BRING TROOPS HOME

YOU get the impression that the new administration of David Cameron would like nothing better than to pull British troops out of Afghanistan. I do believe that the time is right for Britain to plan an exit strategy with troops coming home sooner rather than later because the conflict is unwinnable. As armchair generals have been saying for years, fighting in Afghanistan is no easy matter and and unless radical action is taken I can see British troops fighting in Afghanistan for many years to come.

The only solution is to train the Afghan army and let them fight for their own security. I believe that Britain should start scaling back its military deployment in Afghanistan at once and concentrate all efforts on training the Afghans. It shouldn´t take five years to train an army. Let us remember that NATO forces have been in Afghanistan for almost a decade and still the army is not trained. There is either something very wrong with the Afghans or they are not up for the fight. It would not be a defeat but a withdrawl because as the British army learnt in the 19th century, winning in Afghanistan is almost impossible. Just ask the Soviets who were defeated in the 1970s. In Afghanistan the British army faces a formidable force and the time has come to go.