Casualties of War
While not being a pacifist I generally support anti-war movements and scrutinise very carefully any plans emerging from our government to go to war over this or that issue. I was on the million plus march against the invasion of Iraq - and I think we made our point over the Taliban's accommodation of Al Quaida in Afghanistan some years ago. It's time to withdraw. While dragging Afghan society into the 20th century (sic) might be a laudable objective the fact is that we won't succeed in doing it. The baggage is too great and the very presence of foreign troops is almost the only reason why the Taliban continues to thrive. As in Iran, the domestic struggle for progress is far more likely to succeed than is foreign occupation. The long-planned invasion of Iran will simply make the forces of religious conservatism and intolerance stronger than ever. But one aspect of the anti-war campaign strikes me as more than a little odd. This is the concentration on the level of British ca...