Others To Remember At Christmas.

The deaths of four Royal Marines in Afghanistan should remind us that, for many families in the south west, the Christmas season will be celebrated with apprehension for a possible knock at the door bringing news of death or serious injury. Sadly, this has now become an almost daily reality for many families with family members serving in that country far away about which few people know, and fewer understand. To those families we can only end our best wishes and hope that their worst fears never materialise.

Whilst remembering families who live under the shadow of the knock at the door, it is worth remembering why we are in this mess in the first place. We should never forget that the fundamentalist militias that are known collectively as the Taliban, along with Al-Queda, were the direct creation of the US administrations of the 1070's and 1980's, determined to do to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan what the US considered the Russians had done to them in Vietnam. Having created a monster they could not control we all have now to live with the consequences. For all the gung-Ho rubbish editorials being put out in sections of the British press about staying the course and the like, you can gaurantee that, behind the scenes, the British and US administrations will be seeking to do deals with sections of the Taliban, just as they did with sections of the Sunni opposition in Iraq, in order to create conditions where they can exit the whole mess while saving as much face as possible. Thats the way these scenarios work out time after time. Thats the reality of international politics. In reality Afghanistan is small beer compared to the world economic crisis and the coming conflicts over water and energy reserves.