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Liam Fox speech on Afghanistan at the Heritage Foundation; Liam Fox interview SOT- For the first and only time in its 60 year history, NATO invoked Article V of the Washington Treaty - an attack against one being an attack against all. So in Afghanistan today, the operations of NATO and other Coalition allies are a direct consequence of 9/11. It was there that the Taliban rulers gave Al Qaeda sanctuary, allowed it to run terrorist training camps, and made it a base for terrorist attacks across the world. The Taliban were driven out of power by Afghan and international forces. Al-Qaeda fled to the border areas of Pakistan. Although reduced and under considerable pressure, they are still there and continue to pose a real and significant threat to us. So the first reason we cannot bring our troops home immediately is that their mission is not yet completed. Were we to leave prematurely, without degrading the insurgency and increasing the capacity of the Afghan National Security Forces we would probably see the return of the destructive forces of trans-national terror. Not only would we risk the return of civil war in Afghanistan creating a security vacuum but we would also risk the destabilisation of Pakistan with potentially unthinkable regional, and possibly nuclear, consequences. The second reason is that it would be a shot in the arm to jihadists everywhere, re-energising violent and radical extreme Islamism. It would send the signal that we did not have the moral resolve and political fortitude to see through what we ourselves have described as a national security imperative. Premature withdrawal would also damage the credibility of NATO which has been the cornerstone of the defence of the West for more than half a century. To leave before the job is finished would leave us less safe and less secure. Our resolve would be called into question, our cohesion weakened, and the Alliance undermined. It would be a betrayal of all the sacrifices made by our Armed Fo...