Imperial over-reach

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an` Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's " Saviour of 'is country " when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An 'Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!

The BBC reports:

"A British soldier has been killed and a further three injured in a suspected suicide bombing in Afghanistan.
Four people were also killed in the attack on a Nato convoy in Kabul.
And a day of mourning has been declared at RAF Kinloss in Moray, Scotland, following the loss of one of the base's aircraft, which crashed in Afghanistan.
The Nimrod MR2 came down on Saturday, killing 12 air personnel from 120 Squadron, a Royal Marine and a soldier, all of whom have now been named.
An inquiry is under way, with a technical fault currently being blamed.
A Downing Street spokesman said Tony Blair viewed the latest death of a soldier with "sadness".
"It underlines again our debt of gratitude to the Army," he added."

The British armed services deserve nothing but admiration. But are the forces in Afghanistan serving a valid purpose? After all, neither the Russians nor the Americans were able to suppress resistance to occupation, even with vastly greater numbers than are available to the current NATO operation. It is not as if there is any real hope of even reducing the drug trade, given record harvests this year and the absence of any alternatives to offer the growers. And the prospects of building a stable democracy or a decent civil society are non-existent, given that the Karzai government controls only Kabul, with the rest of the benighted country run by warlords or insurgents.

If NATO withdrew, would Afghanistan revert to a terrorist state? What is it now?

But the bottom line must be that British forces are being asked to stay for three years, suffering losses, when all the odds are that by 2008-09 nothing will have changed. Bring them home now.

Update: Perhaps I should have attributed the stanza quoted above. It is from a poem called 'Tommy' by Kipling; the full text is here.