Last orders: British general sent home for drinking Champagne

Major General Charlie Herbert was removed from his post in Afghanistan for breaking rules surrounding the consumption of alcohol.

As reported in The Telegraph, Herbert arrived in Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul in June 2017, tasked with the role of deputy advisor to the interior ministry, with his posting supposed to last for 12 months – however, he was sent back to the UK only nine months into it.

The reason given for him being “short-toured”, as the expression goes, was due to allegations of inappropriate conduct, such as the language he used in the work place, throwing parties and drinking alcohol at the British Embassy.

The consumption of alcohol is, officially, completely illegal in Afghanistan, though it is not unheard of for foreigners to smuggle drinks into the country. In 2017, the EU investigated claims that residents in its compound in Kabul had used disused fridges and gas canisters to bootleg booze.

A subsequent investigation by the British Army into Herbert’s actions found that the only accusation that stuck concerned drinking, as he told The Telegraph: “After investigation by the British Army, the allegations referred to were found to be unproven and vexatious with the exception of a single one that I shared a bottle of Champagne with some work colleagues, in breach of a US rule on the consumption of alcohol.”

It is not clear how he had procured the bottle of fine French fizz.

US troops were banned from drinking in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2008, US Army General Stanley McChrystal ordered that the bar at NATO’s Kabul headquarters be shut too, with Lieutenant Commander Christine Sidenstricker of the International Security Assistance Force clarifying that the alcohol ban was “to help troops remain focused on the mission and eliminate potential distractions”.

As for Herbert, he was cleared of the other allegations and retired from the military in 2019.

In 2021, the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan with the withdrawal of NATO personnel from the country. The militant Islamist group takes a particularly hard line on drinking – in 2022, 3,000 litres of alcohol were seized from black market liquor dealers and poured into a canal in Kabul. Under the Taliban’s interpretation of sharia law, the punishment for drinking is public flogging.

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