IF ONLY I COULD...

As the death toll among our brave forces in Afghanistan now reaches 204 and the number of injured and wounded doubles in a month, questions are naturally being asked about our continued presence there and, indeed, what we are doing there anyway.

I suppose there was a time when people accepted that armed conflict was unavoidable against a clearly identifiable threat, most tellingly the threat of invasion. I could have believed the threat posed by Hitler and so I would have believed the words of the politicians at the time. I`m not at all sure about the present situation we face in Afghanistan though. Maybe my caution is encouraged by the outrageous war in Iraq, which we should never have been involved with but were condemned to as a result of duplicitous politicians.

And now we are told by our Prime Minister that it is essential for us to be waging the war in Afghanistan to keep terrorism off the streets of Britain. This from someone who was unelected by his own party, unelected by the people of this country, refused to have a General Election because he was sure he would win it, refused to honour the manifesto pledge to hold a referendum on the EU Constitution and brought the equally unelected Peter Mandelson back from the dead to lord it over us. You see, I`m not at all sure I can believe anything Gordon Brown ever says.

And the retiring head of the armed services, General Sir Richard Dannatt, also repeats the mantra about the need for us to be involved in Afghanistan. Now, I`ve a lot of time for him. He seems like a pretty straight sort of guy, but I can`t escape the feeling that what he is saying is the result of `pressure` brought to bear on him by Downing Street. It won`t be the first tiem. Lord West anyone? And how can anyone possibly be convinced by Bob Ainsworth playing the leading role in the Ministry of Defence?

I think it was Kenneth Clark in his `Civilisation` book who said, "If I had to say which was telling the truth about society, a speech by a Minister of Housing or the actual houses put up in his time, I should believe the houses." I know what he means now. However much I admire the heroics of our armed services - and I do so unreservedly - there is still something which fails to convince me that we should be there at all. And I suspect that we are there because the Americans are there - Iraq all over again - and that of itself is not a good enough reason either for the sacrifices already made or for the mantra which seeks to keep us there. If only I could believe what the politicians are telling me, but as I remain unconvinced, I will carry on believing in the lions fighting in the real world rather than the donkeys in a make believe world of their very own.