Michael Meacher MP

Listening to William Hague yesterday in Kabul at the ninth international conference on the future of Afghanistan illustrated political doublespeak at its lowest ebb.   All local analysts recognise that the military balance is moving steadily away from Nato forces towards the Taliban.   Sangin, Musa Qala and Marjah cannot be secured and are constantly taken and retaken like some barren hill in Vietnam to deny it to the enemy.   The British casualty rate (322 soldiers killed to date) is now twice as high proportionately as the US rate and as high as the Soviet forces endured in the 1980s, and will certainly not be politically sustainable in the UK for long.   So where now? (more…)