from the army, Assistant Surgeon William Brydon, survived the retreat and reached Jalalabad."
"On 13 January, a British officer from the 16,000 strong column rode into Jalalabad on a wounded horse (a few sepoys, who had hidden in the mountains, followed in the coming weeks). The sole survivor of the 12-man cavalry group, assistant Surgeon William Brydon, was asked upon arrival what happened to the army, to which he answered "I am the army". Although part of his skull had been sheared off by a sword, he ultimately survived because he had insulated his hat with a magazine which deflected the blow. Brydon later published a memoir of the death march. The pony he rode was said to have lain down in a stable and never got up."
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