Is our 'security' worth the lives of 203 soldiers?
When will the government decide that the Afghan conflict is a mistake? What measures or means will this be decided by?
One of the basic means of measuring this is CBA (Cost Benefit Analysis) whereby costs are measured against benefits. The government must be making a calculated decision in regards to Afghanistan - there are too many lives being lost and too much money being ploughed into this mess for them not to be.
What are we trying to achieve in Afghanistan? I'm not entirely sure the government knows and I'm damn sure the Afghan people don't know. It's immeasurable as far as the CBA is concerned, the value of the benefit of a secure and stable Afghanistan cannot be calculated.
What is measurable is the loss of life - on both sides. It's impossible not to turn on the TV nowadays and see the face of another dead soldier. I cannot convey how much respect I have for our Armed Forces for I know that the people doing the hard yards are our young men and women, the majority of whom have probably little real life experience and whom are sent to the front line to fight for an unknown cause.
The government when asked why we have our troops in Afghanistan say that it's for our security - the terrorist threat emanates there. Does it? I'm bloody sure that the home grown threat probably outweighs the Afghan one and even if it didn't are we really saying as a nation that the loss of all 203 service personnel is worth feeling secure from an unknown and immeasurable threat. IF the idea of CBA rings true then they must.
What is clear though, is that the government must think that it is worth the loss of 203 lives and thousands and thousands of Afghan lives for us to be there and for me that makes me feel sick in the pit of my stomach.
UK fatalities in Afghanistan and Iraq
One of the basic means of measuring this is CBA (Cost Benefit Analysis) whereby costs are measured against benefits. The government must be making a calculated decision in regards to Afghanistan - there are too many lives being lost and too much money being ploughed into this mess for them not to be.
What are we trying to achieve in Afghanistan? I'm not entirely sure the government knows and I'm damn sure the Afghan people don't know. It's immeasurable as far as the CBA is concerned, the value of the benefit of a secure and stable Afghanistan cannot be calculated.
What is measurable is the loss of life - on both sides. It's impossible not to turn on the TV nowadays and see the face of another dead soldier. I cannot convey how much respect I have for our Armed Forces for I know that the people doing the hard yards are our young men and women, the majority of whom have probably little real life experience and whom are sent to the front line to fight for an unknown cause.
The government when asked why we have our troops in Afghanistan say that it's for our security - the terrorist threat emanates there. Does it? I'm bloody sure that the home grown threat probably outweighs the Afghan one and even if it didn't are we really saying as a nation that the loss of all 203 service personnel is worth feeling secure from an unknown and immeasurable threat. IF the idea of CBA rings true then they must.
So what we must do as individuals is make our own CBA and ask ourselves this
question: does the fear of terrorist threat from Afghanistan make me feel that
it requires our presence in Afghanistan? And more importantly, is that security
worth the lives of 126 of our young men and women? My answer is no, yours might be different.
What is clear though, is that the government must think that it is worth the loss of 203 lives and thousands and thousands of Afghan lives for us to be there and for me that makes me feel sick in the pit of my stomach.
UK fatalities in Afghanistan and Iraq
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