MORE THAN MOST..

It`s been a bad day.   One of those days when you really do wonder what it`s all about, what we`re doing in Afghanistan, how the  families, friends and brothers in arms of the six young men killed in action yesterday must now be feeling.

Now, I unhesitatingly share in the sorrow and grief as the number of casualties we have lost in that God forsaken, seemingly hopeless endeavour reaches 400.   Far too many, far too young and lost to us in what might result in a fruitless exercise of playing our part, doing more than our fair share, in the multi-national force engaged in this mad pursuit.   I know there are many others who share my own feelings that enough is surely enough, but the real tragedy will be that these 400 lost souls may well have been sacrificed in vain as the outcome for any sense of permanent `solution` seems ever more unlikely.

It all reminds me of the remarks alleged to have been made by John Reid who, as Defence Secretary in the Blair government,  is reported to have said that it would all be over in a matter of weeks without a shot being fired.  In fact and to be fair to him, there is no public record of him saying that he "hoped" British troops would be able to leave Afghanistan without firing a single shot.

What Reid actually said - as he described in parliament in answer to an enquiry from Michael Ancram, MP, in 2009, was that troops were there to help the Afghan reconstruction effort, and that they would be "would be perfectly happy" to leave without firing a shot.

But regardless of this nuance, more than six years on and in the face of our troop fatalities now reaching 400, this is the kind of phrase that seems bound to come back to haunt those in office at the time.   Now I am not a fan of `New Labour,` certainly not a fan of Tony Blair, most definitely not enamoured with Scottish politicians in the Westminster parliament; but I have no doubt that one person who mourns the tragic loss of so many of our brave, young men and women more than most, is the now ennobled Lord Reid of Cardowan.