The story emerging from Afghanistan about three of our soldiers being killed by a ‘renegade’ Afghan soldier is tragic indeed. We are told that we are there in order to bring stability to the country and save our streets from terrorist attacks. To see an Afghan turn on British soldiers like this is therefore quite shocking.

Like many, I feel it is high time we brought our troops home. They have been there far too long. I can understand the reasons why the US felt it right to invade in the first place as it was clear that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated from that country. But that was 9 years ago. Even the two world wars were not that long.

Some have compared the situation to America’s occupation of South Vietnam in the late 1960s and 70s. One big difference is the sheer number of troops killed in south Asia in that period, when over US 40,000 men died. However, there is one striking similarity – in the political rhetoric about the training of indigenous military personnel. Recently I finished reading Robert Dallek’s Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power – a commanding study of the working relationship between those two men. It was they who were instrumental in bringing the Vietnam War to an end. Their reasons for delaying the end, however, included the assertion that the South Vietnamese troops were being trained to such a level as would allow them to successfully defend their country once the Americans had left – knowing all along that they would never really be in such a position.

We hear our own political leaders saying the same thing – once the Afghan army is trained to a high level, we will be able to bring our lads back home. But yesterday we gained a glimpse of how hard that task will be.

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