Letter to the Derbyshire Times

Published Date: 10 September 2009
SIR — I once visited the British Military cemetery in Kabul where soldiers who died in Britain's previous military follies in Afghanistan in 1832, 1878 and 1919 are buried. Each of those previous occupations ended in bloody retreat, as will this war. The death toll of British soldiers is currently 212, by the time this letter is being read that figure may well have increased.

J. R. Woodhead (Mailbox, September 3) calls for a "reappraisal of the Afghanistan conflict" arguing that British soldiers are fighting and dying in Afghanistan to prevent "9/11 repeating itself". However, in his recent resignation letter, defence mADVERTISEMENTinister Eric Joyce let the truth slip out; "our losses cannot be justified by simply referring to the risk of greater terrorism on our streets". Foreign troops in Afghanistan are not reducing the threat of terrorism. Even CIA and MI6 briefings admit that it is the presence of occupying troops that stimulates the Taliban to fight back.

The terrorist threat is just the latest 'reason' for the war that our leaders put forward. First it was a war for democracy. In fact our forces are propping up the corrupt government of Hamid Karzai, which has just rigged the recent elections.

We were told that it was a war for the rights of Afghan women. In fact the position of women's rights in much of Afghanistan has actually deteriorated under President Karzai. Witness the recent law passed through the Afghan parliament giving men a legal right to starve their wives to death. It was a war against drugs. However heroin production has soared, and many of the local politicians that British soldiers are protecting, are themselves key figures in the drug trade.

This war is a disaster for the Afghan people, It is also a disaster for the young men and women from this country who are being killed and gravely injured in this pointless and unwinnable war.

It's time to pull our forces out of Afghanistan. That is the view of a growing majority of the British people and it will be a view vociferously heard on the streets of London on Saturday October 24 when we will be marching, as we did in 2003 against the catastrophic Iraq war, to demand that not another life be wasted.

James Eaden,
Chesterfield Stop The
War Coalition.
Address supplied.