Pissing On The Bodies Of The Dead

There was another phone-in on the radio last night about whether we are doing enough to honour the sacrifices "our boys" are making in Afghanistan to keep the world safe from terrorism.

Is that what they're doing? Or are they actually making the world a more dangerous place by fanning the flames of extremism? Were the training camps that gave the world the 7/7 bombers even in Afghanistan? Most people seem to think not.

Now, I don't blame the soldiers themselves for the politics behind their presence there. They just do what they're told, like mailmen and care workers and the fellows behind the deli counter at Sainsburys. But I do object to the fact that the politics can't be questioned, or discussed, without one being accused of pissing on the bodies of dead infantrymen.

I say that not to question the politics of the war is to piss on the dead, and a desecration of the democratic principles we are now supposed to be over there fighting for (interesting how the war aims change as the editorials shift their tone back home).

The gutless conspiracy of the British media not to report honestly what is happening in Afghanistan desecrates our democracy too. When was the last time we were offered an estimation of the number of innocent Afghans who have died in the war, caught as they are between scared and underarmed British soldiers and denatured Islamist lunatics?

Or don't we care about innocent Afghans?

I do, and if you think that makes me a traitor so be it. I prefer to think it makes me a patriot in the best tradition of the British, and those who don't something Winston Churchill would have disowned with the relish of the truly appalled.

The British media and the Government controlling them should print the truth about the Afghan War and trust its citizens to make their own minds up. If, once the statistics have been placed in full view, the country decides that the war must stop, then the Government will have to succumb to the will of the people.

Not that we necessarily would come to that decision, given the complexity of the issue. It would just be nice not to be treated like idiot children by those who have a vested interest in keeping our boys, and their boys, and the wives and mothers of a different God, dying for as long as they can.