Another humiliating retreat from Afghanistan?

After 13 years of fighting – longer than WWI and WWII together – and with 453 killed and 2,188 wounded – British troops finally leave Afghanistan.

But are we marching out in triumph? Or scuttling away in humiliating defeat? (click on images to see more clearly)

Our military bosses, with their honours, knighthoods, peerages, massive pensions and often well-paid jobs in defence companies tell us that British troops achieved a lot and the sacrifices (made of course by young soldiers, not them) were worth it. But even the new Defence Secretary had to admit that the Taliban was still waging a bloody insurgency and there was no guarantee of a stable future.

I suspect that most of the British public sense that, apart from the first couple of months when the Taliban were pushed out in the initial invasion, the whole thing was a disaster caused by incompetent, self-serving, money-grabbing generals sycophantically grovelling to vainglorious politicians in order to advance their own lousy careers.

In case you were wondering, about £100,000 for 24 days’ work a year seems to be the going rate for defence companies wanting to hire one of these (IMHO) money-grabbing donkeys  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9608493/MoD-lobbying-claims-The-muck-and-the-top-brass.html

Oh, and given that most of our political and military leaders claim that our Afghan mission was a success, shouldn’t we start sending back some of the 400,000 or so Afghans now living in Britain? After all, if their country is now so ‘safe’ and there has been so much ‘reconstruction’, I’m sure they’d all love to go back, rather than staying in cold, wet Benefits Britain.