The Dead of Afghanistan

On Friday, we were told via the BBC that the 299th British soldier had been killed in Afghanistan. So it is only a matter of a day or so before we will hear about the unfortunate man who becomes number 300. It is all a sad waste of men's lives. Why are we still in Afghanistan? Our original alleged purpose in going there was to capture Osama bin Laden. That has now been forgotten and I know of no new reason for being there. It is consistently claimed by politicians that this is the front line in the war against terrorism. This is quite unbelievable. If anything, in our steadily Islaamifying society, our presence if Afghanistan makes things worse. The American and British governments say that they want to establish a stable government in the country before we leave. That is an absurd idea. We will not. We may set up a pseudo-democratic government but once we leave the country will collapse into the medieval chaos that it has always been. Indeed most Islamic countries are on the edge of chaos the whole time. But Afghanistan has form.

We should leave as soon as possible and let them get on with it. If they want to carry on a medieval battle of warlords, let them. But we should not keep a single British soldier there for longer than is needed for a dignified withdrawal.

Afghanistan was engineered by a collection of third-rate politicians with no experience of war; men devoted to sabre rattling nonsense who were not fit to run a twopenny raffle. Men for whom I have little more than contempt. George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and, of course, our own Tony Blair - the last a poodle and poser with few redeeming qualities.

The First World War was another pointless conflict engineered by useless politicians and generals who waffled on about a war to end all wars. Ha! Ha! it did that. It lead to slaughter on a lavish scale and achieved nothing. And, less we forget, in 1916, men from Accrington in the East Lancashire Regiment - the Accrington Pals - fought on the Somme and in 20 minutes on July 1st of that year, 235 men were killed and over 300 injured. Losses in WWI were counted in the hundreds of thousands and if we had lost a hand-full fewer than the Germans, we had won. It was politicians who had experienced or at least remembered this slaughter who embarked on the policy of appeasement. They were pilloried for it but they were better men than these idiots who have got us into Afghanistan.

May I express my regrets in advance to the family whose son becomes dead soldier No 300.

/