Let's honour the war dead - by bringing their comrades home
By Suzanne Moore
Last updated at 12:43 AM on 1st August 2010


I can imagine little worse than being the parent of a 19-year-old about to fly out to Afghanistan right now. The unspoken consensus, that ‘our boys’ are brave, always do the right thing and do not question their mission but simply try to achieve it, can no longer hold.

I’m sorry, I do not underestimate the courage of many of the young men in combat but, like most of the population, I cannot bear to see them engaged in this pointless sacrifice.


We did not need WikiLeaks to know this war is being lost, and this has been the situation for some time.



On Patrol: British soldiers are still fighting - and still dying - on the streets of Afghanistan in what has become a pointless sacrifice

Talk to the soldiers themselves. The horrible information contained in these files simply reaffirmed what the military top brass have been telling us. This is then circumvented by politicians who have been flown in under cover of darkness to tell us they know better.


Who actually listens to the traumatised squaddies? They have seen their mates killed, Afghan children bombed in air strikes, their own fixers turning on them.


They have taken over a tiny village only to see it back in Taliban hands the minute they move on.




Casualties of war: The men returning home to Britain or America with appalling injuries are entitled to know what it was all for

Few people, even among aid workers, speak the local language. All know the Afghan government is totally corrupt. Who are we to hand power over to?

A military psychiatrist told me some months ago how difficult it is to treat some of the people coming home now.


Not only do they feel guilty they have survived while their friends have not, no one here has much respect for what they have accomplished.


Indeed, it is difficult to know what that is, exactly. The poor men returning limbless or with appalling brain injuries are surely entitled to know what it was all for.



Withdraw now: How many coffins will be carried from transport aircraft, and how many brave widows and weeping children must we see before the war comes to an end?

The politicians who tell us the war effort has been undermined by WikiLeaks are, to my mind, delusional. Most of us already know what the experts seem to have grasped recently.

Did we actually need the former head of MI5 to tell us our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan radicalised a generation of young Muslims? Is this highly specialised know­ledge? Not if you have been in a classroom, a university or a mosque, or indeed simply have had your eyes open.

Blair and Campbell and Mandelson all peddle their memoirs, ’cos you know these wars were a little tough for them too. A little anxious-making. They make me ill. They went through hell?


What about the limbless servicemen who are flown back to what kind of life? Will they be giving after-dinner speeches? The Taliban continue to slice off the noses and ears of women who dare to read a book. But these great men continue to write them.


The brutal truth, and vicious irony, is that while we prevaricate, the Taliban of course know we are pulling out, so meanwhile more must die.


Indeed, this Tory Government looks far more likely to usher in a sustainable foreign policy than the messianic Blair with his embarrassing fixation on America.


William Hague has spoken of a ­policy less reliant on the US, and a Eurozone that can engage with Brazil, the Gulf States and emerging powers such as India.


Liam Fox has been far more realistic than Labour has been about how we may have to cut our defence budget, which he rightly said is in many ways ‘a legacy of the Cold War’.


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The interventions beloved of New Labour seem already to be a thing of the past, and it is shameful that it may take a Tory Government to see we are no longer a vast imperial power but a small island with limited resources.


But this is indeed the case. As long as David Miliband continues to defend the Iraq War, Labour is mired in this catastrophic failure of judgment. His refusal to see that will cost his party dearly.

We know who will carve out the spoils of war in Afghanistan: Pakistan, the US, the Afghan government, such as it is, and the Taliban.


As always, the Afghan people will continue to be treated savagely by the ruling elite, be they warlords or elected officials.


When Cameron made his comments about Pakistan, he may have been playing to an India that we arm, but he was correct in pointing out the Taliban could not exist without Pakistan’s support.


Al Qaeda appears to have dispersed and we are now ready to leave. But when?


How many brave widows and weeping children must we see before that happens?


The old lie, that these teenagers do not die in vain, is no longer sustainable.


The politicians who try to justify these losses are despicable. This war was lost long ago.


I say honour the dead by bringing their comrades home alive. Now.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1299329/Lets-honour-war-d...