20,000 more targets?

Total of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan = 208

It's astonishing how predictable war behaviour is. Anyone old enough and with a good memory will recall that we have been here before.  'More troops' was the answer in the dying days of Vietnam war and the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. More troops were sent in. Again and again. More body-bags returned. Again and again. The insurgents always win.

Today's news is that there is call for 20,000 more troops in Afghanistan. I hate to be repetitive, I but have said in parliament and on this blog many times:

More troops = more targets=more deaths.

It's not hard to understand. The Russians had 120,000 troops. 15,000 were killed. What will our limit be? Public opinion in the UK has an emphatic view. 62% (and growing) want the troops home. Support for the war is dwindling.

More talk today of doing a deal with the Taliban. When will we have an official confirmation that pace talks started months ago in Saudi Arabia? The war will be over in two years. We are still haunted by the last deaths in WW1. One of them was the poet Wilfred Owen. Who will be the last person to die this time because politicians cannot confess that they made a mistake in 2006?

A poor defence was put up in the Today programme this morning for the election flop. 'Why only 150 votes in an area where there are 80.00 voters?' John Humphies asked. 'Because some voters go to big towns to vote' was the unlikely explanation from a Colonel Richardson. Can Afghans vote in any polling booth in the country? No wonder there is so much corruption. 24 British soldiers died and hundreds were seriously injured to ensure that there was a free election.

 

Were there sacrifices worthwhile?

Crisis deepens

A Swansea blog reports these alarming figures on the collapsing circulation of Welsh Newspapers. With two of them moving from being evening to mornings papers was meant to stop the rot.

It has not worked

Daily Post (North Wales) 33,938, -5.3%

South Wales Argus (Newport) 26,667, -5.6%

Evening Leader (Wrexham) 19,437, -8.1%

South Wales Evening Post (Swansea) 46,069, -10.1%

Western Mail (Cardiff) 32,926, -11.4%

South Wales Echo (Cardiff) 39,361, -11.8%

Given up?

Spotted at today's Mardi Gras in Cardiff by workers at the Labour Party Stall.

Comments

[Adam]

This article is worth a read. It argues that as a parallel with Vietnam and Iraq, the news media is lagging behind an overwhelming public disapproval to the war.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/articles/39/The_Afghanistan_gap.html

'The war on Vietnam persisted for several horrific years after the polls were showing that most Americans disapproved. The momentum of a large-scale and protracted U.S. war of military occupation is massive and cataclysmic after the engine has really been gunned.

That’s one of the most chilling parallels between the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan. The news media are part of the deadly process. So are the politicians who remain hitched to some expedient calculus. And so are we, to the extent that we go along with the conventional wisdom of the warfare state.'

[Paul Flynn]

Thanks Adam. That's a great link. The press are afraid to follow the lead of the public who have realised that this war is unwinnable. I was infuriated two weeks ago at the procession of apologists from the war that were on display in the papers and in the media.

There is another view. Lives have been lost for a rigged election. I had great reactions to the two broadcasts I did on national television. I AM STILL AVAILABLE - MEDIA. There are no holidays this recess.