Afghanistan
A sad but inevitable milestone has passed with the news that the total number of service men and women to lose their lives in Afghanistan has reached three hundred. Meanwhile the scale of violence in that tortured country rises.
Another statistic that shows the heroism of our troops, but is very disturbing, is that the proportion of losses as a percentage of our numbers that we suffer, is much higher than that of our American allies. We really have to face reality now, or very soon. This war is utterly pointless and its objectives are unachievable. We cannot afford to be there and it is morally indefensible to waste young lives to no purpose.
The argument that we are somehow going to ‘defeat’ the Taliban is a empty as saying we will defeat tribalism. Whatever the immediate military outcome the Taliban or their successors with another name will be back, with a good proportion of the newly trained ‘security force’ among their number.
Al Qadea can return at any time and can and are operating all over the place anyway. Afghanistan is neither critical to them nor worth their fighting for directly. They are doing fine elsewhere. Counter intelligence and drones is by far the better military method and sorting out the Middle East is the political imperative. Afghanistan is a symptom, not the cause.
This whole foreign/ military policy is completely flawed and cannot work. Almost every thinking person in the world knows this. Except those with the power to end it.