And more more more! :)

The British anti-war left is roaring. The anti-war voices are actually far more strident in Britian than they are in America, as evidenced by comments in the Guardian and the Telegraph. Even in the wake of Gaza, the anguish in Britain poured out in thousands of literate and reasoned commentaries on British blogs. I'm really enjoying much of what I am reading:
1/
the ussr couldn't succeed with huge human and hardware resources. how can relatively tiny british forces win? do mot afghans really want to be 'saved by the west'? i watched recently a 1990s russian docudrame about this theatre - did our parliament not see it?
2/ from an australian:
Wondered when the climate change would hit... well done Chris back on song. As for the Afghan War, or the Butcher's War as it was called in Alexander's day, I find what you report hard to believe because this was a war that we would go into, win and come home without a shot being fired. Or so said our government.
3/ from a Tony Lewis:
stand to be corrected but didn't our forces enter Afghanistan to carry out infrastructure works to help the Afghan economy? What went wrong that this now needs to be restated by the Cabinet Office!!>
and I LOVED this one:
4/Op this or Op that by the 3rd Batalion this and the 8th Batallion that and their (well-put Praetorian) achieve little more than temporarily displacing Taleban. As Praetorian should know, 90% of Helmand, and 100% of the Helmand night, is controlled by the Taleban. Helmand is twice the size of Ulster with half its population. To achieve the Ulster 'counter-insurgency success' we have been preaching to the Americans so much about, it took thirty years. We had well over 20000 troops - with all the roads water and electricity you could want. We had a highly capable police force, and well over two thirds of the population most definitely 'on side.' We were also not using the RAF/USAF/Royal artillery to 'mallet' any village or church that we felt did not justify taking casualties over. Oh yes, we also spoke the language and had at least a clue about the history and culture there. But Afghans are different right - tough people, used to fighting? Actually not. Their sons and daughters bleed too. Their memories are however, longer. I am not anti-military, rather more the opposite. I am incensed by our continuing loss of reputation. I am speechless at the loss of lives in a conflict with neither strategy nor political leadership. I served in Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq in Praetorian's rank in a frontline role. I also served in Helmand, in a capacity requiring daily contact with local folk. The truth is that most of them are fed up of us now, seeing us more as supporters of the thieves and murderers that make up much of the government than upholders of irrelevant democratic values. As for our efforts, when the USMC completes its deployment, we will be to them what the Danes were to us, a well-valued but nonetheless subordinate unit. Anything we decide to in that province will be subject to their approval. Watch also how USAID starts to take an even more serious interest than it has hitherto. Praetorian, as a Major (given the FCO/MOD stuff you are regurgitating and the use of the term 'recognise' -Press Ops?) you can have not the slightest inkling of what debates are or are not going on at Government level. They are conducted in Whitehall by the kind of people we see on 'In the Loop'. The Military are not invited to those discussions. Nor is anyone who might upset political assumptions (anyone for 'chain of terror'?). Serious experts don't get a look in -unlike in similar US exercises. The virtual world presented in the 'Helmand road map' amd other various jargon-ridden fairly tales, are not the answer. Find me a serious commentator who knows Afghanistan and believes in that Whitehall-generated nonsense, and Ill send you a Mars bar Time to take a real step back and think very carefully whether we need really to be involved in this at all and if so to what extent. Right now, due to a lack of strategy and leadership we are looking at sustaining yet another defeat.

You know, I can cock a snook at Britain for their role in wanton, world going imperialism and I'm really not happy with my life under the British heel so to speak. But I am very grateful that there are voices within Britain itself that are speaking out about this godawful bloodbath that is Afghanistan.