SIR GUESTLING THORN

Yesterday I wrote how it would be bliss to live in ignorance of world events but I cannot ignore the Afghanistan tragedy. I was no supporter of President Bush knee jerk reaction to the 9/11 terrorist attack and the UK’s support of their military intervention. It was done on the basis of, we have to do something and the Taliban must be the culprits. Yes the Taliban are not a acceptable to our western views and are a horrific religious based dictatorship whose attitudes particularly to women is misogyny gone mad! Here’s the thing though, imagine you are the family of all the Afghan’s that have lost their lives during the conflict, imagine if your the family of the soldiers of whichever nationality that fought there and lost their lives or were disabled, suffer from the terror of PTSD and were probably abandoned by their own governments when they retuned. What was the point when you withdraw so quickly and the Taliban swoop down from their mountain stronghold and sweep through the country. If you have a shred of decency you can feel nothing but disgust for the abandonment of this country. The women of Afghanistan will now live in terror and strict Sharia law as if the clock had returned to minute zero, simply because the West made a commitment they no longer wanted to maintain. But for glandular fever my youngest son would have gone albeit in a support roll but you can only imagine our apprehension as parents when he told us. For him it was his duty and if that was where he was ordered that’s where he would go. Our feelings were nothing compared to those whose sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers and mothers who did go! How would you now feel if you lost that loved one or they had come home with missing limbs or severe trauma? 

I have written many times that I have no concept of those who are fundamentally implacable in their beliefs and any belief that subjugated women in such a brutal fashion is so alien that the despair we should feel cannot be quantified. We are now helpless in the face of an implacable force that just bided their time until the West lost interest and would no longer sustain their commitment. All the politicians words and gesture’s of horror are meaningless and insulting. I have always said that the so called “civilised” West has caused bitter destruction throughout the world and here is yet another example of our interference causing more long term damage. We’ve done it in the Middle East and throughout history. 

What a colossal waste of time and money but far far worse the huge loss of human life on every side. If your rightly angry then do what you think best and protest in your own way, I will be firing off a missive to my MP for what good it will do?

Stay well